Memory

The Hobsons' house today. The market gardening business was at the rear. The 

houses to the right stand on what was once our recreation ground.

(courtesy of Google Streetview)

Here's a true tale from my childhood that involves a dastardly insult. I previously alluded to this memory eight years ago.

In the East Yorkshire village where I was born and raised, there were five significant roads. At "The Hare and Hounds" pub, four of those roads met. They were North Street, South Street, West Street and East Street. Pretty imaginative, huh?

The fifth major road was called High Stile. At the bottom of South Street by "The New Inn", it headed off in a north easterly direction, meeting up with East Street after a quarter of a mile. This meant that in the heart of the village there was a large triangle of land - about ten acres all told.

Near the angle of East Street and High Stile there was a recreation ground with a large butter-coloured tin hut known as the recreation hall and beside that a precious grassy area  where village lads were allowed to play football. We did this incessantly at weekends and and on dry summer evenings.

Next to the recreation ground there was a house that had a small market garden business behind it with a high brick wall extending northwards from the house. I have racked my brains to remember the real surname of the married couple who lived there but over time that name has evaporated and so I shall refer to them pseudonymously as   Mr and Mrs Hobson.

One summer evening, there were about ten of us playing football. I guess I was nine years old. We were having a fine old time until somebody booted the ball over Mr and Mrs Hobson's wall. It didn't land anywhere near the big greenhouse they had at the back of the property.

Mrs Hobson had revealed her unsunny character before so the boy who had kicked the ball over was very reluctant to retrieve it. It was decided that I should be the one to go round and I felt slightly apprehensive but very capable of fulfilling that task.

Nervously, I went round and I could see our ball in the potato patch but I didn't want to risk just grabbing the ball and running back to our football game so I knocked on the kitchen door.

Mrs Hobson opened that door after a few minutes - wearing her floral housecoat.

"Yes. What do you want?" she asked.

"Excuse me Mrs Hobson. Somebody kicked our ball over the wall. May I get it please?"

"Where is it?" 

"It's there in the potato patch."

She came out of the house in her slippers and walked up the garden path to retrieve the ball. However, when she returned to her kitchen door she kept the ball. I was open-mouthed.

"You're not having it!" she snapped.

"What? You are keeping our ball?"

"Yes!"

I was infuriated and though I knew some proper swear words by that age I had never used them so instead, I said, "Well I think you're a... you're a damned rotter!"

"What did you say?" 

She had raised her voice . She grabbed by arm and dragged me into her kitchen where she said she would telephone my father and then asked for our phone number which  consisted of just three memorable digits - 272.

Dad arrived after what seemed like an age and Mrs Hobson recounted the incident, possibly expecting me to be later clouted like a disobedient dog. But I was not afraid of my father. I loved him as he loved me. He led me away, holding the lost ball.

The other boys were still in the recreation ground wondering what had taken me so long. Dad tossed them the ball  and advised them to keep it down but for appearance's sake he led me away - back down High Stile to "The New Inn" and then right up South Street to the schoolhouse.

Years later, he recalled the incident with amusement and agreed, "She was a damned rotter!" It was the kind of remark that Billy Bunter might have made or Lord Snooty in "The Beano".

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"Enough hate - can you have a post of words that are compliments?"

That is what Ellen from Illinois wrote after yesterday's blogpost. I am happy to oblige - after all this is Valentine's Day, so here we go. Please feel free to refer to this short lexicon before addressing or describing your most loved ones...

paramour, darling, sweetheart, beloved, charming, courteous, affectionate, dependable, principled, loyal, sweeting, dillydown, magnificent, beautiful, handsome, treasure, truelove, light of my life, cherub, epitome, paradigm...

I feel sure that Ellen from Illinois will have heard all of these words before - wafted in her direction. But I do take her point. In these times of anger, division, misunderstanding and anxiety about the future - it would serve us well to take frequent pauses, reflecting on what is good and what is positive about "Life on Earth 2025" - including the very words we use.

