Baloney Detection

How well do you think that you can tell if someone is feeding you bullshit? 

It may seem like a strange question but it is a fact of modern life that bullshit is everywhere. 

It is pervasive in all aspects of our information gathering and especially so with the dominance of social media, the trend of fake news and even within the 140 character restriction of Twitter. In fact, the latter is perhaps most to blame in that it has to assert any statements intended to impress as true and meaningful in a condensed form when actually what is being presented is empty and unfounded. 

Faced with this onslaught on our thoughts and perceptions it is surprising that only in the last couple of years has an authoritative study been undertaken to measure our reception and detection of what has been called pseudo profound bullshit. 

This piece of research comes from a University in Canada and produced some interesting results and conclusions.

The method adopted involved presenting 10 statements across four study groups of participants and recording their reaction. 

Two main sources of statements were wisdomofchopra.com and the New Age Bullshit Generator at sebpearce.com. 

The former comprises the random assembly of words that have appeared in the vague tweet history of Deepak Chopra, the American author, public speaker and amongst many other things an advocate of alternative medicine. 

The latter is an engine that assembles yet more random words but in an airy fairy new age type-speak. 

The combination of these sources produces such phrases or mantras as;

 “Perception is an ingredient of subtle sensations" ,

"Your movement relies on the barrier of fulfillment", 

"Wholeness transcends descriptions of success", 

"Greatness depends on the doorway to images" and 

"Infinity transforms species specific external reality”. 

Those taking part in the study were, after seeing the statements, asked to grade them on a 1 to 5 scale rating, the higher being an indication of being very profound. 

The outcome of the academic analysis was that some people accepted things as true and meaningful anyway but with the differentiation being whether they were able to assess it as bullshit or the truth.

Others were more receptive to certain types of bullshit but could not always detect it. 

If statements, for example, were presented in plain language then there was a higher sensitivity to exposing it as bullshit. 

The more the group were able to reflect on the subject, the more sceptical the response.

The main conclusion of the study was that bullshit is a part of the human condition. 

It is used by people who should know better in political rhetoric, marketing and even in academia.

Above all, if we know how to detect and reject the bullshit of others we may be able to recognise our own.

(Inspired by IgNobel Award 2016)

Great 'U' turns

It seemed like a good idea on the 2^nd Nov 2016

One of the biggest insurance companies in Britain, Admiral, is to use social media to analyse the personalities of car owners and set the price of their insurance.

The Insurer’s algorithm analyses Facebook social media usage in an attempt to identify safe drivers in what is seen as an unprecedented use of customer data. 

The Admiral "firstcarquote" initiative is aimed at first-time drivers or car owners.

The move, an example of what has been termed data grabbing, highlights the start of a new era for how companies are intending to use online personal data. 

It has already started a debate on personal privacy.

Admiral’s tool will analyse the Facebook accounts ,excluding photographs, of first-time car owners to look for personality traits that are linked to safe driving. 

Such traits as;

a)being conscientious 

b)well-organised 

c)writing in short concrete sentences 

d)using lists, and 

e) arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just “tonight” 
will be preferable.

In contrast less favourable traits would be; 

a) being overconfident 

b) use of exclamation marks 

c)frequent use of “always” or “never” rather than “maybe”. 

It does not say what the algorithm would make of the use on social media of words such as smashed, off my head, out of my tree or goofed out.

The scheme is based around algorithms that have been developed specifically by and for Admiral. The technology uses social data to make a personality assessment and then, judging against real claims data, analyse the risk of insuring the driver.

Inevitably the process relies on thousands of different combinations of likes, words and phrases and is constantly changing with new evidence from the data to produce a profile of what a safe driver would be.

