Secret

Shhh! Can you keep a secret? On January 30th, I saw a blank "Word" page in front of me and I just started writing. There was no particular plan. I just let the words flow. Now I have written 40,000 words and I'm still going. A story has emerged and one of the beauties of writing with the aid of  a computer is that I can keep going back and tinkering with what I have already written to enhance the story and to make it all fit together better.

I guess it's a story for adolescents like James - my fourteen year old narrator - but it might have wider appeal.

Anyone who writes probably harbours secret ambitions of getting published. Of course fulfilling such a dream is, in terms of the odds,  almost on a par with the possibility of winning The National  Lottery. Even if you come up with a genuinely brilliant original "product", getting it accepted by a publisher may be like getting a private audience with The Queen. So of course I am not very hopeful that I will get this thing - my new baby - into print but I will try half a dozen publishers and then when they've said their "no's" I will make a new blog and publish it there instead - chapter by chapter - week by week.

Before then, I have to get the thing finished. It has grown organically, almost in spite of my presence at the keyboard. Stuff - ideas, dialogue, description - have emerged from the dark recesses of my mind in a process that seems mysterious and rather illogical. I have always loved to create things - from meals to mosaics and from poems to photographs. Isn't creation the true essence of life?

I needed to know how long a novel actually is to give myself some kind of word count target. "The Bible" by A.God weighs in at a massive 774,746 words but there are only roughly 77,000 in "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone". William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" contains 59,900 words while Kurt Vonnegut's memorable "Slaughterhouse Five" contains 49,459 words. It seems that novels aimed at mid-adolescent readers tend to be around the 45,000 word mark.

So as you can see I'm getting there. James and his friend have returned to the coast but somebody has been into the old lighthouse before them, removing bricks to reveal the hidden and ancient stairwell that descends to the very base of the headland...

Nimrod

I wouldn't have wanted to die young - especially during a conflict I didn't even understand - where the enemy were as impossible to identify as their cause. Yesterday, six more young British soldiers died tragically and unnecessarily by a dusty roadside in the heart of Afghanistan. They were blown to smithereens by a Taliban bomb.We don't even know their names yet but they have taken Great Britain's death toll there to over four hundred and for what, for what? The politicians who put them there  eleven years ago had no clear idea what they were trying to achieve. It was a knee jerk response to the inhuman attacks of 2001 on New York's Twin Towers by terrorists who in fact belong to no particular nation - not Afghanistan, not Pakistan, not Switzerland - nowhere. There has been far too much mythology in all of this. If young men must die in warfare then they should die for causes that are noble and meaningful. What is happening in Afghanistan is just a very expensive mess that seems to be causing more problems than it is solving. So I say once again to anybody who might be listening -

BRING OUR BROTHERS HOME!

And here's Edward Elgar's "Nimrod" from the Enigma Variations - played in Whitehall, London, every Remembrance Sunday. Now it's for the six working class families left distraught, for those young men's friends and for the hopelessness of it all:-

LATER... Now named, here they are:-

TOP: Daniel Wade (20), Daniel Wilford (21), Anthony Frampton (20).
BOTTOM: Nigel Coupe (33), Jake Hartley(20), Christopher Kershaw(20)

The five youngest soldiers all belonged to The Yorkshire Regiment. Sergeant Coupe belonged to the Duke of Lancaster Regiment but much more important than those military allegiances they were above all sons, grandsons, brothers, nephews, lovers and friends. Why? Why did they have to die?

