Halloween Etiquette

Halloween must be a very confusing time for children in particular and especially so this year with a renewed onslaught by commercial interests to use the revenue from spooky related items as another attempt to jump start flagging Corporate trading figures. Tesco and Asda have been frightful. Lidl and Aldi have not been slow either.

I expect any moment now a directive from the ruling party that those failing to purchase flashing deelyboppers, plasticky face masks and fang shaped jelly sweets  may risk having their benefit docked. It is after all patriotic to take part in Halloween.

My local Tesco Express has been stocking everything scary for weeks. I use the term scary to describe the ultra high sugar and chemical preservative content of the cocktail of things found in a typical goody bag. The season presents an ideal opportunity for sweet manufacturers to offload their poorest selling lines by simply bagging them up as vampire snacks, witches vittels, frankensteins chewies or werewolf off-cuts.

I will however purchase a large bag of miniature chocolate bars to keep by the front door in the event of callers . There has been disappointment on my part from a very poor take up of such treats in the last couple of years. It is important to make an effort as any perceived lack of enthusiasm will surely result in an egging attack on the front of the house on the forthcoming mischief night. Some local traders have been leafleted by the Police to deter them from selling eggs and flour to those intent on mayhem. Of course those with dreams of cake baking success will be very disappointed with this ban.

Pumpkins, a poor mans savoury melon, have had a major resurgence. My daughter, Alice found a real pumpkin patch just outside York and indulged in a late season Pick Your Own. I have never come across that before. The celebrity cooks are thinking up wonderful treats involving members of the gourd and squash families. In previous years I have struggled to buy a pumpkin in the days approaching All Hallows but this years seems to have been a bumper crop. Either that or it is that more growers are active and flooding the market.

I thought the recipe for a fleshy pumpkin soup, infused with ginger and sherry was interesting. I followed the process faithfully.

Hand scoop out and dispose of the seeds. Wash hands,optional,  then claw out the insides setting aside in a heavy metal skillet. On low heat cook the flesh with butter. Add 1 pint of chicken stock, stir in previously prepared cooked onion and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Find at the bottom of the food cupboard a brittle stick of cinnamon devoid of any flavour. Empty all or any Schwarz herb or spice jars from the top of the food cupboard. Drain those old bottles of spirits after retrieving them from the sideboard. Boil down the mixture to a firmish but not stiff texture. Remove from the heat. Use a hand blender to produce a smooth mix.

The crowning glory of the recipe is in its serving inside the shell. Unfortunately, my son had, during my cooking endeavours, cut out two eyes, a cartilage free nose hole and a wide toothy grin. My eagerness to serve up the soup was dashed by the sight of the rich, orangey and  creamy mixture extruding out of the orifices of the pumpkin and all over the kitchen to a combination of morbid amusement and horror of the hungry onlookers.

The whole effect was very dramatic and in some way I may have implied that the whole performance had been intentional as part of the evenings entertainment.

For Halloween tea we ended up eating '1000 year old zombie eggs in blood on an upturned rustic gravestone'. Apparently, they are available in 57 varieties.

As for the very sinister clown lurking about in the bushes............................that is something new.

Just the Ticket

This is a wonderful short sketch from the Goon Show Episode "The Silent Bugler" which was first broadcast on 15th March 1954.

Milligan                    Sellers                Secombe

It features Harry Secombe as the train traveller being confronted by an officious character played by Peter Sellers. The madcap humour of the third member of The Goons and principal contributor, Spike Milligan carries the conversation beautifully.

Scene; The Train to London

All Tickets Please

Tickets, oh, ha, ha, ha, oh yes

Here, these are just platform tickets

That's right. I always travel by platform.

Come on now mate, come on now matey. Where's your ticket now?

Oh, just joking. There we are.

Here, wait a minute. These tickets are from Piccadilly to Hyde Park

Yes, I know. It's a very easy journey. I often make it.

Here my good man. Don't mess me about here.

Ha, ha. It's an old Welsh joke. Now there, my ticket.

Hey, this here ticket was issued in 1902

Really. gads, we're running late

And its for the Brighton to London Stagecoach

Well?

Well, this ain't no stagecoach mate

What? You mean this train isn't horse drawn?

No

I want my money back you charlatan

Wait a minute. You can't fool me with your clever talk, mate, You gotta pay for the ticket. Now, where did you get on?

Curses, The games up. Well,now um, what was that last station?

Fun Junction

That's where I got on.

But we didn't stop there

You think it was easy?

Where are you going to?

To the next station

That'll be 18 shillings and thruppence

Right here we are.....................(aside) Fool, ha, ha. Little does he know that the real fare is not 18 shillings and thruppence but Thirty Two Pounds and sixpence.

(somewhere within earshot)

Little does he know that I have nothing to do with the railway at all.

Punch Drunk

They can be found in every office across the world regardless as to whether that establishment is low or high tech.

A unique bond can be developed between the office worker and this particular piece of equipment, perhaps more so than for example a stapler, those claws for pulling out fasteners, a Pritt Stick or pencil sharpener. Look around the desk in front of you, eliminate those items mentioned in the previous sentence and you are left with.......wait for it..............the hole punch.

Invented nearly 135 years ago although its origins are still a matter for heated debate around the water cooler or in the smoking shelter it is an essential component of an efficient and happy office. In 1885 Benjamin Smith brought out the first version followed 8 years later by Charles Brooks but the coveted position of principle inventor is held by Frederick Soennecken who rose to the pinnacle of hole punch innovation in 1886.

In mechanical terms its is just a circular cutting tool and yet it varies significantly in size, potency and with quite an opportunity to be designed with style and flair. Here is my tribute to just a handful of hole punchers which my wife purchased from an on line source. They are in no particular order in terms of age or specification. Red is evidently a dominant colour but what better to be spotted amongst a cluttered desk top.

This is an absolute brute of a hole punch, the Rexel Acco which can cut through 20 sheets of standard paper.

