Moon

Yorkipedia - Here are two pictures of our moon. I snapped them recently with my new camera. On average our moon is 238,855 miles from Earth and at its equator it has a circumference of 6,783.5 miles compared with this planet which has a circumference of 24,859.82 miles. In volume, the moon is 27% the size of Earth. The moon effectively sucks and repels our oceans - making tides. 

On clear full moon nights before electricity came along, people would utilise the moonlight for work and leisure. Most of us have lost that ancient practical connection with the moon and many even fail to recognise that in its phases it demonstrates the passing of time - month by month. In ancient times, all pre-Christian and pre-Muslim societies deified and revered the moon. But in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare warned:  “O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”

When Armstrong and Aldrin arrived on the moon's surface on July 20th 1969, they discovered that it was not  after all made of cheese which was bad news for the world's many starving people who - if they had known - may also have been bewildered by the astronomical (excuse the pun) cost of the Apollo project - an estimated $2.6 billion - and that was in the sixties! $2.6 billion would have bought a lot of bags of rice, a lot of water purification tablets, a lot of inoculations, a lot of goats...

Thursday

Walk Number 2,324:-

Thursday saw me parking at "The Red Lion" by Stone Edge, three miles to the south east of Chesterfield. Just outside the Peak District National Park, this is an area that doesn't attract many ramblers. The walk took me three hours and included the oldest industrial chimney in England and the evocative stone ruins of an abandoned farm on Hunger Hill. The air was chilly with a brisk breeze from the north west. When I got back to "The Red Lion", the friendly barmaid directed me to a roaring log fire and told me she'd bring my drink and potato crisps over to me while I thumbed through the current copy of "Derbyshire Life" - sitting in a wing-backed armchair like the lord of the manor but with cow-shit on my trews thanks to the bovine quagmire I had waded through at Dryhurst Farm. Yeeuch!

Sandhill Farm at Stone Edge

The ruined farm on Hunger Hill

Ruins of the old farmhouse...if only they could speak.

View from the ruins to Cathole Farm

Feeling horny - a highland cow at Peasunhurst

The entrance to Alicehead Farm

Sugar beet at Alicehead

The lead-smelting chimney at Stone Edge. The oldest standing
industrial chimney in England though the smelting works
closed as long ago as 1860.

Therapy

Tuesday's walk took in several small Derbyshire settlements - Wensley, Brightgate, Upper Town, Bonsall, Snitterton and Oker. On the eastern edge of the Peak District, close to Matlock, it was an area that had never before felt the reverberations of my plodding seven league boots. 

As some visitors will recall, country walking enthuses me for several reasons. I enjoy studying maps and taking photographs, ancient history, Mother Nature, visiting places I have never been before and rambling provides healthy exercise for a sixty year old pork-pied fellow like me. I reckon that each mile I walk probably extends my life - all that cardio-vascular activity, the gasping breath, the sweat on the brow. It can't be bad. And the more I walk - usually midweek solitary affairs - the more I feel that I am engaging in a kind of natural self-healing therapy. There's something vaguely spiritual about it all.

A selection of Tuesday's pictures:-

Some guys rave about Formula One, scotch eggs, ice cream machines, new bands... but
 I get excited aboutDerbyshire's many isolated stone barns and cowsheds - like this
one that I spotted after trudging up Masson Hill

The village of Bonsall grew because of lead mining and the knitting industry

A modern replica of "T'owd Man o' Bonsall" - the oldest
known stone carving of a Derbyshire lead miner.

A former shop window in Bonsall with two odd and contradictory
written signs and a saucy manikin too. If you look closely at my second
picture youcan see this window from afar - overlooking the
medieval village cross

The village of Oker viewed from Salters Lane

Copse on the ridge by Tearsall Farm as  November
sunlight bows out too early

Flatus

More than fifty years ago, my oldest brother Paul - God rest his soul - lay on his back on our living room floor, brought his knees up to his head and before emitting a resounding fart, lit a match and positioned it close to the blow hole. There was a  flash of blue green flame followed by howls of laughter.  Paul was always scientific like that. Perhaps his failed PhD project should have focussed on flatulence rather than locusts which inconveniently kept dying on him.

On average, every human being in the world farts fourteen times a day. We all do it. From Pope Francis to Miss World and from Earl John Gray of Trelawnyd to bonny babies in their cribs. When I was a boy, if my mother heard me pass wind she'd frown, "What do you say?" and I'd automatically respond "Pardon me" but later - when I was a rebellious teenager - my cleverdick reply would usually be "I've just farted!" I mean - why should we ever be sorry about our farts? They happen.

