Yorkshire Pudding

Sunsets

2009-11-11T10:50:00.013-11:00

I would guess that many thousands of photographs have been taken of Easter Island sunsets with the silhouettes of moai in the foreground. Equally, Chile itself invites many photographs of sunsets as it has such a huge west-facing coastline.

Sunset is a special time - the dying of another day in unpredictable light patterns. Surely no two sunsets have ever been the same and the appearance of a sunset can change significantly from one moment to the next. I think of past times when people who were never bedazzled by cinema or television would surely have stood in awe appreciating the strange beauty of a sunset that would have put their own humdrum lives into some kind of a celestial perspective before the darkest shadows of nighttime enveloped them.

Even today in our frantic, accessorised world of images and satellite communication, people will often sit or stand quietly observing sunset patterns - the sunbeams, a colourwash of clouds in amber, lemon, scarlet, mauve and grey-blue, a swirl of clouds, birds flying home to roost. It's something fundamental that connects us with those who have gone before. So let me share these six sunset photos with you. The last two were from the terraces of the Universitad Catolica football ground in Santiago:-

Home

2009-11-10T11:39:00.010-11:00

Such a long flight from Santiago to Madrid with Iberia. No individual entertainment screens and once again I was berated by a stewardess for daring to look out of the window...I mean why do they think many people prefer window seats? This time the issue was the crappy Harry Potter film being shown on the central drop down monitors. Daylight coming in would spoil the viewing. I looked around but nobody seemed to be watching it anyway. Harry sodding Potter! Again I ignored instructions and looked down upon the rainforest of Brazil.

Frustratingly, when we touched down at Heathrow - pretty much on time, the plane had to sit on the tarmac for over forty five minutes waiting for a parking space at Terminal 3. Because of this I missed my 11.30 National Express bus connection back to Sheffield by no more than three minutes. Had to then wait till two in the afternoon.

So good to see Shirley again after almost three weeks apart but it's cold here and today has seemed amazingly short. Half of me is still over there in South America but I have to pinch myself to believe that I have really visited "the navel of the world" and touched the rough volcanic texture of a moai's face. Here are five pictures I took on the island...

The crater at Rano Kau looking towards Orongo.

Birdman petroglyph on the cliffs of Orongo

Horses grazing near the great "ahu" at Anakena

Finished moai at the Rano Raraku "factory" - they never reached their "ahus"

The lovely Hotel Tiare Pacific where I stayed.

Adios

2009-11-08T01:46:00.003-11:00

Sunset over the Estadio Universtad Catolica in Santiago

How full these days have been - so many sights, so many photographs, so many memories. A friend of mine called Mick always seemed incredulous when I mentioned travelling solo but I haven't minded one jot. Having spent so much of my life in jabbering word-rich classrooms surrounded by jabbering word-rich colleagues, it is so nice to have peace and self-direction. I have met many people on this trip from Rob the international business intern from New England to nameless travellers and the gang at the Vina del Mar Fishing Club who took me into their hearts - Eduardo, Hernan, Raoul, Orlando, Jeronimo, Patricia, Gina... How we danced and drank there beside the Pacific Ocean with the lights of Valparaiso twinkling in the mid-distance.

Last night I went to see a football match (soccer to US visitors) - Universad Catholica - the champions of Chile - versus Universad Concepcion. The "Cruzados" fans at the other end of the pitch beat drums, chanted and sang their Latin football chants continuously. It was great and Catholica won 4-1 with sweetly taken goals. Bring Juan Morales to Hull City!

I had a strange experience. A co-incidence. On the terraces I spotted a man I thought I recognised. Remember that Santiago is a city of six million souls. Then it clicked. On Monday night I had seen this same man in La Marchigiana restaurant in Mendoza - a city of one million souls. He had been with his wife and four children at the next table. At the end of the match I went up to him and confirmed the fact. He recognised me too - remembering how I had sneezed. I said the chances of us connecting again were thousands to one but he said millions. I often think - what about those co-incidences that we just miss by a hair's breadth?

So I am on this old jallopy of a computer in the reception area of the El Presidente in the Providencia area of Santiago. Time to go up to cosy Room 409 to pack my suitcase. The adventure is almost over but no doubt I will be boring you with it when I get back - hopefully with some photographs too. Adios!

Vina

2009-11-04T15:24:00.006-11:00

The "Hostal" where I stayed in Vina del Mar

Vina - pronounced Vinya is really Vina del Mar, the port of Valparaiso´s sister city. It isn´t a quaint little fishing village. It´s Chile´s number one coastal resort with some high rise apartment blocks and a "buzz" of activity - people coming and people going, laughing, eating, shouting, begging.

This is in marked contrast with the little working town of Los Andes where I stayed last night. I woke this morning and walked up to the Cerro del Virgen - a hill overlooking the town. It was hot and dusty but I was glad to get close up to examples of the ten foot cacti I had seen from the bus back from Argentina.

At the top of the hill was of course a white statue of the Virgin Mary watching over her people. But I spotted a couple of lesbians making out in the trees below. They had brought a blanket and a picnic and probably didn´t realise that anybody could see them. I notice a lot of public kissing and canoodling here in South America. Maybe it is true what they say about Latin lovers.

Down from the hill, wishing the lesbians good day, I ended up at the archaeological museum which had some commentary in English and I was the sole visitor. There were some pieces from Easter Island and the commentary reminded me that one of its other names is "Te Pito o Te Henua" which means "the navel of the world". Chile seems so obviously proud of its South Pacific "territory". Bur probably the best exhibit at the museum was a two thousand year old mummy from the Atacama region - she had died in childbirth and her mummified child was with her. The quality of preservation was amazing.

Between Los Andes and Vina there is some lovely. lush agricultural land - a lot of it given over to big scale viniculture - rows and rows of vines, neatly arranged to aid watering and harvest.