The U turn- the very next day

Admiral has withdrawn its data grabbing initiative with only hours to go until the full national launch as privacy campaigners criticise it as an ‘intrusive’ attempt to analyse users’ data

The social media giant Facebook said that the privacy of its users was of the ‘utmost importance’ and that the Admiral initiative breached its privacy rules, in particular citing that the data should not be used to “make decisions about eligibility, including whether to approve or reject an application or how much interest to charge on a loan" 

Facebook and Admiral remain in talks about trying to revive the product, with industry insiders arguing about who was to blame for the last-minute climb down. 

Facebook is understood to have known about "firstcarquote" for months and Admiral have had the product operational on the internet for weeks in a test form.

Privacy campaigners welcomed Admiral’s reversal but said that it was only the start of other companies trying to use personal data in a similar way.

A leading digital rights campaigning organisation, said Admiral’s scheme was “intrusive” being based on what we have said to family, friends and acquaintances on social media.

The fear is that this and other similar intrusive practices could see decisions being made against certain groups based on perceived biases about race, gender, religion, sexuality or just being unconventional. 

The threat that the application of such date could infringe on our day to day lifestyle issues could change how people use social media, for example, encouraging self-censorship in anticipation of future decisions. 

The multi nationals and global corporations may still have something planned for us in the future. 

(Source; The Guardian Newspaper 2016)

Residences by false Pretences

Leafing through the pages of a brochure for Holiday Cottages gives a false sense of wealth and status.

The beauty of it is that a picturesque country house or a quaint Cliffside fisherman's residence, whilst likely to cost up to six figures for purchase can be had for a brief period for, by comparison, affordable pennies.

Such a vacation has been a favourite of our family.

A home from home for a fortnight, a week or just a few days stolen during school term time which increasingly has been a necessity to get anywhere booked at all. The demand for a UK based cottage rental has been phenomenal in recent years and although numbers of places and companies offering this service has certainly increased so has the clamour for the best weeks and the best locations.

Leave the booking process too late and there can be a few odd looking choices only. A small flat over a chip shop, the hayloft above a working milking parlour or a converted bunker on an old RAF base, long since mothballed.

Of course, as a general rule you get what you are prepared to pay for.

The glossy brochures have a colour coding or alphabetical lettering system to classify the number of beds and the level of tariff. There are quite significant variations in the weekly rates as the industry is driven on seasonal demand. A heaving and populous seaside resort in August commands peak rates but the same venue in a windswept and sandstorm abraded February when nothing is open for business has to be heavily discounted to get any sniff of interest from the public.

We have had the pleasure of giving the impression of being the owners of some very nice holiday lets. We have breezed up to the door as though just arriving from one of our other imaginary homes in London, Cannes or Los Angeles when in fact we have had a relatively short journey from East Yorkshire.

The giveaway to any onlookers however is the evident confusion on our faces over forgetting where the Agency or the local responsible person had told us the key would be. This could be on the top of the low door jamb, under a brick or garden gnome figure or we could be frantically scouring and plundering potential hiding places before one of the children tries the handle and the door swings open, unlocked after all.

Us townies always lock our doors but in a small hamlet or fishing village everyone knows everyone else and crime is neither a regular conversational subject or a fearsome perception. Perhaps the payment of the rent for the holiday venue is partly in return for that sense of old worldliness and trust.

The take over of someone else's property can be a swift process. The contents of the car, when transferred down the 1 in 4 cobbled roadway or across the field or along the frontage of the terraced block by human relay, immediately stamp our identity on the place. The children always disappeared when it was time to unpack and expand into the accommodation, such was there keenness to explore and return excited and enthusiastic about the forthcoming vacation.

Our first cottage rental was on the Isle of Skye. Cheap and cheerful are often bandied about in tandem but in this case only 50 percent of the wording applied. A squat, white painted croft (or as we called it- a bungalow) set on a shelf on a steep hillside and with a clear view over a seaweed shored loch inlet. Well, by clear view I actually mean that we had to lift our gaze over the roof of the owners house which had been built directly in front. The old couple were like keepers of the gate and our comings and goings on foot or in the car were through a guard of honour, almost, and with frequent invitations to come in for a Gin and Tonic. They were kindly souls but heavy drinking before 10am in the morning would have made us grumpy and intolerant towards the demanding children and we gracefully declined. The dirty rusty red water that spewed from the sink and bath taps was, I understand, a natural phenomena for the island and not a spiteful action on behalf of our spurning the hospitality of our hosts.