The word "fart" comes from the Old English "feortan" (meaning "to break wind"). Although the word "fart" is "not in decent use," it was used by the likes of the great medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. I am not sure if there is a polite alternative word for a single "fart" as "flatulence" is a general term for the process of passing wind. After all, nobody says "I've just flatulated" or "I have just performed an act of flatulence" so to me "fart" is a useful noun as it describes a single trumpet blast. Mind you, some farts can whine like a wounded animal and some are like machine gun bullets going off in quick succession.

Over 99% of the volume of flatus (intestinal gas) is composed of non-smelly gases.These include oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane. The remaining trace compounds (just 1% of total volume) give flatus its smell. Recent evidence proves that the major contribution to the smell of flatus comes from a combination of volatile sulphur compounds. It is known that hydrogen sulphide, methyl mercaptan , dimethyl sulphide, dimethyl disulphide and dimethyl trisulphide are all present in flatus. The scientific study of this area of medicine is termed flatology so a scientist who specialises in the field is known as a flatologist though personally I don't recall ever meeting one.

All over the world, farting makes people giggle. It's as if we don't quite know how to react to it even though it's been an everyday feature of human existence since the dawn of time. Having been out of teaching for some time now I can reveal that one of my favourite discipline methods for back row ne'er do wells was to occasionally drop particularly noxious silent farts at the back of the classroom and then nonchalantly stroll back to the front. Moments later, the offending gases would assault unsuspecting nostrils and the lairy pupils would blame each other, protesting "It weren't me!" etc. - forgetting that their erudite English teacher had been to the back only moments before. It only went to prove that some of them really did have the memory span of a goldfish.

There's so much more to be said about farts and farting but of course the subject is taboo. Even as I wrote this post I recognised that the CIA in Washington and GCHQ in Cheltenham would be monitoring every word. Hiya guys! ...THWARRP!

Poem

Remembrance

“Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum.” - Richard II, Act III, scene iii

No, I didn’t tremble in that cloying mud
Fingers fumbling for a Woodbine
Nor did I cower by collapsing trench walls
As Big Bertha blasted hell’s appalling anthem
Skywards.
And I did not yell “Chocks away!”
To those scurrying blokes below
Before the moonlight flight to Dresden
Nor hack unyielding rock in Hellfire Pass.
And I didn’t look back, creeping
Along that perilous Helmand track
The day that Adam Brown went down.
But I have felt your leaving in my bones -
Heard the emptiness you left behind,
Shaken my head at such pointlessness
And the cloying pain of never coming home again, never...
And at eleven on the eleventh day of the eleventh month
I will always bow to you
Who soldier on or shake no more
Bold yeomen in the game of war.

Saturday

Leeds - an old printing works near
the German Christmas Market

Yorkshire has six cities. They are Hull, Ripon, York, Bradford, Sheffield and err...what's the other one...oh yes - Leeds. That is where our lovely daughter Frances has ended up living and working - more by accident than design but gradually the city has won her over and she's pretty happy there - even thinking of buying a house there in the near future.

Until she moved to Leeds in August 2011, I didn't know it well at all - even though it's just thirty five ,miles up the M1 motorway from Sheffield. Like many Yorkshire people, I used to view Leeds with some disdain. It was too big for its boots and it had a football team that had gained worldwide renown and was always on television - the mighty Leeds United. The Yorkshire BBC  and ITV studios were there and they had a Harvey Nichols store too. Perhaps the rest of us were a little bit envious of the place.

Yesterday Shirley and I drove up to Leeds to spend the day with Frances. She's a bit of a slob domestically speaking so there was some tidying up and fumigation to do in the flat she shares with Alex before we crossed the road for lunch in "The Palace" public house. Then we walked through the central business district towards Leeds City Art Gallery and the temporary Christmas market. The place was bustling with shoppers, street artistes, citizens rich and poor and there were eateries, coffee shops, spacious bars and up-market fashion shops. It had a real "buzz" about it - a thriving city centre.

Shirley and Frances wanted to indulge in a weird  "girlie" activity called shopping while I perused exhibits in the art gallery. Although not bulging with artwork, there were some marvellous pieces to enjoy. Original paintings by Atkinson Grimshaw and Stanley Spencer, abstract sculpture by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth and a visiting exhibition by iconic Cornish artists including the naive painter of seaside scenes - Alfred Wallis (1855-1942). A fisherman by trade and unschooled, he frequently painted on bits of cardboard or plywood - just for the love of it until "discovered" by an establishment artist called Ben Nicholson who was the main driver behind the St Ives arts commune.