I had a light meal tonight - salmon and salad with a small bottle of local wine and then in the same little restaurant I watched the first half of Chile versus Paraguay in a pre-World Cup warm up match. It was still 0-0 when I left.

Tomorrow I will be "doing" Valparaiso - the funicular railways and the little colourful streets. The street I am on is itself very steep. It´s a basic but friendly hostel with only eleven bedrooms. Mine is supposed to be "en suite" but the bathroom is across the little corridor and I haven´t brought my dressing gown. The owner´s daughter had to show me how to fire up the boiler - no salacious pun intended!

Mendoza

2009-10-31T06:36:00.000-11:00

Aconcagua - The tallest mountain in the southern hemisphere. It overlooks the main pass between Chile and Argentina.

Typical "avenida" in sultry Mendoza, Argentina

I will never forget Rapa Nui (Easter Island) - it was like a dream come true and there was so much more I might have seen. I talked to a fisherman called Tete and he told me of a volcanic vent he had found in one of the hills. He had crawled in with a torch and found evidence of ancient human habitation. If I had been staying longer, he would have taken me to see it but my air ticket said no. I had been greeted at the airport with a floral garland and left with a chain of seashells round my neck.

Today I travelled by "Andesmar" bus through the mighty Andes chain and into Argentina. It could have been five hours but it was seven because of the customary two hour hold up at the border - checking bags, papers - stamping this, stamping that. Much of the scenery was raw and enormous with snow on the peaks and condors circling. These were real, beefy, naked, soaring mountains that make the English Lake District hills look as though they were made by moles.

Mendoza seems affluent and self-confident. I arrived in sultry 32 degree heat and made my way through Saturday shoppers to the Hotel Cordon del Plata where because of overbooking they have had to put me in a suite! My jaw dropped. It is massive with a double sunken spa bath. I rarely have baths - I am a shower man but either tonight or tomorrow morning I will definitely be having a bath with jacuzzi bubbles and perhaps room service will send Mr Bond some champagne... Adios amigos!

Mecca

2009-10-28T06:35:00.000-11:00

So dear visitors, I made it to Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua, Easter Island which ever you choose to call it... and I am not disappointed I can tell you.

On Monday I scrambled down inside Ranu Kau crater to a unique microclimate, sheltered from the worst of Pacific gales and from the encroachment of disease and human interference. I felt like Simon in "Lord of The Flies", gasping in the thick green jungle undergrowth and further along the crater lake´s tangled edge I discovered a huge rock inscribed with petroglyphs from long ago.

Back on the crater rim having sweltered in the sunshine on the long climb back, I collapsed in a heap before heading down to the broken "ahu" at Vinapu. So many "moai" were pushed over or broken up perhaps in inter-tribal warfare or because the old certainties of the island were disappearing...but you still sense the echoes of the amazing culture that was developed here in total ignorance of the outer world which lay over two thousand five hundred miles away.

For the first people of Rapa Nui, this was their entire world and I feel privileged, even a little humbled to have this opportunity to witness first hand palpable evidence of those lost and distant times. I´ll tell you more when I am not in an expensive little internet cafe where speed of internet access is clearly not a priority but hey... blogging from Easter Island.... isn´t that just amazing anyway!

Santiago

2009-10-23T06:34:00.001-11:00

Santiago, Chile

Dear Bloggers,

Arrived here safely after a gruelling thirteen hour flight. Wasn´t too happy about the bitch of a flight attendant who chose to tell me twice not to look out of the window and keep the shade down. Bizarre! Missed Paraguay completely! But by western Argentina I had the necessary permission and marvelled at the desert like landscape and parallel ridges gliding beneath us. Then came the mighty Andes chain with contours picked out by snow. This time the bitch stopped me from taking a photograph as we were about to begin our descent into Santiago which as you can see from the accompanying picture boasts an amazing backdrop.

Here in this city of six million it feels quit subdued - not as manic as I had expected. I went to the Mercado Central and enjoyed a tasty bowl of "curato" - fish and meat soup with some local bread and a bottle of Chilean beer. Delicious after that airline crap they bring you on little trays.

Santiago is, as you might have expected, essentially European in its appearance - like a huge replica of Madrid picked up and transported to South America. I have only seen one black person - a wobbly man-lady who squeezed out of a gentlemen´s club in very tight red slacks and bounced in front of me to the next bus stop. She or he was carrying a small black and yellow handbag that looked like a retro pencil case.

That wasn´t the highlight of the day. Number one had to be my first in person sighting of "rongo rongo" script at the Merced basilica museum. What is that I hear you ask. It is indecipherable writing from Easter Island. Nobody has fathomed it. I saw it on a wooden tablet and on the carved shape of a sea snake. Such items should of course rest on Easter Island itself but there are similar pieces of archaeological Isla de Pascua booty in Washington, Paris, London and Vina del Mar by the Chilean coast.

It´s a bit chilly in Chile this evening...Time for bed.

Best wishes,

Senor Pudding

Seeya

2009-10-21T12:05:00.007-11:00

In the morning I'm heading down to Heathrow Airport by National Express coach... then to Madrid where at midnight I will be flying down to Santiago... about thirteen hours in the air. Earlier today I was in "Hotmail" when a message popped up from Iberia - the Spanish airline. Time to check in and choose my seat. I was on to it straight away and secured a precious emergency exit seat with the extra leg room. Brilliant!

The research is done, the accommodation is booked and most of the linking transport. I am shaking myself out of my post-retirement lethargy. This isn't a holiday, it's an adventure. I aim to add to this blog whilst in the southern hemisphere but opportunity may be limited. I am going to see the moai. I will touch their chiselled trunks, visit the quarries which bore them and wonder about the mysterious culture that conceived them.