As a starter cottage we were confident that in subsequent years we would not experience something as basic again.

We were wrong.

The brochure for a gatehouse lodge in the Scottish Borders within short distance of Edinburgh stated that it slept 6. After a quick tally up of dead mice and flies the occupancy level was considerably higher. It was a miserable place only made tolerable by two factors, one being a full sized ping pong table in an outhouse and the other a subscription to all Sky Channels. We in fact spent little time there as we shuttled back and forth to the Festival Venues.

The return from a day out was always a bit of an anxious moment in case anything ran out of the door as we made our way in. The children, a bit older now, likened it to the home of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the basis of the wildlife in the living room. I am not sure what was the worst aspect of the overnight period. It was a close run thing between the static of the nylon bed sheets or the frizzle frazzle sound of the ultrasonic based rodent deterrent.

In contrast and about as far away as could be imagined was our week in the palatial and well appointed rooms and grounds of Kingairloch House.

What we thought was the main road turned out to be the private driveway. We expected to be lodging in something attached to the large and pleasing country house or would have quite happily taken a static caravan to be in the same tranquil location of pine trees, calm loch inlet waters and the backdrop of huge mountains.

We fell over upon realising that the house itself was ours.

It had an interesting back story. Originally built as a hunting lodge it had been discovered by a quarrying company who were blasting and exporting the heart of a hillside over the nearest peak. It was bought to remove any local opposition to their activities but sat well in the balance sheet as an asset for corporate entertaining and at the disposal and whims of the Directors. It was sumptuous in décor and fittings. The main living rooms looked east over private parkland which would be grazed by the wild deer coming down from the mountain when feeling safe, out of season, from being shot by tubby businessmen in tweed suits.

In the far distance was a chocolate box Castle and in between the black, cool waters of a sea loch.

The kitchen was straight out of the pages of Hello Magazine and to cater for damp hunters and walkers a huge laundry room had been equipped with an all in one washer and hot air dryer. It was proper heavy duty and with a full cycle from dirty to iron-dry in one hour.

Our complete feeling of ease in such luxurious surroundings was only tempered by a phone call that our own home had just been burgled. I momentarily contemplated the 300 mile drive back to check things out but with the news that only a Video Recorder had gone missing decided to stay put and fill up the Maytag Industrial appliance with another unnecessary load of clothes.

That property was, I acknowledge representative of the ultimate in a holiday letting.

There were some downsides. The nearest shops in Fort William involved a three hour round trip on narrow rockfall pitted roads and a ferry crossing. Similarly the sourcing of fuel for the car was problematic and at a significant mark up over the prices we normally tolerated. What was most annoying was our mistiming of the car ferry trip from a day visit to Mull and Iona which saw us having to sleep in a steamed up car overnight on the slipway and within only a few miles, as the eagle flies, from those privileged surroundings.

Friends, touring the Highlands, came for tea and we played or rather tried to work out how to play a game of croquet on the lawn. It was an idyllic existence and for a moment in time, and for a weekly rent, we were the Monarchs of the Glen.

Form and Function

Humber Street, Hull. 

It is now quite a trendy place with a regenerated streetscape, old buildings in niche retail outlet use , arts and craft galleries, a Gin Distillery and a few eateries, bars and performance venues. My daughter is soon to open a pop up shop in Humber Street trading in contemporary print for curious people and it will fit in just nicely. 

Roll back just a few years and the street was the established Fruit Market District for Hull and Humber. It was a bustling place but only if you were there in the very early hours of the working day with wholesale merchants stacking their boxes of fresh produce for the attention and purchase by grocers, shop keepers and the catering sector. 

