Kimmel

There will be people out there in the blogosphere who have never seen TV host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel and wonder what all the fuss is about. He was silenced today by The Trump Regime. This was Jimmy Kimmel six nights ago...

With apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller...

First they came for the Mexicans

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Mexican

Then they came for the woke

And I did not speak out

Because I was not woke

Then they came for the peace camp dwellers in front of The White House

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a peace camp dweller

Then they came for the judges

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a judge

Then they came for the comedians

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a comedian

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

Penelope

For several weeks, I have been noticing a straggly branch at the very top of our first apple tree. There are apples up there, hanging on for dear life - over thirty feet above the ground. On Monday afternoon, a gale was blowing and yet the apples clung on - even though the straggly branch was being whipped around.

I reflected upon how amazing nature can be - pushing water and nutrients up from the old apple tree's roots - even during Yorkshire's driest summer on record. All along to the very tip of the topmost branch. Pretty incredible.

On Tuesday I was about to venture out for a walk on the moors when I  decided to first try to get a few photos of the treetop. The light conditions were not really in my favour and I had to use a significant amount of zoom. 

Then I noticed we had a familiar visitor - a wood pigeon. Penelope was up at the top of the tree, chilling out and surveying her domain. You can see her in the top picture

The topmost apples from below

Now I don't mind wood pigeons. They need to eat like other birds and they can't help their bulk. This is something I have often said to Shirley when she grumbles about their apparent greed and dominance - pushing out the smaller birds. In the avian world birds of every species do their best to survive.

Another domineering bird we see in our garden most days is the Eurasian magpie - widely thought to be one of the most intelligent creatures in the animal kingdom. They are opportunistic, athletic and nosy. This very morning I was woken by a couple of pecking magpies on our bedroom window ledge. They were probably seeking small insects.

Later, those same birds were gripping to our fatball feeders, eating their breakfasts.

Anyway, a blogpost that was meant to be about apples has now morphed into a blogpost about garden birds. I had better stop at this point before it morphs into something else. 

Penelope Pigeon

Novel

"Long Island"
by Colm Tóibín

Down at Hunter's Bar roundabout there's a bookshop called "Rhyme and Reason". Principally, it sells children's books but there is one large bookcase devoted to fiction for adults. I was in the mood for reading a new novel so that is why I was there.

The bookcase is badly located - up against the little counter and at right angles to it. However, I managed to pluck out a book that I thought I might enjoy - a sequel to "Brooklyn" that was made into a film in 2015. I remembered enjoying that film when it came out - even though, after ten years, the details of it evaded me. "Long Island" is by the Irish writer Colm Tóibín who now, apparently,  lives in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

Books can be funny in the sense that some are hard going for the reader while others are easy - real page turners which make you want to read on and on till you reach the end - sooner rather than later. For me, "Long Island" was very much in that second category. I loved it. I did not have to work at it or struggle to maintain my attention. It simply flowed. This wasn't to do with vocabulary, it was to do with style.

There are no murders in "Long Island", no cops and no detectives. It's about people, how they communicate and the secrets they keep. You end up caring about the central characters - including Eilis, Jim and Nancy. Colm Tóibín treats them tenderly and makes them seem fully human. He clearly knows a lot about the human condition and has an easy way with words.

The novel begins on Long Island but later moves back to Eilis's home town in Ireland - Enniscorthy in County Wexford which also happens to be Colm Tóibín's home town.

I don't want to give too much away in case there are people out there who might choose to read "Long Island" for themselves. However, here's a small sample of the writing:

While Jim was returning to Enniscorthy, a single moment from the previous evening stayed in his mind. She had come back from the bathroom and said, “I would have that bathroom completely redone.” She was not aware how closely he was listening. She did not seem to understand what this sounded like to him. It was its very casualness that made it appear all the more significant. She had let him know that she was imagining this as a place where she would one day live.

So yeah, I am very glad that I picked up this  particular novel in "Rhyme and Reason" the Saturday before last. It was most definitely my cup of tea.