It's all much better than doing what my next door neighbour's son will be doing tomorrow - travelling to hospital for an eight hour operation to remove a benign brain tumour. Entry will be through one of his ears - resulting in permanent hearing loss in that ear. Good luck William! Be brave!

Analysis

2009-10-20T11:59:00.007-11:00

We don't always explain things to ourselves. Sometimes we operate on instinct.

I have been a regular internet user for fifteen years. I embraced the idea of the personal computer as soon as I could and looking through some old invoices, I recently discovered that back in 1996 we paid over £1600 for our "Tiny" computer package. That's a lot of money in comparison with today's computer prices and back then computer memories were small while speed of operation was frustratingly slow...So I swear I am not instinctively a technophobe.

Mobile phones or what our American cousins call cellphones are a different kettle of fish. I have an antipathy towards them and I don't possess one. But what is it that turns me away from these must-have modern day accessories? Lying here on the psychiatrist's couch, various points spring to mind....

1) I hate the fact that mobile phones are tied in to the profit-hungry machinations of greedy corporations like O2, Orange, Apple or Nokia.

2) I despise the fact that people are forever changing their mobile phones. They don't seem to last very long. On a global scale this is environmentally extremely unfriendly - added to which they are often on "charge" - sucking precious electricity into their toxic cells.

3) There are ugly mobile phone masts all over the place - spoiling urban and rural environments. What gives these greedy companies the right to ram their ugly masts into the ground from Timbuktu to Toronto and from Sheffield to Shanghai?

4) I hate the idea of texting - this plague-like obsession with sending out little messages in a clipped and bastardized form of English in which accuracy and detail don't seem to matter.

5) Every day I see drivers on their mobile phones, endangering other people's lives - taxi drivers, cement truck drivers, drivers on motorways or in traffic jams. Increasingly I see people texting or checking texts as they drive.

6) As a teacher I became increasingly fed up with having to challenge children about mobile phone use in school - including lessons. There were even incidents in which teachers were deliberately riled and then caught on mobile phone cameras. Why the school allowed children to have the damned things on the premises at all I will never know.

7) Some people use mobile phones to cheat in pub quizzes.

8) When I walk on moors or dine in restaurants I do not want anybody contacting me by phone. Life is to be lived, not interrupted by banal phone calls. Sometimes you want distance and untouchability.

9) What do we really know about the health implications of mobile phone signals that invisibly buzz around our heads where ever we may be?

10) Governments are able to use mobile phones to track our whereabouts and our various communications. Is that liberty?

Okay, I realise I must sound like Victor Meldrew so in defence of mobile phones I will say that of course I appreciate they can be vital for emergency services and in allowing business travellers to oil the wheels of commerce without delay. Daughters in late night discos can also be quickly located putting minds at rest as well as aiding safety. However, I would still maintain that the mobile phone is one of the most insidious and hateful inventions of the modern world.... alongside the atomic bomb, oven chips and the Conservative Party. I won't be getting one any day soon.

Proportion

2009-10-18T05:03:00.012-11:00

Philip Laing is a nineteen year old technology student at Sheffield Hallam University. Last weekend, he became as drunk as a Tory MP at a late night party conference shindig. His drunkenness was partly down to an organisation called Carnage UK that makes money via arranging boozy student pub crawls.

In the heart of Sheffield, between our beautiful City Hall and the John Lewis department store is a paved area known as Barker's Pool. It is dominated by the city's main war memorial with its huge flagpole. At the base of the monument there is a beautiful bronze casting of four soldiers with their heads permanently hanging down in silent respect for the fallen of two world wars. It is here where every Remembrance Sunday, the glorious dead are remembered with wreaths of poppies, prayers and private memories.

Step forward or should I say, stagger forward Philip Laing in the wee small hours. He lurches over to the memorial and urinates over last year's faded poppy wreaths. Tragically for Master Laing, this reprehensible incident is caught on camera and the resulting photograph travels to pressrooms throughout Britain and beyond.

Surely, Philip Laing will never entirely live the incident down. There is every possibility that he will be chucked out of his university and next Thursday he will appear in the local magistrates court charged with urinating in a public place and outraging public decency. But shouldn't Carnage UK be there too?

In a more sober state this is what Philip said : "I am deeply ashamed of this photograph and sincerely sorry for my behaviour. I didn't realise how much alcohol I had consumed that night and I also hadn't eaten since lunchtime, which worsened the effect. I have no recollection of the events in the photograph, although I recognise this does not excuse my actions."

To some extent I must admit that I feel sorry for Philip Laing. I was a student myself and under the influence of alcohol I did a number of things that I deeply regret - some of which I have never told my family or best friends about to this day. When Philip set out that evening, I doubt that he had any intention of weeing on the war memorial and as he suggests, when he woke up he probably had no recollection whatsoever of his night-time antics that have in their turn aroused thousands of bitter words of condemnation and outrage.

We shouldn't excuse Philip's crime but it ought to be viewed in reasonable proportion. His apology sounded sincere. I would hate to think of him being booted out of university over this matter. In some ways, he is himself a victim of the boozy bacchanalian culture that is prevalent in most university cities. Philip didn't create that culture and he didn't invent Carnage UK so give the lad a break.

Packaging

2009-10-15T12:21:00.005-11:00

As a lad, I would often saunter or skip down to the local shops in my East Yorkshire village with errands to complete for my mum. In those days, there were no such things as plastic carrier bags or ready meals. Packaging was far less advanced than it is today. People would automatically take their own baskets or bags and many grocery products would be unpackaged, including biscuits that you bought by weight from big shop tins.

Nowadays, packaging can be seen in two ways. Firstly, it's very ingenious - so many different methods have been devised to shift, seal and present a multitude of products. Secondly, it can be seen as an environmental crime - so much unnecessary waste. People produced much less packaging detritus when I was a lad.