Everything was available from fare just picked and harvested from the East Yorkshire countryside to more exotic items such as kiwi and coconuts from the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere. 

Old black and white photographs from the post war era show Humber Street in full operation and yet, a passer by in the mid afternoon would witness nothing more than a ghost street strewn with discarded shoots, leaves and empty cardboard or wooden boxes. 

I had, in one of my first jobs in Hull,to inspect a deceptively large warehouse on the southern side of the street. It was a hive of activity as a storage and ripening facility for bananas for the global company Geest. It was not out of place. 

You would think that this dockside location had always played a role ancillary to trade and shipping in this way but step back a little further in time to the early years of the 19^th Century and you would be amazed at what went on in and around Humber Street. 

Take numbers 62 to 63 Humber Street. It was the one and same banana warehouse but is now the aptly named "Fruit" , a venue for music and gatherings and a good stock of craft beers. 

Back in 1810 this very spot was the location of the Humber Street Theatre or Theatre Royal as it was called. It was a grand and opulent entertainment establishment which opened in May of that year serving the wider population of the thriving Port City of Hull but also a dense housing area arranged in off street courts and alleys between the river embankment and Holy Trinity Church. 

At 125 feet deep and 60 feet wide the building will have stretched from its Humber Street façade and entrance through to Wellington Street. 

There are well documented records of what was certainly a Theatre in its classic form providing 2 galleried tiers on cast iron columns for Dress Boxes for around 800 people as well as middle and upper levels which curved around and accommodated a further 700. 

The emphasis of the décor was plush described as pink painted Etruscan borders, scarlet cloth lined boxes and French Grey painted panelling. The Proscenium was supported on pillars resembling yellow marble and capped with the distinctive arched top below which were crimson curtains festooned with gold fringes. 

The stage itself was some 54 feet deep and on the 1810 opening night saw a performance of “Tancred and Sigismunda” by the poet James Thomson. The play tells the story of a father, Tancred, whose widowed daughter, Gismund, returns home and begins a clandestine affair with one of her father's courtiers. He kills her lover and presents her with a gold cup containing his heart. She kills herself, and her father, stricken by grief and regret, does likewise, thereby extinguishing his kingly line. The Victorians evidently liked that sort of protracted but very predictable drama. 

The backstage area was well equipped to provide segregated dressing rooms, a Managers Office and hospitality area. 

The Theatre, built as a speculative venture appears to have done well and in May 1859 the daughter of the original builder put the premises up for sale as a going concern. There were no takers, perhaps down to a combination of what was now a mature building and some reservations about the location by prospective buyers. Hull was rapidly expanding in the mid Victorian period with, for example, at that time Zachariah Pearson was well advanced with his donation of Pearson Park and the new outer suburbs would be better suited for an entrepreneur or investor to consider a Theatre operation. 

Unfortunately at 7am in the morning  of the 13^th of October 1859 a fire was discovered. Within an hour the roof had collapsed and by midday the whole of the splendid structure was completely levelled. The building had been insured apart from the personal belongings of the Manager and costume wardrobe of a resident actress but the investigation did not discover the cause of the calamity. There was no apparent talk of an insurance scam. 

Reconstruction took some years and it was not until Boxing Day Night in 1865 that a new Theatre Royal reopened with a dual offering of “A wolf in sheep’s clothing” and a popular seasonal Pantomime “Hop o’ my thumb”. 

The venue was able to seat 2250 persons thanks to individual seat spaces eighteen inches wide. 

A reliance on an abundance of combustible materials for stage sets, furnishings and backstage areas did pose a significant risk of fire to Theatres in particular with very tragic events having occurred in the cities of Exeter and Glasgow in the 19^th Century. 

In 1869 the Theatre on Humber Street fell victim to yet another fire , this time breaking out in the props room after the evening rendition of a Robinson Crusoe Pantomime. In spite of brave efforts the building was completely destroyed. 