Ceylon2

Sigiriya

Extract from a journal
April 9th 2013

Sundaras Hotel, Dambulla, Sri Lanka

Woke late this morning and didn't get to breakfast till 7.30. Then with the advice of the lovely housekeepers at Settle Inn (Kandy), I caught a local bus into Kandy centre. At one point the bus braked sharply and I stumbled - almost falling on top of the driver. It certainly created amusement for other passengers,

Then, as if by magic, I was straight on to a country bus heading north towards Anuradhapura via Dambulla.

Two hours later, I disembarked in Dambulla and deposited my bag in this little hotel before heading straight off in a tuktuk to get a local bus to Sigiriya. It became as packed as a tin of sardines  and once again I was the only "whitey" on board.

Forty minutes later we were there with the huge volcanic  plug that is Sigiriya rising up out of the jungle. The rock has served many functions in history but it is essentially viewed as a venerable site of ancient Buddhism.

You climb up the sheer rock and come to the fresco cave - then onward and upwards to the fortress plateau where I met two lovely Chinese students whose English was most impressive. The taller girl will be studying at The University of Birmingham in the next academic year. I also met a group of Buddhist monks from Myanmar (Burma). We sat together in the shade of a tree surveying the vast green canopy of trees below us and conversed as best we could.

There are many more things I could say about this visit to such an amazing location but let's fast forward to early evening back in Dambulla where I fancied a couple of beers in a locals bar.

I have just started drinking a cold bottle of "Lion" lager when a one-eyed man appears next to me. He is looking down with his good eye. He has a beer gut and a mean expression and several noticeable scars which he proceeds to show me - no doubt the souvenirs of past drunken battles. He does not speak a word of English and appears a little riled that I cannot speak a word of Sinhalese or Tamil.

Thankfully, the one-eyed man seems to like me but I do not dare to argue when he asks for (a) a glass of 8.8% strong beer and (b) 200 rupees for his glass eye fund.

After three bottle of "Lion" I am very happy to escape from that dark and dingy lair with backpack and wallet still in my possession. I doubt that they have ever seen a white tourist in there before and you certainly would not find that rough drinking hole  listed in the "Lonely Planet" guidebook.

I ate dinner in a humble cafe - a delicious curry feast buffet and a big bottle of water - for less than £2. Marvellous - even if there were a couple of power outages during the consumption of said meal. Then back along the main road to this comfortable and clean hotel.

Terrorist

 

Yesterday, there was a big right wing rally in central London. Ironically, those who gathered probably all voted to leave The European Union in 2017. Brexit continues to hang like a heavy millstone around our nation's neck and it is the chief cause of many economic woes and tensions in our midst.

Several large screens with speakers had been erected at great expense. I wonder who paid for them? Mmm... the answer to that was soon to become clear. The screens flickered and a very big head appeared from Texas, USA. It was none other than the world's richest man and DOGE buddy of the current president. Yes - Elon Musk now performing like Big Brother in George Orwell's "1984". But this is real life, not fiction and it is 2025 not that other year.

Incredibly, chillingly but characteristically I suppose, Mad Musk called for a “dissolution of parliament” and a “change of government” in my country.  As reported in "The Guardian", Musk railed against the “woke mind virus” and told the crowd that “violence is coming” and that “you either fight back or you die”.

He said: “I really think that there’s got to be a change of government in Britain. You can’t – we don’t have another four years, or whenever the next election is, it’s too long. Something’s got to be done. There’s got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held.”

He continued: “There’s so much violence on the left, with our friend Charlie Kirk getting murdered in cold blood this week and people on the left celebrating it openly. The left is the party of murder and celebrating murder. I mean, let that sink in for a minute, that’s who we’re dealing with here.”

Musk was wrong on so many levels. Left wingers and Democrats have universally condemned the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Musk's way of looking at the world is warped and dangerous. Also - what sane person of influence would deliberately seek to stoke up a febrile crowd of right wingers?  Later, the demonstration descended into violence and at least twenty six police officers were injured. Thanks Elon!