Later we returned to Frances's flat - absorbed the awful news that Hull City had lost 4-1 to Southampton and then strolled over to Clarence Dock for a delightful curry meal in the new "Mumtaz" restaurant which is a cousin of the highly successful establishment of the same name in Bradford. Eating my tender karahi lamb with pilau rice, chutneys and buttered fresh nan bread made the tragic football news easier to bear. And as always it had of course been a pleasure to see Super-Daughter again. In spite of myself, I am beginning to see why she's happy to put down roots in Leeds. It's bustling central area makes Sheffield's look somewhat underwhelming.

Parking ticket dispute on Cookridge Street, Leeds just
before I wrestled the parking enforcement officer to the
ground. He was later tarred and feathered by a baying
mob  of Christmas shoppers

Leeds Civic Hall with one of its golden owls

Wedding party on the steps of Leeds Town Hall

Harbour, St Ives
by Alfred Wallis

Leeds Town Hall in November afternoon light

Wild

"Oh baby, baby it's a wild world..." Well  I tell you up at Marsden on the northern tip of the Peak District it really is - wild I mean. It's an area I have never explored or walked in before but I felt like getting well out of my normal walking comfort zones to seek unfamiliar territory.

On Thursday morning, I set off just after nine o'clock and one hour later I reached my far distant Pennine destination - parking close to Marsden's little public park and its proud war memorial. Spawned by the woollen industry, this overgrown village sits deep in the Colne Valley, overlooked by lofty farms and treeless moors. The main road through it leads over northern England's rugged spine to Oldham and thence to Manchester. There be dragons!

A huge nineteenth century woollen mill still sits in the valley bottom surrounded by humble wool workers' cottages even though its machines ceased for the last time in 2003. In its heyday, it must have provided hundreds of jobs, bringing people and prosperity to this wild forgotten corner of Yorkshire.. 

For a number of years, I have been aware that one of England's best living poets was born and raised in Marsden. His name is Simon Armitage and on the walking route I planned, I especially wanted to take in the little reservoir at Black Moss. Armitage referred to it in this poem:-

It ain't what you do, it's what it does to you.

I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi’s and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.

I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall, picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I

skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone’s inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.

I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.

And I guess that the lightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.

Before setting off I needed a lavatory and located one in the little town's library. Don't worry - I shall not elaborate at this juncture but the visit was most satisfying! Then I set off - passing two reservoirs that sit in the Wessenden Valley. Soon I joined the Pennine Way, climbing up to the saturated, spongy and windswept moors known as Black Moss. The reservoir itself is very bleak - with a sister reservoir called Swellands nearby. Thank heavens the National Trust or the Peak District Authority have paved most of the path with great blocks of gritstone. Without them walkers would often be up to their knees in peaty gunge.

I have often skimmed stones across water and know the kind of flat stones to look out for but disappointingly I couldn't see any such stones around the reservoir - besides the geology wouldn't be right for them. So I wondered where Simon Armitage had found his skimming stones. Perhaps he brought some up there with him.

Afterwards, I descended to Redbrook Reservoir and then along the Stanedge Trail back to Marsden where I enjoyed a bowl of delicious homemade tomato and pesto soup in a cafe called "Crumbles on the Corner". There was a charity shop in the village called "The Cuckoo's Nest" where I happily deposited a bundle of back copies of "Gardeners' World" - they had been sitting in my car's boot (US - trunk) for several days. Then it was back to Sheffield feeling re-energised and delighted to have yet more proof that Yorkshire really is God's own county.

Some pictures:-

Blakeley and Butterley Reservoirs

Old barn above Netherley

At Black Moss Reservoir - no "flat stones" to skim...

The beach at Black Moss Reservoir - still no "flat stones".

"The Great Western Inn" by Redbrook Reservoir

Rainbow over Marsden - see the now disused woollen mill in the valley.

Sheep posing above Marsden - she said her name was Katherine.

Aprons

This afternoon I made a chilli sauce using my own secret recipe. I was wearing the white shirt I had donned for yesterday's funeral - once again neglecting the two aprons that hang forlornly on a coat hook behind our kitchen door. Surprise, surprise my lovely shirt is now spotted with indelible chilli juice which is co-incidentally burning through the white cotton like nitric acid.

The apron is an eminently sensible invention. It has at least two useful qualities in the kitchen. Firstly, it protects your everyday clothes from spitting food or spills. Secondly, it is an aid to good kitchen hygiene. Behind the scenes in professional kitchens, chefs always wear appropriate clothing - including aprons.