21

"21" - not the name of the recent album by English singer-songwriter Adele Adkins but the number of the Pathfinder walk I tackled yesterday - a lovely blue sky sunshiny day. It involved parking in the village of Calver, a long section by the River Derwent and an even longer section along dramatic millstone edges - Baslow, Curbar and Froggatt. Nature called me as I passed "The Bridge Inn" at Curbar so I had to purchase half a pint of bitter and some potato crisps in order to use their "facilities". Resisted the urge to photograph the dinky primary school in Curbar as children were outside playing and you know how it is these days - every man out walking on his own is either a potential murderer or a dirty paedophile Burn him! Burn him! Seven and a half miles and it was meant to take three and a half hours according to the book but I did it in three in spite of my many stops to snap pictures like these:-

"Hirstholme" by the River Derwent

View of cottages at upper Curbar

The Eagle Stone

Curbar Edge

Ripe bulrushes shedding seed fluff on the wind at Calver  Marshes

Killers

Santorini

Jokes can sometimes miss their mark - especially across cultures. We English find some lauded American comedians exceedingly unfunny and I am sure that some of our best comedy exports have been equally disastrous over there. Jokes will sometimes walk the wire between humour and offence.

Last week, in a photo-sharing website also governed by Planet Google's web empire, I spotted a lovely picture of the Greek island of Santorini. It is a place I have visited myself - a rather unique volcanic  island basking in bright Aegean sunshine. I was in this Greek contributor's album because he'd left some encouraging comments beside some of my own pictures.

I commented that it was a wonderful picture of Santorini and to help out the country's dire economic situation, the Greek government should consider selling Santorini to a Russian billionaire! With hindsight I guess I was walking the wire.

The Greek chap - let's call him Adonis - replied in this aggressive manner: "You come from a country of killers! How dare you advise us about our economic situation!"

So I replied: "Country of kilers? What are you talking about? I have never killed anybody and neither have any members of my family or any of my friends. Are you racist? My first comment was meant to be a JOKE! I assume you have jokes in Greece?"

Then there followed a lengthy tirade in Greek filled with angry exclamation marks but I couldn't be bothered to translate it so I just deleted it along with any other comments I had received from Adonis.

Afterwards, I pondered upon that label "country of killers". I wondered if that might be how citizens of some other less fortunate nations might view the British given our involvement in Iraq, The Falkland Islands, Libya and Afghanistan for example. For decades, Britain has been America's number one ally in "policing" many of the world's trouble-spots. Adonis's insult made me wonder how many others stand on the sidelines of world affairs and think of Great Britain as a "country of  killers". 

Perhaps I should visit Adonis with a cricket bat to prove his point!

Ten

Sheep grazing above Wyedale

Last Friday I undertook Walk 13 from my White Peak Pathfinder Guide. Today it was the turn of Walk 10. This meant driving out of Sheffield through Grindleford and on to Stony Middleton, then along the Buxton road till I saw the turn off for Litton - a beautiful limestone village in the High Peak. Through Litton and then down to the minor road that runs between Tideswell and Miller's Dale. I turned left for Miller's Dale, parking at the old station where I ate my ham sandwiches and sipped hot coffee from my shiny black  flask before setting off.

Although the weather was dry, a milky cloud blanket meant that any photography would not be brilliant so please forgive me. 

For a hundred years, a railway track joined Matlock and Buxton. It was the Midland Railway Company's main line between Derby and Manchester. How ingenious and daring those Victorian railway engineers were - to build a track through such difficult upland terrain. It meant there had to be several tunnels and viaducts - and in its day the project would have been outlandishly expensive. This track closed forever in 1967 leaving Miller's Dale's sturdy stone platforms redundant. Nowadays only walkers and cyclists go there. I think it's great that the scenic track remains an attraction. and has not been destroyed or fenced off to keep out those dangerous creatures known as "the public".

I passed Victorian lime kilns, an old limsetone quarry and then dropped down into lovely Cheedale where an old woman was being led by her son along a path that became inreasingly problematic. This wasn't an easy riverside stroll by any means. By the River Wye, I spotted a child's plastic toy house - just sitting there on the river bank - leaving passers-by like me to wonder how on earth it got there.