But more than this... What is a privileged businessman from a foreign country doing interfering in our nation's politics? He does not live here and he clearly has a piecemeal, selective picture of Britain's political scene that he has moulded to fit his own fascist prejudices. Furthermore, he is not wise. He is a cunning, manipulative and no doubt clever moneymaker but that does not make him wise nor does it make him politically astute or kindly.

Let's erect big video screens outside Musk's Texan sultanate in the middle of nowhere and tell him in no uncertain words to  eff off! And keep your big head out of Britain you pasty-faced billionaire wazzock! Is that enough "woke mind virus" for you? Well, I have got another thing to say chum - your appearance yesterday was a form of terrorism. Yes, you are a terrorist!

Ceylon

Shirley at Jungle Beach near Unuwatuna

Extract from a journal.

April 1st 2013
Hotel Flower Garden, Unuwatuna, Sri Lanka

Shirley's plane arrived ahead of schedule and I was there to meet her following a morning taken up with entertaining little Sadali in Negombo.

We travelled south to Galle in the hotel's minibus - very comfortable, watching the green Sri Lankan countryside drift by - buffalo, small tea plantations, people ambling along dirt roads, shack-like houses hidden by lush tropical trees.

After some hassle about room allocation at the hotel, we went down to the beach where we met a man called Keechua (phonetic spelling). He was touting for business re. scuba diving trips. He told us, in graphic detail, of the day of the tsunami in 2004 and how he ran to higher ground to save his family but returned  to his sea level home later to find his father's dead body floating in the kitchen. His mother was found in the bedroom. Keechua started to weep and I rubbed his shoulder, reassuring him that he had done his best. It wasn't his fault that his mother and father had drowned. He wasn't to blame.

As night descended, looking over the bay, we ate a lovely Sri Lankan fish curry with chopped coconut in a sambal sauce. We didn't have quite enough cash on us and so I promised to return today with the extra money. It was amazingly cheap anyway - about £8 for the two of us with beers and I also had banana fritters and ice cream - delicious.

It's 7.30am just now and breakfast isn't served till 8am. After that we plan to go back into Galle for the rest of the morning.

Breakfast at The Hotel Flower Garden, Unuwatuna

It's hard to believe that this was twelve years ago during my second teaching spell in Bangkok.

Pilgrimage

In 1969 I did not go to Woodstock. Instead I went to see a film called "Kes". It was based upon a novel I had read called "A Kestrel for a Knave" by a Yorkshire writer called Barry Hines.

Later, as a secondary school teacher of English I read "Kes" with a succession of classes and showed them the film version too.  Almost magically, "Kes" had the ability to capture the hearts of the roughest and most disinterested kids. They really engaged with Billy Casper's story - how a skinny lad of low academic ability from a council estate trained a young kestrel. It was inspirational.

And I met Barry Hines once at the Sheffield Trades and Labour Club. We talked for several minutes about the book and whether or not everybody has a hidden talent. He was softly spoken and charming. It was very much a two-way conversation.

Later still, in the 1990s, he was living in Sheffield and my wife became his practice nurse. He had a few ongoing health issues to deal with. And even later than that he began to show signs of Alzheimer's and spent the last decade of his life in a care home in the mining village of Hoyland  where he had been born and raised. Tragically, he had lost the ability to read years before his death in 2016.

Hoyland is a few miles north east of Sheffield and today I drove up there for a walk, parking Butch close to the rather isolated churchyard where Barry Hines and his wife are buried. Then I walked over the M1 motorway into Hoyland where I located a house that Barry Hines lived in during the 1970s. Across from there is a metal sculpture that depicts Billy Casper with his kestrel but it is not as good as the statue I photographed in Barnsley town centre earlier this year.

I also passed the ruins of Tankersley Manor where Barry Hines's brother  Richard gathered his own pet kestrel and trained it - just like Billy Casper. By the way, eighty year old Richard Hines lives fifty yards away from this house and though I have often said "hello" to him, we have never had a proper conversation.

I had been thinking about my private Barry Hines pilgrimage for a while and now I am pleased that I have done it but consequently there are a couple of questions I want to ask Richard. If I see him, I will swallow hard and try to pluck up the necessary courage.

