Shouting at street lights

Lancashire, where women die of love.

2011-02-20T13:28:00.002Z

I'm currently reading a book with this implausible title, by Charles Nevin.

It's a wryly entertaining love letter to the county where, like me, Charles was born and spent his formative years. We English tend to be fiercely loyal to the county (state) of our birth and nowhere more so than in the distant counties north of the influence of this London-centric land.

The attention grabbing title is something more than a gratuitous nod to the marketing people. Apparently,it’s a quotation from a female character in Le Leys dans la Vallée by Honoré de Balzac.

It would be churlish to disagree with her...

After his post graduate cadetship on what was then my local newspaper, the Southport Visiter, Charles went on to greater journalistic endeavours. He is a regular contributor to The Independent, The New Statesman and other quality journals.... … his columns always cheer me up no end.

His writing is so transparently good-natured that only the most curmudgeonly could possibly take offence. His delight in the eccentric, the unlikely and the just plain odd is hilarious and life-enhancing.

This engaging book is one of the best antidotes I know of to 21st Century blues. In it you can (among other things) learn how Napoleon III modelled the grand boulevards of Paris on Southport (maybe), why Butch Cassidy spoke with a Lancastrian accent (perhaps) and why Lancashire was and continues to be the birthplace of such a stunningly high proportion of the country’s comedians (definitely).

This blog is self indulgent I know....but perhaps that is what reading a book through rose tinted spectacles does to one.

I can offer no apology...lol.

It's good to be back.

Phew............

2011-02-19T20:08:00.002Z

I made it back to Blogger....Facebook is fine.......but...lol.

So farewell Georgy Girl....

2010-05-03T18:47:00.011+01:00

Sometimes words can be to much - or not enough.....farewell Lynn....a steady light amidst the brighter ones.....I love her unrehearsed smile at 0:29, in response to something the van driver said...

A Tatton Trot

2010-04-27T18:17:00.011+01:00

Tatton Park, one of several stately homes in this area has a history dating back to Bronze Age farming and has been home to herds of deer since the 13th century. In the late Tudor period Tatton was acquired by the Egerton family who owned the estate until the last Lord Egerton died without heirs in 1958. Maurice Egerton bequeathed the estate to the National Trust.

On Sunday, I spent a pleasant afternoon wandering the grounds with my camera. The gardens are not yet at their best understandably. The house has some interesting architecture but to be honest, I am not a fan of the interior . It is poorly lit with rooms over stuffed with furniture. In my humble opinion this house is not in the top league of such places, although the gardens in their summer pomp are rather grand.

Summer pictures to follow...

This is certainly what I call a garden gate....aren't the proportions of the portico wonderful?

A general view of the house showing the south portico

Apple and pear blossom in the rather elegant orchard.

The south portico, beautifully proportioned, but with no grand entrance.

More Georgian elegance of some of the many additions to the original house.

The tranquil Japanese garden, first laid out in 1900.

An outsider's outsider.....

2010-04-26T17:32:00.007+01:00

When I heard of the death of the author Alan Sillitoe at the age of 82, I truly felt as if I had lost an old, unmet friend. Alan died yesterday at Charing Cross Hospital in London.

It was Alan who started my journey into my love of British cinema in the 1950s and 1960s when two of his books were turned into movies. I saw Saturday Night And Sunday Morning when I was about 14 years old and it was a history lesson as well as a life lesson.

If you want to summon the grainy, gritty images of the English working class of the1960s, simply picture Tom Courtenay as the young offender rebelling in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, or Albert Finney as the loser and boozer in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Many years ago, when I had a book list to read, on this list was Alan Sillitoe's Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, and to be honest the only reason I picked it up was because it was not a thick-paged book to read! I read the first page and was hooked, and to this day, it is still one of my favourite books.

But there was another figure behind these defiant, alienated men - a thoughtful, self-educated young man named Alan Sillitoe.

"Bill Posters will be Prosecuted," old signs used to read and it took the anarchic eye of Sillitoe to compose a play called The Death of William Posters, in which the poor man is prosecuted indeed.

Alan Sillitoe will be remembered as long as there are rebels - preferably, but not necessarily, rebels with causes.

Look for his books and the movies made from them - they are a treat.

How wonderful is this?

2010-04-06T21:29:00.002+01:00

Ella at her absolute best.......in my humble opinion m'lud....lol.
Have a grand week all, I've just had a splendid break...

I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never new my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
Till April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables under the trees
April in Paris, this is a feeling
That no one can ever reprise
I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never new my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
Till April in Paris
Whom can I run to
What have you done to my heart?

lifes absurdities laid bare....

2010-04-02T18:11:00.004+01:00

Philip Larkin has always been right up there amongst my favourite poets....his taciturn style has always struck a chord with me...and this chord sounds louder as I get older...laughing.

Have a wonderful, peaceful and blessed Easter nice people.

The Winter Palace

Most people know more as they get older:
I give all that the cold shoulder.

I spent my second quarter-century
Losing what I had learnt at university

And refusing to take in what had happened since.
Now I know none of the names in the public prints.

And am starting to give offence by forgetting faces
And swearing I've never been in certain places.

It will be worth it, if in the end I manage
To blank out whatever it is that is doing the damage.

Then there will be nothing I know.
My mind will fold into itself, like fields, like snow.

Sunday she comes...

2010-03-21T11:09:00.003Z

The Six Nations Rugby Competition has just finished here. France ran out worthy winners....Italy, despite some heroic games, were awarded the wooden spoon. England finished adrift in mid table and this is where we will remain until we learn to play quick ball and hand to hand rugby!

Anyway, grinning, this BBC advert for the Six Nations takes its inspiration from the recent movie Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as a very plausible Nelson Mandela.

Invictus
William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Have a grand Sunday, as Spring touches us all............and feel inspired.

...longing for Spring

2010-02-19T15:47:00.006Z

This is one of my favourite poems, such use of metaphor,imagery and emotion. This week I have been to my third funeral of the year and sad as these occasions are they can often contain such unexpected happiness.

Perhaps, as someone said over drinks later yesterday, this is how we keep in contact with those from our present and our past - alive and dead.

I'm sure that Connie, ever the humanist and cat lover, would have smiled and agreed.

Take care nice people.

February
By Margaret Atwood.

Winter.
Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.

perchance to read....

2010-02-08T17:45:00.005Z

I am truly savouring the sheer joy of being able to lounge around and catch up on all the terrific reads that were kindly given to me as Christmas gifts.

It certainly takes me some effort not to feel guilty when doing nought but read.

Why is reading often seen as 'doing nothing' as opposed to doing 'something', whatever that may be?

Is it me, or do my fellow bloggers share similar feelings? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the way I was raised, my parents were both avid readers. Does it have its origins in modern society? I dont know, but I would like to hear any views that you may have.

Anyway, I am currently reading the above book by Michael Greenberg and enjoying every page of the book....

The Washington Post describes Greenberg as, 'a poet of New York, evoking in these fleeting pieces the city in all its scuffed and squalid grandeur'.

As the song says...I'm busy doing nothing...

Have a grand week nice people.

Reet Champion sithee......

2010-02-03T21:19:00.007Z

...or in literal English....right champion see you...but in the dialect of the north of England it means well done, or didn't things turn out well?

Last evening I sat down and watched the early 80's movie Champions and as usual I ended up with a happy tear in my eye.

The film, which stars John Hurt, together with a glorious array of actors, tells the story of the jockey Bob Champion and his amazing horse Aldiniti...If you do watch the movie a warning...it does show snippets of horses falling, which every year prompts a call for the Grand National race to be stopped....

Legendary jockey Bob Champion overcame impossible odds to achieve his dreams. His determination and dedication continue to inspire athletes many years after his Grand National win.

True sporting legends are usually made, not born. A few greats have been destined for fame since birth though. Bob Champion is one of these natural-born legends, but his courage and dedication are the qualities for which he is most admired.

In 1979, Bob Champion was diagnosed with testicular cancer. In true Champion fashion, Bob refused to believe that his doctors were correct. He stubbornly insisted that there was a mistake in the diagnosis.

The diagnosis wasn't wrong. Doctors gave Champion a maximum of eight months to live, with only a 40 percent chance of survival. Things looked grim, but he was given a second chance. An extremely aggressive program of chemotherapy, if begun immediately, might just beat the odds. Champion agreed to begin the treatment the very same day.

Unfortunately, Champion's treatment had not been easy on his body. A large-scale infection nearly claimed his life and he was forced to put off his Grand National ambitions temporarily.

Champion was soon recovering from his various hardships and back in training. In 1981, he rode Aldaniti in the Grand National. The two were a perfect pair: both hard-working, stubborn and recovering from serious health problems. Champion's cancer and Aldaniti's three leg injuries caused almost everyone to speculate that the team wouldn't get near the winner's circle.

The two survivors melded on the Aintree Racecourse that April day in 1981. Their victory is one of the most memorable and emotional moments ever to be recorded in horse racing. Coming in four-and-a-half lengths ahead of the competition, Champion and Aldaniti beat the odds and made history.

After his Grand National championship, Bob Champion continued to race and win until 1983. By that time, he had approximately 500 wins to his credit. After leaving racing, he focused his energy on training horses and running the Bob Champion Cancer Trust. The charity has raised millions of pounds for cancer research and Champion continues to raise funds for it to this day.

Although Aldaniti died in 1997 and Bob Champion retired from training horses in 1999, they are both legends of the horse racing world. Their legacy is a sense of hope for all those who follow in their paths. They taught us that, even when things look desperate, success is just over the next fence for those who choose to make the jump.

The inspirational soundtrack is by Carl Davis.

New York...then hither, thither and yon...

2010-01-30T17:20:00.004Z

Happy New Year all......I finally made it home via working in Dublin, Brussels and good old Manchester. The in flight teams were getting so used to seeing me that I was on the verge of being added to their Christmas card lists...talk about travelling in ever decreasing circles!

Well, work is work....no sense complaining in this economic climate.

My carbon footprint is shot to pieces though.....arf.

New York was as wonderful as ever....so much to see and do and so little time. The weather was pretty much as western Europe......bloody cold. Favourite spot was the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street in the West Village - haunt and last drinking place of one of my literary heroes, Dylan Thomas. A couple of great evenings were spent there.

Anyway, this evening I shall raise a glass (or twain) of something reviving and enjoy catching up on the happenings of my favourite blogsters.

Seeing Jersey Boys was a fantastic evening...but what happened to the sheer glamour of a Broadway show,......sadly, London is pretty much the same.

Have a great weekend nice people....I couldn't resist Ginger...grinning.

2009-12-24T13:51:00.006Z

Best Wishes All

Have a Peaceful & Enjoyable Christmas

a state of mind.......

2009-12-18T19:06:00.005Z

Well, now the British Airways threatened strike over the Christmas period isn't going to happen, I'm going to be in New York City between the 27th of December and the 1st of January.
So, if anyone would like to join me and my camera on a walk over the Brooklyn bridge give me a call....lunch or dinner thrown in too........just how generous is this guy?...laughing.

Have a great weekend nice people.........lesson learned?.......never going to use BA again, ever.........ever.
By the way...Ella sings of starving together in Chiles.....I can find no reference to Chiles on the interweb........someone help me out.....grinning.

and this is my new creed.........

2009-12-10T17:50:00.002Z

Hi folks, hope you are all well....sheesh what a week. Thank you all for your wonderful blogs - reading them has kept me sane this week. I promise to contribute more, I really do.......laughing.

Kitchens being remodelled, husbands sometimes mistaken for a grandmother over the phone....what interesting lifes you lead.....grinning. Enjoy your day nice people.

....an adman's Christmas

2009-11-29T10:17:00.009Z

As usual I find this years John Lewis Christmas tv advert a sheer delight....beautifully filmed and great engagement with their choice of music.

Even the message is a delight...reward the inner child by giving a gift...at least that's how I interpret it.

But with such expensive gifts?

Not hard to see why John Lewis is our most middle class of department stores....grinning.

This version of Sweet Child o' Mine is by Taken By Trees.

She's got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
When everything
Was as bright as the bluest sky

Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place
Where as a child I'd hide
And pray for the thunder
And the rain
To quietly pass me by.

Oh Oh Oh, sweet child of mine.

Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper......super, duper.

2009-11-22T13:36:00.008Z

Phew, what a week last week was, but as the song says, 'that was the week that was, it's over let it go'. So, last night I did in grand style at the wonderful Bridgewater Hall, in central Manchester, home of the Halle Orchestra.

Last night was one of their famous Halle Pops evenings - Puttin' on the Ritz: A tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

To put not to fine an edge on it - I was in my element.

John Wilson conducted, fresh from his triumph at this years Promenade Concert with the music of the MGM Musicals. He continues to demonstrate his fascination for the music of the 30's and 40's.
His musical arrangements remain 100% faithful to the original RKO and MGM musical scores. It was wonderful to think that this was exactly how Fred and Ginger heard the scores they danced to.
Kim Criswell not only treated us to some wonderful singing but gave a brief and succinct historical setting of each number, certainly paying Ginger her musical dues.

Gary Williams too, was just perfect, never imitating Fred, but always with a subtle nod in his direction. The music covered thirteen films, from Flying Down to Rio right up to Funny Face.

If you ever get the chance to see this show don't hesitate. I guarantee you will dance all the way home.

Have a good week nice people.

Lest we forget

2009-11-08T12:13:00.009Z

Today is Remembrance Sunday here in the UK. Of all the moving and reflective music played at this time, Dido's Lament by Purcell never fails to reach out and hold me for those brief minutes.

Lest we forget all our fallen, military and civilian.

This afternoon I will spend with my soldier son and other 'boys of the old brigade', lunching, listening, reflecting, laughing and remembering my own father, and drinking good old English beer.

When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.
When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.
Remember me, remember me, but ah!
Forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah!
Forget my fate.
Remember me, remember me, but ah!
Forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah!
Forget my fate.

achingly sad.....

2009-10-28T17:33:00.012Z

This article is from my newspaper today......I just have the feeling that her lover is an Englishman, or why put the bottle in the English Channel? Anyone have any other thoughts?..........smiling.