Let us move now to the thorny subject of TV chefs. Have you noticed that they very rarely wear aprons - preferring to demonstrate their kitchen skills whilst sporting designer fashions or - in the case of The Hairy Bikers - jumble sale cast-offs? Although I cannot bear bully-boy Gordon Ramsay, I must admit that he is unusual amongst TV chefs in that he normally dresses appropriately whilst marauding around his kitchens like Benito Mussolini after an all night rave.

The others - Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, James Martin, Nigella Lawson, Lorraine Pascale et al all seem to think it's okay to be apronless when inspiring viewers to up their culinary games. Why aren't they thinking about food hygiene? Why aren't they setting a good example for younger viewers? Perhaps if they always wore aprons, my own now disintegrating white shirt would have been saved!

Apronless Nigella Lawson stirs a Yorkshire pudding
mixture in her designer kitchen as Charles Saatchi watches
on with a besom broom ready to thrash his ex-wife
for deliberately burning his breakfast sausage.

Apronless Jamie Oliver is an expert tosser. Here
he is tossing some  exotic vegetables before drizzling extra
virgin oliver oil all over them whilst spouting Cockney
terms like "lovely jubbly". What a cheeky
Cockney chappie he is! (Also a multi-millionaire)

Apart from medieval torture, this is what Jamie, Nigella and the rest of them need:-

Ordinariness

Let's get something down about ordinary life.

This evening I caught the Number 88 bus home from Bents Green where I had attended the Tuesday night quiz in "The Hammer and Pincers". With my chums Mick and Mike we didn't win the  quiz but we won £12 on the "Irish Bingo". You have a small random pack of cards - thirteen in fact - and the cardmaster calls out cards as he withdraws them from the master pack. As the cards are called you gradually reduce the size of your own pack until you have none left and then you call - "Here!" That is what I did - the first time for ages.

Earlier today, Shirley and I were at a funeral/cremation for one of her nursing colleagues. Sue was only sixty six and a victim of liver cancer just eighteen months after she had retired from practice nursing. From first symptoms through to the final curtain took only six weeks. God really does move in mysterious ways though like me Sue was an ardent and unapologetic atheist. She leaves Bob - a loving husband and two grown up daughters who always referred to her as "Mummy".

Last Saturday, Shirley and I were over at Hull City's Stadium of Dreams to watch our team thrash Sunderland 1-0. They had two players sent off just before half-time so in the second half they were intent solely on defence. It was almost impossible to break them down further - but at least we won! Up The Tigers!

Afterwards we met up with our friend Tony - we are still feeling sad that his long marriage with Fiona has crumbled. We had a meal together in "The Duke of Cumberland" and wished that the old times were back when it was me and Shirley with the two of them. Meals out. Football matches. Boozy sessions in pubs and laughter - lots of laughter. I am afraid I still cannot understand what happened to them. Must people always be looking for something more - the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow, the greener grass on the other side?

Tonight I made baked potatoes for dinner (tea) with fried onions, baked beans and pork sausages. I also brushed two large field mushrooms with olive oil and butter before roasting them in the oven. On Sunday I was delighted with the thin chicken fillets I cooked with double cream, chopped mushrooms and a smattering of Cheddar cheese. Very moreish.

Other ordinary stuff. Tonight was Bonfire Night in England. I was aware of a few fireworks going off in the night sky but it's nothing like it was when I was a boy. Back then you spent all your pocket money on fireworks weeks in advance of the great day. There were huge bonfires - twenty feet tall with old pianos and tea chests, planks of wood and cardboard boxes. On top a "Guy" would sit representing another famous Yorkshireman - Guido Fawkes of York. We'd watch as the tongues of fire leapt up to consume him. And later it was back home for baked potatoes and sometimes toffee apples or parkin cake. November 6th would find me picking about the still smouldering embers of the bonfire - seeking out the remains of dead fireworks. I just loved it. Those really were the days.

"A Penny for The Guy"

Gallery

Monday - a red grouse didn't notice me on Seal Edge - overlooking
The Snake Pass between Sheffield and Manchester

Blackden Barn by Blackden Brook

Rock formation on Seal Edge - thousands of
years of erosion are responsible for this sculpture.