Back up to the railway track, through Chee Tor tunnels till I reached the view over Blackwell Mill. Then up the gorge side and across the fields to the hamlets of Blackwell and Priestcliffe before following the long Limestone Way track back towards Miller's Dale Station. 9.5 kilometres in total and a vigorous, enjoyable  walk. Driving home, I stopped just once to take a picture of  "The Red Lion" in Litton - a pub I last entered almost thirty years ago.

Stepping stones in Cheedale

The incongruous plastic toy house

Chee Tor Tunnels

"The Red Lion", Litton

Naming

Don't you think that place names are fascinating? Sometimes the reasons for a particular place or street name are very clear and well-documented. Sheffield for example is a field by the River Sheaf and England is the land of the Angles - Germanic invaders who arrived on these shores in the post Roman period. Before they came there were various tribal areas including Mercia and Norhumbria but the word "England" did not exist.

When we were on holiday in New Zealand we visited several places that drew their names from the English aristocracy - for example Auckland after Lord Auckland the patron and former commander of  William Hobson who was the governor of the country between 1840 and 1842. In fact our hotel in the city was on Hobson Street. Maori names tend to be descriptive. For example Whakarewarewa means "gathering place for the war parties of Wahiao". 

I'm getting too serious. This was meant to be a light-hearted post. I wonder how these genuine English place names were conceived -  Shitterton in Dorset, Cockup in Cumbria, Twatt in the Orkney Isles and Titty Hill in Sussex? Other countries can also claim memorable place names such as Muff in Ireland, Bald Knob in Arkansas USA and Cockburn in Western Australia.

And what about these genuine English street street names: Butt Hole Road, Bladder Lane, Titty-Ho, Fanny Hands Lane, Crotch Crescent, Squeeze Guts Alley and Shaggy Calf Lane?

Of course we can laugh at these bizarre names now but in the mists of time there were reasons for them. They were not affected modern choices made in committee rooms by politically correct planners but had logical roots in our earthy history. Modern street naming tends to be blander, safer as in Acacia Avenue or where one of my brothers used to live - Sweet Briar Close. How lovely! Would you rather live at that address or on Pope's Head Alley or perhaps Bummers Hill?

In France

In Austria

In America

Wakefield

Barbara Hepworth at work

The "county towns" of Yorkshire's three ancient "ridings" were Beverley (East Riding), Northallerton (North Riding) and Wakefield (West Riding). It was from these three towns that local government in Yorkshire was administered and even today all three places still serve important bureaucratic functions in relation to highways, education and social work for example.

I hadn't been into Wakefield for years and years. The last time I was there, the surrounding coal industry was still strong and the people of Wakefield were as tough and as thoroughly Yorkshire as their rugby league team - Wakefield Trinity. Today it was different. I was starting to think I had developed a hearing complaint because I kept noticing snatches of Eastern European languages - Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian. And as I looked at these passing white people, I realised that they didn't even look Yorkshireish any more - their facial features, even their clothes. As our American friend Mr Brague might remark - I'm just saying.

My main reason for driving up to Wakefield was to visit The Hepworth. It's a new art gallery by the River Calder. It mainly celebrates the artistic legacy of the city's most famous daughter - the sculptress Barbara Hepworth. Born in 1903, she revealed her artistic talent at a precociously early age but the idea of devoting her life to sculpture took several years to germinate. Nearly all  photographs of Barbara Hepworth show her "at work" - mostly in her St Ives studio. She died in 1975.

Apart from prime examples of her work, there were displays of her tools, her old work bench, preparatory sketches and plaster models, how her massive abstract bronzes were forged and after sliding out one secret drawer I looked down on various beach pebbles she had gathered. Of them, she said that people like collecting sea-worn stones because they remind us of the timelessness of nature and help us to reconnect to it. This is something that has become a habit for me too. For example, I have a perfectly circular beach stone that I found on Birdlings Flat beach  in New Zealand. Her words helped me to understand my own urge to collect stones as souvenirs.