Barry Hines 1939-2016

Changes

WARNING. This blogpost refers to The President of the USA. Do NOT read on if such writing causes personal offence.

The current occupant of The White House has done more to change it than any other president before him.

One big construction project has already been completed - paving over The White House Rose Garden with its famous lawn where many press conferences and official ceremonies occurred in the past. A more major project will be the construction of a $200 million ballroom on the east wing. This luxurious addition will be able to accommodate up to 650 guests.

Many of the changes have been on a smaller scale. A lot of golden bling has been added to the principal rooms including the famous Oval Office. This is the kind of vulgar and tasteless decoration that the 47th president clearly loves for it is also visible in  Trump Tower and at Mar-a-Lago. Perhaps someone should have whispered in his ear that you don't get style and elegance by slapping golden trimmings all over the place. He is also fond of ugly, gilded picture frames that distract terribly from the pictures within them.

Talking about pictures, the incumbent has shifted a lot of pictures of past presidents around - relegating Democrat presidents to less visible locations. A fine official portrait of President Obama that was on display in the entrance hall has been replaced in favour of a hyper-realistic portrait of  the 47th president himself - following the alleged assassination attempt at Butler, Pennsylvania.

Should you visit The White House you will probably spot that the original coasters have been replaced with chunky fake gold coasters that have the word "TRUMP" on them. Again - pretty vulgar but what does he care? As I said before, he has no sense of style and little dignity.

It is somewhat ironic that he has often banged on about "fake news" when he paints his face orange and when his golden mane is also fake. In addition, it is clear that he likes to dwell in fake environments, surrounded by tasteless golden bling including plaster adornments sprayed with fake gold. You cannot make this stuff up.

Arguably, he should have spent more time focusing on Ukraine and Gaza and less upon how to spoil the historical appearance of The White House - formerly known as the people's house.

Quiztime

 

Welcome to a new edition of "Quiztime". This week's challenge concerns flags. Once again you'll find the answers in the comments section that follows this blogpost.

⦿

1. To which Scandinavian country does this flag belong?

2. This flag is from South East Asia but to which country does it belong?

3. This is the flag of an American state but which state? I will give you four options...

(a) Florida (b) Virginia (c) New Hampshire (d) Hawaii

4. What is the name for someone who is passionate and knowledgeable about flags?

(a) vexillophile (b) dendrophile (c) ichthyophile (d) dissectologist

5.  This is the flag of which African country?

(a) Nigeria (b) Egypt (c) Tunisia (d) Mozambique

6. Which is the only country in the world that has a triangular national flag?

7. This is the flag of England's premier county but what is the name of that county? (Clue: See the name of this blog!)

8.This is a South American flag but of which country?

9. This is a flag we normally associate with pirate ships but what  is it commonly called?

(a) The Happy Humphrey (b) The Funny Bruce 

(c) The Jolly Roger (d) The Flag of Death

10) This small Mediterranean nation's flag has a map on it. To which country does it belong?

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That's it folks! How did you do?

Finder

 

Last night I watched a fresh video by "Northern Introvert", Jack Roscoe. To my surprise, he had been out and about near Sheffield - about three miles from the hot engine room  of "Yorkshire Pudding" where I am typing right now.

Now, on his travels, Jack frequently hides a book for viewers of his channel to find and below you can see him near the reservoirs at Redmires, preparing to hide the most recent book in a broken down drystone wall.

As I went up the stairs to bed last night, I had a light bulb moment. Perhaps I could be the latest finder.

After breakfasting and showering this morning - not at the same time I hasten to add - I jumped in Butch and headed up to Redmires. Soon I was retracing The Northern Introvert's steps. I thought I had a 50/50 chance of being the book finder. Very possibly, somebody else had got there before me.

I easily found the section of tumbledown wall shown above but when I first peered into the hole I could see nothing. My heart sank a little.

Then I went round the other side and after lifting two stones I spotted my prize. It was like winning The National Lottery and I immediately performed a joyous jig which panicked two sheep that had been happily grazing nearby.