This other Rexel product is even more of a heavyweight with a 40 page capacity, (Ref P240-2 hole). It will certainly have commanded one of the highest prices in the range, if only for its imposing and rather menacing appearance. It looks as though it should have lights and bells.

This aerial view is of one of the major European manufacturers, Leitz. They have been prominent in the Patenting of different aspects of the hole punching process with one of their main inventors being Gerhard Sixt. A nicely engineered bit of equipment but then again it is German made.

Pre-eminent in the market were the English trio of inventors Messrs Hyde, Heginbotham and Barlow whose UK Patent Number 1444366 saw this rather sleek and snazzy hole punch make its debut in the offices nationwide. It dates from 1974

There is a back story behind all hole punches. This is a Kiwi model produced by the company of H J Chapman. Their premises in Coventry was bombed out in the Second World War and with the fatality of the Works Caretaker. Chapman was forced to relocate and he found the ideal place in Ledbury in the Midlands.

I know that I said that red was a dominant colour for a hole punch but this Perforex 110 continues the pictorial trend for a functional and smart black finish... As Henry Ford said .........................................

Progress can be unrelenting in the hole punch business and Perforex did not rest on their achievements with the 110 model and brought out the 225. Yes, in red.

This does look a bit cheaper though. Perhaps it dates from a time of austerity or economic downturn in the UK.

Rexel continued to champion the hole punch with this model called the "Minor Perforator". It does rather resemble the front end of a motor car. Red makes its return.

I really like this Myers perforator mostly because of its two tone colouring. It is a hefty piece of office supply and made to last.

This Velos brand carries the name of Lightning Perforator although it looks a bit flimsy and clunky. Brown and Cream are very much 1970's in their blandness.

This is unbranded but looks the part of function over style











As for the best hole punch in the world?

Well that Award can only go to someones cherished and cared for piece of the office.

                                                                 

Just ask Vicky- she knows

And the Best of the Rest

Formerly known as Pete the Cyclist

I time travelled yesterday for some 51 minutes and 32 seconds.

That will certainly sound like an outrageous and wholly implausible claim to everyone but hear me out.

It was midday in a local town and I was caught in the worst traffic congestion that I had ever experienced in that place. Rather than just enter the queue and take my chance for perhaps an hour or more in the crawling mass I decided to find a parking space, pay the 60 pence for the next sixty minutes and grab a coffee.

I was sure that this would give enough time for the congestion to sort itself out.

It had been a year or more since I had frequented a cycling themed establishment run by a former cycling acquaintance and as it was the nearest coffee servery to where I had left the car the decision of venue was pretty easy.

Gary and his wife had set up Cafe Velo as a new venture a few years ago now.

 Cafe Velo, Beverley, East Yorkshire

In his youth he had been a very accomplished amateur racing cyclist and the Pro Ranks may have beckoned but at a time in the British scene when the prospect of making a living on the bike was very far away from the present day opportunities in sponsorship and commercial endorsement terms.

In order to make ends meet it was imperative to have a daytime job and race as an amateur.


My time travel was facilitated by Gary in that he knew me from my involvement, way back, in the sport of cycling rather than from anything else that I have done in my 56 years on the planet.

I thought that in the mid 1980's I had offended him mortally by outsprinting him to the line in a competitive sprint.

In my mind it was a glorious moment, one of those rare full gas sprints when you feel immensely strong and almost immortal.

I should clarify that
1) it was not in a race and
2) the line was in fact a road sign marking the boundary of a nearby town and
3) there was a group of us out on a wednesday afternoon ride which inevitably involved a few adversarial manouevres fuelled by a coffee and cake stopover at a popular roadside eatery.

The intervening decades had, in my minds eye, elevated this one incident to the equivalent of a Gold Medal contest at the Olympics, the winning of the final Tour de France Stage on the Champs Elysee or any one of the great European Monuments Races such as Paris Roubaix or Lombardia.

Turns out that my pipping him at the post, so to speak, had earned me the respect of Gary and upon entering his Cafe yesterday afternoon I was transported back to the 1980 as he welcomed me back as he knew me.....Pete the Cyclist.

Don't get me wrong. I would not live my life in any other way to that I have been blessed with but that brief and transient phase of my life has some value and influence on all things that followed.

The conversation covered all of the names of former bike racers and events of that bygone era.

I could not recall some of them as Gary was a significantly more accomplished cyclist than I could ever have hoped for. He competed against all of the great and good such as Boardman, Elliott, Herety, Sherwen, Doyle and many others. I was more in the third and fourth tiers with just one win to my name.

In spite of this vast difference in abilities, skills and successes our participation in that great sport was and continues to be a great and rich seam of memories and anecdotes.

We were so engrossed in our collective recollections that the time passed by effortlessly.

In fact, at the arrival of the 32 seconds past that 51st Minute I had to say my farewells and make a dash to the car before the notoriously keen town centre Parking Enforcement Officer had a chance to enter my details into his notebook.

Yep, hard to believe this was me 36 years ago. Still have that machine

Crocodile Smiles

I was listening to the BBC4 Extra Podcast Hour whilst driving for my work today and came across a brief mention of this piece of interesting research. Yes, a bit lazy on my part and for which I will win no medals.

In 1892, psychologist William James wrote these words in his foundational book, The Principles of Psychology.

So we have the paradox of a man shamed to death because he is only the second pugilist or the second oarsman in the world. That he is able to beat the whole population of the globe minus one is nothing; he has “pitted” himself to beat that one; and as long as he doesn't do that nothing else counts.

James’s observation echoes a sentiment that is well known in psychology: a person’s achievements matter less than how that person subjectively perceives those achievements. 

In athletic competitions there are clear winners and losers. In the Olympics, the gold medallist wins the competition; the silver medallist has a slightly lower achievement, and the bronze medallist a lower achievement still. 

One might expect that their happiness with their performance would mirror this order, with the gold medallist being happiest, followed by the silver medallist, and then the bronze. 