Black and white view to Wakefield Cathedral

Exhibits by Barbara Hepworth

There were some small groups of  "college students" in the gallery being shepherded by "college tutors". I had the feeling that they were not really there out of choice. They seemed more interested in their social tittle tattle than in Hepworth's monumental work. A few of them were eating snacks and swigging fizzy drinks. A few had worksheets to complete. I hesitate to imagine what questions they contained... What was Hepworth's first name? How much did you spend in the cafe? What did you think of the visit? -  (a) Okay (b) Crap (c) A Damascian experience which has convinced me that I should also become a sculptor, using a range of  solid mediums to reflect on mankind's place in the natural world... I'm just saying, that's all. 

The Hepworth by the River Calder

Hodsock

Snowdrops don't last for long but in the British Isles they are the true heralds of springtime. And can there be a finer place to see snowdrops in bloom than in the grounds of Hodsock Priory - just over the border in Nottinghamshire? Shirley and I had never been there before this morning. The "window of opportunity" only lasts for a fortnight and of course you want to see the flowers in sunshine not beneath overcast skies:-

The Snow Drop

The Snow-Drop - winter’s timid child 

Awakes to life bedew’d with tears;

And flings around its fragrance mild, 

And where no rival flowerets bloom,

Amidst the bare and chilling gloom, 

A beauteous gem appears!

Mary Robinson (1757-1800)

And before the Grade I listed sixteenth century gatehouse there were even some very early daffodils, tempted out of hiding by the unseasonably warm days we have recently enjoyed:-

Thirteen

Shirley found a book in our copious but disorderly bookshelves. It was probably given to me as a present but I have no memory of receiving it. It is an Ordnance Survey Pathfinder Guide and it's called "White Peak Walks". Normally when I go out into the Peak District which borders Sheffield's western and southern suburbs, I tread country paths I have followed before or I work out circular routes from one of my own maps. More recently I have used an Ordnance Survey internet site to print off A4 maps of planned walks.

However, flicking through the new guide book, I spotted several circular walks that I have not tackled before - mostly in the far south or the far west of the national park. Needing exercise and with a pleasant afternoon weather forecast, I set off yesterday to try one of the closer walks  - Walk Thirteen - "Beeley and Hob Hurst's House" - an area that lies immediately south of the Duke of Devonshire's famous Chatsworth Estate and is less than half an hour's drive from our illustrious city - a true jewel in England's crown (MI5 please note!)

I parked up but before setting off on my hike I sat under a yew tree next to St Anne's - the fourteenth century parish church - to eat a ham sandwich and drink coffee from a thermos flask. Snowdrops were everywhere. I set off up the fields to Beeley Top and then onwards to Park Farm and Bunker's Hill Plantation. Then up to Hob Hurst's House - a remote early Bronze Age burial site. Back down to Beeley Plantation, passing an even older stone circle, and onwards to the hamlet of Fallinge before dropping down through Burnt Wood and back to Beeley... Six and a half miles and three hours - just as the book said but it would have been quicker if I hadn't stopped to take photos:-

Beeley from Burnt Wood

Old guide stoop near Hob Hurst's House

Towards Fallinge 

"Lunky" or Sheep  Hole near Beeley 

Old barn above Beeley

Invention

How did people survive before modern inventions arrived to relieve the pressures and stresses of  everyday living? Here's an amazing yet ludicrously simple invention from 1937. Funny how it never really caught on:-

Algernon

A few minutes ago, the doorbell went. I was halfway through the crossword in the Sheffield "Star". Standing outside was a grinning campaigner for the Liberal Democrats. We have the dubious pleasure of residing in the odious Nick Clegg's consituency. (Foreign readers please note he's Britain's Deputy PM). Magically, she knew my name and quickly gave me hers - Penny - before flashing a LibDem newspaper in front of me. "Not interested!" I said firmly and immediately shut the door. I needed to get back to my crossword.