This week I have bought a padlock and an electrical extension lead from the great cathedral of DIY known as B&Q. Both products hung from display hooks and both were encased in hard, clear plastic. You must know the sort of packaging I mean. It's very tough and there's no way you could break into it with your teeth. To get inside these lethal plastic shells, you need a strong pair of scissors or a sharp Stanley knife. Nowhere in the inner display writing does it ever say how you are meant to break into these plastic carapaces.

It's difficult to discover who invented sealed hard shell plastic packaging but it was clearly not for the benefit of customers - many of whom have actually injured themselves breaking into this impenetrable material. I guess it has only been around for about ten years. A couple of years ago a UK study calculated that around 60,000 people a year were suffering significant injuries connected with hard shell or plastic "clam shell" packaging. It would be easy enough for producers to insist on easy-to-open, only partially heat sealed packaging but they clearly don't give a toss about the buying public, focussing more upon product display, transport and product security.

Once a lad skipping to the local shops but now a grumpy and relatively old geezer, I know what I would do if I had my way. I would seal the managing directors of companies that opt for hard shell plastic packaging in that selfsame stuff and I would hang them from hooks in B&Q, splitting my sides with laughter while watching them struggling to break out.

Walking

2009-10-11T12:19:00.009-11:00

Fungus seen in the woods today.

I'll sing you this October Song.... Feeling the need to burn off calories, I'm lacing up my walking boots and marching out of suburbia, along Greystones Avenue, up Greystones Road, down Hangingwater and along one of the paths that parallels the little River Porter, under those bright autumnal trees and on to Forge Dam where I pause to observe the duckery, then on and on - up the Porter Valley till I reach the road that winds past the incongruous alpaca farm before hitting the crossroads at Ringinglow.

Two scenes at Forge Dam

The heavy grey clouds of morningtime have given way to blue skies and intermittent sunshine. Sheffield is a great place to inhabit - especially if you are fortunate enough to live in the affluent south west of the city. There are so many trees and the countryside is literally on your doorstep.

Sheffield from the south west.

Ringinglow - The Round House & "The Norfolk Arms"

Over the stile and on to an ill-defined meadow path that finally leads into the Limb Valley. Tall trees - mainly lime and beech soar above me, as shafts of honeycoloured sunlight pierce the canopy of autumn leaves. I pass a swimming lake where signs have been put up - "No Swimming" - and I wish I had my trunks with me.

Soon I am at Whirlowdale and marching by the side of Ecclesall Road South. I notice huge, wealthy homes behind electronically controlled gates. This isn't Beverly Hills but incredibly plenty of these houses would not look out of place there. One house has the wrought iron initials - "S.C." and in the distant driveway an array of luxury cars are parked up.

Two and a half hours after leaving home, I am back and thirsty as a high court judge. I guzzle a can of diet Coke and tell Shirley what and who I have seen - including Janet, another Sheffield Head of English who threw in the towel this summer. She was walking through the woods with her husband and told me about her creative writing aspirations. I always liked Janet.

The old sign on entering The Limb Valley.

October

2009-10-10T12:24:00.005-11:00

Robin at Woodstock 1969

October Song

by Robin Williamson (1966)

I'll sing you this October song,
Oh, there is no song before it.
The words and tune are none of my own,
for my joys and sorrows bore it.

Beside the sea
The brambly briars in the still of evening,
Birds fly out behind the sun,
and with them I'll leavng.

The fallen leaves that jewel the ground,
They know the art of dying,
And leave with joy their glad gold hearts,
In the scarlet shadows lying.

When hunger calls my footsteps home,
The morning follows after,
I swim the seas within my mind,
And the pine-trees laugh green laughter.

I used to search for happiness,
And I used to follow pleasure,
But I found a door behind my mind,
And that's the greatest treasure.

For rulers like to lay down laws,
And rebels like to break them,
And the poor priests like to walk in chains,
And God likes to forsake them.

I met a man whose name was Time,
And he said, "I must be goin,"
But just how long that was,
I have no way of knowing.

Sometimes I want to murder time,
Sometimes when my heart's aching,
But mostly I just stroll along,

The path that he is taking.

Robin in 2009

Huddles

2009-10-09T04:54:00.005-11:00

Perhaps my favourite shop in Sheffield is just off Chesterfield Road near to the Heeley railway bridge. It's called Langton's Antiques Emporium. Here we are not talking about highly-polished catalogue stuff that belongs in the homes of the hoity toity but about bric-a-brac and curiosities ranging from old beer tankards and badgers' heads to Victorian fireplaces and "Eagle" comics. You never know what you might find in Langton's. For the curious and the openly nostalgic, Langton's is an Aladdin's cave - more like a museum than a shop.

Well the other day, I took our son Ian for breakfast in the little workaday cafe that is also housed in the emporium. Afterwards, Ian and I had a nose about Langton's latest junk and there in a glass case we saw some second world war memorabilia - including, shiveringly, a grubby little white arm band with a blue star of David embroidered upon it and the label "Juden". Momentarily, you wonder who might have worn it and how it came to be in this glass case. As well as being a symbol of Nazi evil, it was an emblem of the rejected, outcasts, people who were considered to be less than human.

This brings me to the title of this post - "Huddles" - and sorry for my odd mental linkage - I'm not thinking about huddles of Jews in the streets of Warsaw or Prague but about Britain's remaining smokers. You must have seen them - outside offices, shops, bars and even hospitals - huddles of smokers looking, well, like modern-day outcasts, the rejected ones. They have furtive body language and seem self-conscious as you pass by. One arm will often be crossed over the chest as they suck on the evil weed, billows of acrid blue-grey smoke rising above their pasty heads. I want to go over and yell - "Stop this stupidity and get inside! Give the horrible things up!"

