Saturday, October 5th - a sunny day and quite warm too. Shirley was off to the "Help the Aged" charity shop on Ecclesall Road to put a shift in. I felt like bagging a few more images for Geograph. This involved driving north through the city, out beyond Hillsborough and over the M1 at Tankersley.
Then through Hoyland and Elsecar to Hemmingfield where I began to gather my missing pictures. I guess the image I was most pleased with was the one at the top of this blogpost. It's an old farmhouse that was built in 1691 and it is called Hoober Hall. It is still part of a working farm and is never open to the public.
Even though snapping that photograph from the lane was perfectly legal, I didn't want to risk anyone rushing out to berate me so I took it quickly and jumped in my getaway car (Clint) before heading back to Sheffield via Rotherham.
Saturday is often a busy day for road traffic and there were big football matches on in both Rotherham and Sheffield with the two "United" teams kicking off at 3pm. It took me longer than expected to get home.
As Shirley was out I thought I would take the opportunity to catch up on the final episode of a Channel 5 documentary TV series called "Phillip Schofield: Cast Away".
If you don't live in Great Britain you will most likely never have heard of Phillip Schofield but he was a popular and busy TV presenter over here for forty years until... Yes , until he lost his "This Morning" role. In fact he was booted off it and the reason was that he had an affair with a much younger member of the production team.
Until then, the general public though that he was heterosexual. After all, he had a wife and two daughters. But it turned out that he was attracted to men and his affair was with a young man. I think to myself - so what? The affair was a consensual relationship between two adults.
Anyway, in the past year Phillip Schofield has been put through the wringer by the tabloid press so he was probably looking for some way of clawing back his previous reputation. He agreed to spend ten days alone on the uninhabited island of Nosy Ankarea off the coast of Madagascar - fending for himself and filming himself.
I quite liked it but I became irritated by his self-pitying rants about how he was let down by other people and there was rather too much gratuitous swearing for my liking. I would have preferred the documentary to focus exclusively on survival and the beauty of the island and I would have liked Phillip to answer these questions:
- Why didn't you go swimming until the very last day?
- Why did you cast your fishing rod from the beach and not the rocks?
- Why did you go wandering around in the middle of the night?
- Why did you set up your little encampment in such a silly place?
- Why didn't you talk about the night sky - so clear overhead?
Beautiful countryside to walk thorough and get some photos.
ReplyDeleteSo many unanswered questions.
ReplyDeleteThat photo is beautiful and what a lovely house/hall. That is my favorite part of England, how old everything is, even you Mr. Pudding:)
My reaction to his affair is the same as yours, as long as he wasn't using his fame or power to force a situation.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very large house, yet not a mansion in appearance.
Like you, I was surprised by the amount of swearing, the way he wandered around in the dark and even climbed that cliff when he was evidently so hungry and could have had an accident. But the programme makers probably edited a lot so that a lot of stuff was cut out and they only kept in the Poor Me content. I did feel very sorry for him. His only crime was to have a consensual relationship with someone only when they were of age and, as he said, had it been a heterosexual relationship nobody would have probably batted an eyelid. I do think he was shafted - he won't be remembered for all those years of an excellent career and so called friends have trampled on him to make progress on theirs .
ReplyDeleteBuilt in 1691 and still standing, still habitable. what a difference from the (almost) disposable homes built these days.
ReplyDeleteYou chose a good day for being out and bagging some more images for Geograph. What you say about the busy roads reminds me of when my sister-in-law was driving us to South Yorkshire for our family gathering this summer; we just about made it past Rotherham through the heavy traffic there due to the races.
ReplyDeleteThe dog and I wouldn't mind joining the walkers along Smithy Bridge Lane , it looks a perfect place to just amble along enjoying the sunshine.
ReplyDeleteI've no inclination to watch the Philip Schofield documentary, and like you, wonder what all the fuss was about. I've never liked him and must admit, after hearing his "confession", I'd always thought he was gay!
Your photos show England at its best on a lovely autumn day.
ReplyDeleteHe epitomises the celebrity gone wrong, and then he has to moan and fawn publicly. Actually I couldn't care two hoots who sleeps with who, because I never read about it.
ReplyDeleteHis shallowness frightens me and his looks aren't too good either;) But thank you for being prurient and that is a lovely farmhouse in the first photo.
Sounds like a nice day out. Where would you exile yourself for a week?
ReplyDeleteI imagine that had the affair been with a woman, there would have been some sort of reprimand and the woman probably fired; but another man!!
ReplyDeleteAgain, I love the old country houses.
I love stone. Stone be they dry stone or buildings.
ReplyDeleteSo does Geograph have a list of places that they want people to photograph? Does everyone have the same list or do you photograph something that no one else has submitted a picture of?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to imagine what a home like that one in the first photo would be like to live in.
ReplyDeleteAs to Mr. Schofield- I swear to you that I recently read a book written quite some time ago and one of the characters in it had been a famous announcer of some sort and had fallen to the depths with no career at all due to circumstances which I cannot remember at this moment and then was offered a place as a contestant on one of those Survivor like shows and he took it to try and boost his career.
Life imitating art here?
In the book though, the man was accused of one of the women on the island of some sort of sexual impropriety and get sent home in shame.
I'd forgotten it was a gay affair. To me, the scandal was less about that and more about the fact that he had an affair with a junior employee.
ReplyDelete