This second twist of fate marked the end to the association of Humber Street with performance and the arts until the arrival of "Fruit" just a couple of years ago. This has become a well patronised venue for live music, comedy, dramatic productions, cinema screenings, night clubbing, festivals, produce and vintage markets. 

It may be seen as a completely new direction for the street but it is just a glorious return to its traditional roots.

Kick it Hard Lily

The second highest career goalscoring record behind Pele is from a much lesser known player whose games were played over the years 1920 to 1951. Lily Parr's total of over 1000 goals is remarkable enough an acheivement but even more so given the turbulence of the times which covered the implications and complications of two world wars, a major economic depression between and the emotive political and social events for the acceptance of women in the male dominated world of just about everything.

The mass and necessary recruitment of women as a labour force to cover for the conscripted male workers into the first world war drew the attention of the Government to the wider health and welfare issues of women. A healthy and happy workforce were a productive and less troublesome and potentially militant group.

The Preston, Lancashire based manufacturers Dick, Kerr and Company had been established in 1900 specialising in the tram and light railway sector but switched to essential war work in 1915 making ammunition. The factory employed a predominantly female staff on the production lines and within the remit of keeping key workers fit and healthy a football team was formed taking the company name.

Rival industrial and manufacturing companies also former their own teams and around 150 were registered within what became a very competitive league structure. The Munitions Cup, played for in 1917, by the Munitionettes as a wider descriptive term for the participating ladies teams was watched by a crowd of 10,000 at the ground of the great Preston North End. The crowd attending raised £600 for wounded soldiers.

The ladies game was not confined to the war years and by the early 1920's it was well established and experiencing its halcyon days. The Dick, Kerr Ladies were prominent and played 60 competitive matches during the 1921 season in front of an aggregate attendance of 900,000. A crowd of 53,000 was present at Goodison Park in Liverpool to watch the Dick, Kerr Ladies beat close rivals St Helens Ladies.

The success and genuine support for the ladies league caused grave concern amongst the crusty old Football League administrators and in a calculated but spiteful move they issued a ban on the use of any League grounds for the playing of ladies matches. In their expert evidence to support the ban various medical practitioners were produced to express concern over what dangerous impact playing football could have on fertility and femininity. The ban remained in place until 1971.

The Dick, Kerr Ladies continued to flourish and amongst their honours were multiple league titles, International victories including tours to France and the USA and reaching a pinnacle in 1937 becoming World Champions. Against the well entrenched establishment and remnants of the austerity of the Victorians which still dominated society and attitudes the team were the first in the womens game to wear shorts. Archive photographs of the team resemble a line up of dancing girls, nimble,graceful and lithe but wearing heavy leather football boots and with a bit of a sun tan. The team fell out with the bosses over some undefined 'tut-trouble at factory' and reformed as Preston Ladies until 1965.

The significance of the acheivements of the Dick, Kerr Ladies cannot be understated. They were brave pioneers at a time when women had no real voice in politics or society. They rose above the pettyand what would always be temporary concessions required by the circumstances of the first world war and continued to excel and attract a very good following and fan base through the heady days of the 1920's. The names of Lily Parr, Florrie Redford and Alice Kell amongst all of the players have tended to be forgotten apart from dedicated archivists who maintain an excellent web based resource. The stars of the team were inducted into the Football League Hall of Fame but as a gesture it was too late and a bit patronising.

Lily Parr was challenged by a male goalkeeper to try to score a spot-kick past him. He had observed her obvious footballing skill and ability, in particular her reputed very hard shot, but was under the impression that it only looked to be a hard kick in the company of other women team mates. Taking up the challenge Lily was seen to smile when the unfortunate chauvinistic keeper was taken off to hospital with a broken arm from the impact of her penalty kick.