A French love letter and a lock of hair have been discovered in a bottle washed up on a Cornish beach.Martin Leslie, a coastguard manager, discovered the note at Praa Sands when he was clearing debris from the shore in west Cornwall.

The bottle, which was sealed with candle wax, was dropped into the English Channel / La Manche on 28 September this year. It was written in French by an unnamed woman who poured out her feelings and understandings for her lover who had to return to his wife

The letter included references to love, death and heartache. It covered three pages of A4-sized paper and was accompanied by the lock of brown hair.

It opened with: "I'm not, and nor are you. When I am dead and that I will have lost the spark of my 20s, and I know that happens, at this point I will come back to you and you in turn will give me back your extraordinary passion for living. I am not dead. Yet."

Mr Leslie, who does not speak French, tried to translate the letter and was concerned about its content. He assumed that it was a suicidal note that he had come across and contacted Falmouth coastguard who sent a fax of it to their counterparts on the French coast.

"It was found to be a love letter. She (the writer) explained they had a good time together. She loves him but understands he has to return to his wife, and hopes she will find a man like him to live a beautiful life."

The unnamed women recalls the time she and her lover spent together, alluding to the affair in the letter:

"These magic moments are pure secret. The secret of life and pleasure without limits. In twenty years, it will still be here, the previous moments of happiness, when life will get dreary, we will be able to tap into these memories to remember what it is to live again."

Mr Leslie said he was planning to keep hold of the letter, which was left unsigned, with no contact address.

La mer
The Sea
Qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs
That one sees dancing along the clear gulfs
A des reflets d'argent
Has silver reflections
La mer
The Sea
Des reflets changeants
Changing reflections
Sous la pluie
Under the rain

La mer
The Sea
Au ciel d'été confond
In the summer sky merge
Ses blancs moutons
Its white sheep
Avec les anges si purs
With such pure angels
La mer bergère d'azur
The sea, shepherdess of azure
Infinie
Infinite

Voyez
See
Près des étangs
Close to the ponds
Ces grands roseaux mouillés
These large wet reeds
Voyez
See
Ces oiseaux blancs
These white birds
Et ces maisons rouillées
And these rusted houses

La mer
The Sea
Les a bercés
Has rocked them
Le long des golfes clairs
Along the clear gulfs
Et d'une chanson d'amour
And with a song of love
La mer
The Sea
A bercé mon cœur pour la vie
Has soothed my heart for life

With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain.......

2009-10-26T18:13:00.025Z

The ninety minute trip down to Stratford and visit to the RSC was as ever a sheer delight. Renovation, or should I say rebuilding of the Memorial Theatre continues apace with most of the external appearance of the building pretty much as the architect intended…. one presumes. The Courtyard Theatre again provides a more than suitable venue whilst the building works continue apace.
The photos were taken during rehearsal.

Nancy Carroll as Viola and Jo Stone-Fewings as Orsino

At the risk of mixing metaphors, this production is certainly a game of two halves and to my mind this problem lies less with the acting than with the directing of Greg Doran. As with all productions by this company the acting is uniformly strong and there is no sense amongst the cast of anyone being the ‘star’. I enjoyed the air of complicity between actors and audience, generated particularly by Feste and Viola, which added to the fun without spoiling the magic.

James Fleet considers direction for his role of Sir Andrew Aguecheek

However, the first act struggles to clearly set up the plot, ship wrecked girl decides to dress as boy, countess falls in love with ‘boy’….etc, etc. The portrayal of Malvolio as a self obsessed, pompous man, truly deserving of a plot to cause his downfall, fails to come across clearly. Fine, I hear you say, a director can only work with the clay he is given, but to have major characters delivering important plot lines as they exeunt upstage, left or right is truly unforgivable.

Miltos Yerolemou brings boundless energy to the pivotal role of Feste

Richard McCabe as Sir Toby Belch rehearses a scene with Feste

The closing scenes of the first act and the entire second act truly hit their stride; the setting up of Malvolio for his down fall is truly comedic measured by any yardstick. Having said this, unfortunately for me, Richard Wilson is cursed by his deserved success as the TV character Victor Meldrew. At times it felt as if Victor was playing the part of Malvolio, so alike are the characters. Nevertheless, I was reminded that Malvolio is both a far more presumptuous and a more put-upon figure than Victor Meldrew ever was.

Richard Wilson shares a humourous moment with Miltos Yerolemou

Having had my little whinge I have to say that this is a solid production. It’s a mixture of a lot of pleasure and a bit of pain: for half the time, at least, Doran gets the balance about right. There was much to enjoy here and I did, particularly once the scattershot first half was over.

Alexandra Gilbreath receives direction from Greg Doran in her role as Olivia

and the rain it raineth every day....

2009-10-19T20:49:00.010+01:00

I'm probably at an age when I shouldn't really wish my life away. In fact it was pointed out to me earlier this evening, by one who claims a certain affection for me, that it is an extravagence I can ill afford to indulge in....laughing!
However, I care not, because on Saturday I'm going down to Stratford to see Twelfth Night, and Richard Wilson in a role he was surely born to play - Malvolio.
Richard is best known for his much-loved role of Victor Meldrew in the TV comedy series One Foot in the Grave for which he has won many awards including the British Comedy Awards Top Television Comedy Actor Award and two BAFTAs. His is a long and distinguished career as both actor and director in theatre, film and TV.
The strong cast includes Nancy Carroll as Viola and Alexandra Gilbreath as Olivia.

Here are some clips of One Foot in the Grave, showing Richard acting with a touch of Malvolio about him even in this TV series.....I DON'T believe it!....surely the war cry of we ageing baby boomers...!
I can hardly wait.....

A touch of the Freds

2009-10-12T17:46:00.008+01:00

This morning I picked up my 'white tie and tails' at my very favourite Savile Row tailor - Anderson & Sheppard. This company has been a leading Savile Row firm from its beginnings in 1906 and the fluid style of Per Anderson, trained by the great Frederick Scholte, was from the start the distinguishing feature of the house.
Concern with easy movement and a natural body line continues into 21st Century thanks to an unbroken transmission of skills. It is possible to visit their workrooms and see your suit in progress at 32 Old Burlington Street.

It was here in the 1930's that the carpet was famously rolled back so a certain Mr Fred Astaire could dance a little, and his tailor could make sure that the collar did not ride up or look unsightly.
The most glamorous and romantic evening wear of all, 'white tie and tails' is not only worn to the most glamorous and romantic evening parties (such as Willow's Grand Autumn Ball), but also to the most formal of evening occasions such as state banquets.
The white tie outfit consists of a black evening tailcoat, black dress trousers with a double braid down the outer seam, and a stiff-fronted shirt fastened with mother of pearl or gold studs and cufflinks.
The bow tie and waistcoat are both white pique, otherwise known as Marcella, to match the shirt front and shoes are black.

DJ at the RMA

2009-10-08T19:19:00.006+01:00

I came across these photos, while looking for my spats and they bring back such happy memories. They also show me wearing a VERY formal dinner jacket.....spats or a gaudy bow tie worn at your peril....laughing. My youngest son Chris had the honour to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the occasion was a Father's Dinner Night....and boy did they mean night!

These photos were taken way back in 1999....hard to believe!

By this time Chris had moved into Old College and was only 6 weeks away from the Sovereigns Parade where cadets are commissioned fully into the army. Their shoulder 'pips' indicating the lowly rank of second lieutenant are covered with cloth tape. On the stroke of midnight at the grand ball that follows, their partner to the ball is invited to remove the tapes. Parents and family are not encouraged to attend the ball...and is there any wonder....laughing.

The original design for Old College was drawn up by James Wyatt who also designed the RMA Woolwich building, but his design was adapted by John Saunders, architect to the Barrack Department of the War Office. The building was completed in 1812 by the builder Alexander Copeland for a final cost of some £350,000.

Above the Grand Entrance to Old College the pediment bears a roundel of the monogram of King George III flanked by Mars and Minerva, the gods of War and Wisdom.

Father & Son, both looking (and feeling) proud of each other

The cannon on each side of the steps include French guns captured at the Battle of Waterloo.

Me with officer cadets Chris, Steve and Tim, fellow members of Alamein Company. The rear of this photograph tells me it was taken at 3.30am...sheesh, I couldn't do that now!

The occasion involved us going straight to breakfast...at 5.30am, or so we thought. To 'blow off the cobwebs' guests were formed into ranks, marched three times around the parade ground and then into a hearty breakfast. We were assured by a very fearsome Company Sergeant Major Clarke that this was 'for your own good gentlemen'...gulp.

The custom of the Adjutant riding his horse (always a grey), up the steps at the end of the Sovereign's Parade dates from 1926 when Major (later Lieutenant General) F "Boy" Browning accomplished this feat, though there is no explanation for why he did this!

Have a great Friday all.

An afternoon in the Northern Quarter

2009-10-05T20:05:00.018+01:00

Yesterday afternoon was one of pure, lazy indulgence. My cheerful neighbour of two years 'Max the Italian' has decided he has had enough of a semi rural existence and so has bought himself a superbly renovated apartment in the lively Northern Quarter of Manchester. This isn't some dreaded mid-life crisis on his part, he is quite a few years younger than me. As he says, he has finally 'come out' and is a confessed 'metrosexual'. So a group of us wished him 'bon voyage' (any excuse), in what will become his new local, The Northern.

Recently stripped down and re-fitted by John Locke and Ray Cook, the Northern takes its place as part of that hub of drinkeries and late night dens that lie about Tib Street like luscious litter. The aim of the Northern is to become “a pub for all seasons and reasons”. Within the warmth of the pub you may be asked to become an Honorary Northerner, the pub’s innovative loyalty scheme.

The two rooms are built around a central rosewood bar, offering a wide range of drinks, with guest ales on pump changing weekly. The food is “gastro pub” in orientation, freshly prepared from locally-sourced produce by the in-house chef and star-to-be Rob Lamont. As well as great food and booze, and the finest company and conversation this planet has to offer, entertainment includes bands, DJs, cabaret, poetry and acoustic nights, as well as art installations…

More about the pub here.... http://www.thenorthernpub.co.uk/

The Northern Quarter has long been known as the 'creative quarter' of Manchester-the home of many fashion designers, creative agencies, art galleries and quirky retailers. Whilst these still remain, the area is growing in popularity with bars, restaurants and residential development. It is becoming the new vibrant area to live-work-play among many age groups-and is forming a contemporary and inspirational extension to the core of city centre Manchester. Sited between Piccadilly and the Ancoats, the Northern Quarter retains a unique character and charm, one set to continue through its ongoing development and regeneration. The Northern Quarter must be seen to be appreciated, the heart of the area is beating again with a vitality and personality second to none ...

Spats.........about a Grand Ball

2009-10-03T08:41:00.017+01:00

The invite to Willow's Grand Autumn Ball (a dance indeed!), had me searching my closets and loft for my spats.
The reason, I hear you ask?
Well, my lovely friend Jenny Seagrove has graciously accepted my invitation to the Ball, telling me she wouldn't miss it for the world.
She is so looking forward to meeting our Mid West hostess and enjoying the excitement of Willow Manor, as indeed am I.
However she accepts my invitation (as only a woman can), with three provisos:
I do NOT sing at any stage of the proceedings.
I do NOT tell jokes that make people groan (this may be a request too far!).
I wear my spats with my dinner jacket and black tie.....sheesh

So here are my spats and shoes polished to a military shine beyond the call of duty. When we cut a rug, Strictly Come Dancing will pale into insignificance....criticise us at your peril Mr Len Goodman...grinning.

Just one question dear Willow....
If you erect marquees on the rear lawn, will the excitement be intense?......groan.
Have a grand Saturday all.

A sheer delight....

2009-09-27T19:25:00.038+01:00

It is nice to finally tread on my own floor boards once again....

I sat down last evening, poured a glass of something reviving, lit a small cheroot (an absolute weekend treat) and tuned in to A Prairie Home Companion. One of the BBC digital radio channels (7) broadcasts the previous weeks US show - and I am absolutely hooked.

I was a fan from day one of the wonderful Lake Wobegone novels of Garrison Keillor. His humour is so dry, understated and not a little eccentric. The antics of the people of Lake Wobegon and it's surroundings are just so easy to laugh with, rather than at.

The radio programme is a wonderful mix of music, the driest humour, sage advice and anecdotes. My apologies to any Americans reading - I'm sure you know all this already....lol.

Here he talks about the rising genre of 'old' radio shows.

As he says at the end of the show.....

Lake Wobegon,
Where the women are strong,
The men are good looking
and the children are above average.......

Have a grand week all.......

So farewell then Keith Floyd....

2009-09-15T19:12:00.004+01:00

From the BBC News files today.......

The biggest names in TV cooking have paid tribute to the pioneer of the modern show, Keith Floyd, who has died after a heart attack at the age of 65.

Jamie Oliver said Floyd had been "not just one of the best, he was the best television chef", and Nigel Slater said his shows had been "a joy to watch".

Floyd found fame in the 1980s, hosting shows filmed around the world with wine-glass in hand and huge enthusiasm.

He enjoyed a last meal of oysters, shrimp and partridge, with champagne.

Heston Blumenthal said he had forever "changed the path" of food programmes.

His eccentric, often shambolic style of presentation endeared him to millions of viewers worldwide.

"Keith Floyd was responsible for helping to break down many of the barriers of cooking," said Slater.

"His freeform, somewhat casual style at the stove made cooking look easy, and encouraged people to have a go."

Blumenthal, who runs the three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, said that Floyd's love of food "jumped out of the screen".

He said: "He'll be sorely missed by everyone. His influence on the way that cooking and food television programmes are made - it changed the path of that forever."

Floyd was born in Somerset and opened his first restaurant, Floyd's Bistro, in Bristol, at the age of 22.

Years later, it was while running another establishment near the BBC studios in the city that Floyd was discovered by television producer David Pritchard.

Their 1985 series, Floyd on Fish, was an instant hit, and subsequent series took the chef all over the world.

'Devil-may-care'

The programmes were ground-breaking at the time for taking the cooking out of a studio, but it was Floyd's wine-fuelled flamboyance that viewers loved.