Yesterday morning, I received a mailing from a company that deals in expensive designer blinds without which of course no home is complete. They got my name wrong. Instead of using my proper surname "Pudding" they used my middle name in its place. Let's just pretend it's Algernon - which of course it isn't. He's a friend of Rupert the Bear. I have no idea how these bloodhounds tracked me down or why they mailed me in the first place.

Algernon the pug

Since that mailing arrived I have had four phone calls from the blind company. Brr-brr, brr-brr. "Hello?" Crackle. Pause. "Can I speak to Mr Algernon?" Immediately, Mr Algernon puts the phone back in its cradle and returns to whatever he was doing before - cooking, listening to the radio, writing another fantastic blogpost. Why should these money-grabbing businesses imagine that it's okay to invade people's privacy in this way?

And please don't tell me about "preference services" - I am signed up to them all and have been scrupulous in ticking or unticking online tick boxes to avoid unwanted mailings and phone calls.

In everyday life I am exceedingly polite as I go about my daily business and it used to be that I would deal very politely with such undesired phone calls. However, as years have passed I have become more and more irritated by these intrusions and usually just put the phone down when I realise who's calling but I am thinking of adopting some new tactics as a kind of sport.

When I am free to do so, I might string the buggers along - pretend I have fallen into their trap and pull out at the last minute or provide false bank details or a wrong address. They irritate me so why shouldn't I irritate them? Another idea I've had is to ask for the caller's home phone number.

"Why?"

"So that I can phone you at home - just as you have phoned me. Come on. What's your number?"

"Err..."

"Right then. You're not prepared to give me your number so would you please remove my name and number from your data bank? I don't want you or your company to ever phone me again. Got it?"

Why can't our overpaid politicians do something about these telephonic invaders? The idea of hiring a team of assassins is attractive but perhaps you've got another way of dealing with telephone intruders? I feel especially concerned about older people who may be even less sharp than I am! They may find themselves drawn in by these telephone villains.

NHS

"Safe in  our hands" - that's what Cameron promised in the  run up to the last general election. He was talking about our cherished National Health Service. But of course in politico-speak, "safe in our hands" doesn't mean that. In fact it means the exact opposite. "Safe in our hands" was just a cynical ruse to win votes.

Many of our English speaking cousins around the world don't "get" the National Health Service - especially in America where they is an ugly, uncharitable school of thought that says you've got to pay for what you get and buddy if you're weak, down on your luck, desperately in need of health care you cannot afford, then tough - it's your own fault. Ironic really when you think of America's widespread "Christianity" - The Bible Belt, Billy Graham, The Tea Party and all that. It appears that their "Christianity" can at times be most un-Christian. I'm alright Jack - pull up the ladder. Did Jesus say that?

Of course, our NHS isn't free. Employed people in Britain have always paid for it in the form of National Insurance. We live in a society and I for one have never resented subsidising the health needs of the poorest and most unfortunate members of this society. Though the three musketeers may have been French, their motto was admirable - "One for all and all for one". To me and to some large degree it's what living in a society is all about.

If it wasn't for the NHS, I would be dead and so would Shirley. It was there when we needed it most - when our continuing good health was severely threatened. The NHS service we received was super-professional from beginning to end.

I know many NHS workers, from a hospital porter to a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and of course Shirley has spent her entire working life nursing within the NHS. They all say how proud they are to work for such an important institution and they all recognise that during Labour's years in office the service evolved tremendously, becoming more efficient with reduced waiting lists and improved professional practice.

Now Cameron and his Tory cronies want to smash the edifice, bringing in expensive "reforms" that they hope will lead to more privatisation - moving away from the principal NHS tenets forged after the second world war. They are not listening to the cacophony of protests from public and professional bodies alike. They don't want to listen.

Don't get me wrong. In  such a massive organisation there is never room for complacency. Improvements - often of a money-saving nature - can always be made and under Labour they were being made. But if something ain't broke don't fix it. The Tories' radical restructuring will turn primary care practitioners into accountants and as time passes ordinary people will witness deterioration in the quality of service they receive while those with money will look to private healthcare in greater numbers than ever before.