Insults

My last blogpost - "Fable" seems to have engendered collateral interest with regard to the business of insulting. The English language has a wealth of insult words. We really don't need to resort to swearing when we are peeved with someone or overcome with angry bloodlust. 

Instead, just dip into the lexicon of insults to find words that will undoubtedly cause your target human to rock back on his or her heels. Here are ten of my favourites with definitions or notes

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nincompoop - dating back to at least the 17th century - a foolish or stupid person.

lickspittle - an obsequious licker of boots who sucks up to others

pillock  Once one of the hundreds of euphemisms for the male sexual organ in the English language. For several hundred years this was apparently the main sense of the word. However, beginning in the late 20th century pillock took on another meaning, which is that of an idiot or fool of some sort. Both of these uses are almost entirely confined to British English

dipstick Someone who's being particularly dim or slow. Like the dipstick in a motor vehicle that has no other use but to measure the oil level in an engine.

wazzock - a stupid or annoying person. This only dates back to the 1970s. Favoured insult in the north of England - often applied to Londoners.

numpty - An incompetent or unwise person ("Don't be such a numpty, you can't charge your phone in the microwave!")

moldwarp - a stupid or shiftless person. I think this insult may be Shakespearean.

rapscallion - mischievous person - variation on "rascal"

numbskull - a stupid or shiftless person

scallywag - yet another word for an untrustworthy rascal

Fable

Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Phoebe. Her best friend was a cuddly sloth named Monty. They went almost everywhere together but Phoebe was not allowed to take Monty to her nursery school.

One day, Phoebe was poorly so she had to stay at her grandma and grandpa's house. They allowed her to bring Monty too.

Her grandpa was sitting in the computer chair yet again. He was typing away on the keyboard.

"What are you doing?" asked Phoebe.

"I am visiting the blogosphere," replied her grandpa.

"May I go there too?" asked Phoebe.

"Of course," said her grandpa.

Very soon, still cuddling Monty, Phoebe entered the blogosphere.

It was like a ride on a ghost train with hideous monsters round every corner. They were all grown up. Every one of them.

She met Jilted John, Monstrous Meike, Deadly Dave, Jailbird JayCee, Crocodile Cro, Moonwalker Mary, Spiteful Steve, Jihadi Jennifer, KKK Keith Kline, Naughty Nurse Pixie, Angry Andrew from Melbourne, Eerie Elsie, Manic Monica, Brutal Bruce and a bunch of other equally scary monsters.

"Help! Help! Let us out!" cried Phoebe and Monty together banging on the computer monitor screen from the inside. It had been like the worst nightmare ever!

Later, as she spooned strawberry yoghurt into her mouth, Phoebe said, "I never want to visit the blogosphere again Grandpa! It was horrible in there!"

Monty was so stunned by the experience that he did not speak ever again.

THE END

Quiztime

Too many days have passed by since the last edition of "Quiztime". The theme on this occasion is The Gulf of Mexico. As usual, the answers will appear in the Comments section. Good luck!

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1) Bordering The Gulf of Mexico, which country has marginally the longest gulf coastline?

(a) Cuba  (b) Mexico (c) USA (d) Brazil

2)  When did the Spanish version of The Gulf of Mexico -  "golfo de México" first appear on a world map?

(a) 1550 (b) 1776 (c) 1876  (d) 2020

3) How many states of the USA border The Gulf of Mexico?

(a) 3 (b) 5 (c) 6 (d) 11

4) How many states of Mexico border The Gulf of Mexico?

a) 3 (b) 5 (c) 6 (d) 11

5) There are many millions of  atlases in the world   - in libraries, schools, universities, offices and people's homes. In each of those atlases, how is the body of water bordered by Mexico the USA and Cuba labelled? 