Blumenthal on classic Floyd moments

"That was his charm, completely, the fact that if it all went wrong he just threw it in the bin and carried on," said TV chef Phil Vickery.

"He didn't live in the sanitised world of perfect studio cookery; he was out and about, he loved his drink and he loved engaging with other people."

Floyd wrote more than 20 books, many of them best-sellers. His autobiography, Stirred But Not Shaken, is due to be published next month.

Co-author James Steen said: "He was a very generous man, he was very kind and extremely sharp and witty.

"He knew how to eat well and he was able to convey that. He was a genius at what he did."

Gordon Ramsay called Floyd "a true original, a natural performer and a superb cook".

Celebrity chef Rick Stein's first television appearance was a brief contribution to Floyd on Fish in the 80s.

"At a time when I was experimenting with Provencal dishes like bouillabaisse and bourride, he was a Gauloise-smoking, red wine-drinking hero who had actually owned a restaurant next to the Mediterranean," said Stein.

"I never lost that awe of him. He was the first devil-may-care cook on TV who made cooking something that the boys could do too."

John Miles, who managed Floyd for 10 years, said that his former client "changed my hair colour in the time that I managed him".

"We had a lot of good times and quite a few differences of opinion," Miles said.

"He was quite a character. He was a very kind guy - he did have a monstrous side but I was lucky to know the very kind side."

'Loved and respected'

A lack of business acumen plagued Floyd throughout his career, and he went bankrupt in the 1990s reportedly after a £36,000 cheque he had accepted for a drinks bill bounced.

He was married four times, with a son from his first marriage and a daughter from his second.

His final television appearance came in Keith on Keith, shown on Channel 4 on Monday, in which actor Keith Allen tracked down and interviewed his hero.

After viewing the finished programme days earlier Floyd had e-mailed to say that he loved it, Allen said.

"In typical Keith fashion, he observed 'the only weakness in the show is a certain K. Floyd'.

"I hope it gave him some comfort in his last days to know that he was loved and respected by so many people."

"A little piece of Britain died yesterday which will never be replaced," said chef Marco Pierre White.

"He was an individual, he was a maverick, he was mercurial, he was magical, he was special, he was rare."

Chef Raymond Blanc said: "In his own characteristic way, Floyd was a genius."

Floyd died at his partner's Dorset home on Monday night, James Steen said. The chef had been diagnosed with bowel cancer in June.

...and finally Keith in his element, good food, the south of France and amongst the men who play the sport he loved..

Beatles by any other name

2009-09-10T20:56:00.006+01:00

Amidst The Beatles 40th Anniversary hub-bub I unearthed this gem by the late Cathy Berberian.......

...and of course Peter Sellers recites A Hard Days Night in the style of Laurence Olivier's Richard III

Grow up and enjoy your pudding...

2009-09-08T17:50:00.009+01:00

Sometimes words fail me...make the most of it...lol

The traditional suet pudding Spotted Dick has been renamed "Spotted Richard" at a council canteen - because customers keep making jokes. The new name for the dessert, with another alternative Sultana Sponge, has appeared on the menu at Flintshire Council headquarters in Mold.

The council said catering staff made the decision after "immature comments" and it was not a policy decision. But one councillor described the move as "political correctness gone mad". Staff from the nearby court complex in Mold also use the council canteen, (quite what the relevance of this is escapes me).

Spotted Dick is a steamed suet pudding containing dried fruit, and is thought to have originated in the middle of the 19th Century. The "spotted" part of the name refers to the currants, which resemble spots, and "Dick" is believed to derive from the word dough.

The council spokesman said: "The correct title for this dish is 'Spotted Dick.' However because of several immature comments from a few customers, catering staff renamed the dish 'Spotted Richard' or 'Sultana Sponge'.

"This was not a policy decision, canteen staff simply acted as they thought best to put an end to unwelcome and childish comments, albeit from a very small number of customers."

But Flintshire Councillor Klaus Armstrong-Braun (a fine Welsh name) criticised the ban on the original pudding name. He said he had made an official complaint about the name change which he called "ludicrous" and said had cost money because a new label was needed for the food.

The councillor said the bosses who had made the decision would soon be "frightened of their own shadow. People make silly comments about everything in life, there is no need to change the name over it."

This recipe comes from one of our up and coming chefs, James Martin, a no nonsense, straight talking Yorkshireman...

Ingredients For the spotted dick

300g/10oz plain flour
10g/2 tsp baking powder
150g/5oz shredded suet
75g/3oz caster sugar
110g/4oz currants
1 lemon, zest only
200ml/7fl oz milk
butter, for greasing

For the custard

200ml/7fl oz milk
200ml/7fl oz double cream
6 free-range egg yolks
75g/3oz caster sugar

Method

1. For the spotted dick, place the flour, baking powder, shredded suet, caster sugar, currants and lemon zest into a bowl and mix to combine.
2. Add the milk and stir to make a soft dough.
3. Grease a pudding basin with butter and spoon the mixture into the basin. Cover with a piece of folded greaseproof paper.
4. Tie around the edge with string to secure the paper and place a damp tea towel over the top. Tie once more with string to secure the tea towel.
5. Place the basin into a large lidded saucepan and fill the pan two-thirds of the way up with water.
6. Cover with the lid, bring to a boil and simmer for one hour.
7. For the custard, place the milk and cream into a saucepan and bring to a simmer.
8. Place the egg yolks and sugar into a bowl and whisk together until light and frothy.
9. Pour the hot milk onto the eggs, a little at a time, and stir well. Pour the mixture back into the pan and cook over a low heat, stirring with a wooden spatula, until just thickened.
10. To serve, slice a wedge of spotted dick for each person and place onto each of six plates. Pour over the custard and serve at once.

happy memories.......

2009-09-05T12:00:00.004+01:00

Last evening I sat down and enjoyed a movie I havent seen for 25 years.......ouch. My eldest son had watched it earlier in the week and told me how he remembered us watching it all those years ago, and more importantly I suppose, how important its message still is.

Directed by Bill Forsyth and produced by David Puttnam, the cast pulls off the character acting demanded by the plot superbly.

Local Hero spawned a series of imitations, creating a whole new genre of film—the wacky Scottish comedy...Built on a mountain of metaphysics, the movie demands a few leaps of faith that are a bit difficult to make. But the premise of a yuppie from Texas traveling to an isolated town in Scotland to make poor but savvy fishermen wealthy is hilarious in itself...

I will say no more......grinning........watch and enjoy and enjoy your Saturday.

.....prejudice without pride

2009-09-01T18:23:00.009+01:00

I cannot abide prejudice of any sort and today I took the opportunity to sign a petition that hopefully will do something about it, at least for one man and then belatedly.
I signed for two reasons.

Firstly, the disgusting way Alan Turing was treated by the British ruling classes of the day, shades of Oscar Wilde in Victorian times and secondly, this man did so much to add academic distinction to my alma mater.

So who was Alan Turing?

Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines.

However, he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing.

In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called On Computable Numbers, while in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.

After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.

There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

The petition was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.

An apology is being sought for the way the mathematician was treated after his conviction. He has also written to the Queen to ask for Turing to be awarded a posthumous knighthood.

Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment" and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

I doubt that an official apology to Alan Turing is likely, as he has no known surviving family, but I'm sure that the real aim of the petition is symbolic.

The most important thing to me is that people hear about Alan Turing and realise his incredible impact on the modern world, and how terrible the impact of British Government prejudice was on him.

of the desert, shipbuilding and Cheshire

2009-08-28T08:46:00.026+01:00

Many years ago, when I felt I had to try and read every book ever written (remember the feeling?), I battled my way through Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence. He remains one of the most engaging and enigmatic figures associated with the 20th century.

This prompted Henry, my paternal grandfather to tell me a story which fascinated me then and along with others, has done ever since.
After 12 years service in HM Royal Marines, including WW1, my grandfather took up a position with W.J.Yarwood & Sons, shipbuilders of Northwich, Cheshire. It was here that my grandfather met Lawrence and played a very minor part in maritime history.

Lawrence on the left at the shipyard, probably with one of the Yarwood brothers

Lawrence, a quiet man, introspective and shy, and having been hounded by the press was anxious to keep his identity secret, though of course he was instantly recognised by the landlord of the Crown and Anchor pub where he lodged and one or two employees at Yarwood’s as well.

My grandfather was one of those men and he told me how he would sometimes walk with Lawrence afterwork to the town bridge, where they parted company until the next day. I longed to know of the conversation they exchanged but all my grandfather said was that it amounted to nothing more than observations about the weather and the progress at work. One thing he did say with a twinkle in his eye was that Lawrence knew that my grandfather knew who he was and the fact remained unspoken.....such is life!

Fortunately no-one gave him away and journalists did not discover his visit until after he had left Cheshire.

So how was it that 'Lawrence of Arabia', under the psuedonym, Aircraftsman T.E.Shaw, came to work in Cheshire for a brief period in 1934 ?

The answer is, no-one knows for certain, even now over seventy years later.

Because of Lawrence’s involvement in the ship being built at Yarwood's, many theories have been put forward, and embroidered, about the Aquarius, the most popular that it was trialling top-secret radar tests. However, in 1934 this would have been highly improbable.

Another was that the Aquarius was conducting highly secret research in ASDIC, named after the 1917 Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee.

The most likely reason was as a result of an incident whilst he was stationed at a flying boat base in Plymouth Sound. A flying boat crashed into the water and the Admirality tenders were so heavy and slow that by the time they got to the wreckage, nine of the twelve crew had drowned.

Lawrence remained in Northwich for about three weeks and then stayed on board the Aquarius during the acceptance trials on the Mersey, after which she sailed to Plymouth. After taking on board stores and 'special equipment', Aquarius then made her 9,000-mile maiden voyage to Singapore, to serve as a depot ship for flying boats.

All we do know without doubt is where Lawrence of Arabia was for 3 weeks in 1934 - the rest I think, will forever remain a mystery.

Have a grand Friday all.......

...the case for the defence.

2009-08-14T17:54:00.013+01:00

I have no wish to add fuel to an all ready blazing fire, but I have been receiving some misinformed email traffic on this subject.

This article from tonight's London Evening Standard seems to sum up my feelings quite well - I too have experienced the US and UK systems and let's be honest, no system is ever perfect.

What a combination - Fox News and our very right wing Tory MP, Daniel Hannan !!! He can't even get on TV here.

Why America’s medical industry hates the NHS

Andrew Neather
14.08.09

Under normal circumstances, the spectacle of Gordon Brown using Twitter would offer the enticing prospect of more YouTube-style pratfalls.

But I'm glad the PM has twittered in defence of the NHS, following attacks on it from US Conservatives trying to discredit President Obama's health reform plans. And to those British Right-wingers chiming in, such as the Tory MEP Daniel Hannan, I'd just ask this: have they actually tried American healthcare?

Because I have, and for me that makes the choice between a US-style, largely private system and a socialised one such as the NHS very simple.

When I think of American healthcare, I think of my friend Andrew, gravely ill with a brain tumour, in a Houston hospital. He was in pre-op with his head shaved when the medics got a call from the accounts department: his insurance money was about to run out. So they got him up and dressed again.

He did get his operation a few days later-accounts had screwed up — but the money ran low soon afterwards. They gave him his X-rays and told him to get on a bus across town to a cheaper hospital. He died the following year, age 31. I had a similar, bare-bones student-health package to Andrew: his ordeal didn't make me feel any safer.

Then I think of my uncle John in Cheltenham, who succumbed to oesophageal cancer early this year. At his age, 79, and with the disease far advanced and spreading into his lungs by the time he realised there was a problem, there wasn't much the doctors could do. Still, he got pain relief, and soon after getting the diagnosis he had a stent put into his throat to help him eat. He died peacefully a month later in a hospice.

That for me is an eloquent refutation of the rubbish about the NHS now being peddled by US industry lobbyists and their Republican allies through TV attack ads and the like. They claim that our doctors let old people who could be treated die, that those over 59 are ineligible for heart treatment, that the NHS is “evil” and “Orwellian”.

They need treatment. At present in the US, 45 million people, nearly 15 per cent of the population, have no healthcare insurance at all. Some get basic care under the means-tested Medicaid scheme, while since 1986, everyone has in theory been eligible for emergency treatment, although if you try it, you're liable to be harassed for payment. Meanwhile, the elderly are paid for by Medicare and there is better treatment for military veterans.

Yet what most foreigners to the US don't realise is that even for those with health insurance, the US medical industry delivers a poor deal. Getting and keeping employer health insurance is a constant concern, especially for anyone changing jobs, or worried about their job security in the recession. Even then it's often not free, and insurance premiums have been rising rapidly in recent years. At least one couple I know tied the knot in a “blue card marriage”, so that one who was jobless got on their employed partner's health plan.

Everyday healthcare for most middle-class professionals is usually provided by a health maintenance organisation (HMO). HMOs effectively run private GP surgeries. I suffer from asthma: while I was working as a journalist in Detroit, my HMO would give me a brief appointment in a bare office with a clock-watching physician's assistant (a kind of glorified nurse — you rarely get to see an MD). It was similar even at my US university, Duke, home of a leading American teaching and research hospital: GP care consisted of a long wait to see a physician's assistant.

By contrast, my London GP is a real doctor, as are the rest of the GPs in the practice (indeed, she is a senior university lecturer in general practice). I can see her within a few days, or if it's for one of my children, the same day. She has come to our home to do the post-natal checks on all three of them.

It's the kind of personal care that most Americans can only dream of. It's not surprising that when, for example, I recount the excellent midwife care that my wife had for her three births, all at home, American friends' reaction is invariably: “And you didn't have to pay?”

The campaign against Obama's health reforms is straightforward and entirely self-interested. It is powered by private health industry dollars: the industry stands to lose a lot of money if it is forced to loosen its stranglehold on the nation's health. The US spent $2.2 trillion on healthcare in 2007, more than $7,400 per head of population, almost double the average for developed nations.