The Crown Jewels are kept in The Tower of London but the NHS is our finest national treasure. Safe in our hands? I wouldn't trust Cameron with a banana.

Alcohol

Amy Winehouse - Murdered by alcohol

What is your relationship with alcohol? Has it changed? I have just returned from the local pub where I consumed four pints of foaming Tetley's bitter and now I am sitting at the computer keyboard with a bottle of Marston's "Double Drop" before I stagger up to bed. Hell, it's Saturday night - surely I'm allowed to go as wild as that! 

Alcohol can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Sometimes both. Years ago, my relationship with alcohol was not as comfortable and controlled as it is today. I hesitate to recount in detail my worst memories of booze. But there was blood, fighting, the police, sex, vandalism and twice I slept in prison cells. I am not proud of those times. Another me often surfaced when I was fuelled by alcohol. Many's the morning when I opened my eyes and remembered with horror the night before. 

I was thinking about our lovely daughter. She is so level-headed, living a busy life which is usually guided by her innate intelligence. And yet she has been enchanted by Bacchus. Alcohol has made her fall asleep with a pan of pasta burning away, fall asleep with a pizza in the oven, walk in front of a taxi, fall off her high heels and end up bruised like a prizefighter. Quite simply, alcohol could have already killed her.

In supermarkets there are aisles filled with wines from across the world, whiskies and whiskeys, beers and lagers. Our high streets and suburbs welcome licensed restaurants, public houses and wine bars. Alcohol is all around us.

The majority of  alcohol tragedies are never touched  upon by the media. And then of course there are the related health issues - obesity, liver problems, renal failures, diabetes, depression, falling over. We seem to turn a blind eye to it all.

How many instances of football hooliganism have involved alcohol? How many robberies? How many rapes? How many acts of vandalism? How many fatal car accidents? How many street fights? How many deaths through jumping into rivers? How many divorces? How many beatings? How many friendships broken because of angry words pumped up by alcohol? These statistics have not been recorded.

So I ask you again - What is your relationship with alcohol? The good and the bad. Come. Spill the beans.

Logos

Logos are all around us. You just can't miss them. Logo designs can make or break organisations. This is probably the most recognisable logo on the entire planet:-

In the 1930's, the brilliant propaganda machine that was Germany's National Socialist Party (Boo!) raided ancient Indian iconography to find this memorable spiritual logo which is now of course tainted forever:-

In Great Britain ( I never say "United Kingdom" any more) this horrible logo was dreamt up by some joker for the 2012 London Olympics. When launched, its design attracted floods of complaints and I must say it took me months to realise that the hideous logo spells out "2012" in a stylised manner:-

Surely one of the most effective logos of all time was created for The Brazilian Institute of Oriental Studies. Here you can see an Asian pagoda being absorbed by the setting sun. At least I think that's what it is meant to represent! You may have other ideas:-

Carnage

This morning's old gits' film at "The Showroom" was the 2011 black comedy "Carnage" starring Jodie Foster and John C Reilly as the Longstreets and Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz as the Cowans. They have met up, as urbane middle class New Yorkers, to talk in a civilised manner about a recent physical skirmish between their respective eleven year old sons in a nearby park. Directed by Roman Polanski, the movie proceeds to strip away veneers of politeness, leaving all four characters severely challenged and emotionally exposed. It is a very intense piece of cinema with the action totally confined to the Longstreets' apartment. There are many laughs as we see the layers peeled away, recognising that all of us habitually suppress many of our truest feelings for the sake of social cohesion.

Friends Mike and Jill were behind me in the ticket queue. Afterwards, they shared my feeling that there were moments in the entertainment when you wanted the camera to just get out of that apartment, to reduce the intensity and simply lighten up.  But we all thought it was very good and to Polanski, Reilly, Waltz, Winslet and the ageing Foster, I say Bravo! A nod must also be given to French playwright Yasmina Reza who crafted the stage play "God of Carnage" from which this excellent film grew. Though you wouldn't know it, it was pretty much all filmed in Paris where Polanski, now 78, still lives in exile.