Psychologists Victoria Medvec and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University, and Scott Madey of the University of Toledo think that this phenomenon can be explained by counterfactual thinking. This means that people compare their objective achievements to what “might have been.”

The most obvious counterfactual thought for a silver medallist might be to focus on almost winning gold. The athlete or competitor would focus on the difference between coming in first place, and any other outcome. The bronze medallist, however, might focus their counterfactual thoughts downward towards fourth place. They would focus on almost not winning a medal at all. 

In psychological speak the categorical difference, between being a medallist and not winning a medal, does not exist for the comparison between first and second place.

It is because of this incongruous comparison that the bronze medallist, who is objectively worse off, would be more pleased with themselves, and happier with their achievement, than the silver medallist.

To scientifically investigate this question, the researchers took video footage of the 1992 summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. 

Specifically, they recorded the medal ceremonies and showed them to undergraduate students, as well as footage from the athletic competitions immediately following announcements of the winners. 

They asked them to rate the happiness displayed by each of the medallists on a 10-point scale, with 1 being “agony” and 10 being “ecstasy.”

Taken immediately following the announcement of the outcome of the competition, on average, the Silver Medallists scored a 4.8 and the Bronze Medallists scored a 7.1. Later in the day at the actual medal ceremony the Silver Medallists scored a 4.3 on the happiness scale and the Bronze Winner, 5.7. Statistical analysis proved that Bronze Medallists were visibly happier than the Silver Medallists at both sampling times of the study.

In 2006, psychologist David Matsumoto of San Francisco State University, together with Bob Willingham of The World of Judo magazine teamed up to see if this pattern would hold up when considering facial expressions following judo matches at the 2004 summer Olympics in Athens. They collected data from eighty-four athletes and thirty-five countries at three different times: immediately after their matches, when they received the medal, and when they posed on the podium.

Altogether, they found that thirteen of the fourteen gold medal winners smiled immediately after they completed their winning match, while eighteen of the twenty-six bronze medallists smiled. 

However, none of the silver medallists smiled immediately after their match ended. More interestingly, the facial expression that were recorded among silver medal winners ranged from sadness (43%) to contempt (14%) to nothing (29%). 

This means that it wasn't just that the silver medal winners were less happy than gold medallists; instead, as Matsumoto and Willingham write, "those who displayed something displayed discrete, negative emotions."When it came to the medal ceremony and podium pose, however, silver medallists were more likely to smile. 

Indeed, 96.4% of the athletes displayed some sort of smile at this time. 

However, careful analysis of smile types indicated that the smiles displayed by the silver medallists were less genuine and more forced on both occasions than those of the gold and bronze medallists. In particular, both gold and bronze winners were more likely to display duchenne smiles, which scientists have described as particularly associated with positive emotions.

Taken together, the researchers concluded that "those who showed signs of genuinely enjoyable emotions at the end of the match were more likely to show those same signs of enjoyable emotions when they received the medal and posed on the podium. Conversely, those who did not display signs of enjoyable emotions at the end of the match were likely to not display such signs during the medal ceremonies, despite the fact that most athletes smiled."

There may, indeed, be times when less really is more.

Authors of the study as published in Scientific American 2012Medvec VH, Madey SF, & Gilovich T (1995). Matsumoto D, & Willingham B (2006). 

Better Slate than Never

I had to walk past the object a few times in order to get my thoughts together on what it was.

It was placed against the wall of the house so as not to get in the way of the homeowners or casual callers looking for the back door.

I could see it being a bit of a hazard if it managed to slip out of its near vertical position or even toppled over completely.

It was in effect a huge shaped piece of black slate.

The dimensions were difficult to make out from what was a bit of a lopsided vantage point on the pathway but I estimated it to be about three yards long and about one yard in width. My mind had immediately reverted to the old Imperial Measurements upon the sight of what was obviously a bit of an antique..........something.

I had come across a considerably smaller but similar bit of slate before in a pile of apparent rubbish in a garage that I was clearing out. That piece had formed the mantelpiece of an old fireplace with the big giveaway as to its former role being the skilled workmanship of a Mason to form a bevelled edge as a decorative feature.

The shape of this particular object caught my attention.

Although of mostly a regular rectangular configuration the end sticking out in clear view was three sided and as such resembled the leading end of a coffin. If it had been stood vertically the same sort of profile was a bit like a tombstone.

Looking closely at the surface of the black slate I could not see any chiselled words of scripture or worldly wisdom and so the prospect of it being a gravestone could be discounted.

Within the panel facing outwards there was however a whitish paint outline as though the object had been mounted flat on a sort of plinth. That could mean a former use as a platform or even a display unit of sorts but I was not convinced.

What must have appeared to be suspicious behaviour as in my persistent loitering about at the side of the house had by now come to the attention of the local Neighbourhood Watch or to be more accurate that of a lone watchful neighbour.

A lady had suddenly appeared at my side as if materialising out of thin air when in fact she had simply walked out of her kitchen door and stepped over a low pin kerb that formed an ineffective boundary between the adjacent properties.

"I see you have spotted that thing then" she said without making the usual chit chat to establish who I was and what my business was for being there.

This was a major variation from the usual interrogative stance that I usually found myself confronted with in many similar situations in and around an empty house.

She gave the impression of wanting to open up a dialogue on the subject of that thing.

It did seem to have a bit of a strange fascination for her but then again I could appreciate that from my own rather obsessive behaviour towards it.

"Have you seen a Mortuary Slab before?" she continued.

I asked whether the former householder had been, perhaps, an Undertaker but the reply came back that "No, he had been the Chief of Police".

Some sense and clarity began to emerge from this disclosure.

The former Senior Officer must have on many occasions delivered an unfortunate cadaver to the City Mortuary for it to be laid out on the slab or had been present for a Post Mortem Examination.