And here is the book, still in its protective plastic wrap. It's  "Entangled Life" by Merlin Sheldrake - a book about how "fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures". I look forward to reading it but at the moment I just can't get this happy smile off my face. Finders keepers - right?

Murals

Down in The Antipodes, Australian blogger Andrew regularly posts images of murals that he has spotted in the streets of Melbourne. Inspired by his lead, I decided to use part of today to investigate two new murals in Sheffield city centre.

First I headed to Pound's Park which I had learnt is now overlooked by a very tall mural created on the side of an office block by a Sheffield muralist who goes by the name of Peachzz - even though her real name is the more prosaic - Megan Russell.

Her brilliant mural is titled "Reverie" and it was created with the help of two friends and some adjustable scaffolding. Central to the design are two birds that can be seen in the city's southwestern suburbs - a blue heron and a kingfisher. I can confirm this because I have taken photographs of both.

Very close to "Reverie" there is another, slightly older mural - by the Sheffield artist Pete McKee. It depicts an old lady and it used to overlook a very handy car park that I used often. It is now surrounded by boarding ahead of an anticipated construction project.

Next, I ventured down The Moor- a major shopping street - intending to have my lunch in The Moor Market. However, before entering I walked round to the Arundel Gate side of the building to secure images of a newer artwork by Pete McKee. It refers to "Hendersons Relish" - a bottled spicy condiment that has been produced in this city since 1885.

With my work done, I went into the market and ordered a sausage and tomato sandwich with a mug of tea before heading home on a number 88 bus - using my senior bus pass of course. Mission accomplished.

Innocence

 

On Friday at Matlock Farm Park and purely by chance, Phoebe bumped into one of her nursery school classmates. They had been in the same happy nursery class for two and a half years.

Whereas adults unexpectedly bumping into each other like that - twenty miles from home - would have made a little song and dance about the surprise meeting, Phoebe and Cora just got on with playing and running about as if it was just another day at nursery school. There were no expressions of surprise.

This past week both girls have been in educational limbo. No longer in nursery school and not yet in primary school. Sadly, they will attend different primary schools from tomorrow morning and no doubt contact will gradually be lost. Inevitably, they will even forget each other as new memories and new faces crowd into their little lives. Phoebe has another great pal called Elsie who will attend a third different school. It is her fifth birthday this very day. But their closeness will also evaporate.

And so to the weird thing they call "school". Years stretching out like fenceposts as far as the eye can see. Rules and stars and standing in line and "Yes miss!"/"No miss!" and school dinners and bells and uniforms and making friends and falling out and targets and levels and sums and books to write in and storytime and it's all like a train that you cannot get off as it rattles forward to place called The Future. School!

And as Phoebe's school train now prepares to leave the station of innocence, here's a very suitable poem by Roger McGough:- 

⦿

First Day at School

A millionbillionwillion miles from home 

Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?)

 Why are they all so big, other children? 

So noisy? So much at home they 

Must have been born in uniform 

Lived all their lives in playgrounds 

Spent the years inventing games 

That don't let me in. Games 

That are rough, that swallow you up. 

And the railings. 

All around, the railings. 

Are they to keep out wolves and monsters? 

Things that carry off and eat children? 

Things you don't take sweets from? 

Perhaps they're to stop us getting out 

Running away from the lessins. 

Lessin. What does a lessin look like? 

Sounds small and slimy. 

They keep them in the glassrooms. 

Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine. 

I wish I could remember my name 

Mummy said it would come in useful. 

Like wellies. When there's puddles. 

Yellowwellies. I wish she was here. 

I think my name is sewn on somewhere 

Perhaps the teacher will read it for me. 

Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea. 

Duchess

 

Katharine Worsley, the Duchess of Kent, died on Thursday at the age of 92. Her title was deceptive because she was a Yorkshirewoman, born at Hovingham Hall in the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1933. Can you see that there is a cricket match in progress in front of the grand country house?

She married into the House of Windsor in 1961. Her husband was Prince Edward, The Duke of Kent. Princess Anne was one of the bridesmaids and Noel Coward was one of the guests. Unusually, this fabulous royal wedding took place in York Minster and not down in London.