Sometimes

Sometimes, I find myself remembering my beautiful little island in the Andaman Sea - Koh Poda. There you didn't need to care about the "euro" or the American right or crazy Muslim clerics or the price of bacon. You just took your book and your bottle of water to a shady place on the beach and when the sun got too hot you put your mask on and snorkelled out over the turquoise bay. One afternoon, when I finally raised my head from the salt-water, I noticed that I was a hundred metres offshore and an angry,  charcoal-coloured storm cloud had arrived from nowhere. By the time I made it back to the beach, rain was lashing down like no tomorrow. I just stood there laughing, waiting for this sudden tempest to pass. There was nobody else there. My book - "Bangkok - A Cultural History" was completely sodden. 

I looked back at my photographs of Koh Poda today. Did I really go there? Was it really me?:-

And on the mainland, in the fishermen's cave at Railay Beach, wooden phalluses had been placed as offerings to some ancient sea god:-

Thick

Two short planks

Yes I'm thick folks. In England we use the term "thick" to describe those whose mental capacities are under par. I have just been watching news footage from Greece. Street riots have greeted the news of yet more austerity measures for that blighted country as the "euro" struggles from one crisis to another. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights has decreed that the Jordanian hatemonger- Abu Qatada must be released from a British jail. Apparently his human rights must be protected! But who I wonder is paying his massive legal bill?

I am thick because I have no idea what European unity is all about. How can you have unity if some of us are less equal than others so that when the going gets tough the weak get punished? And why is it that British justice can be overruled by overpaid and unelected legislators in Strasbourg, Brussels or The Hague? A straw poll of British citizens would overwhelmingly conclude that the odious Abu Qatada should be sent back to Jordan immediately and billed for his air ticket. We wonder what the hell the guy was ever doing in our country in the first place and how he got to tap in to our welfare benefits while championing a nasty vision for the world that is utterly medieval and anti-Western.

In my profound thickness, I have other questions about Europe. How come petrol is far more expensive in Britain than anywhere else and how come we pay far more for wine and other alcoholic drinks? Why do we contribute more to the American adventures in Afghanistan than any of our European "partners"? Why are the borders open for Eastern Europeans to swarm in willy nilly and why did we allow countries like Romania and Bulgaria to join this so-called European Economic Community when they were clearly economically backward and would become liabilities propped up by the rest of us?

Back in the day, economic "experts" and transient politicians decreed that the only way forward for our continent was monetary union. European people assumed that they knew what they were talking about though many of us were very sceptical - imagining that this drive for union was mainly about big business, banks and suchlike. But how could we see into the future, being as thick as two short planks? We had to bow to the experts. They knew best.

The state of an economy has an enormous bearing upon political stability and the contentment of ordinary citizens. It was economic chaos that led to the rise of the Nazis in the 1930's and economic gloom that has caused so many suicides, so many relationship problems and so much anger all around Europe in recent months. I know I'm thick but looking back I'd have been much happier if rather than joining the European feeding frenzy, Britain had stepped aside, choosing instead to fortify its economic links with the rest of the English speaking world and historical allies from the British Commonwealth such as India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Nigeria.  The world is a small place now. Did we really need Europe? Or am I simply being thick?

Cook

A visit to a faraway country like New Zealand is not something you file away in the back of your mind like a beach holiday in Spain. New Zealand was at the top of my "must visit" list. A special country. I knew a lot about it before I went - it's Maori heritage, its unique flora and fauna, its settlement by Europeans - mostly of British stock. And of course there was the connection with Yorkshire through master mariner Captain James Cook who circumnavigated the North and South Islands in 1769 aboard the "Endeavour" - a buoyant vessel that had once carried coal from the north east coast of England to London. 