6)  Can you work out this anagram? (Clue: A body of water west of Cuba)

ECO FLU FOG MIX

7) 

A Mexican resort called Progreso is located on the northern tip of The Yucatan Peninsula but what is the body of water that lies beyond the colourful signage shown above?

(a) Mediterranean Sea (b) The Persian Gulf  

(c) Lake Superior (d) The Gulf of Mexico

8) Allegedly, who was the first European seafarer to explore The Gulf of Mexico in 1497? Here he is:- 

(a) Christopher Columbus (b) Amerigo Vespucci 

(c) Ferdinand Magellan (d) Francis Drake

9) Name the gulf into which the waters of the great Mississippi river flow. (Clue: It is not The Gulf of America)

10) What is the name of the ancient capital of Cuba that overlooks The Gulf of Mexico?

(a) Havana  (b) Banana (c) Guantanamo (d) Miami

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Okay. How did you do?

"Bournville"

 

This very afternoon I finished reading a 350 page novel by Jonathan Coe. It was titled "Bournville" just like the Birmingham garden suburb that was munificently developed by Britain's famous Cadbury chocolate family at the end of the Victorian era.

Though the Cadbury company figures in the novel, it is not a book about chocolate. It is about an evolving family and quite ambitiously it spans the years from World War II right through to the COVID pandemic of 2020/21.

Through the Lamb family, Jonathan Coe seeks to paint a portrait of the England that he has witnessed during his own life. That picture is generally affectionate and sometimes funny though his disdain for one Boris Johnson, former prime minister and arch-bullshitter is undeniably bitter.

Jonathan Coe

I would not call this a high-brow novel. It is quite light and easy to read. The ideas within it have an honest, everyday quality. As a backdrop to the family's progress through eight decades, the book often makes use of national events such as Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953 and Princess Diana's funeral in 1997.

Jonathan Coe's own mother died at home during the COVID crisis when families were not allowed to come together even for funerals. He takes much of that experience and decants it into his account of the death of octogenarian Mary Lamb near the end of the novel. At that point, one of her three grown up sons is holding the narrator's baton:-

"And I try to be grateful. I try to be grateful for that fact that my mother willed herself to stay alive for long enough to have one last conversation with me, in the sunlight, beneath the shade of the sumac tree in the garden which was not just her garden, for almost fifty years, but mine as well, the setting for so many of my childhood games and childhood fantasies. That memory will never go away, at least. It was a precious gift that she saved for me." (page 341)

"Bournville" was recommended to me by my quizzing friend Mike. He was very enthusiastic about it. For me it did not engender the same amount of enthusiasm but I still enjoyed it. It covered the very era that I myself have traversed and there was a warmth and wittiness about the novel that helped me to keep turning the pages and sometimes getting lost in the writing.

⦿

"You get the sense of an author more at ease with himself, one better able to channel his anger and frustration at the direction his country has taken, as well as his abiding love for it, into prose of enduring beauty, into characters who come to glorious, redemptive life on the page." - 'The Guardian'

Primark

London contains a large number of bustling  town centres - little cities within a sprawling megacity. One of them is Hammersmith and Shirley and I walked there on Saturday afternoon.  Lots of shops and eateries and a couple of theatres too. A tube station and the concrete pillars of the A4 trunk road, carrying travellers into the heart of London from the west. And of course people - lots of them.

It can get chilly in Ian and Sarah's attic room. Normally, I sleep in my birthday suit but because of the chill up there, I wanted to purchase a long-sleeved T-shirt.

No luck in Marks and Spencers so Shirley directed me to "Primark" - a clothing chainstore that I had never entered before though of course I knew the name. Three shop floors of competitively priced clothing - mostly made from cotton. Tons of the stuff. I believe that "Primark" are notorious for marketing cheap, replaceable apparel - often from dubious foreign suppliers.