Now, I should say at this point that I am not a great royal watcher. My idea of hell would be being locked in a room with royal TV dramas like "The Crown" being played continuously on a large screen.  Normally, I am just not interested and somewhat resentful of royal privilege. However, The Duchess of Kent had a special secret that made her quite admirable in my view. Let me share it with you.

For thirteen years, she paid weekly in cognito visits to Wansbeck Primary School on the Longhill council estate in north Hull. There she was known simply as Miss Kent and she taught music. Not just in a one off lesson for the media to record but thirteen long years of unpaid service. She was always passionate about music and wished to transmit that passion to disadvantaged children. She didn't just talk about it - she put her words into action.

In "The Hull Daily Mail", the headteacher at Wansbeck Primary School, said in tribute: "We are saddened to hear the news of the passing of The Duchess of Kent. ‘Miss Kent’ (as she was known to our school community) was an inspiration to the children when she taught music here over many years. She was a dedicated teacher who taught music with passion and showed the most amazing commitment to our school. Her kindness, compassion and talent for teaching lives on in the children she impacted during her time here."

"I love those children, I loved being there, and I love east Hull," the duchess once said. "I wouldn’t have stayed there for thirteen  years if I hadn’t."

Visitors to this blog who like tennis, will remember that The Duchess of Kent was for many years closely associated with the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament:-

With Venus Williams in 2001

Excursion

 

Phoebe (right) and Margot (left)  - picture taken today. It is not as easy as you might imagine to snap a decent picture of those two strong-willed sisters together. This one was the best I could come up with today.

I was with them and their mother Frances at Matlock Farm Park out in The Peak District. It is a countryside attraction developed with children in mind. There are pens for farm animals, a reptile house, a barn for small animals like rabbits and guineapigs, a huge trampoline, swings and slides and climbing frames. We also saw sheep racing and Phoebe got to ride on a horse called Boi. We also had our lunch there. It was a grand day out and the weather was kind to us.

Below - there's Phoebe on Boi and Margot back in the tractor cab and a highland cow refusing to storm the feeding station with her mates. After all, when it comes to dining,  manners are important.

Hippies

Over at "Travel Penguin" I jokingly suggested that Blogger David might be a latter day hippy for he had posted a philosophical blogpost that was about peace and love and independent thinking, diverting one's focus away from current affairs and the associated angst.

Afterwards, I considered what a "hippy" actually was. What did you have to do? How did you have to act or present yourself in order to be classified as a bona fide "hippy"? Did anyone who bore that label ever classify themselves as hippies? Or maybe it was just a name attached to them by conservatives who sought to denigrate young people in search of a better, more peaceful tomorrow.

In the early spring of 2005, I was delighted to stand on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco - the very womb of the American hippy movement. I guess my wife and children wondered - what the hell are we doing here in this unremarkable neighbourhood? But for me it was like the completion of a pilgrimage.

The so-called "hippies" of the late nineteen sixties  were so goddamn "woke"  that they were off the woke-scale. They were preaching peace and love, smoking pot, wearing flowers in their hair and angry as hell about the war in Vietnam.

Perhaps Donald Trump was a hippy in those days for he dodged the draft with absurd bone spur claims. Maybe he was seen in Golden Gate Park in a kaftan, smoking grass with the other draft dodgers and maybe he closed his eyes to listen to Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco"...

Armour

 

Our darling Phoebe is in limbo this week. Her nursery school days ended last week and next week she will enter her reception class in the local primary school - the same one that both her parents attended. But this week she is under her grandparents' supervision. On Monday her other grandmother ("Granny") looked after her all day but Shirley ("Grandma") and I have her for the rest of the week as both her parents are working.

Given the wonderful summer Yorkshire has enjoyed this year, today's weather was unusual - grey skies, rain showers  and even distant lightning and thunder. We decided to break up the day with a lunchtime trip to a pub in The Hope Valley called "The Old Hall Hotel".

After we had dashed in, Phoebe immediately noticed something in human shape standing in a corner guarding the toilet doors. It was a complete suit of armour - probably from the seventeenth century.