Somebody's getting fat off that wasteful spending and it's not ordinary Americans or the companies that employ them, for whom the cost of their health insurance contributions is often second only to their wage bill.

The same scare tactics worked last time — in 1993-94, when a multi-million-dollar lobbying and advertising campaign sank Hillary Clinton's modest health reform proposals. This time, the private health industry has already spent $1.2 million on TV ads alone, while its lobbyists pack out town-hall meetings.

Of course, the NHS is far from perfect. It took my uncle several worrying weeks to see a specialist. And the first hospital ward he ended up in was pretty grim, sharing with four other men.

At the same time, Tony Blair's obsessive urge to give more business to the private sector has created distortions, as has the culture of targets. Yet most waiting times have plummeted. It has cost more than it should have but the NHS, at least up until the spending crunch, had got steadily better.

Having experienced private US healthcare first-hand, I'm always a bit puzzled that people here aren't more worried about the chipping away of free NHS care by the whackier Blairites or Tories. I think it's because most Brits can't remember the pre-NHS era, now more than 60 years ago, and simply wouldn't believe just how crass fully privatised healthcare can be.

The poison now being spread in the US should be a reminder of the cynicism of much of the American health industry, poised to become one of the biggest private-sector players here. However bad the mags in the GP's waiting room, I'll take my chances with our brilliant NHS.

A beer with a Quiet Woman....

2009-08-07T12:50:00.010+01:00

I had some business in the lovely spa town of Buxton yesterday, set majestically in the Peak District, so I took the opportunity to lunch at a pub about which I have heard so much. It was well worth the 5 mile detour.

The Quiet Woman in the small village of Earl Sterndale is a traditional and unspoilt village pub of the type that is becoming increasingly harder to find.
Such pubs do not embrace modernity and still reflect their once central role in village life.
Nevertheless, most are clean, if somewhat basic. This pub has hard seats and plain tables and I was told with ill concealed glee that the 6' long table at which I was sat was once used as the local undertakers 'laying out' table...gulp. Nowadays it is used as the cribbage table.

The pub is reputed to be over 400 years old and was in the occupation of the the Heathcote family for over 300 years. The pub name is unusual with only two others in the country. It is said to refer to a too talkative woman who was decapitated as a consequence!

There is limited food available which includes fresh sandwiches and home made hot pork pies. On Tuesdays the pub doubles as a post office and local produce such as cheese and eggs can be bought during opening hours.

Fancy a beer and a chat anyone?

A Wednesday poem........

2009-08-05T18:01:00.004+01:00

I think this poem by John Betjemen evokes the spirit of a British summers day perfectly........the photo is of Anglesey Bay, North Wales.

A Bay In Anglesey
by John Betjeman

The sleepy sound of a tea-time tide
Slaps at the rocks the sun has dried,

Too lazy, almost, to sink and lift
Round low peninsulas pink with thrift.

The water, enlarging shells and sand,
Grows greener emerald out from land

And brown over shadowy shelves below
The waving forests of seaweed show.

Here at my feet in the short cliff grass
Are shells, dried bladderwrack, broken glass,

Pale blue squills and yellow rock roses.
The next low ridge that we climb discloses

One more field for the sheep to graze
While, scarcely seen on this hottest of days,

Far to the eastward, over there,
Snowdon rises in pearl-grey air.

Multiple lark-song, whispering bents,
The thymy, turfy and salty scents

And filling in, brimming in, sparkling and free
The sweet susurration of incoming sea.

for Promenaders....

2009-08-04T17:30:00.001+01:00

At last some kind soul has posted a clip from the Albert Hall concert.....

....anyone for a promenade?

2009-08-01T18:38:00.020+01:00

This year is the 115th year of the Promenade Concerts from the Royal Albert Hall, London. The series of concerts run between mid July and mid September each year. It is rightly billed as 'the world's greatest classical musical festival' and comprises over 70 concerts. The whole series of concerts are referred to as 'the Proms', those who attend are 'promenaders' and most who attend indulge in a little 'promming'.

Part of the Proms audience has always stood in the arena, directly in front of the orchestra, and many consider this the best position in the hall. These people are said to be promming. However, you can also stand high up in the Gallery and just let the sound drift up to you.

Today there are still over 1,000 standing places available at each Prom. The traditionally low prices allows folks to enjoy world-class concerts for just £5!

Although the scope of the Proms has increased enormously since 1895, Henry Wood's original concept for the season remains largely unaltered: to present the widest possible range of music, performed to the highest standards, to large audiences. All concerts are broadcast live on radio and many live on TV.

Last evening I enjoyed the concert broadcast on TV: Classic MGM Film Musicals. John Wilson and his hand-picked Orchestra celebrated 75 years of MGM musicals with songs from unforgettable movie classics, including The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, The Harvey Girls, Brigadoon, High Society, The Band Wagon and Singin’ in the Rain. Amazingly, although all the original orchestral parts were lost when the studio destroyed its music library to make way for a car park, Wilson has succeeded in reconstructing the scores by painstakingly transcribing each soundtrack by ear. He was joined by starry singers from the classical and musical theatre worlds;

Kim Criswell vocalist
Sarah Fox soprano
Sir Thomas Allen baritone
Curtis Stigers vocalist
Seth Macfarlane singer

Maida Vale Singers
John Wilson Orchestra
John Wilson conductor

So farewell then Sir Bobby.........

2009-07-31T18:21:00.002+01:00

Not wishing to sound maudlin but this morning England lost one of its true Knights of the Realm after a long and dignified battle against cancer - Sir Bobby Robson, once manager of the England football team and so much besides.

Sir Bobby was indeed a true and gentle knight, quietly spoken, gifted, dry humoured and above all, a gentleman in every sense of the word......

We shall not see his like again.

begging a pardon..........

2009-07-29T18:23:00.006+01:00

I had reason to beg someones pardon this morning....and I was reminded of this wonderful scene from Shakespeare's Richard II.
In this authentic production by the Globe Theatre production back in 2003, Liam Brennan was Henry IV, the late Bill Stewart was the Duke of York, Peter Shorey was the Duchess of York, and Chu Omambala was the Duke of Aumerle.

Fine acting indeed......and the superb Mark Rylance as Richard reflects upon the meaning of his life...

and a rousing ending.....have a grand Wednesday nice people.

....time passes, listen, time passes.

2009-07-21T15:57:00.007+01:00

While I have been out and about this week I have been playing Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas - a perfect antidote to motorway driving.
An all-seeing narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of an imaginary small Welsh village, Llareggub ("bugger all" spelt backwards – though re-spelt in early editions as Llaregyb so as not to offend).
Dylan Thomas was staying in New Quay, Wales one winter, he went out early one morning into the still sleeping town and verses came to his mind about the inhabitants. It truly became what he called 'a play for voices' and a landmark in radio drama and theatre - it was eventually turned into a stage play.
The play was first broadcast (two months after his death) on 25 January 1954, and featured Richard Burton as 'First Voice'. There is a rich cast of characters that include Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, relentlessly bossing her two dead husbands; Captain Cat, reliving his seafaring times; the two Mrs Dai Breads; Organ Morgan, obsessed with his music; and Polly Garter, pining for her dead lover.
Later, the town wakes and, aware now of how their feelings affect whatever they do, we watch them go about their daily business. If you get the opportunity, enjoy this wonderful 'play for voices'. Have a grand midweek nice people, I'm about to grab some clean shirts and set off on my travels again.

...37...38....39....

2009-07-18T10:08:00.009+01:00

Last evening I sat down with a glass of Scottish wine and (dare I say it) a rather good cigar and watched my favourite Hitchcock movie.

Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll both give excellent performances in what is known (at least by the British) to be one of Hitchcock’s best films, wonderfully adapted by Charles Bennett from the novel by John Buchan.

For Mr Donat, The 39 Steps would be a crowning achievement in a regrettably short career, he died prematurely of an asthma attack. Ms Carroll was one of the fortunate actresses to make the transition from silent movies to talkies and would become the first of many blonde heroines to grace the screen in Hitchcock’s films. One can only imagine this attractive pairing in future Hitchcock movies. For me, this movie is the 1935 version of North by Northwest.

I'm sure most movie buffs know the plot, so I hope this clip of excerpts doesnt spoil things......

Have a pleasant Saturday nice people......

Still prattling on....

2009-07-16T20:06:00.002+01:00

Im still prattling on about Cricket.... I love this poem by Michael Laskey which seems to capture exactly my own thoughts on the afterlife. Its been a hard week (everybody say awww, poor Michael......lol). I promise something more constructive tomorrow...or possibly Saturday...or even Sunday.......lol.

ON HAVING GIVEN UP CRICKET

I shall play cricket in heaven
in return for the afternoons
gladly given to the other
pleasure of others’ leisure.

I shall walk, without haste, to the wicket
and nod to the angels kitted
in their whites waiting to discern
the kind of batspirit I am.

And one stroke in heaven, one dream
of a cover drive will redeem
every meeting of bat
and ball I’ve done without.

And I’ll bowl too, come on to bowl
leg-breaks with such control
of flight and slight changes of pace
that one over will efface

the faint regret I now feel.
But best of all I shall field:
alert in the heavenly deep,
beyond the boundary of sleep.

from 'Thinking of Happiness' (Peterloo, 1991).

Stands the church clock at ten to three, and is there honey still for tea?

2009-07-12T14:33:00.012+01:00

English weekend village cricket is reason enough to love living in this country. Although to be strictly accurate, the players may be drawn from outside of the village and the village itself is probably manfully fighting off the spread of suburbanization, (is that a word?).

Despite this, drive past any village on a summer weekend and there will be a patch of green with 22 slightly overweight and red-faced gentlemen standing and watching two people heft a wedge of willow at a lethally hard leather ball. Sometimes they will exclaim and make unfathomable hand gestures. Occasionally one will break into a comedic run attempting to field the ball, usually thankfully outpaced by the one or two eager fit young bloods on the team.

Although at my age I no longer play, it is the perfect spectator sport, not least because at most village games there is only a handful of spectators. No standing in line to buy a ticket for your seat: no tickets, indeed most often no seats--just turn up with your own folding chairs, or watch from your car parked near the edge of the ground.

No need to understand the rules, the rituals or the finer points of the game either. Baseball can entertain people like me who haven't the faintest idea of its niceties and Cricket can do the same. If it doesn't, take a walk round the ground and chat with the players' partners and kids, the handful of senior citizens, their wives and dogs who are probably the only people watching or not watching with you.

The sad thing, to my mind, is that so few visitors from abroad will ever set eyes on this English scene. It's often mocked, as if village cricket were the quaint and private preserve of the squire, the vicar, former prime minister John Major and genteel people eating cream teas in about 1913. Something from Midsomers Murders - not so. It's alive and well--far more so than the professionals' county game--and it is truly English.

Find the time, drag yourself away from lumpish Buckingham Palace and the summer tourist tat of Stratford-on-Avon. Pick a sunny weekend, drive into the country, ask around for a pretty nearby cricket ground, and go see. And, hell, if you don't enjoy it at least your drive will have shown you something of England beyond the raucous (sorry, "vibrant") and often ugly display of its cosmopolitan cities.

A cricket tea.
From left: be-jammed scones, chocolate biscuit cake (in squares), sliced lemon drizzle sandwich cake, clotted cream (in bowl), sandwiches aplenty, more scones and crisps.

If you are very lucky you may well be invited to enjoy a cricket tea, along with both teams and usually taken half way through the match. Did you know that Cricket is the only game in the world that has an official stop for 'tea'? See David Crosbys comment further down the page.....

Cricket teas are legendary.....

They embody the very niceness of English sporting endeavours (no doubt why we rarely lift a major trophy), what with all their 'no no, after you', cucumber sandwiches, china cups and Battenburg slices. All village cricket clubs are very egalitarian about their teas. There is a rota for every home match, and the nominated incumbent of the week (usually a wife, mother or girlfriend or group of the foregoing) goes off and spends their budget on whatever they see fit. Of course, home baked or home made food is relished with a keen eye and held in great esteem.

Just as a footnote, the CSN concert was excellent - an acoustic first set followed by an electrified set. Thoroughly enjoyable and plenty of encouragement to sing along. Graham Nash did mention he had spent the best part of Friday watching cricket, England v Australia, along with David Crosby. All Crosby said was, 'your nice people but you play a weird game'....laughing.

Home at last.......

2009-07-09T17:46:00.001+01:00

What a week...home at last and enjoying reading up in Blogland.

Hotel WiFi isn't what it's cracked up to be...lol.

Stay well nice people.

......and music is her name

2009-06-27T21:13:00.002+01:00

Three cheers Blackadder, I got me a ticket to see Crosby, Stills and Nash at the MEN Arena, Manchester on the 10th July.

Gap filling is still going on in my life.....lol.

I watched them this evening on tv, live from the Glastonbury Festival...fantastic.

OK, like me, they are older, carrying a little extra weight, hair thinning (apart from Nashy, he's just turned silver), - but their voices and musicianship remain as splendid as ever. As David said, 'Stephen writes the rock stuff, Graham writes the anthems and I write the weird shit'. It would be churlish to disagree.

Have a grand Saturday all.......I'm going for a beer.

A Wednesday poem by UA

2009-06-24T20:41:00.005+01:00

U A Fanthorpe (1929 - 2009) spent her earliest years in Kent. Detesting her first name Ursula, she insisted on, and was universally referred to as 'UA'.

She attended St Anne's College Oxford afterwards becoming a teacher and ultimately Head of English at Cheltenham Ladies' College. However, she only began writing when she turned her back on her teaching career to become a receptionist at a psychiatric hospital where her observation of the "strange specialness" of the patients provided the inspiration for her first book, 'Side Effects'.

Since that relatively late start, she was prolific, producing 9 full-length collections, including the Forward Prize-nominated 'Safe as Houses' and the Poetry Book Society Recommendation, 'Consequences'. She was awarded a CBE in 2001 and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2003.

Even at her darkest Fanthorpe's diction remains admirably understated and proverbial and for me is her main attraction. She regarded a poem "as a conversation between the poet and the reader" and for me, nowhere is this better exhibited than in this poem

Atlas
UA Fanthorpe

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

One plucking thing after another......