(Another repeat....but no excuses because it is a good one)

Gnome Sequencing

I was watching a local news channel just a couple of weeks ago when a featured story was on a seafront café on the Lincolnshire Coast where people could leave their Garden Gnome ornaments for the duration of their own holidays at the coast. 

The short broadcast showed the café proprietor arranging visiting gnomes on a sort of terraced display and with a member of staff refreshing the paint finishes as part of the vacation package. 

I suspect that a good proportion of the concrete and plaster figures were not so much temporary guests but permanent fixtures with many members of the public taking this golden opportunity to get rid/donate/give up their figurines for good. 

At one time a seated and ideally angling or pipe smoking garden gnome was the epitome of acceptable bad taste, kitsch, tat, rebellion and off beat humour and one or more will have taken up residence in a prominent position in a front or rear garden, rockery or flower bed to be admired and commented upon by family, friends, relatives and passers-by. 

However, at some point they fell irrevocably out of fashion. 

I cannot say when or why that was but contributing factors will have been the trend of smaller gardens on new housing estates, a move towards uncluttered spaces, decking and paving over of former lawns and borders, the rise of planters rather than a more formal arrangement and landscaping programmes where nautical or other themes sounded the death knell for the good old ornament. 

My own family has, at one time or another, had resident gnomes. My maternal grandfather had one which was passed down through successive generations. 

A popular gift for creative youngsters used to be a flexible rubberised mould and a bag of Plaster of Paris by which a gnome or other rural or woodland creature could be formed and painted up for display in the garden. 

I still see them for sale in a far corner of my frequented Garden Centre or where they still have an affinity which is strangely, in a seaside emporium amongst the buckets and spades, plastic windmills, wind breaks and kites. 

There must be a huge warehouse somewhere in the UK dedicated to aisle upon aisle stockpiling of unpainted gnomes and a thriving import business of the things from factories in China and the Far East. Somehow these distant manufacturers must be receiving feedback that gnomes are still very much in demand from the British public and resources and labour are geared up accordingly. 

They may have witnessed a massive tailing off in demand however in recent years largely down to the passing of a prolific gnome collector.

Ron Broomfield, known as ‘Ron the Gnome’, began collecting the cheerful figures after he became depressed when a short marriage of four years broke down in his early 30s. His doctor recommended he take up a hobby for therapeutic purposes and he was later passing a shop that had gnomes in the front window and thought they looked cheerful.

He bought the gnomes, took them home and they kept smiling at him. After that, every time he saw a gnome he bought it and he would ask for gnomes as presents at Christmas and on birthdays.

His passion for all things gnome was taken further. When the children in his neighbourhood walked past his house they would remark that Ron’s beard made him look like a gnome and it was not long after that he began to dress like one too.

Over the next 50 years, he made gnomes his life. He not only collected gnomes but appeared to promote them on numerous TV programmes including The Alan Titchmarsh Show during which Ron presented the host with a look-a-like gnome. He also popped up on BBC’s The One Show and in newspapers. One of his ambitions was for his collection to be featured in the Guinness Book of Records but he was not able to surpass that of another avid enthusiast- The Gnome Reserve and Wild Flower Garden in North Devon.

Out of his passion and obsession Ron raised thousands of pounds for his favourite charity the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

After retirement from working life the collection of gnomes, then around 700, moved with Ron to rural Lincolnshire and he named his home Gnome Cottage.

Amongst his vast collection Ron had a favourite gnome called Sandy. He took him everywhere with him including to work and on holiday and he wrote a book with pictures of Sandy’s travels.

After passing in 2015 Ron was cremated dressed in his gnome outfit complete with pointed hat and waistcoat. 

The lifetime collection which had swelled to 1800 gnomes was then sold at auction. In July 2015 a local saleroom was packed with many buyers looking to acquire either single gnomes or group lots from the impressive collection.Whilst there were some individual lots making £40 to £80, there were many group lots of ‘gnominal’ value with the residual items selling for a few pounds. 

Once all the lots were added up, the gross total for the sale of the collection which went to a local charity was just over £1600. 