I found my new light blue XL T-shirt on a pile but it was quite crumpled. As an opportunistic prankster, I took it to a member of staff who was sorting clothes nearby and complained about the crumpling saying, "Excuse me but if I buy this T-shirt do Primark operate an ironing service?"

She mumbled something about the store's steaming facilities until she realised I was just joking and laughed. I think it brightened her day.

At the checkouts there were eight members of staff on duty and fifteen customers in the queue when I first got there. I know because I counted them. And do you know what - right there in the heart of England's capital - I was the only one of the twenty three people present whose physical appearance suggested that I might belong to the white British host community. Everybody else had characteristics that suggested foreign origins from Syria to the Caribbean and from Somalia to Bangladesh or Hong Kong.

London has become an incredible melting pot of cultures which is quite plain to see even though that observation is not applicable to many other towns and cities on this island where the host community remain predominant.

We walked back to Fulham, stopping off at a traditional cafe run by a Portuguese family on Fulham Palace Road - for light meals with hot drinks. I had poached eggs on toast with a latte.

Soon we were back at Ian and Sarah's house to watch England beat France in a Six Nations rugby match. However, Sarah was not there because she was at this big game in person - played at Twickenham in West London.

We got back to Sheffield this evening. It had been good to see them all - especially our grandson Zachary. He continues to develop nicely and I sang:

Zach, Zach don't look back

You might see Santa with his sack

Or a little duck that says "Quack! Quack!"

Just for little Zachary. 

Reblog

Shirley and I are down in London for two nights - visiting Ian and Sarah and Zach. All being well,  we will be home on Sunday evening. This blogpost is in fact a scheduled "reblog". I originally posted it in November 2005 under the title "God". Hell, that was almost twenty years ago when we are all so much younger and the world we share was different in many ways and yet very much the same.

⦿

When I was eleven - in my last year of primary school - I had to deliver a prepared assembly talk to the rest of the village school. The only stipulation was that the talk had to be on a religious theme. In my bedroom, I started to scribble down all the reasons why, at that age, I was pretty much convinced that there was no such thing as "God". Though I didn't know it then, one of the key thrusts of my argument had been given a title by philosophers, namely - "The Problem of Evil".

The night before the assembly, I became nervous - I hadn't talked to a soul about my speech plans but something told me that atheist ramblings would not be much appreciated in a Church of England school. I dropped the idea and quickly cobbled together a little presentation about Daniel in the lions' den - bland and safe.

At a younger age, I had had this mental picture of God as an enormous being with long white hair and a long white beard with a kindly face - "Our father which art in heaven..." and he floated in a cloudy white world far above our planet, looking down, always appearing on his side in repose.

Today, as an adult, I am more convinced than ever that there is no God. Though I wouldn't wish to go into details, I have been right down at the bottom, cold and desperate and when I looked into the abyss I realised that there was no one there - no one there to help me. No God. And I think of the Twin Towers and of the recent earthquake in Pakistan and of rape and murder, Waco - Texas and The Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana, Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and the London bombings and babies that die of AIDS and the crashing of aeroplanes and of man's inhumanity to man and I know for sure that there is no God.

This world we are living in is so beautiful and this is where we have a chance to make heaven. Why should we ever be so presumptuous as to expect more than this? Marx was right - religion really is "the opium of the people". It prevents clear vision and it perpetuates the myth of an afterlife. It is an obstacle to being. Religion seems to be about bigotry and self-interest. In the twentieth century, it was the underlying cause of just about every military and social conflict from Bosnia to Northern Ireland and from Kashmir to Palestine.

I live without God in the certain knowledge that the years I have left on Earth are all that I will ever have. There is no one up there, no one listening. This is it. God is a nice story and if it were true, life would unquestionably be much easier to bear. As it is, we have to look after ourselves and our fellow human beings because nobody else is going to do this for us.

Carvings

 
Carving on the end of a choir stall.
Seen today in Dronfield's parish church.