2009-06-23T20:39:00.005+01:00

Not my words nice people, but those of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and how they describe one of their concerts....

All I can say is that if you ever get the chance to see them dont hesitate, they take their musical performances very seriously but reinforce it with a very tongue in cheek sense of humour. They specialise in a wide-ranging roster of spectacular tunes, from Jerusalem to The Dambusters plus renditions from The Who and Sex Pistols.

Over the last twenty years the orchestra has toured Japan, US, Canada, and Europe. Albums include Precious Little, The Secret of Life, Top Notch and a large back catalogue of recordings including a 2005 DVD, Anarchy in the Ukulele, recorded at the Barbican in London.

This summer on the 18th of August, the orchestra is to make its debut at The Albert Hall Promenade Concerts and members of the audience are being asked to bring their own ukulele and create a "grand ukulele rendition" of Beethoven's classic Ode to Joy.

Sit back and enjoy your Tuesday

I nearly forgot Poetry Wednesday.....again.

2009-06-17T17:32:00.007+01:00

I never seem to travel through London Heathrow airport without this poem by Christopher Logue coming to mind.

London Airport
Christopher Logue

Last night in London Airport
I saw a wooden bin
labelled UNWANTED LITERATURE
IS TO BE PLACED HEREIN.
So I wrote a poem
and popped it in.

Logue contends that 'poetry cannot be defined, only experienced', and this short poem seems to illustrate his view. Did he write a poem of unrequited love, regret, sadness, desperation, good bye - or all or none of these things ?

Such a privately experienced poem, rather dated by the grandiose label on the wooden bin, but powerful nevertheless.

Any thoughts class?....smiling.

Apparently it was a Robin.....

2009-06-16T18:41:00.006+01:00

I was forced to splutter a little earlier whilst eating supper and listening to the BBC radio news....

Apparently a group of eminent academics have reached the conclusion that it was more likely a Robin that sang in Berkeley (pronounced Barklee) Square, and NOT the Nightingale of blessed memory.

Well ring ting and fiddledee dee.....where DO these people get off the bus?

I'm a little annoyed, can you tell?

Does it escape them that the song was written in 1940, in the middle of a war with London getting hit pretty badly, and that the song may contain just an element of irony?

OK, nowadays you would be lucky to hear any sort of birdsong in the square, above the roar of London traffic.

But that is not the point.

This is my particular favourite version by Anne Shelton...great balance between orchestra and voice....

Have a blameless Tuesday nice people....I feel better already.......smiling.

Lets do The Clerihew.....

2009-06-12T20:50:00.007+01:00

This evening, trawling the befuddled back waters of the English language, the Clerihew swam back into my mind. Many years ago I had an English master who was besotted with this poetic form. His name came up during a telephone conversation with a friend earlier this evening.

I can only conclude my frontal lobes did the rest! I thank you Mr Walton.

The form was invented by and is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley. As a student, Bentley invented the clerihew during his studies, and it was a great hit with his friends. The first use of the word in print was in 1928.

Bentley's friend, G. K. Chesterton, was also a practitioner of the clerihew and one of the sources of its popularity. However, other serious authors also produced clerihews, including W. H. Auden, and it remains a popular humorous form among other writers and the general public.

A Clerihew has the following properties:

It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; but it is hardly ever satirical, abusive or obscene

It has four lines of irregular length (for comic effect); the third and fourth lines are usually longer than the first two

The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme

The first line consists solely (or almost solely) of the subject's name.

They target famous individuals and reposition them in an absurd or commonplace setting, often with an over-simplified and slightly garbled description.

The unbalanced and unpolished poetic meter and line length parody the limerick, and the clerihew form also parodies the eulogy.

Here is a classic example;

Daniel Defoe

Lived a long time ago.

He had nothing to do, so

He wrote Robinson Crusoe

Let's have a go shall we?

Here is my attempt.....

Mr Samuel Pepys,
Wrote diaries in heaps
And with the newspapers read
He'd snuff out the candle, saying 'and so to bed'.

Don't be shy........lets do the Clerihew.....Have a grand Friday nice people.

In my day.....

2009-06-08T19:25:00.006+01:00

Yesterday my sons had me in fits of laughter reminding me of some of the 'parental' things I used to say to them, in fact I still do sometimes....lol.

The interesting thing is my parents said them to me and I swore I'd never say them to my own kids....

1. Of course it won't hurt.

2. Because I said so!

3. Wait until your Mother gets home!

4. We never had pocket money/record players/shoes when we were young.

5. Eat your food, there are kids starving in Africa.

6. Your face will stick like that if the wind changes.

7. I never did that when I was your age.

8. You don't know you're born.

9. No!

10. I remember when...

What did your parents say to you that you have said to your kids, or maybe still do?

Saturday morning musings........

2009-06-06T10:51:00.003+01:00

Scientists decoding the human genome have discovered that just 78 genes separate men from women. But what are they?

It's the Y chromosome which makes men men, and now scientists have a better idea than ever before what makes it up.

But lets help them on their way, and in an effort to help us all understand the differences between the sexes, here are my suggestions what those 78 genes might be.

Everyone's got their own ideas about it - even if it only involves relative abilities at reading maps and putting down toilet seats.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD TO THIS LIST.............he he (as I use the male 'and no, I'm not shouting' gene.....grinning)

SOME OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN

Women have the 'understand colour' gene. They seem to know what to wear all the time. Men have the 'red is nice, pink is nice, so why not have them together?' gene.

Men have the 'no opinions about drapes and curtains' gene.

Women have the 'Oh dear, the toilet paper is on its last sheet; must replace it immediately' gene. This is entirely absent in men who have the 'Oh s..t! Can you pass me a toilet roll, love?' gene!

Women have a 'built in calendar' gene - they remember birthdays, anniversaries and appointments effortlessly.

Women have the 'directional gene'. Ask a woman in the street how to get somewhere and she will direct via shops & stores. Ask a man and it will be via pubs and bars.

Men have the 'speak in sentences' gene. Women have the 'speak in paragraphs' gene.

Women have the 'all you want is a glass of wine, nodding sympathy and a good whinge' gene. Men have the 'offer a solution' gene.

If you told a woman that you had just returned from a trip to the surface of the Moon, she would show her interest by using the 'asking who you had gone with' gene.

Women are missing the 'parking a car in between two straight white lines in an empty car park' gene

Men have the 'when they want something they ask for it' gene. Women have the 'when they want something they make a point distantly related to the subject and wait for a response' gene.

Men have the 'sit in public places with their legs wide open without noticing how startlingly unattractive it is' gene.

Men have the 'ability to make a la, la, la, not listening face' gene.

Just a quick thank you.......

2009-06-04T19:09:00.004+01:00

I couldn't let this time of year go by without a heartfelt thank you to all our Allied forces who took part in the Normandy landings....mere boys most of them, but brave, brave and honourable all.

The above picture is me (on the left...smiling) and my father Henry, late of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards. My dad survived the retreat from Dunkirk, only to take part in the D Day landings and as he used to say with a wry smile, 'head in the general direction of Berlin.'

My eldest son Matt cleverly posed and took the photograph some 14 years ago, so we both had a flagpole growing out of our heads!

The family 'off the wall' humour gene is alive and well.

Lest we forget.

Wednesday poem...thank you for the days.

2009-06-03T20:57:00.009+01:00

I have been reading Philip Larkin again.
As ever, I find him challenging and absorbing, yet strangely not the least depressing, joyous almost.
He lifts my spirits and enhances my sense of direction, just as he did in my student days.
Time has crept up on me, distilling that broad sweep of the future into manageable, recordable days.
Read Larkin my friends, smile, and rejoice in your days.

Days
By Philip Larkin

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

One man and his toaster....

2009-06-01T17:41:00.008+01:00

I love my toaster, and for the last five years my toaster has loved me.

Its so simple....
So red....
So British...

But a cautionary note. Like most things we claim to embody 'Britishness', be it in the arts, engineering, style or design - it was conceived, designed and produced by an immigrant to our shores. Max Gort-Barten was born in 1914 in Essen, Germany, to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father who ran a company that produced wallets. He studied engineering, but as National Socialism gathered momentum in Germany his family decided that he would be safer leaving the country to work in his uncle’s chocolate factory in South Africa. In late August 1939 he flew to England, where he was to board ship for Port Elizabeth. But Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, and Gort-Barten was immediately interned.

Then, however, as a clearly friendly alien, he was sent to RAF Northolt, then to RAF Sandwich, where he worked as a civilian in Intelligence. He was subsequently transferred to aircraft production, and spent the rest of the war making and delivering parts for Spitfires at Essex Aero in Dagenham. In 1941, at the Locarno dancehall in Streatham, south London he met Hannah, who would become his wife. They were married in 1943, and three years later Gort-Barten’s family were able to join him in England.

Shortly after the Second World War Max Gort-Barten patented the Dual-Light, an electric fire with a double element, and named his new company in its honour. The name he chose, Dualit, has since become synonymous with solidly chic, hand-made kitchen products, particularly toasters and they continue to reflect an attitude that is fundamentally British. The toasters are still hand built in Croydon, south London and the base of each toaster is monogrammed by the assembler.

There is no high tech whizz bangery about these toasters. Bread is raised and lowered via a simple knob arrangement and when the toast is done and the ceramic elements turn off, it remains within the toaster, keeping it warm for up to 10 minutes. The timer is clockwork and half the fun is choosing the correct toast time, although toast can be raised and removed at any time.

With more than a passing nod to modern day energy issues, all parts are replaceable, including the effective ceramic elements and the machine can be adjusted to toast one, two or three slices of bread.

For me, this toaster, despite it's range of modern colours and finishes, is one of the few objects to survive the passing of the years with grace and style. The company remains family owned and goes from strength to strength.

I love my toaster.

Fred, Ginger...and family.

2009-05-30T10:25:00.005+01:00

Fred and Ginger, our local swans have made up their early year tiff ...and then some...! The seven cygnets were born in the reed bed island behind the old mooring stumps. Over the last few days they have taken to showing off their family on the main river.

The cygnets are thriving and Fred swells his chest with pride at his healthy family and charming wife. I noticed this morning that one of the cygnets was trying to hitch a ride between mum's wings - but Ginger was having none of it, you could almost hear her saying, 'this is for your own good little one.'

Fred, Ginger and family head back for home, quite at ease with the other river traffic and always ready for a tasty morsel from human hand.

Have a great weekend nice people.

Thank goodness...........

2009-05-28T18:07:00.001+01:00

THE HMUAN MNID

IS SO INTLLNIGEERT. IT QUILKCY

SVOLVES COLEMPX PLEBROMS SO TAHT

TEHY BAERLY REPEESRNT ANY PLEROBM AT

ALL.

Red Kite delight.........

2009-05-25T11:09:00.015+01:00

Yesterday the weather was glorious which made a trip over to the Red Kite feeding station at Rhayader in the Powys region of mid- Wales even more of a pleasure

The sheep that most Welsh hill farmers rely on for a living had been sheared (Shawn the Sheep....?...lol) the previous week and the sheep at Gigrin Farm were no doubt enjoying the sun on their back, like the rest of us. This photo is a view looking toward the village of Rhayader from Gigrin Farm.

Wales has a policy of dual language for highway and public signage. I bet you always wondered what 'Kite Feeding Station' was in the Welsh language! So many words, so few vowels...grinning.

The origins of the feeding station lie back in the foot and mouth outbreak of the early 1990's. The Red Kite is a scavenger and feeds on the inevitable carrion found in sheep rearing areas. Rarely will a kite kill prey and will often steal food from other birds. Subsequently, strict laws about the disposal of dead sheep decreased the chances of survival for the kite.

Back in 1993, hill farmer, the late Eithel Powell, noticed a decline in the number of kites roosting at Gigrin over the winter. He began to feed them with fresh rabbit meat - and the rest as they say is history. Numbers of kites roosting over winter have risen from a dozen in the first year to over 400 in recent winters.

The red kites at Gigrin are native to Wales and not introductions from continental stock. Recent DNA tests have revealed that all those tested were descendants of a single female! Feeding takes place at 2pm in winter and 3pm in summer.

As Mrs Powell pointed out to me, Welsh tongue in Welsh cheek, the kites don't know we change the clocks twice a year!

Sure enough at 3pm, the kites started to circle. Usually the crows come in to feed first as this shows the kites that all is safe. Some kites will then swoop in and grasp the meat in their talons, before making off with the meat held tightly between the tail.

Others will swoop low over the crows and will try to make them rise from the field with food, whereupon they can make chase and rob the crows in mid flight.

The meat being fed is beef, fit for human consumption and anything up to a quarter of a tonne of meat can be taken depending on the time of year and the number of kites visiting. Kites have been known to travel 30 miles to the feeding station.

The kites will then take the meat aloft to find clear airspace (otherwise they would be robbed by another kite) and true to their impressive abilities in the air, will eat the meat whilst flying.

You can learn more here: http://www.gigrin.co.uk/

The romance of a summer sport.......

2009-05-22T18:14:00.003+01:00

This poem is from a wonderful anthology called Line Drives, published by the Southern Illinois University Press.

I can honestly say I derive as much joy and entertainment from America's summer game as I do my own nation's summer game of Cricket.

Interchange the words - baseball, cricket; pitcher, bowler; batter, batsman and for me, this poem sums up either game.

The last two lines are beautiful and thought provoking, always making me think of how I live this life of mine.

Batter, Pitcher or Fielder, which one sums up the way you live your life?

I'm a Fielder - no doubt about it....grinning.

IT AIN'T OVER

Louise Greco

Baseball is something
like love. There's an elegance
about it -- a fine tension.

Fielders pluck comets
from thin and glorious air.
Pitchers make solid spheres
disappear. And batters smash meteors
with matchsticks.

But fielders also topple
over fences, sprawl empty-handed
in the dust. Pitchers throw wild.
And batters sometimes tilt
at windmills.

Yet they lean in -- watch -- wait.
They risk looking foolish
in order to be brilliant.

Unexpected laughter....and silence...