I hate it when I have to enter a building that is being guarded by a smokers' huddle. It's best to take a deep breath of unpolluted air and then dash through, taking care not to catch the smokers' eyes. You never know how these odorous outcasts might react. In fact, returning to those WWII armbands, I think new dayglo orange armbands should be mandatory for all smokers complete with the embroidered label "Smoker" and a suitable symbol - maybe a little chimney belching smoke or a cigarette being stubbed in an ashtray or perhaps, to keep it simpler, the cutesy swastika and cancer stick design shown above. Absolutely no apology to any smoker who may be coughing over this post. Give em up!

Agony

2009-10-06T09:39:00.004-11:00

The Voice

By Thomas Hardy (December 1912)

WOMAN much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever consigned to existlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward
And the woman calling.

Emma Lavinia Gifford at thirty.

Match

2009-10-03T08:32:00.006-11:00

On Saturdays, when Hull City are at home, we jump in the car around 11.15 and zoom over towards Hull: M1 to M18 and then on to the M62. Five miles west of Hull we divert to the lovely wold top village of Swanland where our friends Tony and Fiona dwell. We have known them for years - I was best man at their wedding twenty one years ago. They are equally fanatical about our beloved Tigers. We have shared the gloom and the brightness together.

We have lunch at Tony and Fiona's house. Today it was sausage sandwiches and a slice of the prize-winning Victoria sponge that Fiona had prepared specially. It's easy to talk to them. It's so nice to have people in your life that you don't have to prove anything to, people with whom you can really relax and of course it helps that we have history together that goes back over thirty years - to the time when Tony was a long-haired student nurse in Sheffield.

Around two o'clock we're back in the car, down to North Ferriby and on to the "Park and Ride" facility at Hessle. We park up and make for the first bus we can get on. It's £2 return for each of us but it avoids parking near the ground and you enjoy a quick getaway if you can get in the queue soon after the final whistle. The bus drops us at the gates of West Park through which we wander along the path of enlightenment to our temple - The Kingston Communications Stadium. Other followers dressed in the black and amber shozoku walk alongside us as reverentially we approach our turnstiles, stopping only to purchase programmes and halftime draw tickets.

Up the concrete steps - flight after flight until we are on the concourse at the top of the West Stand. Worshippers huddle and share matchday observations before we emerge into the light, making our way to Row R ready to see the drama unfold before us.... "We are Ull! We are Ull! We are Ull!....Silverware? We don't care! We follow The City everywhere!...Geo! Geo! Geo!" And oh the joy when we score...twenty thousand people feel it at exactly the same time. For a brief but wonderful moment the troubles of everyday life are completely forgotten.

Today we beat Wigan 2-1 thanks to Geovanni (Geo) and the striker with the longest name in the Premier League - Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink. The Lord hath spoken and this evening I am at peace once again but it is going to be a long hard season and we will do well to survive another year in the top flight of English football. It's time to pray.

Vennegoor of Hesselink is mobbed after scoring against Wigan this afternoon.

Regulars

2009-09-30T11:51:00.009-11:00

The English pub is a great leveller. There's a sense in which it doesn't matter one hoot what you do or have done outside those pub doors. Inside the pub, as you sup your chosen tipple and exchange banter, everybody is different but equal.

I must confess that for twenty years I have been a "regular" at my local. You will see me in there four nights a week drinking beer and colluding with the other regulars - by and large men. Who are they?

Well let's start with Big Dave - otherwise known as Uncle Festa. Nobody quite knows what he does for a living. He keeps his cards close to his chest but digs and fishes for titbits of information about other people's lives. Big Dave is obsessed with money and financial matters. When jawing with him, it isn't long before the conversation switches to pensions, acquisitions and investments. He lives alone in a suburban semi with his designer Italian leather suite and his forty two inch flatscreen TV. To my knowledge,this bloke never hurt anybody in his life.

Next there's Gibby - most regular of all regulars and thin as a lat. He's fifty and lives with his old arthritic mother. Two years ago he completed a degree course, achieving a BA in Modern History but he is one of the perpetually unemployed, beavering away at his "Guardian" crossword, supping his "Carling" lager and rocking home to toke on "reefers". To my knowledge this guy never consciously hurt anybody in his life.

Irish Joe came to England in 1961 where he has worked as a builder ever since. He has four children and a wife he fears. Once he confided in me that the reason he keeps working as a construction foreman is because he is afraid of a life at home with the "missus" in the kitchen day after day. "Twould kill me" he said in his County Dublin brogue - unchanged after forty eight years. Strong as an ox, this man has helped me in numerous ways but when he was younger I know that he did hurt a few other men with his JCB fists.

Leeds Mick is about forty and a talented chef but with a fury inside him that would make Gordon Ramsay look like a tame pussy cat. His name suggests he might be from the city of Leeds but he isn't - it was his father who was born there. He is an ardent Leeds United fan and just say the names "Manchester United", "Newcastle United" or "Liverpool" to him and he goes off alarming, spraying his listeners with saliva as the expletives and bitter memories burst out of him. Leeds Mick has hurt a lot of people with his brutal personal rebukes.

Bert is about seventy and hails from Northampton but he worked in concrete for forty five years. He has two sons but divorced his wife after thirty years of marriage. He sometimes smells of armpit odour and stale cigarette smoke but he is one of the sweetest guys I have ever met. He thinks well of everyone and has a cheerful disposition. When Old Alan leaves on a Friday night at 10.55pm prompt, it's always Bert who is up helping Alan to access the sleeves of his coat.

Then there's fifty something Yorkshire Pudding. He arrives late in the tap room, except on Saturday evenings when he's in the lounge with the wife. A generally miserable sod - he used to be a teacher but now he's taking time out. He drinks Tetley's bitter and supports Hull City. When there are factual issues to confirm or pass judgement on, all eyes turn to him. He has probably hurt a few people in his life but at least he's sorry about it.