It turns out, from the neighbour that the object had been rescued by the former resident from a Municipal Building when at risk from being discarded during long awaited renovations and modernisations of the Civic Facility.

The Policeman had claimed it for nostalgic reasons and had intended to use it as a bit of a feature in his garden.

This had not at all been well received by his wife and the slab with the morbid backstory had been set aside at the side of the house where it had evidently rested for many years.

How to Drive a Model T Ford

By the time the production of the Model T Ford ceased in 1927 it was said that it made up half of the total number of cars in the world. 

Based without any doubt whatsoever on a horse drawn buggy the Model T nevertheless captured the market as the next best thing to four legged propulsion. 

When Henry Ford brought about a mass production process everything was set for global success and the heralding in of the reliance of mankind on fossil fuel propulsion. 

For all of its simplistic design brief including being cheap to make and buy, easy to maintain and repair, an ability to cope with rutted byways and fordable streams and rivers (it stood seven feet tall and with tremendous ground clearance) and transport the family and livestock for pleasure or livelihood the Model T was dashed complicated and downright frightening to actually drive. 

This was not however the first impression on taking up a position on the sofa-like upholstered driver's seat behind the large steering wheel. In front was a single dashboard gauge indicating whether or not the battery was taking a charge, to its left the ignition keyhole and on the other the headlamp switch.

Today's motoring reviews of new cars to the market emphasise how easy they are to drive. It will have been interesting to read the first impressions, if any were actually published in the media of the time, of taking a Model T for a spin. 

Most of us who learned to drive a manual transmission car will have gone through the familiarisation process with the foot pedals, with or without the use of bean tins or other utensils at home, of A,B,C as in accelerator, brake and clutch. 

Travel back in time to the Model T and you will have been mightily confused and perplexed by the three foot pedals. 

The right hand one is the brake, the left side being the clutch and the central one, well not the brake as anticipated but for putting the car in reverse. 

Nowadays many modern cars do not even have a recognisable handbrake lever, rather a push button parking brake. The Model T had two levers coming out of the floor of yet more confusing function. 

One is the handbrake although also acting as an auxiliary clutch in that in full forward position the high gear is engaged, in the halfway position the car is in neutral but also operating low gear or reverse and all the way back is also neutral or applies the brakes. 

The other lever was connected to the 2 speed rear axle or underdrive. 

For all of these mechanical workings the most important controls were on the steering wheel column being the levers for the gas and for the control of the combustion spark. 

The Instruction manual for the Model T version of 1911 urged the new customer to "Go It Easy" as in taking care to study and master the manipulation of the brakes and levers. 

Many of the millions lining up to buy the revolutionary mode of transport will have had great expectations of its capabilities. They will not have, in the most part, been disappointed as the T was a great workhorse and possessed remarkable durability and practicality over the myriad of terrains and climates found across, in particular, the United States. 

So, putting together all  of the controls gave the following sequence, around seven defined steps to get the car moving. 

Firstly, accelerate the engine by opening the throttle, then 

2) place the foot on the clutch pedal to hold the gears in neutral, 

3) push the hand lever forward, 

4) press the pedal forward into slow speed and 

5) when under sufficient headway 

6) allow the pedal to drop back into high speed whilst 

7) partially closing the throttle which allows the engine to pick up its load easily. 

Reverse could only be engaged at a dead stop before disengaging the clutch with the hand lever, pressing the reversing pedal forward with the left foot and leaving the right foot to hover over the brake pedal if needed. 

Stopping was equally complex in its order of actions and no doubt caused a lot of anxiety if in an emergency situation. 

Suburban Warriors, Shoots and Leaves

The upsurge in interest in growing your own produce is an inevitable consequence of increasing mis-trust and suspicion about where our food comes from.

What better way to be absolutely sure about the source of our basic foodstuffs than to plant, nurture and harvest them ourselves.

It is not a case of extreme measures as depicted in the comfortable middle class ways of The Good Life. Indeed in all of my years I do not recall ever having seen anyone turning their residential gardens over to intensive horticulture.

It was quite different back in the inter-war and early post war periods when householders were expected to keep a few chickens, ducks, geese and the odd pig at the bottom of the garden amongst a well tended and seasonally productive vegetable plot.

Newer housing developments with their postage stamp sized gardens, whilst not conducive to agriculture ,actually prohibited the keeping of livestock with restrictive covenants in the title deeds. The ethics behind growing your own did not sit easily with the chattering classes of the suburban estates. Such covenants were probably prudent and in the public interest to prevent neighbourly conflict, petty pilfering and a proliferation of vermin who are inevitably attracted to such land use.

In response to concerns over the provenance of our food there has been a increase in the allocation of land for allotments and I know of very large and very recently established areas on the edge of two large towns in my home area. These have been well received and have rapidly reached full occupancy and with a fiercely contested waiting list, to rival the best educational institutions.

The new allotments are well managed with a standardised size and style of permitted shed on each plot and good levels of security within a stout and tall perimeter fence. There are controls prohibiting fires, hours of attendance and control of substances, biological or not.

In the past, the allotment served as a recreational outlet and a refuge for the men folk. The images of old gents sat snoozing or chatting collectively or perhaps smoking a pipe or Capstan non-filters are familiar and comforting. It was only the arrival of the youngest member of the family to fetch their dad or grandfather for his tea back home that caused the disbandment of many a session down at the plot.

The new style allotment has become the pursuit of the upwardly mobile families with everyone mucking in to take on the mundane tasks of clearance, preparation of the soil for planting and overseeing the process through to food on the table. There are the stalwarts of home-grown produce in durable spuds, carrots, turnips and onions, the spring vegetables  for salads and a few ambitious attempts, micro-climate permitting to cultivate grape vines, quinoa, passion and citrus fruits.

The original social movement behind allotments was to provide fresh air, exercise and a means of supplementing the diet of the working classes. Land was usually leased by a Local Association from the Town Council, placed in perpetuity for such use by a generous philanthropist or just permitted on land holdings of the railway companies or industrial sites. It was a cultural thing. There were intense rivalries for best marrows, root veg or soft fruits and the Association Annual Show would be a highlight of the social calendar for many.