Fly agaric mushroom in the Woodlands Valley

By Blackden Brook

Rainbow's End on Mam Tor (Sunday afternoon)

Judge

Uh oh, here come the Judge

Here comes the Judge

Everybody knows

That he is the Judge

You may recall that I was the geograph photo of the week winner for Week 42. There have been radio interviews, TV appearances and commercial pressure to endorse a new range of frozen Yorkshire puddings. But I am sorry I have serious moral objections to curry-flavoured Yorkshire puds or indeed Mexican, Italian or New York Deli flavours. It just wouldn't be right.

The shortlist for Week 43 duly appeared and after much angst and late night deliberation, these were my final three.

This horse (McDobbin) is in the Scottish borders. The photographer, a certain W.Baxter of Galashiels, has called the picture: "The grass is always greener on the other side":-

This happy scene is in Glasgow Central railway station and it is by another Scottish gentleman known as Tam to his friends. Imaginatively, he called it: "Bride and groom in Glasgow Central railway station" which is a very catchy title don't you think?

But this one was what I judged to be the overall winner. It is by a fellow called Robin who snapped the lovely Autumn image in a park in Newport, Wales. He called it  "An autumn walk with the dog, Belle Vue Park, Newport". He also mailed me twenty quid ahead of my tortured decision-making:-

Please click on the pictures to appreciate them more.

Outrageous

Magnificent York Minster

Yorkshire has been named as one of the top places in the world to visit in 2014 in a new travel booklet. Lonely Planet put the area third in the top ten world regions, behind destinations in India and Australia. The guide mentions Yorkshire's "rugged moorlands, heritage homes and cosy pubs" and that next year's Tour de France's "grand depart"will be in Leeds.Thirteenth century York Minster also makes it into the guide's top ten global "sights to make you feel small".

Quite frankly, I am outraged by this! I mean to plonk Yorkshire in an insulting third place is a heinous slur on my county's good name. Sikkim? The Kimberley? These are nowhere kind of places compared with Yorkshire. I can only imagine that the Lonely Planet judges were bribed by the burghers of Sikkim and Kimberley. If fair was fair we would be miles out in front.

For your interest these are the top ten world regions - according to Lonely Planet:-

1. Sikkim, India
2. The Kimberley, Australia
3. Yorkshire
4. Hokuriku, Japan
5. Texas, USA
6. Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and Zambia
7. Mallorca, Spain
8. West Coast, New Zealand
9. Hunan, China
10. Ha'apai, Tonga

Nowhere in the Lonely Planet summary did they mention our famous Yorkshire puddings, salubrious Parson Cross estate in Sheffield, the lost pit villages of South Yorkshire. No mention of Philip Larkin or Andrew Marvell, The Brontes, Sir Geoffrey Boycott, Ted Hughes, the chalk cliffs at Flamborough, Pulp, The Kaiser Chiefs, Hull City A.F.C.. Not a sausage about Sheffield being the original home of organised football with the oldest football club in the world and the oldest football ground too. Nothing about Saltaire or the Yorkshire Wolds, David Hockney or Damien Hirst, Samuel Holberry, Richard Whiteley or J.B.Priestley , William Wilberforce, Hilda of Whitby, Dame Judi Dench, Percy Shaw, Barbara Hepworth, King Henry I, The Arctic Monkeys, Mel B from The Spice Girls, Harold Wilson or King Arthur Scargill. Zilch! Nor anything about Fountains Abbey or Rievaulx, Beverley Minster, our proud Danish heritage, Black Sheep Ale, fish and chips, the rhubarb triangle or rugby league. I could go on and on...  Are you still awake?

Shame on The Lonely Planet for only putting Yorkshire third!

Snowden

Where do you stand with regard to Edward Snowden? Hero or traitor and why?

He's got a rather sad, inanimate face don't you think. His spectacles and pasty skin speak accurately of the many geekish hours he has spent in front of computer screens. This isn't the all-American action hero - like Bobby Brague in his prime or even Barry Obama. No "Ed" Snowden is  a bit of a nobody really - at least he was until he decided to pass a barrowful of highly classified materials to news outlets and seek temporary asylum in Russia.

Perhaps you have already deduced my verdict - that he is quite simply a traitor. He was employed by the US military and the CIA on the strict understanding that he would do what thousands of Americans have done before him - protect his country's secrets. To maintain freedom, some dirty tricks are necessary and only an idiot would think otherwise.

I wonder what will become of Edward Snowden. Will he ever return to his homeland? Maybe he wasn't really in love with it anyway. Maybe he was a born traitor. Maybe his parents' unhappy divorce in 2001 made him especially bitter inside. Maybe he developed a psychological need to escape from geekdom and lash out in revenge - become a "somebody".

A horse is a horse of course of course but what do you think about this particular Mr Ed?