There are twenty others for whom I could provide similar pen portraits.

"Regulars" - sounds like the title of a new sitcom and what I've written above could simply be the list of characters. Failing that they could be actors in a new episode of the hospital drama "Casualty". Time gentlemen please!

Chavs

2009-09-27T12:12:00.008-11:00

Chavs being chavvish.

Just the other day, I spotted a male "chav" down by the local Methodist church. He was wearing a Burberrry hat, a blue-white shellsuit, expensive trainers with the tongues hanging out and some golden bling. It was as if he had stepped out of a satirical cartoon.

Fashion means nothing to me. I scorn fashion magazines and the cult of the pretty model. Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and all the rest are empty headed nobodies in my book. In the developing world, people are starving or running from war but here in the west our media suggests that we should be obsessed with fashion and the dramatic lives that fashion models allegedly lead. I'm not. I despise all of that.

Back to the chav, lounging on the church wall like an urban lizard. Why would anyone consciously shop for a Burberry cap or the other items in the stereotypical costume that that chav was wearing? It defeats me. There were plenty of these chavs on the council estate where I was a teacher. I taught some of them. Having left school or outside school hours, they would sometimes approach me. "Hiya sir!" It felt like an invasion from the Planet Chav.

Can you tell me, do chavs have their own fashion magazines where they check out different caps and new shellsuit styles? Is there a section called "Bling" and is there another section devoted exclusively to branded trainers with big tongues? I picture chavs in urban living rooms weighing up the different merits of chavwear.

In Wikipedia they say this:- "The widespread use of the "chav" stereotype has come under criticism; some argue that it amounts to simple snobbery and elitism, and that serious social problems such as Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, teenage pregnancy, delinquency and alcoholism in low-income areas are not subjects for derision. Critics of the term have argued that its users are "neo-snobs", and that its increasing popularity raises questions about how British society deals with social mobility and class. In a February 2005 article in The Times, Julie Burchill argued that use of the word is a form of "social racism", and that such "sneering" reveals more about the shortcomings of the "chav-haters" than those of their supposed victims. The writer John Harris argued along similar lines in a 2007 article in The Guardian."

How spiffing and right-on of Julie Burchill and John Harris to side with the chavs and call me a "neo-snob" if you wish but I hate chavism, hate the costumes and the attitudes, hate the herd-like way in which chavs stick together. I'd like to see Julie Burchill conforming with this dress code:-

Peacefulness

2009-09-25T12:56:00.003-11:00

No more yakking. No more work-related emails. No more interruptions and requests and no more yakking.No more jabbering. That's how a typical teacher's summer vacation might be described. Mine has extended into the autumn. I am becoming accustomed to the rhythm of the days, to having the licence to define my own waking hours - make them busy or lazy, depending on how I feel. Two mugs of tea in the morning remains a delightful luxury.

Shirley has a great job as a health centre practice nurse. Some days she's working with students at the university, other days she's leading on diabetes or visiting ne'er-do-well kids at a secure unit. There's so much variety. Start times are also variable but most days she's out of the house by eight fifteen. In the past I was always away by 7:52 - my Groundhog Day moment repeated over and over.

Some days I roll over and go back to sleep, surprised when the radio alarm's digital display reads 9:15. I don my dressing gown and stumble downstairs for cereal and my first mug of tea. I go out to feed the birds, scooping a beer mug of grain from the huge sack I keep near our back door. Then it's into the front room to check out the latest news on the TV. I might tarry to watch "Homes Under The Hammer" - a programme I rarely got to see in the past.

It's so peaceful. Today I was up the garden in another pleasant September morning, adding extra paving stones to the seating area under the apple trees. No one was bothering me. I grafted away till lunchtime and then ate some leftover stir fry and noodles while listening to The Radio 5 Live News. Lord knows why I am so obsessed with keeping abreast of world news. On Easter Island the only news you could access came from the lips of your fellow islanders and it was wholly about that island - the navel of the world.

Shirley asked if I had been lonely today. I said no - not lonely - just peaceful and quiet. It feels like a kind of healing after thirty two frenetic years in the blackboard jungle. I love to watch the hedge sparrows poking their little beaks out of the privet when I have spread their grain. Peacefulness - so terribly under-rated.

Booked

2009-09-24T01:30:00.010-11:00

Sometimes you have to strike while the iron is hot. After writing that last post, I checked out the two airline sites I had been visiting in relation to my Easter Island trip - Iberia and LAN. To my horror, the good prices I had spotted a few days earlier were now disappearing fast. However, there was one good value window of opportunity left before Christmas so I went for it - click upon click. I'll be flying off to Chile on October 22nd, two days in Santiago and then flying out to Easter Island on October 25th.

After consulting Trip Advisor, I had hoped to stay at the ten room Hotel Orongo but it was fully booked. Consequently, I was relieved to get a room at the tiny Hotel Tiare Pacific in the village of Hanga Roa which is the only settlement on Easter Island, just next to the island's miniature airport.

The idea of flying home from Buenos Aires was squashed when I saw how much two single flights would be - return flights to/from the same destination are so much cheaper. However, I am hoping to travel through the Andes by bus to visit Mendoza in Argentina for a couple of days. I have to remind myself that this adventure will not just be about Easter Island...

Dreaming

2009-09-22T12:04:00.005-11:00

I'm going to let you into a little secret. A few weeks ago I told my son Ian that I was planning on some travelling this autumn. I wasn't sure where I might go - perhaps just throw a tent and camping equipment in the car to revisit Cornwall or southern Wales. Maybe I'd go to Corsica or Crete. Ian said "What about Easter Island?"