2009-05-21T11:23:00.006+01:00

The day Judi Dench was made a Dame, she was appearing at the Royal National Theatre as the female lead in Anthony and Cleopatra. This production raised no laughs which was hardly surprising, until the night they did experience an unscheduled titter.

On the evening of the day in question, the late Michael Bryant, playing Enorbarbus, turned upstage and muttered en passant, "Well I suppose a fuck is quite out of the question now".

An extra-textual remark, but such was Michael's never other than immaculate diction that it was heard clearly by the first ten rows of the audience.

Michael was a character actor of great virtuosity and a mainstay of our Royal National Theatre for over twenty five years. Always a man of diligence and modesty, he was one of a small group of English actors who elevated whatever production they happened to be in.

When he played Polonius to Daniel Day-Lewis's Hamlet (in 1989), he stunned audiences with a pause. Giving instructions to an aide, he suddenly stopped speaking and searched his mind for his place in the play. After a long wait, he said, ''Where did I leave?'' The actor playing opposite him reminded him, and Mr. Bryant continued the dialogue.

He had waited so long that the audience wondered if it was Polonius or Mr. Bryant who had forgotten his lines. Actually, Mr. Bryant was word perfect in his Shakespeare. As an actress said later, in admiration, ''Michael does that every night,'' and, in so doing, he added a new dimension to Polonius. No longer was he a fussbudget. In Mr. Bryant's interpretation, he was an immensely caring and distressed parent.

He remains a man I would have loved to meet in real life.

A poem for Wednesday......

2009-05-19T00:55:00.004+01:00

After yesterdays canter about magnetic alphabets and a recalcitrant hound, this poem selected itself.

As ever, Wendy Cope appears to say it all.

I have added the recipe to my 'experimental' list....many thanks Bekkie and Jacqueline, yum indeed. The beer before bed will not pose a problem...lol

Catcheeks....I'm seeing a marketing opportunity and a unique selling point for Poop Post -Its...lol.

Willow...now would I have a fridge magnet alphabet set just for me.....?.....sheesh...lol.

J B-B....Bodie asked me to let you know he is just finishing his first novel and will turn to poetry where 'the medium is the message', shortly.

Derrick, Bodie did have a problem getting some of his words out, but I verge now on the distasteful.

I'm starting to laugh at my own jokes so time to exit stage right...thank you all for your dry witted comments.

It's nice to have fellow travellers....lol

Kindly leave the stage.....

2009-05-18T22:29:00.003+01:00

Bodie has eaten a complete fridge magnet alphabet set - he keeps leaving me little messages all over the house.

OK, I'm home late, uninspired and hungry....lol.

Enjoy your day / evening nice people.

The patriots of Wooton Basset.......

2009-05-14T11:29:00.008+01:00

One of Britain's newest traditions was carried out again yesterday. The tiny town of Wooton Bassett in Wiltshire turns out to welcome home military heroes from Iraq or Afghanistan. But, sadly, those heroes have all come home in coffins.

Since 2007, RAF Lyneham, near the town, has been the main base for repatriated service personnel. So when their hearses pass slowly through the streets, members of the public and military personnel (both serving and former) line the streets in silence, the military personnel saluting as the hearses pass by. Tragically, since 2007, this new tradition has been carried out 72 times.

Yesterday the town welcomed back four heroes, including a Ghurka. Those who returned home are Sergeant Ben Ross, of the Royal Military Police; Rifleman Adrian Sheldon, of 2nd Battalion The Rifles; Corporal Sean Binnie of Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland; and Corporal Kumar Pun, of 1st Battalion The Royal Ghurka Rifles.

The four brave soldiers died in a single day of bloody fighting in troubled Helmand Province. The last time there was such large a loss of life for British forces in a single day was in June 17 last year, when four soldiers were killed.

The servicemen's bodies were flown back to the UK in a Hercules aircraft, which landed at RAF Lyneham, Wilts, at around 10am yesterday. A procession then made its way along the A3102 - the road now dubbed the 'Highway for Heroes' - following a fly-by and memorial service at the base. The High Street was brought to an emotional standstill at 2.45pm as the four coffins, draped with Union flags, were paraded slowly past.

Poetry Wednesday.....

2009-05-13T00:23:00.003+01:00

Another day, another poem, I got my days mixed up - it's an age thing! Taking my lead from Jacqueline over at Love-Beauty-Simplicity, another poem with the theme of women in the world....

Why Dorothy Wordsworth is not as Famous as her Brother
By Lynn Peters

'I wandered lonely as a . . .
They're in the top drawer, William,
Under your socks -
I wandered lonely as a -
No not that drawer, the top one.
I wandered by myself -
Well wear the ones you can find,
No, don't get overwrought my dear,
I'm coming.'

'I was out one day wandering
Lonely as a cloud when -
Soft boiled egg, yes my dear,
As usual, three minutes -
As a cloud when all of a sudden -
Look, I said I'll cook it,
Just hold on will you -
All right. I'm coming.

'One day I was out for a walk
When I saw this flock -
It can't be too hard, it had three minutes.
Well put some butter in it.
-This host of golden daffodils
-As I was out for a stroll one -

'Oh you fancy a stroll, do you.
Yes, all right William. I'm coming.
It's on the peg. Under your hat.
I'll bring my pad, shall I, in case
You want to jot something down?'

A Tuesday poem.........

2009-05-12T01:00:00.002+01:00

A Tuesday poem by my favourite modern British poet, Hugo Williams. As ever, Hugo manages to take the mundane, usually in the form of recollections and turn them into metaphor which reaches out and touches us individually.

This poem never fails to remind me of my dear father and the day I learned to ride a bicycle.

Now That I Hear Trains

Now that I hear trains
whistling out of Paddington on their way to Wales,
I like to think of him, as young as he was then,
running behind me along the sand,
holding my saddle steady
and launching me off on my own.

Now that I look unlike
the boy on the brand new bike
who wobbled away down the beach,
I hear him telling me: “Keep pedalling, keep pedalling.”
When I looked over my shoulder
he was nowhere to be seen.

Shower alone.....argue later......

2009-05-11T18:38:00.012+01:00

HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A WOMAN:

Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks.

Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown. If you see partner along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

Look at your womanly physique in the mirror, make mental note to do : more sit-ups/leg-lifts, etc.

Get in the shower.

Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.

Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.

Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.

Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner.

Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red.

Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and Jaffa cake body wash.

Rinse conditioner off hair.

Turn off shower.

Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower.

Spray mould spots with Tilex.

Get out of shower.

Dry with towel the size of a small country.

Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.

Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head. If you see partner along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A MAN:

Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile.

Walk naked to the bathroom.

If you see partner along the way, shake wiener at her while making the woo-woo sound.

Look at your manly physique in the mirror. Admire the size of your wiener and scratch your butt.

Get in the shower. Wash your face. Wash your armpits.

Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse the snot off.

Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.

Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.

Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the soap.

Wash your hair. Make a shampoo Mohawk.

Pee.

Rinse off and get out of shower.

Partially dry off.

Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of tub the whole time.

Admire wiener size in mirror again.

Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on.

Return to bedroom with towel around waist.

If you pass partner, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and make the woo-woo sound again.

Throw wet towel on to her pillow.

Have a great week all......................and woo.......woo

My kinda guy.....

2009-05-09T14:02:00.006+01:00

This is the on-line job application that a 75-year-old pensioner submitted to the B & Q store in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. This store chain has an admirable history of employing senior citizens..
They hired him because he was so funny.....

NAME:
Kenneth Way (Grumpy Bastard)

SEX:
Not lately, but I am looking for the right woman (or at least one who will cooperate)

DESIRED POSITION:
Chief Executive or Managing Director. But seriously, whatever's available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn't be applying in the first place - would I?

DESIRED SALARY:
£150,000 a year plus share options and a Tony Blair style redundancy package. If that's not possible, make me an offer and we can haggle.

EDUCATION:
Yes.

LAST POSITION HELD:
Target for middle management hostility.

PREVIOUS SALARY:
A lot less than I'm worth.

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT:
My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

REASON FOR LEAVING:
It was a crap job.

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK:
Any.

PREFERRED HOURS:
1:30pm - 3:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?:
Yes, but they're better suited to a more intimate environment.

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?:
If I had one, would I be here?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 lbs.?:
Of what?

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?:
I think the more appropriate question here would be "Do you have a car that runs?"

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?:
I may already be a winner of the Reader's Digest Timeshare Free Holiday Offer, so they tell me.

DO YOU SMOKE?:
On the job - no! On my breaks - yes!

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?:
Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy Swedish supermodel with big boobs and who thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Actually, I'd like to be doing that now.

NEAREST RELATIVE?:
7 miles away.

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR
KNOWLEDGE?:
Oh yes, absolutely.

In black and white.......

2009-05-08T00:11:00.000+01:00

When you first visit Little Moreton Hall in south Cheshire you could be forgiven for thinking you had walked onto the set of a Disney epic. It is arguably the finest half-timbered manor in England - certainly it is one of the most heavily photographed!
The house is set around three sides of a cobbled courtyard and ringed around by a moat. The half-timbering is fanciful, delightfully ornate. The upper stories of the house project out over the base, and the small windows boast an enjoyable variety of Tudor glass.

At the junction of the east wing and the great hall there is a large pair of gabled bay windows, over which the carpenter who designed them carved his name with the following inscription:

"God is Al in Al Thing: This windous whire made by William Moreton in the yeare of Oure Lorde MDLIX. Richard Dale Carpeder made thies windous by the grac of God."

Click on the photo for a better view.

Little Moreton was built between 1450 and 1580 by the Moreton family, but little remains to preserve their memory. The fortunes of the Moreton family declined with the outbreak of the English Civil War. Strong supporters of the Royalist cause, they found themselves isolated in Cheshire, a county of the Parliamentarian persuasion.

The house was requisitioned by Parliamentarians and used to billet Cromwell's soldiers. The Moretons survived the Civil War with their ownership of Little Moreton intact, but financially they were crippled. Their fortunes were never to fully recover.
By the beginning of the 18th century, the mansion was let to tenants as a farmhouse. Much of it was unoccupied and used for storage, the deconsecrated chapel being used for the storage of coal. By the 19th century, the house was in a ruinous condition, its windows boarded up and its roof caving in.

The building was never again occupied by the Moreton family. In 1912, Elizabeth Moreton bequeathed the house to a cousin, Charles Abraham, Bishop of Derby, with the stipulation that the house must never be sold. Abraham continued the preservation effort until 1938, when he and his son transferred ownership to the National Trust.

Other authentic features of the grounds include a yew tunnel and an orchard growing fruits which would have been familiar to the house's Tudor occupants – apples, pears, quinces and medlars. There are no corridors within the house; each room leads directly into the next, and the floors are connected by compact spiral staircases.

During the 20th century, the long-abandoned gardens were returned to their Tudor condition. The knot garden was replanted in the early 1980s, to a design taken from Meager's Complete English Gardener, published in 1672. The intricate design of the knot can be viewed from one of the two original viewing mounds, a feature common in 16th-century formal gardening.

The lack of interior furnishings allow visitors to see the wonderful plasterwork and wall paintings, including those in the long gallery. Sadly, interior photography is verboten, but I always was a rebel!

The distinctive black and white colour scheme so typical of houses dating from the Tudor period is not authentic but a product of 19th century Victorian romanticism. Originally the oak beams were allowed to fade naturally to silver-grey, and the wattle-and-daub was painted or stained a light shade of ochre.

Another practice of Tudor property owners was to remove and store the glass windows if the house was to be left unoccupied for any length of time. It was also not unusual for a property to be willed to one party whilst the glass was willed to another. I cant help but smile at the problems this would have caused the family lawyers of the time.

Have a blameless Friday nice people.

They came just after dark.........

2009-05-07T12:57:00.002+01:00

I was up early this morning, reading through some books for some background material I wanted. You know how it is when you go to bed with something on your mind....smiling.

During my skim reading, I came across what for me is one of the most graphic pieces of writing about the blitz on London during World War II. This truly is an outstanding piece of narrative writing.

I think it’s journalism at its very, very best.

Ernie Pyle was an American journalist and was one of World War Two's most popular correspondents. His journalism was characterized by a focus on the common soldier interspersed with sympathy, sensitivity and humour. He witnessed the war in Europe from the Battle of Britain through the invasion of France. In 1945 he accepted an assignment to the Pacific Theatre and was killed during the battle for Okinawa. Here, he describes a night raid on London in 1940.

"It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.
They came just after dark, and somehow you could sense from the quick, bitter firing of the guns that there was to be no monkey business this night.
Shortly after the sirens wailed you could hear the Germans grinding overhead. In my room, with its black curtains drawn across the windows, you could feel the shake from the guns. You could hear the boom, crump, crump, crump, of heavy bombs at their work of tearing buildings apart. They were not too far away.
Half an hour after the firing started I gathered a couple of friends and went to a high, darkened balcony that gave us a view of a third of the entire circle of London. As we stepped out onto the balcony a vast inner excitement came over all of us-an excitement that had neither fear nor horror in it, because it was too full of awe.
You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the whole horizon of a city lined with great fires - scores of them, perhaps hundreds.
There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of it.
The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valour, only to break out again later.
About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over. The motors seemed to grind rather than roar, and to have an angry pulsation, like a bee buzzing in blind fury.
The guns did not make a constant overwhelming din as in those terrible days of September. They were intermittent - sometimes a few seconds apart, sometimes a minute or more. Their sound was sharp, near by; and soft and muffled, far away. They were everywhere over London.
Into the dark shadowed spaces below us, while we watched, whole batches of incendiary bombs fell. We saw two dozen go off in two seconds. They flashed terrifically, then quickly simmered down to pin points of dazzling white, burning ferociously. These white pin points would go out one by one, as the unseen heroes of the moment smothered them with sand. But also, while we watched, other pin points would burn on, and soon a yellow flame would leap up from the white centre. They had done their work - another building was on fire.