How many old churches have I wandered into on my many rambles? I suspect that I have visited more than most vicars or bishops. My estimate is that seventy per cent of the church doors I try are locked but that means thirty percent are left unlocked for access by parishioners and passing strangers.

I enjoy the smell of old churches and I love the fact that each old church is different from the next. They evolved over time and they are all quietly reflective of the communities they served.

As a lifelong non-believer, I am nonetheless fascinated by old churches. They speak of the people - those who entered before me. A story of christenings and weddings and funerals and Sunday services that droned on season after season, decade after decade. Here the people listened to the word of God.

I have taken hundreds of pictures of churches - trying to get the entire building in my camera's viewfinder which isn't always as easy as you might think. And within thirty per cent of those ecclesiastical edifices, I have often taken photographs of interior details such as carvings in stone or wood.

Today I walked into St John the Baptist Church in the little town of Dronfield - just outside Sheffield's southern city limits. A funeral had just occurred and the last of the mourners were exiting as I arrived. The church dates back to at least 1135 though the building you see today was mostly the result of renovations in the late thirteenth, sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

I noticed several interesting carvings on the ends of the choir stalls. The one shown at the top of this blogpost appears to show a fantastic creature with angel wings and the face of an ape or monkey. The one shown below appears to be of an eagle.

Of course and as per usual, I have no idea who was responsible for these carvings or when they were created but I find that noticing such details when you visit an old church can really add to your appreciation of the place.

Some other lovely wooden carvings I have noticed and photographed in old English churches over the years....

In Southwold, Suffolk

In Norton Disney, Nottinghamshire

In Marshchapel, Lincolnshire

Dragon in Faversham, Kent

Mountains

Wouldn't it be nice to know the name of the highest mountain on each continent? Not entirely sure?  Okay, let me help you...

Asia

Mount Everest (29,031.7 ft)

aka Sagarmatha aka Qomolangma

North America

Denali (20,194 ft)

aka Mount McKinley

South America

Aconcagua (22,837 ft)

Africa

Mount Kilimanjaro  (19,341 ft)

Antarctica

Mount Vinson (16,050 feet)

Europe

Mont Blanc (15,766 feet)

Australia

Mount Kosciuszko (7310 feet)

aka Kunama Namadgi

Cartoons

 

After returning from the local medical centre, following yet another appointment connected with my blood pressure, I began to doodle.  Hell, I have been doodling for donkey's years. Doodling helps me to think. To tell you the truth, I have no idea why I do it. It just happens. Up at "The Hammer and Pincers" they have several of my doodles pinned up on the noticeboard.

Today, I had the bright idea of drawing a cartoon of our blog brother John Gray. Over the years, I have seen many pictures of him. With his recent diabetes diagnosis, he has had a lot to consider in his bijou corner cottage. I thought this cartoon image might raise a smile upon his cheeky chops. 

I hope he sees it because he doesn't always drop in here. Hell, I don't blame him. Keeping up with all the blogs and bloggers you like could easily become a full time occupation. We have to draw some lines - don't we?

Perhaps the picture could lead to another cartoon series for children . My running title would be "The Adventures Earl Gray" and he would of course be accompanied by his faithful Welsh terriers and his mischievous kitten cats. The theme music would require a tuba.

In contrast to John, I have only ever seen one photograph of  County Cork blogger and plantaholic Dave Northsider so it was more difficult to create a cartoon for him - but still I tried.

Maybe Earl Gray and Dave Northsider could meet up in the cartoon series and have fun and frolics together. There'd be word balloons and everything and actions would be represented by cartoon sounds like POW! THWACK! OOPS! and SPLATT!

You don't have to be silly to work here at "Yorkshire Pudding Enterprises" but it helps!

Kendrick

I am sure that Yorkshire Pudding visitors will be delighted to learn that at yesterday's  Grammy Awards, the "song of the year" category was won by Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us". It is widely acknowledged that thirty seven year old Kendrick is the second greatest rap artist of all time after Jay-Z. Not only did "Not Like Us" win "song of the year", it also won "record of the year" which is of course something very different.