He'd remembered my lifelong interest in the Pacific Ocean and its peoples and how years ago I would say how much I'd love to visit Easter Island - the most remote inhabited place on Earth. Cogs turned in my brain and I started to investigate the feasibility of such an adventure. Isn't it incredible that such a journey is of course eminently possible for anyone from the developed world who chooses to spend their money that way?

I haven't booked any flights or absolutely committed myself just yet but what was once a dream is gradually turning into a certainty. First I will fly from London to Madrid and then a longhaul flight to Santiago in Chile. Next it's a two thousand mile hop to Rapa Nui - a triangular island measuring ten miles across and famous for its enigmatic statues - the moai. Perhaps I will stay there four or five days and then spend time in central Chile. Maybe travelling on to Argentina and flying home from Buenos Aires.

The idea of this trip is already exciting me. I have read so much about Easter Island - not just about the statues but other archaeology, the craters and the Birdman cult whereby each spring young men would risk life and limb to dive from the highest cliffs, swimming out to a rocky islet to collect the first seabird eggs. Once Easter Island was sufficient in itself - so far from anywhere else that the outer world really did not matter and then as the last trees were felled the island's thriving society began to perish in what is often thought of as the world's first manmade environmental disaster.

What is life for? I'm going to go while I can, while I have the health, energy and money to make this dream come true. An adventure. I feel comfortable and grateful that my lovely wife, Shirley understands this wanderlust, encouraging me to go for it. One day we hope to visit New Zealand together but for now I have a date with the moai - all I have to do is click the keys on this keyboard and the tickets will be booked.

Lawnmower

2009-09-20T12:01:00.003-11:00

Would our Flymo Compact 350 lawnmower hold out till the autumn? Now there's a question. Forget the recession and this nation's tragic adventures in Afghanistan - what really mattered and still matters is/was our lawnmower. In our salubrious Sheffield suburban idyll, we have a lot of grass to cut. The garden is 43 metres long - being the sad git I am, I once measured it. Much of the garden is verdant and where there is grass there must be lawnmowers as the age of the scythe and the sickle is almost over in England.

Back in 1981, when Shirley and I tied the marital knot, my kindly sister-in-law Carolyn gave us a second hand basic Flymo lawnmower. At our first house, there was a tiny amount of lawn but I used it through the eight summers we lived there. No problem whatsoever. I brought it to this house with its vast prairie leading to distant savanna and I used that old mower for twelve further years and do you know - we never had it serviced once. The machine would still be working today if I could have sorted out its iffy wiring. Instead we opted for the modern world of lawnmowing and purchased with supermarket reward vouchers and a little cash a magnificent Flymo 350 Compact.

For eight years this sturdy machine did its job magnificently until the day my impatient wifelet decided to drag it from its resting place in our "underhouse". I was ill at the time. I had explained to her often before that it was like a hovercraft and did not have wheels beneath. The impatient dragging process dislocated the safety drive handle mechanism and in spite of my best efforts to rescue that orange and gorgeous piece of horticultural technology, it died.

But nothing lasts forever. Time to purchase the third lawnmower of my life. Research - that was the key. I checked out the various models available and their prices at different stores. This time I was going to go for a rotary mower so that the wifelet could wheel it out from the underhouse without attracting my best expletives. Finally I settled on the "Spear and Jackson" 37" bladed rotary mower from "Argos".

I tootled into the city centre and entered the Argos Extra store on Angel Street. I was not a little excited - after all a man's relationship with his lawnmower is arguably more fulfilling and pleasurable than any association he might form with a woman. No lawnmower ever objects when you lift its lid and it goes whenever and wherever you want it. When you're done with it you put it away until you are ready to use it again.

Upon returning home, I had the arduous task of assembling the new machine. There were the handles to screw in and the grass box to clip together. After forty minutes, the beast was ready. Out onto the hallowed turf - plug in and off we go! For ten long minutes she gobbled up our grass which had grown slightly long - but no more than four inches anywhere. After fifteen minutes, I noticed a little wisp of smoke rising from the motor. I switched off immediately but it was no use. My new Spear and Jackson in its stylish grey and black livery was kapput. I was looking forward to at least ten years of reliable service but I got little more than ten minutes.

The useless mower had to be dismantled, re-boxed and driven back to Angel Street where the customer services lady was slightly accusatory until she met a torrent of articulate stubbornness from yours truly. I felt like saying "Smile! You've been Yorkshire Puddinged!" She even tried to get me to give back the £5 voucher I had earned in the morning for spending more than £50 until I asked who would be paying for my parking ticket, extra petrol and time. What would have been nice was an apology for selling me a piece of junk but instead I had to settle for my money back. Perhaps I should go on the Internet to see if I might locate a better lawnmower in Thailand or The Philippines. Mind you - I noticed the one that broke down was made in China. The clue was obvious in those traditional Cantonese names - Spear and Jackson.

Eyam

2009-09-17T11:32:00.023-11:00

Last Thursday was such a beautiful late summer day - so deliciously warm under a clear blue sky. I decided to have a break from digging, path laying, planting and decorating. Instead I drove out to the nearby North Derbyshire village of Eyam. I parked up, tied on my boots and started walking - no map, no jacket, no knapsack or water. It was the sort of thing I could have never done during my teaching career. Many is the time I used to look out on glorious days and wish I was away tramping country paths, enjoying the sunshine, leaving behind all those words, those voices, those eyes that inhabited those humdrum classrooms.

I saw a footpath edging the village churchyard and followed it up the hill into the woods and the narrow road that leads to Mompesson's Well. Very strangely, halfway up the hill I came across four llamas in an isolated paddock. They looked at me as if to say, "Can you tell us the way to The Andes mate?"