The hard working ethic required for the manual labour of the day job continued in the tending of the allotment. The decline of traditional industries and working practices impacted on the numbers of those willing and able to commit to home grown duties.

Pressure to provide places for a rapidly increasing population to live also saw many parcels of former growing land disappear under roads and housing estates. What may have once been an allotment on the very edge of town found itself surrounded, overrun and surrendering to urban expansion.

Cheap and plentiful food on the supermarket and hypermarket shelves was a deterrent to growing your own. It was conceivable that a small crop of home grown carrots, based on hours tended and effort expended could be very expensive indeed.

Food scares and scandals in recent years have shaken the confidence of the public in the food supply industries and this has been the catalyst for the renewed interest in small scale cultivation.

A militancy has also developed in the larger cities and towns by individuals or groups to take over vacant or derelict land for production on a co-operative and social venture basis. In almost guerrilla actions there have been raids and seed scatterings on dormant development land, potato planting on council owned holdings, ploughing and planting on traffic islands , verges and motorway embankments.

The mass action in some urban areas has been accepted by the authorities and what were in the first instance aggressive land grabs have been put on a formal basis with short term leases and agreements. Growing Clubs have taken root with members paying a subscription fee in addition to participating in organised and structured working parties which entitles them to a proportionate share of the harvest.

A few random plantings have taken place with anyone encouraged to help themselves. The natural path of progress from the early green shoots of a public awareness of what can be grown. There is a renewed momentum for city farms and larger enterprises including spin-offs for education in diets, variations in menus and to nurture the resurgence in all things cooking. It is a return to the good life.

Trevor. Legend of his generation

I am sad to announce that Joanne's Dad, Trevor, passed away this month. 

This is a Tribute to the man.

Joanne's Dad, Trevor is from that age group who experienced the austerity of the post war years, ration books and scarcities. He is of the self sufficient generation who, although making do with what they had did not compromise, did not sacrifice on the quality of a job or task and achieved great things for their families and communities. All of this without recourse to credit or debt.

Even though long since retired from business, industry, commerce and public service this generation continue to contribute in a huge way to the smooth running of this country. They voluntarily run the charities, clubs, societies and places of worship. Wise counsel is available free of charge to family, friends, neighbours and strangers in the street and hemmed in on the bus. Unfortunately the best advice borne out of experience is not accepted in the most gracious or willing manner by those who are younger and feel they know and have seen everything already.

The generation provide childcare, a transport and catering service to their grandchildren and regularly place their own homes, chattels and physical welfare at the mercy of inquisitive and inexhaustible pre-school infants.They are the invisible economy but without which everything would grind to a halt or tumble into chaos. The Bank of Mum and Dad are always open for business and on generally favourable and not always too judgemental terms.

The most endearing quality of the generation is however their ability to produce, as if by magic, anything obscure, obsolete, out of date or otherwise untraceable even after the warehouses of E-Bay, Amazon and Gumtree have been scoured but with no success. This is because their experience has taught them never to throw anything away that could, over the course of, say the next 50 to 60 years or a lifetime, prove in any way, shape or form, useful.

The vast accumulated resources of this generation can be found in loft storage spaces, the back portion of every conceivable cupboard and drawer, in old biscuit tins and jam jars on the shelving in a garage or shed and although not catalogued can be accessed immediately and with no upheaval or fuss. Some things are just not manufactured anymore but in aggregate this generation hold immeasurable supplies of washers, nuts and bolts of Imperial sizes, jubilee clips, screws, nails, brackets and fixings for every conceivable breakdown, repair or renewal  project in the home, garden and on the car.

This is not the amassing of possessions to satisfy materialism but an ultimate practicality and resourcefulness that in successive generations has just not been present.They have not at all been left behind in the information age but do not require the latest technology in home PC's . They read the local paper, listen to the local news and are not averse to just opening a book and setting off on a new line of interest.

Joanne's Dad is a true representative of the generation. If your phone number is not in his address book or speed dial you will easily miss out on the prospect of a bargain, price reduction or a sale at any outlet within the city boundary. He has that depth and breadth of local knowledge that provides an answer to the questions of who lived and worked where, when and for how long, Such information is just not available anywhere else and cannot be bought at any price. Back dated copies of the local newspaper- no problem.

Joanne calls it hoarding but it is the ultimate in re-cycling, sustainable living and self sufficiency which is something that the current generation aspire to but will never, ever attain. Even the back garden of a former childhood home, as Joanne recalls, was an integral part of the family resource as her dad regularly buried everything and anything from cots to car parts in it.

I can imagine, some 1000 years in the future, that location formerly known as Carden Avenue, proving quite a mysterious conundrum for archaeologists from the varied range of excavated relics. Included in the subterranean storage is the body shell of a three-wheeler car, multiple tyres and perhaps more than one engine.

Trevors was a complete method to the whole system of archiving.

It is with great pride that Joanne remembers a day trip, as a child,  to the seaside when the family car, another three-wheeler, developed a broken road-spring. This could have spoiled everything on the day out but it was not a problem. It was simply a case of returning home and with shovel in hand, her dad digging over the garden at the exact spot where a spare part had been carefully planted.

Harvested, cleaned and fitted it was not too long before they were back , heading east to Withernsea.

Room 101

It may have once been a grand building but number 101 in a certain road in my home city is now far from its best.

It stands at the western end of a terraced block just on the fringes of the city centre. It has not always been an end property. A stray bomb or an enthusiastic town planner dictated that the rest of the row was toppled and in order to support what was once a party wall a climbing frame of substantial steel girders was erected.

Someone had a sense of humour or none at all to paint the buttress a gawdy purple. In itself a bit of an eyesore but even more so against a lilac coloured rendered finish behind from ground level over the full height of three storeys plus an undercroft.