You must have heard "Not Like Us"? Surely you have. In the song, Kendrick Lamar reveals his rapping genius and his lyrical brilliance. He's like the Percy Bysshe Shelley of the rapping world.

People will be humming "Not Like Us" far off into the future because that's what happens with great songs isn't it?  First of all, I am going to put up a video of "Not Like Us"- just in case you missed it somehow and then I will copy and paste in a sample of the incredible lyrics ...

Say, Drake, I hear you like 'em young

You better not ever go to cell block one

To any bitch that talk to him and they in love

Just make sure you hide your lil' sister from him

They tell me Chubbs the only one that get your hand-me-downs

And Party at the party playin' with his nose now

And Baka got a weird case, why is he around?

Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles

Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, Dot, fuck 'em up

Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, I'ma do my stuff

Why you trollin' like a bitch? Ain't you tired?

Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor

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As you may have already guessed, I was being facetious about "Not Like Us". I have always detested rap music and imagined that by now the trend would have died a death.

"Not Like Us" is typically delivered in such a swift, badly enunciated manner that you just cannot make out the words. And when you read the lyrics - as with the sample above - you seem to find aggression, rudeness and banality.

But is there something amiss with my judgement? Am I straitjacketed by my age and my white Anglo Saxon perspective? Is there an element of subconscious racism in my distaste for the rap recordings of Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar and all the others whose fake names interest me as much as what is languishing in our rubbish bin?

It's hard to know. Maybe I should be more charitable and open-minded about rap music - make more of an effort to appreciate it as, apparently, millions of rap fans do. However, at present,  I must be honest, I find all rap songs pretty much the same - impenetrable, superficial, nasty and inherently forgettable. How "Not Like Us" could become both the "song of the year" and  the "record of the year" is beyond me. Let's sing along...

Mm

Mm-mm

He a fan, he a fan, he a fan (Mm)

He a fan, he a fan, he a

Freaky-ass nigga, he a 69 God

Freaky-ass nigga, he a 69 God

Hey, hey, hey, hey, run for your life

Hey, hey, hey, hey, run for your life

Sometimes

Plum cobbler

Sometimes evenings arrive along one's blogging journey when there seems to be nothing of note left  to say. That's how it feels tonight here at the start of February.

Forty minutes ago, I got back from "The Hammer and Pincers" after another Sunday night pub quiz. We didn't win anything tonight though we have won the top prize on the last two Sundays.

Even though we did not win, it was as nice as always to meet up with Mick and Mike for easy conversation, ribbing and laughter mixed with serious stuff. We never know where the talking will go but we always enjoy each other's company. Hell, I have been quizzing regularly with these fellows for twenty five years now. We are growing older together.

Mick is a bachelor who lives alone in the old family home. Both of his parents died years back and just after Christmas  his only sibling - his brother Roger - also left the land of the living.

Mike lives with his wife Jill and like me he has a grown up son and a grown up daughter. Also like me he has three young grandchildren. In the last two years he hs been battling with health issues stemming from a diagnosed condition called  myasthenia gravis which has manifested itself in several different ways.

But still he battles on. Well, what more can you do? Fortunately he has a pretty upbeat, cheerful character and I am sure that this has helped when dealing with setbacks and the unpredictable course of his health journey.

Earlier, Frances and Stewart were round for Sunday dinner with our two little granddaughters. The menu consisted of roasted beef, Yorkshire puddings, roasted carrots and parsnips with homemade gravy and roasted leeks in a cheesy sauce. For the starch element I made a mash of potatoes and chopped swede (American: rutabaga). It's amazing how much boiling or microwaving swede takes before it really softens up ready for mashing.

For dessert, Shirley made a plum cobbler using frozen plums from our garden - accompanied by vanilla custard. I was glad to get some of our frozen fruit out of the freezer.