Mompesson's Well is named after a local vicar who was the incumbent of Eyam church in the middle of the seventeenth century. Plague raged in London and through much of northern Europe but it hadn't worked its evil way as far as the northern counties of England - that is until August 1665 when it is said that some flea-infested bundles of cloth were brought to Eyam. Very soon The Plague spread through the village and in sixteen terrible months 260 out of an initial population of 350 were killed. The Reverend Mompesson allegedly urged his parishoners to create a self-imposed quarantine so that the disease wouldn't spread beyond their unfortunate parish. Just outside Eyam is a well which used to be used by packhorses, sheep and their drovers. During the time of The Plague, the story goes that supplies would be left there for the villagers to collect.

I went cross country to investigate an abandoned fluorspar mine and then on to the hillock which is now dominated by a Derbyshire police force radiomast, then down a long rutted limestone lane towards Abney, turning left past the trees where some New Age travellers have made an encampment, then down a very muddy path through old copses towards the stone quarry and a mile or so along the minor road that leads back into Eyam. Two and half hours had passed and I felt hot, thirsty and hungry but nicely invigorated. Time for "The Miners' Arms"!

After buying a "Guardian" at the village store I was soon sitting outside the pub with a pint of orange cordial and soda water waiting for my delicious BLT on fresh ciabatta bread.

Although I had been to Eyam several times before, I had never visited the Riley Graves on the outskirts of the village. After lunch I walked a further half mile eastwards to the strange miniature graveyard that is home to six members of the Hancock family who all succumbed to The Plague in 1666. If you would like to learn more about Eyam - The Plague Village please click on this photograph of The Riley Graves:-

Dentophobia

2009-09-14T12:25:00.003-11:00

Mostly, I am not afraid. I am not afraid of spiders or any other creepy crawlies. In fact, I would happily let them crawl on my skin and this would include cockroaches. I am not afraid of the dark and if there were a graveyard nearby, I would nonchalantly walk through it alone in the middle of the night. Horror films don't terrify me, nor do snakes or rats. However, I do have one fear - and this is a fear that has often caused me to break out into a cold sweat or grip the armrests of the chair so tightly that more than once I have literally had to be prised off. I'm thinking about dentists and yes I will come out and admit it folks - I am a dentophobic.

I have never had a dental "check up" in my entire adult life. Any visits I have ever made have been unavoidable - usually because of insufferable pain. Because of this there have been periods when I have gone five or six years without seeing one of these deranged sadists with their arrays of drills and pastes, their disconcerting conversations and their unpleasantly sour-sweet body odours. Why would any intelligent person actually choose to be a dentist? Spending your entire working life rooting around in people's mouths seems to me to be a very narrow and unappealing way in which to feather your nest. Mind you - even though they are little more than oral mechanics fixing your teeth - dentists are handsomely rewarded. As my old mother used to say - you won't see a poor dentist.

Until last Friday, I was not on an NHS dentist's list. Once or twice, I had half-heartedly tried to get on a list but the problem was they always wanted to begin with a "check up". Recently, I have had a dental issue which has now translated itself into a hamster cheek on my left side - all down to a developing root infection. On Sunday lunchtime, I travelled to an area of Sheffield called Fir Vale which is home to a large Pakistani community - I was seeing the emergency "out of hours" dentist. The guy reminded me of the "doc" in "Back to The Future" but his communication skills were even more limited. There were no social niceties and no advice about paracetamol or what do if the problem persisted. He spent no more than three minutes in my mouth. I even had to ask if it would be okay for me to rinse out with that pink antiseptic water that dentists favour.

I woke up on Monday morning with a big swollen cheek so the dentist's intervention appeared to have caused more harm than good. The emergency dental service gave me another appointment at Fir Vale. Aaaaargh! I just didn't want to see that pigman again but there he was! I had to wait for an hour and a half before finally getting into his torture chamber once again. This time, after prodding around my un-numbed jaws, he prescribed some antibiotic pills which left me wondering why he hadn't done that the first time. "A lot of pus coming out...suck on the tooth," made me realise that he did possess the power of speech after all.

This semi-mute has buggered the offending tooth so badly that it will definitely now have to be extracted - but not by him. Apparently, more by luck than judgement, I have managed to get on the patient list for one of the best NHS dental practices in Sheffield but I still can't understand why they couldn't see me instead of having to travel to Dr Death at Fir Vale. Dentophobia, like most phobias, is irrational I know but when you're dentophobic you just can't help it - no matter how much you convince yourself of the illogicality of your fear.

Pinup

2009-09-11T00:52:00.005-11:00

One of my favourite bloggers will occasionally post photos of what she calls "eye candy". To be politically correct, these photos are of both sexes though it is obvious she favours the male "eye candy". It seemed like such a good idea that I thought I would imitate it. So here's my first offering - the archetypal Yorkshire battleaxe of a wife - Nora Batty played by the Lancashire born actress - Kathy Staff who sadly departed this life last December at the age of eighty. For transatlantic visitors who may not be familiar with this character, Nora Batty was the female lead in a Yorkshire based BBC comedy series which followed the peculiar antics of a small group of retired men in "Last of The Summer Wine". The writer - Roy Clarke - was a master of irony and understatement crafting scripts that were tenderly humorous and psychologically observant.

Nora had a harsh and miserable disposition, pouring scorn on all menfolk as she got on with the serious business of housekeeping - scouring her step and hanging out the washing. She did not tolerate foolishness or foolish men and was the guardian of northern commonsense in her pinafore and crumpled stockings. For many men of my generation, Nora was a sex symbol who enriched our inner fantasy lives over many years. Who needed Marilyn Monroe, Cheryl Cole or Jennifer Aniston when you could have Nora Batty? Talk about eye candy, Nora was the sweetest of all.

Here's just one of her lines:- "The old ways are sometimes the best. Rug-beating is one of the older types of therapy. It's what housewives had to make do with before nervous breakdowns were invented."