I hugged the figure and tapped the steel breast plate - the cuirass - but Phoebe remained daunted - not entirely convinced that there was not a medieval knight still standing within the steel suit. She had never seen a suit of armour before so this was something quite remarkable - astonishing even!

We settled down to our lunch, looking across the drenched Castleton road to Hope churchyard where dead people lie for decades on end. Halfway through the lunch, Phoebe had a desperate need to see the suit of armour again so I took her but again she could only look in amazement. There was no way she was going to touch that disconcerting metal figure from the past.

With lunch over, she checked out the suit of armour one last time and I promised to find pictures of similar suits online when we got home.

How difficult and burdensome it must have been to don protective armour in the past. Just getting the various parts on must have been a Herculean task and as for heading into battle - probably on a horse - why the weight of the outfit would have been close to unbearable. I will tell you one thing - I am damned glad that I was not a knight of yore, floundering around like a robot as swords clanged impotently upon my outer layer.

Seaside

 

Margate, Kent

I have just finished reading "The Seaside" by Madeleine Bunting. It is not a novel. It is an affectionate but searching investigation of modern English seaside resorts with reference to history, poverty and regeneration projects. The book was very well-researched as the bibliography and notes testify but of course Madeleine Bunting also visited the resorts and talked to many people.

You might say that the English invented the seaside resort and out on the periphery of our island there are numerous distinctive seaside towns. They range from big, noisy resorts like Blackpool, Lancashire to smaller and more dignified coastal towns like Aldeburgh in Suffolk and Hornsea, Yorkshire.

There are not many English seaside resorts that I have not visited and partly for that reason, I found "The Seaside" pretty engaging.

Skegness, Lincolnshire

I guess that the heyday of the English seaside resort was between the two world wars. Working people flocked there in their holidays, staying in boarding houses and cheap hotels. There were theatres, pubs, pleasure gardens, amusement arcades and of course the inevitable fish and chips.

You could buy sticks of pink rock and cowboy hats with "Kiss Me Quick" printed on the front because at the seaside you could let your hair down, away from the usual restrictions of real life back in our industrial inland towns and cities. In English summers, the people filled our seaside resorts to bursting point.

It's not like that today. Nowadays, most of the bigger seaside resorts are struggling. They contain hidden poverty, drug addiction, common health problems and low life expectancy. Many of the old boarding houses were turned into "Homes of Multiple Occupancy" long ago. The inland English working class  now pay for holidays in the sun - flying to Spain and Greece. Vacations that their grandparents could never have imagined taking.

I think the following extract from the book neatly sums up Madeleine Bunting's analysis:-

It's hard to make sense of the paradoxes of the English seaside resort: our 

deep affection and appreciation alongside the neglect, decline and deprivation. 

A place of second chances and last chances; a place for some to realise 

their most cherished dreams and for others to find despair. (p321)

Fisherman resting on the beach at Hornsea, Yorkshire

Burrows

 

"Burrow" is just another name for a rabbit hole. I don't know about you but when it comes to YouTube, I frequently find myself distracted then before you know it, I am plunging down random burrows - hardly knowing where I am.

Cleverly, YouTube's algorithms seem to know what I might like to watch. This is how I discovered intrepid explorers of rural China.

Today I spotted a 1966 video from Germany in which skilled stone masons patiently turn a huge lump of rock into a serviceable millstone. The video lasts for twenty six minutes. I watched it all, in awe of the men's craftsmanship but I guess you could just jump along to get the general gist of what these fellows did. They clearly knew what they were doing and had obviously made many other millstones before this one. I love the ringing sound of their tools upon the stone.

Another video I enjoyed this morning focused on some puzzling and rather huge rocks in America's wild west. The young explorer does not tell us which state he is in. Apparently, he discovered the fascinating location by studying Google Earth on his computer. Comments reveal that the discovery occurred in the state of Utah. This video lasts for twenty seven minutes so again if you are in a hurry, you might want to skip some of the footage.  In the end you are still left wondering - if this is a natural phenomenon or were humans of the past somehow involved in creating the site?

I must dash now. After all, there are many other burrows to go down. Anyone got some spare lettuce?