A hundred and twenty years beforehand, the Dutch "discoverer" of New Zealand - Abel Tasman had not set foot ashore, didn't realise there were two big islands and never even saw the east coast. In contrast, Cook spent six months carefully mapping the country with astonishing accuracy and made contact with Maori tribes. Sadly this involved some musket fire and killing. Scientists aboard carefully collected hundreds of previously unknown plants and  The "Endeavour" was careened in Queen Charlotte Sound. Lovely word that - isn't it - careened. It simply means that the ship was beached so that its hull could be repaired and stripped of seaweed and barnacles.

Last week through the magic of "Amazon" I acquired Alistair MacLean's affectionate, authoritative and thoroughly readable account of Cook's life and achievements as a master mariner. He was an intensely private man and little is known of his personal life or how he progressed from such obscure origins in the North Riding of Yorkshire to become England's finest seaman and arguably the greatest explorer the world has ever known. That mystery exists in spite of his copious journals which pretty much limited themselves to factual matters surrounding the weather, the ship's position, problems with supplies etc.. 

MacLean refers to Cook's first landfall at Gisborne. While we were there, I went to find the Cook Landing Monument. It was erected in 1906. Every New Zealand schoolchild had been invited to contribute a penny to fund its construction and the monument was duly unveiled with much pomp and ceremony. (I guess that Maori families might not have been too happy about parting with their pennies!)  Today the monument sits close to Gisborne's gluttonous timber docks and there are ugly industrial units hiding it from the sea.

Though New Zealand is growing up now, it is still very much a young country. Even America seems ancient in comparison. New Zealanders still revere Captain Cook in statues and street names and of course he supplied the country with so many of its familiar geographical names - Young Nick's Head, Poverty Bay, Bay of Plenty, Cape Turnagain, Hawke's Bay, Cape Foulwind etc.. In fact, no one who has ever lived named as many places as Captain Cook did - though admittedly  he would occasionally ignore the fact that there were many pre-existing Maori names.

Below, the unveiling of the Cook Landing Monument in 1906 and my own photo taken last month:-

Wrinklies

Often on a Thursday morning I walk into the city centre to take advantage of  a cinema deal for the over fifties. It's offered by our independent Showroom Cinema not far from the Midland Railway Station. For £4.50 you can have a cup of coffee, a cake and a ticket to see a current movie. Last week I saw "Like Crazy" and this week it was "Young Adult" starring the gorgeous Charlize Theron - who is also becoming a mighty fine film actress.

It feels odd being in a large audience of people who are all over fifty. I look around at the grey or dyed hair, the wrinkles, the sensible winter coats and I think to myself - these people were all young once with their lives ahead of them and now they're on the downward slope. I still can't really believe that I am one of them.

Both films have been excellent - the kind of films that absorb you - where you lose track of time and accept the illusory world that is being unpeeled on screen. Starring Anthony Yelchin and Felicity Jones. "Like Crazy" is a love story with a difference. Meeting as students in Los Angeles, Felicity's character - Anna is British and she overstays her visa limit in order to have more time with Jacob. This causes future travel difficulties that eat away at their love like dry rot. The sense of time passing in this film is expertly crafted and I enjoyed it very much.

"Young Adult" is about a Minnesotan ghost writer of "young adult" fiction. Selfish, self-absorbed and semi-alcoholic, it's as if Mavis (Theron) has never truly grown up. She returns to her hick hometown - Mercury - expecting to just pick up where she left off with her high school sweetheart - Buddy Slade. But Buddy is married now, with a new baby and he has put his high school years where they belong - in the land of memory. At first, like a spolit brat, Mavis can't accept this but there is hope for her at the end as she drives back to Minneapolis.

Why Theron's performance hasn't won her an Academy Award nomination for best actress is beyond me. If you're reading this Charlize - please call round for a cup of tea next time you're in Sheffield! Daytime would be best. The strapline for her film could be my own life motto:-