Everything went in an expression of respect and fondness for the kindly and eccentric human gnome. Unfortunately that event is likely to have been the equivalent of peak-oil to garden gnomes and they now sadly seem destined to that seaside mausoleum or landfill. 

Roaming Charges

We were brought up as children of nature.

This does not mean that we wandered about butt-naked, holding sunbeams in our hands, chasing butterflies or wearing flowers in our hair but just to appreciate the natural world around us.

It was, on reflection, a privileged upbringing in that we always lived in houses with a garden or with the open countryside fully available just the other side of a timber gate or at the end of the street. Our parents encouraged us to play out, in their sight in our earliest of years. This then gave us confidence as we got older to do this on a much more far ranging basis.

We would think nothing of leaving the house and staying out all day just walking or riding our bikes across a farmers newly sown field, dismantling and reassembling piles of straw bales, throwing stones at increasingly dilapidated old buildings or shouting at livestock in a manic attempt to impersonate their mooing, bleating or neighing.

Trees were there as a challenge to clamber up with no real thought as to how to get back down. Streams and ditches could be jumped, bridged with a cast off bough or fallen into up to your knees or worse. Those were the days when you could see, in the wild, sticklebacks, water boatmen and all of the life cycle of the common frog from spawn to actual amphibians.

A favourite activity was excavating the steep sides of a railway cutting whose thick and heavy clay was a good source of large fossils. We stopped this after watching the landslide scene in the film of The Railway Children.

We were skilled in the manufacture of weapons from whatever we could scavenge and would make very effective bows and arrows from springy willows or saplings. There is a lot of fun a very real risk of life changing injury in a full blown battle between rival gangs of 10 year olds with the sky full of projectiles and the whack-whack of stick fights. The victory, which was hard to define, was usually claimed by each side but only after a strategic retreat to the safety and security of your own back garden or home where the bravado really kicked in.

Bike rides took us even further afield. In the search for a good fast downhill we would travel to reach the distant hills, at least 5 miles away but totally unprepared for any mechanical problems or punctures with our town bikes, my big sisters shopper bike and the sought after but pretty rubbish Raleigh Choppers.

We learnt by this innocent route a lot about the sometimes harsh realities of the world.

In this manner I saw my first drowned dog in a stretch of the canal. It was bloated and puffy but we dare not prod it with our ever present sharp sticks in case it burst. In another incident down by a sharp bend on the river path a car travelling too fast skidded and careered down the bank into the water. Fortunately there were following motorists and a few anglers around to rescue the distressed occupants but it could have been nasty.

We would come across squashed animals on the country roads or find a small bird, injured and helpless and at the mercy of its predators.

I clearly remember walking in Scotland with my family when we were caught up by a slow moving, unattended car whose handbrake had slipped out of hold on a gentle slope down the harbour. We rallied round and stopped its progress until the owner, red faced and embarrassed was found.

A man, obviously well drunk, decided unwisely to cross the busy main road at the traffic light junction by walking between the back of my Father's car and our caravan and was temporarily transported whilst straddling the tow-bar.

Sat cosily under a large fishing umbrella I was disappointed to hear a steady stream of rain only to realise that it was someone urinating on our camouflaged position on the way back from the pub.

I was, even as a small child, fascinated by human behaviour. On the beach in Norfolk two women were engaged in a full blown fight for the affection and favour of the man who drove the visitors in an ex military DUKW vehicle across the sands at low tide.

On our countryside adventures we would often see courting couples emerging from the undergrowth re-arranging their dishevelled clothes. I could sympathise as brambles and thorns could wreak havoc and even penetrate through to your pants in pursuit of that concealed den or short-cut.

We would return to our respective homes happy, tired and grubby.

In answer to, upon our return, our parents casual enquiries and even today when quizzed by our own children about what we had got up to we would always mutter, 'not a lot really, it's quite boring 'round here'.