"Velcro"

Who the hell is that? I suspect you will never have heard of him. It's George De Mestral. Born in Switzerland in 1907, he died there in 1990. He was an electrical engineer but as you probably already guessed from this blogpost's title, De Mestral was also the inventor of "Velcro". That was the brand name of the inspired hook and loop fastening device that he developed through the 1940s and into the early 1950s.

One day, during World War II, De Mestral was out hunting with his dog. Upon returning home, he noticed that once again his dog had numerous burdock burs on its fur. It was irritating but why was it happening? How did the burdock burs cling to the animal's fur?

He investigated with the aid of a microscope and eventually concluded that the outer perimeter of the dying burdock bloom was covered with tiny hooks that could latch on to anything with a loop  - such as wool for example.

He pondered this for years until he began to see the possible applications there might be for humans. If he could somehow manufacture a fastening product that used the hook and loop concept, he might be on to a winner.

Original "Velcro" logo

After a lot of trial and error, he came up with a nylon product that consisted of hundreds of tiny hooks that could marry with loop-based strips. Just like the "Velcro" we see in modern life today.

"Velcro" is very useful as a shoe and coat fastener and it is also used in hospitals, various  industries, wall fastenings and  car interiors. It has also featured in spacesuits since manned space flights began.

Unlike many other inventors of great things, De Mestral's "Velcro" made him fabulously rich in his lifetime.

A few minutes ago, our little Phoebe got changed ready to go to her after-school "Tumble" class. The last thing she did before jumping in Grandma's car was to put her training shoes back on. This was easy to do because they have "Velcro" straps thanks to George De Mestral's brainwave and his dogged persistence in bringing that truly brilliant  idea to fruition.

Honesty

Shirley spotted a nail in one of our beautiful new car's front tyres. I didn't want to yank it out myself in case that caused instant deflation. Instead, I immediately booked Butch into the Halfords Autocentre on Savile Street over in the Don Valley.

Having battled through unexpected traffic, I arrived at Halfords bang on time. The fellow on the front desk asked me to return within an hour and hopefully the problem would have been sorted out by then. So off I went for a mosey around the massive Tesco Extra store just down the road. I also had a cup of coffee in their cafe as I read the first few pages of the novel I bought from a charity shop to see me through the rest of February: "The Dirt Road" by James Kelman.

When I returned to the autocentre, the same young man on the reception desk told me that my appointment had been cancelled and I would be getting my pre-payment back. I was puzzled but then he explained that it had been a very short nail  and it had not in fact entered the tyre's inflated cavity. Of course I could not have known that myself and he agreed.

I thanked him for his honesty and we agreed that some tyre businesses would have simply kept the dosh. A brownie point goes to Halfords for doing the right thing.

It was like this

In other Yorkshire Pudding news, today I finally got round to doing something I had been meaning to do for ages. I parcelled up a brass thermometer and posted it to a certain school in York.

In fact, I was returning it to its rightful owners having stolen it from that school one Saturday afternoon when I was thirteen years old - fifty nine years ago by my reckoning.

That morning I had arrived in York aboard a school coach ready to play a game of competitive  rugby union. In those days, after games, it was the custom for home schools to provide refreshment for visiting teams. 

Following lunch, with three or four teammates, we went on a bit of a rampage around the host school seeking stuff we could thieve. That is how I ended up with the brass thermometer. It was in a science lab drawer.

As I wrote in my explanatory letter to the present headteacher of the York school, seeing that brass thermometer through the decades had always been tinged with shame and regret. As an adult and as a father, a husband, a neighbour and a friend I have always sought to live a very honest life - adhering to the motto, "Honesty is the best policy". And yet there was the brass thermometer - reminding me that I was not as entirely honest as I claimed to be.

Well now the thermometer has gone back where it belongs with sincere apologies. It now feels as if the load I carry around with me is slightly lighter this evening. I should have sent the stolen  booty back years ago.

"Kes"

How long is it since I first saw the iconic British film "Kes"? It must have been around fifty seven years ago.