I must have driven past 101 at least once if not more every day when my office was in the central city area but I cannot recall what form of business last occupied the expansive floor area. I have vague recollections of signage for a record shop, vinyl albums and singles, but cannot be sure.

The combination of a building that resembled a vivid blob of lurid colours and the economic recession did not assist in securing any new occupants until, out of the blue, a tenant expressed an interest to take up residency for an initial six months and paid the full amount of rent up front.

The owner could not believe his good fortune and felt optimistic that a corner had been turned for the good in the viability of the premises.

The deal sounded too good to be true and in my experience that is usually the case.

Some four months into the letting the building was raided by the police who discovered a very large and evidently clinically operated drugs factory.

To the passer by in the street there was nothing to suspect any illegal activity behind the vertical blinds of the frontage windows. To the helicopter of the constabulary and its heat detecting camera the building had produced a classic profile and cluster of temperatures used in the hydroponic growth of cannabis plants.

This was in spite of the best efforts of the cultivators to screen and lag the exterior of the building in tin foil to prevent detection from the air.

There may also have been a tip off about what those in the know described as a very distinctive odour from the processing of the crop, somewhere between a sweet almost sickly smell to one of fish.

The growing process also relied on a good nutrient base and plenty of water. The upper floors were laden with a thick bed of soil directly on the old floorboards and with a sprinkler system beneath an array of heat lamps. Water,  not absorbed by the fast growing foliage percolated through the structure saturating everything in its relentless gravity influenced journey to the ground.

The undercroft took on the form of a glassy surfaced lake of slightly peaty coloured liquid. The water had no escape from this point and just stagnated and spawned fungal growths , mould and spores which started to eat the building from the inside out.

It was a complete mess, an organic petrie dish on a massive scale.

When the owner was eventually allowed to return and start to tackle the dilapidations and dereliction the scale of the task became evident.

As a conservative estimate, based on the number of waste skips which shuttled back and forth, some 14 tons of the guts of the building had to be removed. This included a mulch of sodden plasterboard, mushroom covered pitch pine boards, old service installations and the remnants of the internal fittings, so distorted and decomposed that their actual form and function could only be guessed at.

Much of the debris was recovered from the undercroft where, like the water, it had made its own way with the implosion of the structural framework.

Prior to the arrival of the skips the owner had shovelled up and bagged the soil and growing medium from the former operation. A few dessicated cannabis plants also made their way into the mix.

The contents of the hundred or so green polythene garden bags resembled the best quality composts, packed with vermiculite, light and full of goodness.

The temptation was too great for the owner and he recouped a good proportion of his enforced costs for remediation of the property through the sale of the bagged up material.

It went like stink to local gardening enthusiasts, allotment holders, those with window boxes on the seventh floor of an inner city tower block, into planters in town gardens and the sensory gardens of local charitable concerns.

Over the ensuing months the police received information from a variety of anonymous sources about the large scale cultivation of strange, almost fern-like plants in the most unlikely places around the city centre.

101 had wreaked its revenge.

The Contents of a Metal Box

The collected items of my youth have followed me around in my adult years in a large green metal trunk which, from a stuck on registration plate letters DOB 674 , was at one time the back box from an old motor vehicle. 

I have been thinking about listing its contents for some time. 

Here it is minus some football programmes and miscellaneous items. There is a bit of a theme going in categories, mostly Cycling, Football, Theatre and Concert Programmes. Some of them I did attend although I went through a phase of buying footie programmes from club shops and other sources. They could do with a bit more annotation and explanation in some instances but I will return to this page now and again to put on such comments. There is another box, a large plastic storage one, with yet more collected and accumulated bits and bobs from a busy and fruitful life. That is for another day. 

Cycling Weekly, 14.09.85 (55p) World Championship Edition

Cycling Weekly, 11.05.85 – Tour of Spain

FA Cup Magazine 1988

James Taylor Summer Tour Programme 2009

Mondial Poster French National Team- Cantona, Blanc, etc

Healthy Office Brochure Folder

Cycling Weekly, 1.12.84- Paul Sherwen interview

Cycling Weekly. 9.12.84- Nations Cyclo Cross

Cycling Weekly, 3.3.84- World Cyclo Cross Championships

Cycle Sport March 1998- Lance Armstrong

Tour de France 1994 Indurain and Contador Poster

Tour de France 2015 Race Guide

Cycle Sport Oct 2005 Career Retrospective Lance Armstrong

Cycle Sport TDF Guide 2005

Cycle Sport May 2005- Armstrong

Freewheel Catalogue Cycling 1983

Elite Circuit Race Series Programme- Beverley 2015

FA Cup Final Programme 2017- Arsenal v Chelsea

Tour de France Programme 2010- French Edition 5 Euros

Winning Magazine (Cycling) Sept 1985- Hinault and Millar

Cycling Weekly, 2.7.83- Ian Cammish

Cycling Weekly- 1985 Jan, March, July, Aug, Dec

Channel 4 TDF Guide 1987

Winning Magazine August 1985- Kelloggs Series, Milk Race

Grafik Magazine Dec 2005

Leeds World Cup Cycling Classic Programme 1993- Fondriest

Hamlet Programme from Stratford- David Tennant and Patrick Stewart

Studio Thomson Newspaper Format

Thomson Stott Calendar 2002 (10^th Anniversary)

Cow Horn- Dulverton 1970’s

S Club 7 Tour Programme 2001

Hessle Roaders- Alec Gill Photography Exhibition 2017

Ipswich Town v Norwich City New Years Day 1985

Blue Peter Annual Sixth Book 1969 (10 shillings)

Dennis the Menace Note Book Blank

L’Equipe Newspaper Editions 12^th and 13^th July 1984 (4 Francs) Barteau, Fignon

FA Cup Final Programme 1983 Brighton v Man Utd

Liverpool v West Brom Oct 1972

Beverlonian School Magazine 1981

Guide de Officiel des 23 Etapes TDF 1984 (The year I cycled to France)