The greatest of all the fires was directly in front of us. Flames seemed to whip hundreds of feet into the air. Pinkish-white smoke ballooned upward in a great cloud, and out of this cloud there gradually took shape - so faintly at first that we weren't sure we saw correctly - the gigantic dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.
St. Paul's was surrounded by fire, but it came through. It stood there in its enormous proportions - growing slowly clearer and clearer, the way objects take shape at dawn. It was like a picture of some miraculous figure that appears before peace-hungry soldiers on a battlefield.
The streets below us were semi-illuminated from the glow. Immediately above the fires the sky was red and angry, and overhead, making a ceiling in the vast heavens, there was a cloud of smoke all in pink. Up in that pink shrouding there were tiny, brilliant specks of flashing light-antiaircraft shells bursting. After the flash you could hear the sound.
Up there, too, the barrage balloons were standing out as clearly as if it were daytime, but now they were pink instead of silver. And now and then through a hole in that pink shroud there twinkled incongruously a permanent, genuine star - the old - fashioned kind that has always been there.
Below us the Thames grew lighter and all around below were the shadows - the dark shadows of buildings and bridges that formed the base of this dreadful masterpiece.
Later on I borrowed a tin hat and went out among the fires. That was exciting too; but the thing I shall always remember above all the other things in my life is the monstrous loveliness of that one single view of London on a holiday night - London stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pin points of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. And in yourself the excitement and anticipation and wonder in your soul that this could be happening at all.
These things all went together to make the most hateful, most beautiful single scene I have ever known."

A load of old codswallop......

2009-05-06T08:56:00.007+01:00

I was going to write about Cumberland wrestling and those who indulge in the sport. However....every time I look at the above picture I burst out laughing. Look closely at that fine figure of a wrestling man. Gaze at the errr.....uhmmmm............aaagghhh.... 'protuberance' in his natty and stylish blue shorts. Methinks this may well be a 'codpiece', although dear reader, this is purely conjecture on my part.

But I digress and will now attempt to inject some scholarship and erudition into this blog - ladies please tear your gaze away from that cross stitched Adonis.
In Middle English, "Cod" (or "Codd" in Old English) meant "bag" or "scrotum". As time passed, codpieces were shaped to emphasize the male genitalia and eventually often became padded and bizarrely shaped. They also often doubled as a pocket, a handy carrying place for a variety of items such as coins and snuff.
At first, the codpiece was entirely a practical matter of modesty. Men's hose were typically very snug on the legs and open at the crotch, with the genitalia simply hanging loose under the doublet. As changing fashions led to shorter doublets, the codpiece was created to cover the crotch.

Enough is enough.......

The most accepted definition of codswallop is....

'When cod was landed it went into the sheds for cleaning & preparation. The cold & wet waste trimmings from what were large fish would hit the ground with a distinctive sound, "wallop". By association, the word codswallop became used for any significant amount of sloppy rubbish & from there, for signifcant spoken/written rubbish.'

So, as you see, it fits this posting perfectly. Have a grand downhill day all.

Ethical drinking

2009-05-05T20:15:00.007+01:00

Bottled water just doesn't add up. 'It struck me that all you had to do is take the water out of the ground and then sell it for more than the price of wine, milk or, for that matter, oil,' an ex-CEO of Perrier once said, providing a rather revealing industry snapshot. It takes 1.6 litres of water to produce every litre you buy. Celebrities like Paris Hilton give bottled water to their dogs (she buys a brand called Bling h2O at $550 a case), yet 1bn people worldwide don't have access to safe or clean water at all. That's why this summer you should favour bottles that 'give something back'. Frank Water (www.frankwater.com) funds 200 litres of clean water in the developing world for every litre it sells, and One (www.onedifference.org/uk/water/) and Belu (www.belu.org) use all their profits to pay for clean-water schemes. However, because the single-use plastic water bottle now accounts for 500,000 tonnes of non-biodegradable rubbish per year in the UK, the real ethical summer drink is good old tap water in a 'sustainable receptacle' - Woody Harrelson carries his in a glass jar. This is a pretty heavy option, but as single- use bottles may leach a chemical that disrupts your hormone cycle, search for containers such as flasks made from less harmful plastics like HDPE, LDPE, polypropylene and polyethylene. Plastics aren't always stated on the labels, so unless your container says otherwise, assume the worst and research alternatives online. If you don't mind people thinking you're about to undergo a blood transfusion, Platypus makes reusable and lightweight polyethylene hydration packs or go for a Nalgene or Sigg bottle. Better still, support the communal approach, stopping to drink from any remaining drinking fountains. They are one of the last (diminishing) symbols of sustainable H2O.

Attention all shipping......

2009-05-02T10:49:00.012+01:00

Unlikely as it may seem, the BBC Shipping Forecast is a national institution.

It is broadcast four times a day and provides detailed information on the condition of seas and coastal waters surrounding the UK and beyond for sailors and coastal dwellers alike. For sailors it provides a necessary and vital vehicle for their safety, for others it has a more mystical potency.

With our island status and strong historical links to the sea, the UK has a traditional interest and respect for all things maritime. The Shipping Forecast attracts hundreds of thousands of listeners who have no direct need for its meteorological guidance and encapsulates the mystery, power and romanticism inherent with living on an island country.

I particularly find the well-known repetition of the names of the sea areas almost hypnotic, particularly during the bedtime (for Britain) broadcast at 00:48 UK time.

Controller of BBC Radio 4 Mark Damazer describes the Shipping Forecast as a prose poem saying;

“It scans poetically. It’s got a rhythm of its own. It’s eccentric, it’s unique, it’s English. It’s mysterious because not many know where these places are, it takes you to a faraway place you can’t truly comprehend.”

The forecast for each shipping area is read out according to a strict format.

Gale warnings (winds of force 8 or more, on the Beaufort scale), if any (e.g. There are warnings of gales in Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, and Fair Isle). This sometimes follows the opposite format (e.g. There are warnings of gales in all areas except Biscay, Trafalgar and Fitzroy).

The General Synopsis follows, giving the position, pressure (in millibars) and track of pressure areas (e.g. Low, Rockall, 987, deepening rapidly, expected Fair Isle 964 by 0700 tomorrow).

Each area's forecast is then read out. Several areas may be combined into a single forecast where the conditions are expected to be similar. Wind direction is given first, then strength (on the Beaufort scale), followed by precipitation, if any, and (usually) lastly visibility.

Change in wind direction is indicated by veering (clockwise change) or backing (anti-clockwise change). Winds of above force 8 are also described by name for emphasis, e.g. Gale 8, Severe Gale 9, Storm 10, Violent Storm 11 and Hurricane force 12.

The word "force" is only officially used when announcing force 12 winds.

Visibility is given in the format Good, meaning that the visibility is greater than 5 nautical miles; Moderate, where visibility is between 2 and 5 nautical miles; Poor, where visibility is between 1000 metres and 2 nautical miles and Fog, where visibility is less than 1000 metres.

When severe winter cold combines with strong winds and a cold sea, icing can occur, normally only in sea area Southeast Iceland; if expected, icing warnings (light, moderate or severe) are given as the last item of each sea area forecast.

The forecast is then read out in the following typical format:

Humber, Thames. Southeast veering southwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later. Thundery showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor.

The Shipping Forecast has also inspired writing, painting and photographic collections and notable inclusion in contemporary poetry.

Seamus Heaney wrote a sonnet "The Shipping Forecast", which opens:

Dogger, Rockall, Malin, Irish Sea:

Green, swift upsurges, North Atlantic flux

Conjured by that strong gale-warming voice,

Collapse into a sibilant penumbra.

The Carol Ann Duffy poem "Prayer" finishes with the lines:

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer —

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

I wish you all fair weather and a pleasant weekend.

Just a footnote, the reading of the forecast is not accompanied by music as in the YouTube clip.

Happy May Day all....

2009-05-01T11:12:00.007+01:00

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-Year;
Of all the glad New-Year, mother, the maddest merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

from The May Queen by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Still coping with Ms Cope....

2009-04-30T20:45:00.005+01:00

Regular readers of this trash pile will know of my admiration for the poetry of Wendy Cope.

Her ability to 'write for women', whilst secretly knowing that men will read too and squirm in recognition, never ceases to make me smile and yes, squirm.

It took me a long, long time before I could forgive her for rhyming Byronic with ironic, to say naught of tonic - but what the hell do I know - I'm a man.

In the light of myself and several fellow bloggsters dipping a toe into the poetry pool, and speaking personally, I couldn't help but be amused by this poem.

Triolet

Wendy Cope

I used to think all poets were Byronic--

Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

And then I met a few. Yes it's ironic--

I used to think all poets were Byronic.

They're mostly wicked as a ginless tonic

And wild as pension plans. Not long ago

I used to think all poets were Byronic--

Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

With a history going back at least to the thirteenth century, triolets are short, usually witty poems.

The name comes from the repetition of the key line three times (French "tri").

Of the triolet's eight lines, the first line is used three times and the second line is repeated once.

So the requirement for rhyme words is easy, and the eight lines really come down to only five different ones - easier than it seems at first - possibly!...grinning.

A poem for Wednesday

2009-04-29T18:54:00.005+01:00

What a wonderful sunny morning.
I took an early stroll along the riverside, misty and calm.
My heart fills with admiration for those university rowing crews out training on the river and
the muse descends.
My first blog poem.....

River Walk - Early

The river beckons,
Long sleek wooden forms slide.
The swift, silent forward surges,
then short stillness
whilst minds and bodies reconvene.
The sharp calls of persistant, encouraging people,
facing the wrong way,
who watch the symmetry
of those who grunt and strain.
The swans knowingly ignore it all
and ride the temporary waves,
Such is it in life,
be it on river or bank.

Male education....a life long process

2009-04-28T20:08:00.001+01:00

A new two-year higher degree is being offered by the University of Manchester, England, this coming Autumn. Details have been released now due to the anticipated heavy demand. In the interests of educational and academic balance, blog readers are invited to suggest titles for any further modules that may have been overlooked.

Becoming a Real Man. MA degree (Male Arts).

Program outline.

FIRST YEAR

Autumn Schedule:
MEN 101 Combating Stupidity
MEN 102 You Too Can Do Housework
MEN 103 PMS - Learn When to Keep Your Mouth Shut
MEN 104 Women Do Not Want Sleazy Underthings for Christmas

Winter Schedule:
MEN 110 Wonderful Laundry Techniques
MEN 111 Understanding the Female Response to Getting in at 4am
MEN 112 Parenting: It Doesn't End with Conception
EAT 100 Get a Life, Learn to Cook
EAT 101 Get a Life, Learn to Cook II
ECON 001A What's Hers is Hers

Spring Schedule:
MEN 120 How NOT to Act Like a Complete Arse 'When You're Wrong'
MEN 121 Understanding Your Incompetence
MEN 122 YOU, the Weaker Sex
MEN 123 Reasons to Give Flowers
ECON 001C What Was Yours is Hers

SECOND YEAR

Autumn Schedule:
SEX 101 You CAN Fall Asleep without Sex
SEX 102 Morning Dilemma: If It's Awake, Take a Shower
SEX 103 How to Stay Awake After Sex
MEN 201 How to Put the Toilet Seat Down
Elective (See Electives Below)

Winter Schedule:
MEN 210 The Remote Control: Overcoming Your Dependency
MEN 211 How to Not Act Younger than Your Children
MEN 212 You Too Can Be a Designated Driver
MEN 213 Honestly, You Don't Look Like Tom Cruise
MEN 230A Her Birthdays and Anniversaries Are Important 1

Spring Schedule:
MEN 220 Omitting the 'f' word from Your Vocabulary(Pass/Fail Only)
MEN 221 Fluffing the Blanket After Farting Is Not Necessary
MEN 222 Real Men Ask for Directions
MEN 223 Thirty Minutes of Begging is NOT Considered Foreplay
MEN 230B Her Birthdays and Anniversaries Are Important 2

Course Electives:
EAT 101 Cooking with Tofu
EAT 102 Utilization of Eating Utensils
EAT 103 Burping and Belching Discreetly
MEN 231 Mothers-In-Law
MEN 232 Appear to Be Listening
MEN 233 Just Say "Yes, Sweetheart"

Although a higher degree, it is recognized that this course may not be rigorous enough for some students, so a taught PhD course is also being considered;

'Women: what are they thinking when they say or do those things?'

Prior advanced study of neural networks will need to be demonstrated, although the relevance of this to the subject matter has yet to be determined.

Previous research relating to the possibility of chemical synapses in women will also be looked on favourably. The highly theoretical nature of such research is acknowledged.

Getting things straight.....

2009-04-25T19:27:00.015+01:00

Firstly, my apologies to my American friends if I appear to be 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs', but it is a fascinating story. In fact, it was my maternal grandmother who I first heard use that expression...smiling. I especially think the music and lyrics, sung here by Mark Knopfler and James Taylor, 'fits the facts' as they say.
Isn't that a beautiful line, 'See America lies there, the morning tide has raised the capes of Delaware'.

Sailing To Philadelphia
I am Jeremiah Dixon
I am a Geordie boy
A glass of wine with you, sir
And the ladies I'll enjoy
All Durham and Northumberland
Is measured up by my own hand
It was my fate from birth
To make my mark upon the earth...

He calls me Charlie Mason
A stargazer am I
It seems that I was born
To chart the evening sky
They'd cut me out for baking bread
But I had other dreams instead
This baker's boy from the west country
Would join the Royal Society...

We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
A Mason-Dixon Line

Now you're a good surveyor, Dixon
But I swear you'll make me mad
The West will kill us both
You gullible Geordie lad
You talk of liberty
How can America be free
A Geordie and a baker's boy
In the forests of the Iroquois...

Now hold your head up, Mason
See America lies there
The morning tide has raised
The capes of Delaware
Come up and feel the sun
A new morning has begun
Another day will make it clear
Why your stars should guide us here...

We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
A Mason-Dixon Line

Although the Mason-Dixon line is most commonly associated with the division between the northern and southern (free and slave, respectively) states during the 1800s and American Civil War-era, the line was delineated in the mid-1700s to settle a property dispute. The two surveyors who mapped the line, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, will always be known for their famous boundary.