Anyway, I watched it again this evening having found it on Amazon Prime. I do not believe that it has been available there for very long so I was delighted to locate it.

Of course I have been thinking about "Kes" a lot recently and in my conversations with Richard Hines and his wife Jackie, "Kes" has naturally featured as an on-going topic. Richard's more famous brother - Barry Hines - was the author of "A Kestrel for a Knave" upon which the film was based. However, it was  Richard himself who inspired the idea that the central character would be a school write-off who trained a kestrel because that is exactly what he had done.

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to learn from Richard that Barry's principal motivation for the book had not really been to tell the story of a working class nobody who trained a kestrel but to "shake up the education system" in this country.

This evening, I re-engaged with what is one of my very favourite scenes in the film. In an English classroom, the teacher, Mr Farthing, is encouraging the class to grasp the difference between fact and fiction. Billy Casper, the main character, is urged to stand up and talk about his "hawk". Reluctant at first, he becomes more engaged and the rest of the class - including Mr Farthing listen with wrapt attention.

There are many different versions of what is England and indeed what is Yorkshire. "Kes" speaks for the downtrodden with kindness and anger as well as northern grittiness. This is testament to the team that made it - principally Barry Hines, the director Ken Loach and the producer Tony Garnett. Together, in spite of a very limited budget, they created a kind of magic.

"Kes" is admired to this day as a cinematic and cultural milestone. Just this morning, I listened to Mark Kermode and Jarvis Cocker discussing the film on BBC Radio 4. It means a lot to both of them just as it means a lot to me. 

And who was the unseen falconry expert during the filming - never seen but just off camera? Why none other than Richard Hines himself. Those six weeks in the summer of 1968 changed Richard's life forever.

Survey

Please complete and return to Yorkshire Pudding HQ

in the Comments Section provided.

⦿

1 . How long have you been visiting "Yorkshire Pudding"?

First and only visit today ⬜

One week to one month ⬜

One month to one year ⬜

It feels like forever ⬜

2. How would you rate the quality of writing?

 Abysmal ⬜

I cannot understand what the hell he is saying ⬜

He tries to show off by using big words⬜

Tremendous, almost Shakespearean ⬜

3. Please rate the range of blogpost content

I didn't realise that there is any range ⬜

Disappointingly narrow ⬜

Just about satisfactory ⬜

Fascinating and  an amazing array of subjects ⬜

4. How would you rate the appearance of the blog?

Old-fashioned and unappealing ⬜

It looks like the back end of a bus ⬜

Too damned green and the text is too small ⬜

Like a work of art . A true joy to behold. ⬜

5. How would you describe the author of this blog?

As mad as a hatter ⬜

Bigoted and intolerant ⬜

Someone I hope I never meet in real life ⬜

Kind-hearted, generous, intelligent and sexy ⬜

6.  Would you recommend "Yorkshire Pudding" to your friends?

You must be joking! ⬜

I would rather recommend contracting typhoid ⬜

Only if I receive a guaranteed financial reward ⬜

Wholeheartedly and with much enthusiasm ⬜

7. More about you.
Age..............................
Gender..............................
Criminal convictions........................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Please continue on a separate sheet if required

Bank current account number..............................
P.I.N.Number..............................
e-mail address..............................
e-mail password..............................
Mother's maiden name..............................
Ethnicity..............................
Biggest untold secret............................................................................................ 

................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Thank you for participating in this survey. 

If you would not like/like  to receive marketing mailings and news of free offers please tick/untick this box:⬜

Blue

 

White Nancy above Bollington, Cheshire

What a grey old time we have been experiencing in The People's Republic of Yorkshire in recent weeks. Not only have we suffered biblical rains, the sky above us has been a thick light grey canopy that mutes all colours and seems to drain away the landscape's very lifeblood. Fifty shades of grey.

In periods like the current one, you start to crave the colours and the brightness that you know Nature is capable of providing. The hues of spring and summer. I looked into my extensive library of summertime images for blue skies. All of the pictures that accompany this text were taken in the month of June.