Grimsby Town v West Ham 1981

League Cup Final 1978. Liverpool v Nottingham Forest

England v Northern Ireland 1978

Hull City v West Brom 1987

Hull City v Arsenal Littlewoods Cup 1988

Nottingham Forest v Liverpool Dec 1981

FA Cup Final 1978 Arsenal v Ipswich Town

Scotland v England May 20^th 1978

York Mystery Play Programme 2016

Grimsby Town v Hull City May 1987

FA Cup Final 2018 Chelsea v Man Utd

Speed and Power Magazine- all issues 1974 to 1975

Champions League Final Programme 2017 Juventus v Real Madrid

Dandy Comic- Last Ever Issue

Hull Thursday Pro Race 1983- Humber Street Hull

Industrial Property Brochures Folder

Wicked Musical Programme- London Apollo Theatre

Radio Times World Cup Special 1978- Argentina

FA Cup Final 1986- Everton v Liverpool

Coventry City v Man Utd May 6^th 1987

Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft Parts 1 to 7

Club Brugge v Liverpool. European Champion Clubs Final 1978

Everton v Ipswich Town 9^th March 1985

Hull City Programmes v Oldham (1987), Scunthorpe (1982), Huddersfield Town (1987)

FA Cup Final 1985 Everton v Man Utd

FA Cup Final 1987 Coventry v Tottenham

Hull City v Birmingham City Nov 1987

Aviation Week Magazine July 16^th 1962

Trent Polytechnic Honours Degree Dissertation 1985- Mine

Scunthorpe United v Rochdale Nov 1974

Man Utd v Portsmouth May 1988, Aston Villa May 1987

Liverpool v Stoke City April 1981

Hull City v Leicester City Oct 1987

Look and Learn Comic August 1970 and Nov 1969

Humberside Cycling Calendar 1986

England v Cyprus April 1975 (I went as a school trip £4.75 all in)

England v Northern Ireland 1976

England v Italy Nov 1977

Scunthorpe v Cambridge Utd, Chester 1975

Nottingham Forest v Sunderland Sept 1981

England v Luxembourg March 1977

Barry Daines Testimonial (Spurs v West Ham) 1981

Scunthorpe United v Rochdale 1975

Hull City v Chelsea FA Cup Third Round 1982

Hull City v Man City Nov 1985

England v Brazil April 1978

Sheffield Utd v Grimsby Town Sept 1984

Leeds United v Nottingham Forest Feb 1978

Liverpool v West Brom Feb 1979

FA Cup Final 1982 QPR v Spurs

FA Cup Final 2014 Arsenal v Hull City ( I was there)

Cycling Christmas 1984

David Essex Musical Programme 2009 Hull

Trent Polytechnic Student Guide 1981/82

Everton v Oxford Utd Oct 1985

FA Cup Final 1977 Liverpool v Man Utd

FA Cup Final 1979 Arsenal v Man Utd

Hull City v West Ham Utd Nov 2011

Scunthorpe Utd v Swansea City 1972

Guide Officiel des Etapes TDF 1986

Scunthorpe Utd v Cardiff City 1972

Scunthorpe Utd v Aldershot 1971

York Mystery Plays 2012

London 2012 Olympic Games Programme

The Dungeons

Jose Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa- Scarborough 2010

Ocean Colour Scene Tour 2003

Richard the Third Stratford 2008

Practical Parenting Jan 1992-

Beverlonian School Magazine 1982

Julius Ceasar Stratford 2009-2011

Pericles and Winters Tale Stratford

Old brown glass bottle from Box Hill London 2012 Olympics

France Soir July 1985

Lincolnshire Times 1979 – me on front page

L’Equipe July 15^th 1985

Physics Book 1978

Liverpool Project 1970?

L’Equipe 11^th July 1984

Victor Comic July 1975

Yorkshire Post Dec 10^th 1980 (John Lennon)

Le Figaro Tour de France 18^th July 1985

Brass Band Concert Nottingham 1977

English Exercise Book 1974

Lincolnshire Young Farmers County Handbook 1978-79

Humberside Young Farmers Year Book 1979

Brigg Grammar School Speech day 1974

Briggensian Magazines 1974 and 1975

Gay Venture Stamp Album

Universal Brass Band music book

West Ham v West Brom Dec 1981

Academic Slide Rule

Brigg Grammar School Blazer Badges

Beer Mats- lots

Liverpool Vinyl Pennant 1974

Joe Satriani Ticket stub Sheffield 2013

20 Yards swimming certificate 1974 (not in good style)

Hunters Estate Agents Brochure 1984

Queens Silver Jubilee Special

Educating Archie

This is one of my all time favourite blogs so I felt it worthy of another airing.

Anyone calling at the house and walking from the outer porch to the kitchen remarks about the incline.

It is noticeable. There is a slight upward slope. It can catch you out on the return leg to the front door as there is a gentle and unseen force that pushes you as though you are being ejected by a large and polite but persuasive night club bouncer. It may seem that as a visitor you are being ushered out but in such a welcoming house that is highly unlikely. The momentum created by the slope served as a launch pad for us as children if we were at all apprehensive or reluctant to go to school or to face one of life's challenges.

In the floor there are signs of structural movement.

It is a wonderful example of a mosaic tile floor , individual fired pieces carefully crafted and fitted in a continuous covering of colour and interest. It runs some 30 feet in length from the storm porch to a single step down at the back lobby and door to the cellar. It is wide enough to easily pass the family test of leaning seven bicycles abreast against the wall and still with enough room to walk past. At about the middle of the ornate pavement, in the centre of the house, the immaculate tiling and flush jointing is split open and under foot or bike tyre can be heard the rattle of a slightly loosened group of tiles.

As though following a trail your eye is drawn upwards as you stand astride the fractured floor. The ceiling, some ten feet above, is similarly cracked laterally from wall to wall. The doorheads into the two front living rooms are perceptibly out of true but the heavy panelled doors have, by previous owners, been carefully shaved along the upper edge to fit close and snug.