In 1632, King Charles I of England gave the first Lord Baltimore, George Calvert, the colony of Maryland. Fifty years later, in 1682, King Charles II gave William Penn the territory to the north, which later became Pennsylvania. A year later, Charles II gave Penn land on the Delmarva Peninsula (the peninsula that includes the eastern portion of modern Maryland and all of Delaware).

The description of the boundaries in the grants to Calvert and Penn did not match and there was a great deal of confusion as to where the boundary (supposedly along 40 degrees north) lay. The Calvert and Penn families took the matter to the British court and England's chief justice declared in 1750 that the boundary between southern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland should lie 15 miles south of Philadelphia. A decade later, the two families agreed on the compromise and set out to have the new boundary surveyed. Unfortunately, colonial surveyors were no match for the difficult job and two experts from England had to be recruited.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon arrived in Philadelphia in November 1763. Mason was an astronomer who had worked at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and Dixon was a renowned surveyor. The two had worked together as a team prior to their assignment to the colonies.

After arriving in Philadelphia, their first task was to determine the exact absolute location of Philadelphia. From there, they began to survey the north-south line that divided the Delmarva Peninsula into the Calvert and Penn properties. Only after the Delmarva portion of the line had been completed did the duo move to mark the east-west running line between Pennsylvania and Maryland.

They precisely established the point fifteen miles south of Philadelphia and since the beginning of their line was west of Philadelphia, they had to begin their measurement to the east of the beginning of their line. They erected a limestone benchmark at their point of origin.

Travel and surveying in the rugged "west" was difficult and slow going. The surveyors had to deal with many different hazards, one of the most dangerous to the men being the indigenous Native Americans living in the region. The duo did have Native American guides although once the survey team reached a point 36 miles east of the end point of the boundary, their guides told them not to travel any farther. Hostile residents kept the survey from reaching its end goal. Thus, on October 9, 1767, almost four years after they began their surveying, the 233 mile-long Mason-Dixon line had (almost) been completely surveyed.

Over fifty years later, the boundary between the two states along the Mason-Dixon line came into the spotlight with the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Compromise established a boundary between the slave states of the south and the free states of the north (however its separation of Maryland and Delaware is a bit confusing since Delaware was a slave state that stayed in the Union).

This boundary became referred to as the Mason-Dixon line because it began in the east along the Mason-Dixon line and headed westward to the Ohio River and along the Ohio to its mouth at the Mississippi River and then west along 36 degrees 30 minutes North.

The Mason-Dixon line was very symbolic in the minds of the people of the young nation struggling over slavery and the names of the two surveyors who created it will evermore be associated with that struggle and its geographic association.

Birth and Saints Day celebrations...

2009-04-23T09:33:00.001+01:00

Happy birthday William Shakespeare and the celebration today of Englands patron saint - St George.

A poem for Earth Day

2009-04-22T23:20:00.006+01:00

The River Weaver, Vale Royal, Cheshire in early morning

A poem for Earth Day by W. H. Davies

Leisure

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Canal caperings....

2009-04-21T12:22:00.007+01:00

Over the weekend I had lunch at the Salt Barge on the side of the Trent and Mersey Canal and enjoyed our very early 'summer', wonderful weather which I hope will last until October. A visit to the narrow boat of some friends was not to be missed either - the combination of good weather and a narrow boat is guaranteed to bring out the gypsy in my soul........

In times past the canal system was very busy transporting salt from the region to the port of Liverpool along with pottery from the Midlands. On the return passage the narrow boats would bring coal for the salt pans and also raw material for the 'the Potteries', the region where Wedgewood and Doulton ran their enterprises.

The boats were usually privately owned and operated by a husband and wife team who took great pride in the appearance of their floating home. Before the advent of the steam and diesel engine the boats were pulled along the tow path by horses, usually under the control of a younger member of the family.
The term "narrow boat" refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals (where locks and bridge holes would have a minimum width of 7 feet) . The term is extended to modern "narrowboats" used for recreation and occasionally as homes, whose design is an interpretation of the old boats for modern purposes and modern materials.

Modern narrow boats are used for annual holidays, weekend breaks or as permanent residences. Usually, they have steel hulls and a steel superstructure, and are usually powered by a diesel engine, and are fitted inside to a high standard. There will be at least 6 feet (1.8 m) internal headroom, with similar domestic facilities as a small landward home: central heating, flush toilets, shower or even bath, four-ring hobs, oven, grill, microwave oven, and refrigerator; quite a few also have satellite television and internet-connection via a mobile phone.

Externally, their resemblance to traditional boats can vary from a faithful imitation (false "rivets", and copies of traditional paintwork) through "interpretation" (clean lines and simplified paintwork) through to a free-style approach which does not try to pretend in any way that this is a traditional boat.

They can be owned by individuals, or shared by a group of friends or by a more formally organised syndicate, rented out by holiday firms, or used as cruising hotels. A few boats are lived on permanently: either based in one place (though long-term moorings for residential narrowboats are currently very difficult to find) or continuously moving around the network, perhaps with a fixed location for the coldest months, when many stretches of canal are closed by repair work.

By the latter part of the 19th century it was common practice to paint roses and castles on both narrow boats themselves and their fixtures and fittings. Common sites include the doors to the cabin, the water can or barrel and the side of the boat along with ornate lettering giving the boat's name and owner. The origin of the roses and castles found on canal boats is unclear.

For some time a popular suggestion was that it had some form of Gypsy origins however there does not appear to be a significant link between the Gypsy and boater communities. Other suggestions include transfer of styles from the clock making industry, the japanning industry or the pottery industry. There is certainly a similarity in style and a geographical overlap but no solid proof of a link. There are similar styles of folk art in Scandinavia, Germany, Turkey and Bangladesh.

Have a grand week all....from me and Mr Mole.

Not waving but drowning......

2009-04-17T18:21:00.007+01:00

This afternoon I popped into the office of a colleague to enquire how his week had gone and he turned to me, whilst surveying the mountain of paperwork on his desk and said simply, 'not waving but drowning.' His face held a wry smile and as it turned out all was well, but it did make me think.

How often do we confuse the cheeriness of a wave from those we think we know, friends, colleagues, lovers, with the quiet desperation of one who is slowly, if metaphorically, drowning?

Do we really 'see' the effects, good and bad, that we have on others?

How often do we appear in control when in reality we are drowning ?

Not Waving But Drowning

Stevie Smith (1950)

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much farther out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he's dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

Born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, England, the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith, she was christened Florence Margaret, but always called Peggy by the family.

She acquired the name Stevie as a young woman when she was riding in the park with a friend who said that she reminded him of the jockey, Steve Donaghue.

She was educated at Palmers Green High School and North London Collegiate for Girls. She spent the remainder of her life with her aunt, and worked as private secretary to Sir Neville Pearson with Sir George Newnes at Newnes Publishing Company in London from 1923 to 1953. She died of a brain tumour on 7th March 1971.

Midweek poeticals......

2009-04-15T20:54:00.004+01:00

Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome and continues into the 21st century.

What never ceases to fascinate me is what initially appears humourous, on subsequent reading, often contains deft shades of many other emotions, darkness and light.

Do you have a favourite quatrain?

CELIA CELIA
Adrian Mitchell

When I am sad and weary,

When I think all hope has gone,

When I walk along High Holborn

I think of you with nothing on.

EPIGRAM
Alexander Pope

When other ladies to the shades go down,

Still Flavia, Chloris, Celia stay in town;

Those ghosts of beauty lingering there abide,

And haunt the places where their honour died.

LOSS
Wendy Cope

The day he moved out was terrible--

That evening she went through hell.

His absence wasn't a problem

But the corkscrew had gone as well.

MEMOIR
R.G. Howarth

We loved:

We vowed our love would never die.

Who was she?

For that matter, who was I?

MISS TYE
Gavin Ewart

Miss Tye was soaping her breasts in the bath

When she heard behind her a meaningful laugh.

And to her amazement she discovered

A wicked man in the airing cupboard.

Monday meanderings....

2009-04-13T21:48:00.008+01:00

Today I needed to walk off the Easter eggs and other excesses of yesterday so I headed off to the parish Church of St Mary and All Saints in the ancient village of Great Budworth, high above the Cheshire Plain. It is not known when the first church was built here although in 1086 the Domesday Book records a priest at Great Budworth. The church was rebuilt from the late 15th century onwards in the Perpendicular style, in which simple, vertical styles of stonework predominate.

I have a particular fondness for lych gates and this one is a fine example with ornate carving and dowelled joints of fine craftsmanship. As is usual, the path from the lych gate seems to take it's own course, never being directly aligned with the church door.

The church door is simple, bearing an Easter wreath and a simple warning notice to mind the step down immediately behind the door.

The church was richly decked out in yellow floral tributes. This view is toward the altar.

A view of the pulpit and a chance to light a candle and perhaps meditate in a peaceful and inspiring setting.

The Warburton Chapel was created during the 15th century and in the Middle Ages was burial place of the Warburton family of nearby Arley Hall, who paid a priest to say prayers here for the souls of the departed. This practice was later banned as part of the Reformation movement that swept Europe and as part of which Henry VIII and later Queen Elizabeth I repudiated the authority of the Pope. In the centre of the chapel is an alabaster effigy of Sir John Warburton an Elizabethan knight who died in 1575, aged 51.

At the rear of the Warburton Chapel are the remains of the choir stalls which date back to the 13th century and are among the oldest in England. In front of the choir stalls are two ancient benches which retain the elaborate detail carved upon them over 500 years ago. The shaped knobs on the ends are called poppyheads, a corruption of the French word poupee, meaning doll.

The 14th century Lady Chapel is the oldest part of the church and survives from before the rebuilding of the rest of the church. The chapel was restored in the 1960's and is now in regular use for worship, private prayers and meditation. The modern stained glass windows are the gift of an anonymous donor. They were designed by the French artist Pierre Fourmaintraux and made by the Whitechapel Glass Studios in 1965 - now sadly defunct. During the 16th century the wooden statue of the Virgin Mary was destroyed, 'by command of Queen Elizabeth'. A new statue was placed in the chapel in 1988.

The building on the right was the local children's school until 1857. It was built in the early years of the 16th century. It is built in the traditional manner, with a red sandstone plinth, brick walls and timbered roof. It is now used for meetings and occasional exhibitions. It is noteworthy that this was one of very few schools of the time that provided education for both boys and girls. For the schoolmaster it was both home and workplace.

A view of the school house and the cottages that stand in the inevitably named School Lane.

One of the many pleasant walking trails around the village.

I hope you enjoyed this little journey. Have a blameless week all.

Happy Easter Sunday all.......

2009-04-12T12:46:00.004+01:00

Happy Easter lovely bloggington friends....have a splendid and joyous Easter Sunday.

I am off to hide bijou chocolate eggs for the little and not so little people.

Helmut Rilling conducts the Bach-Collegium, Stuttgart

Poetry Wednesday...

2009-04-08T19:59:00.006+01:00

I spent a part of yesterday as advocate for a delightful lady 'of a certain age' (85 to be precise) who constantly referred to me throughout the proceedings as 'young man'.

She was an absolute delight and content with the outcome. If you imagine Dame Edith Evans you are truly getting the picture of her.

I am 61.....

So, this poem has really selected itself - another by Roger McGough.

I love the phrase beginning, 'hamfisted tommyguns....'.

Let Me Die A Young Man's Death

Let me die a young man's death 
not a clean and in between 
the sheets holywater death 
not a famous-last-words peaceful out of breath death  

When I'm 73 and in constant good tumour 
may I be mown down at dawn 
by a bright red sports car 
on my way home 
from an allnight party  

Or when I'm 91 
with silver hair 
and sitting in a barber's chair 
may rival gangsters with hamfisted tommyguns burst in 
and give me a short back and insides  

Or when I'm 104 
and banned from the Cavern 
may my mistress 
catching me in bed with her daughter 
and fearing for her son 
cut me up into little pieces 
and throw away every piece but one  

Let me die a youngman's death 
not a free from sin tiptoe in 
candle wax and waning death 
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

Birthday Greetings to Andrew Preview

2009-04-06T19:14:00.005+01:00

Birthday greetings today to Andre Previn.....

I wonder if he still wakes up in a cold sweat about this journey into the surreal world of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise?

All that musical ability and talent as a comedy actor.....wonderful.

The expressions of the London Symphony Orchestra are priceless.

A stroll in the sun........

2009-04-03T19:31:00.004+01:00

Don't tell everyone but it was a wonderful Spring afternoon here in my part of the sceptered isles. Gone, although I'm sure temporarily, are the clouds and mist. I walked along the bank of the river Weaver toward the town of Northwich. We have a splendid new tow path, courtesy of EU funds, which was sorely needed, as this stretch of the river gets quite busy during the Spring and Summer months.

This view shows what is left of the old Yarwoods shipbuilders which is slowly converting to the needs of weekend leisure sailors and their boats. I have a blog to write about T E Shaw (Lawrence of Arabia) and the time he spent at this yard in 1934, and how my late grandfather added a small piece to family history....

Further upstream, looking toward the Blue Bridge. I'm just so happy we have this new path.

The Hartford Bridge, known locally with a simple logic, as the Blue Bridge, which carries traffic between Manchester and Chester. The bridge was built in 1939 and the story goes that it was built as a propoganda response to the autobahns being built in Germany at the time, the road either side of the bridge being four lane.

A local narrow boat the Lunar Sea, blowing the cobwebs off prior to the Easter break and a journey into north Wales along the Llangollen canal. These boats are immaculately fitted out and maintained - I feel another blog coming on !

Fred (above) and Ginger our local swans who breed successfully each year. For some reason Ginger seemed a little unhappy with Fred, honking and flapping her wings furiously. I left them to their tiff and wandered off contentedly.

Have a pleasant Friday nice people......

A Tuesday evening poem.........

2009-03-31T22:01:00.006+01:00

ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC

but now I’m sadly lower case
with the occasional italic.

I have long admired the poetry of Roger McGough, especially his self-mocking quatrains. Roger is the gentlest Muse of Merseyside and his work often belies a more complex truth: that if he has never been taken as seriously as he’d have liked or deserved, it is partly his own fault.

Have a blameless evening nice people.......