The photos are, I think, a nice reminder that colour will, in the course of time, return and the enveloping grey blanket will be turned back far beyond the horizons that surround us.

Yesterday, under the grey above, I drove over to Hull to see my beloved Tigers beaten by Bristol City. This only added to the gloom. However it was nice to have a passenger - Karl from Wickersley near Rotherham. We conversed throughout the one hour journey and all the way back like bona fide chatterboxes.

Karl is only 62 but he has been battling kidney cancer for which he is receiving immunotherapy. He has had one kidney removed but the battle for life is still very much on. It was great that he felt fit enough to make it to the football. Shame the lads out there on the pitch couldn't send him home with a happier result.

As arranged, we also met my old friend Tony in the stadium. Years ago Karl and Tony were nursing colleagues in Sheffield's Weston Park  Hospital. Perhaps ironically, it specialises in cancer treatment.

Limestone field barn near Monyash, Derbyshire

House in Chinley, Derbyshire

King of The Llamas near Tissington, Derbyshire

Dead tree on Low Moor, just west of Sheffield

"Melania"

Have you been thinking of going to see the new blockbuster documentary film, "Melania"? Perhaps you need the help of a widely respected British film critic giving his honest views on the film  after sitting through all 104 minutes of a production that cost  $40 million to make and was mostly funded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.

Hyped up in some quarters and derided in others, it's hard to know what to think but here Mark Kermode provides his expert independent view of "Melania". It should help you to decide:-

Housekeeping

Nothing stays the same except impermanence. 

Here at "Yorkshire Pudding" I have seen bloggers come and go. Once favoured blog buddies suddenly dry up and you wonder where they have gone when their once regular outputs shrink to nothing - often without explanation. Maybe they just get bored with the whole blogging show. It can happen.

Over at Geograph, I have been contributing images of the fabulous British Isles for over sixteen years. On that marvellous site, I have witnessed several unexplained departures. Members who contributed pictures just about every week suddenly ceased and we heard no more from them. I know that death has been the reason in several instances but often the disappearances have been unexplained.

It's just the same.

I know that it might sound ridiculous to non-bloggers but in the blogosphere you build up affection for and loyalty to other bloggers. They become like real friends but without the face-to-face familiarity or physical presence.

Here I regularly corresponded with  bloggers that you might never have heard of... Daphne Franks in Leeds, Alkelda the Gleeful and Brad the Gorilla in Seattle and the troubled authoress of "Friday's Web" in North Carolina. They were special people but then they went away. I am sure that other long term bloggers have witnessed similar departures.

Now on to the present day and I look at my blog sidebar where thirty two other blogs are listed. But not all of them are active and  it gets tiresome clicking on the links to discover that nothing has changed.  These blogs are effectively frozen in time. And I often worry about the authors. Are they okay?

Sometimes the silent blogs will spark up again - but usually not for long. In the meantime, previously unseen blogs may  have caught my interest  without yet gaining a coveted place in the Yorkshire Pudding sidebar.

Anyway, today is the day for some blog housekeeping to happen. Though it saddens me to say this, I shall later remove:-

"A Yorkshire Memoir" - Tasker Dunham has not blogged since January 1st and this may be down to his challenging health battles. If you are reading this Tasker, I wish you all the best my friend.

"Arctic Fox" - Jason has not blogged since December 20th. Previously he had a ten year absence.

"Crafty Cats Corner"  - Sweet Briony has not blogged since November 3rd.

"The Last Visible Dog" -  Lovely Kate Steeds in New Zealand has not published since March of last year.

And the only blogs I intend to add to the sidebar today are:-

"To Baldly Go" - created by Kirt in another part of Sheffield - though we have never met.

"House Dust and Wander Lust" - from Diaday in Dayton, Ohio. This is a blog that I have only recently started to get into.

⦿

To Tasker, Jason, Briony and Kate - can I just say that if you decide to return to the blogging fold, please give me a nod so that I can reinstate you.