My parents bought the house over thirty years ago. The signs of movement were certainly there at that time but contributed the character of a house built in the last few years of the 19th Century.

The Drains Men, McPherson and Archie dug up the rear yard to expose the sub ground pipework in pursuit of the actual cause of the problem. After two days of excavating a neat series of trenches and easing in a seemingly endless cable mounted boroscopic camera which threatened to emerge in the pan of the upstairs WC they were still not sure of the source. They then ventured under the house from a vertical hatch in one of the cellar store rooms. Archie went first being younger, more enthusiastic but subordinate to McPherson.

The crawl space was claustrophobic even from my viewpoint in the cellar over the dry chalky laid sub floor. There was a small gap in the sleeper walls which supported the joists and boards and through the breach could be seen a large sized drainage pipe. Both men shuffled across the oversite as though under enemy fire. Emerging, white and perspiring some time later they recounted that they had found the reason for the fracture in the house.

The cause of the movement has been attributed to a leak from the mysterious, big pipe.

It is a strange arrangement and to some extent has lowered my perception of the Victorians as methodical and meticulous house builders. The cast iron downpipe which drains the large roof surfaces on the front of the house is run into the concrete pathway. It would be expected to direct the rainwater via underground pipework towards the mains drains in the Public Highway which is only a matter of a few feet away. Rather, the pipe turns back and is run under the living room and dining room floorboards , the full depth of the house and is connected to the main rear down-pipe.

The potential for leakage or a blockage is increased proportionately over thirty feet rather than a mere five or so.

The pipe, the original from the 1890's decade was in cast metal. The regular flow of surface water over the last century had gradually eroded and corroded the lining and although the perforation was minimal it had been enough for water to drip onto the sub site and soften the foundations through the centre section of the house.

The men were as close to ecstatic as two drainage operatives could ever be on the successful outcome to their investigation. Excitedly they discussed pipe gauges, tolerances, rubberised push in collars and gravel settings in readiness for repairs which would establish worthy replacement drains for the house for the next hundred or so years.

Mother brought out the best coffee and the four of us stood near the trenches and celebrated as though we were party to the greatest discovery of our lifetimes.

Wholly Moley

To coincide with the ongoing Climate Change campaign spearheaded by Extinction Rebellion and involving many other like minded groups and individuals I thought I would bring back this blog from 2013. I was reminded of it with the speculation that the subject of my writing, now aged 45, may make an appearance in support of those on the front line.


Daniel Hooper is one of those individuals who did something quite remarkable.

He has, to a certain extent been made to pay for his actions ever since.

His act of protest and defiance borne out of a real concern for environmental issues thrust him into the public perception and celebrity spotlight. 

That was back in 1996 when, at age 22 he entombed himself, with other activists in a woodland hole which at great additional cost briefly and temporarily thwarted the construction of the A34 bypass around his home town, Newbury in Berkshire.

The establishment and the contractors have however had the longest laugh with that stretch of road now carrying significantly higher volumes of traffic than it was ever anticipated to. It may even be a case of adding extra lanes to cope with the increasing demand.

After his defiant last man stand before being forcibly evicted from his burrow Daniel Hooper enjoyed a few moments as a darling of the media. His supporters on the front line may not have agreed with his new found role as reported by the Sunday Times as representing a "rediscovery of rebelliousness among Britain's Bourgeoisie" and many felt he sold himself out. 

A dip in his popularity was salvaged by the own goal remarks by a former Government Transport Minister that he would like to see the lad buried in concrete as punishment for embarassing those in power. That comment helped restore Daniel Hooper's position in history, folklore and in the vanguard of environmentalism now very much a popular listing on a CV and in everyday conversation amongst the chattering classes in our society.

As recently as last week a mainstream TV News Programme sent a reporter off in search of Daniel Hooper.

A milestone has been reached, not so much on an arterial road this time, but down to the fact that the 22 year old is now a mature aged 40.

Rather than being a whimsical and retrospective piece along the well tried and trusted route of "Where are they now?", I found the tone of the news feature quite offensive, disparaging and disrespectful to someone who acted out of a real belief in an issue on his own doorstep. 

He was well ahead of his peer group at the time who would otherwise be engrossed in video games or customising their hot hatchbacks and thumpy in car sound systems.

The angle of the feature was not so much to flush out Daniel Hooper implying that he was living off the back of society as a ne'er do well and a benefit parasite as to shame him by showing him as a quiet, unassuming family man with his kids attending a State School as though trying to firmly bury or deny his past. The worst insult in the opinion of the News programme would be to show him as normal.

The whole report backfired splendidly as, true, Danial Hooper is a fully grown adult with dependants and outgoings but critically he still has the brightest and best environmental credentials in that he lives under canvas under a wide open sky and leaves the barest of discernible carbon footprints that you could ever hope to attain.

The relentless pursuit of the man can be seen in the archives of the press and media. At his 30th birthday another intrepid team were despatched to dig up some dirt, perhaps hoping to find him driving a gas guzzler of a 4x4, voting for the Tories and buying shares in non-renewables.

They will have been disappointed in uncovering his lifestyle of dedicated self sustainability in a woodland commune with negligible impact on the ozone layer and natural resources.

He has, even under tremendous pressure to conform, maintained his ethics and commitment as an Eco-Warrior and thereby been an inspiration to others, even if it only to make a gesture or to lend a signature to a petition against those entirely profit driven interests seeking to rape and pillage the planet of its treasures and in increasingly beautiful and vulnerable locations of forest, tundra and polar continents.

Ironically Daniel Hooper singularly failed to stop any of the schemes at which he protested but it must not be forgotten that he made a gallant effort and in a passive and peaceful manner. 

His legacy towards the environment may not yet have come to fruition.

Happy 40th Swampy. You are a modern day hero.