Ah well, another Sunday night and even though I had nothing of note to say, I still managed to produce another blogpost. I have no idea what  will be in tomorrow's offering.  Watch this space!

Ferriby

 

Once again, I drove over to Hull today. The Tigers were playing Stoke City.

On the way, I  took a detour into the village of North Ferriby that sits on the north  shore of The River Humber, five mile west of Hull. My main motivation was to bag two more squares for the Geograph photo-mapping project. 

It was a grey, chilly day. You could hardly see across to the other side of the river. Not the best day for taking pictures. Even the mighty Humber Bridge was hard to see in the murk. I did a short, circular walk that took me through a green riverside leisure park that occupies a site that was once devoted to landfill.

There I was surprised to see the scene shown in the picture at the top. As you can see, there's the outline of a boat set in the ground. It is a kind of memorial in recognition of the fact that close to this spot the remains of three very old boats were discovered by amateur archaeologists in the middle of the twentieth century.

The boats were the oldest known sewn-plank boats found in Europe and they dated back to the Bronze Age - some four thousand years ago. They were not pleasure boats but working vessels - used for transporting goods within the waters of the Humber Estuary and possibly beyond. Similarly constructed boats were found by The River Nile - dating back to The Ancient Egyptian era.

Such discoveries make you think about our ancient ancestors and the lives they led.

Before leaving North Ferriby, I headed into The Riverside Walkway Cafe for a latte and a delicious cheese and tomato toastie. Vital fuel before the football match which I am sorry to say we lost by two goals to nil. Boo hoo!

One of The Ferriby Boats - re-imagined

Morph

Many years ago there was an art show aimed at children on BBC Television. At first, it was called "Take Hart" and the genius behind it was the late Tony Hart. He had promoted art in earlier children's shows too including "Vision On" and "Playbox".

Somewhere along the line - round about 1977, Tony Hart came up with a terracotta coloured plasticine man called Morph who gradually became a regular feature of  "Take Hart" and "Hartbeat". Morph starred in short scenes on Tony Hart's studio desk where there were paintbrushes, rubbers, rolls of tape and various other everyday items. The concept was both simple and endearing.

Much later, Morph was adopted bt the Aardman animations people who spawned Wallace and Gromit  as well as Shaun the Sheep. But I think I am right in saying that Morph was the plasticine  daddy of them all. He came first and later he was joined by his mischievous pal Chas who was lighter in colour but otherwise looked just like Morph.

Recently, I introduced my granddaughter Phoebe to Morph and at present she loves him. She has watched a lot of funny Morph shows.  He and Chas do not speak in intelligible phrases but you always know what they are saying. Each mini-episode is put together brilliantly by patient animators who are clearly still very much enthused by their work - just as Tony Hart was.

Here are two more recent  "Morph" episodes I have picked to share with you. He has come a long way since Tony Hart first moulded him. Enjoy!

Circling

Today I drove out to the end of The Hope Valley intending to walk for a couple of hours in the winter sunshine. I parked Clint close to Speedwell Cavern at the eastern end of Winnats Pass.

The picture at the top is the ruin of Hurdlow Barn which must have been connected with historical sheep farming though there was once a lot of lead mining activity in the area.

Above on a high plateau above The Hope Valley - amateur signage pointing the way to the village of Castleton and to Mam Tor which means - the shivering mountain. Here is an image of Mam Tor I captured today...

It was a cold day, hovering around freezing point, so I was glad I had brought my fingerless gloves. A woolly hat would have also been sensible but I didn't bring one with me. Below, the farm sign at the end of the long track that leads to Rowter Farm.

And I spotted this anti-litter sign at the bottom of Winnats Pass. I am no saint but I can say with some certainty that I have never consciously dropped a single piece of litter in my entire life. I guess there are other bloggers and blog visitors who can say just the same. I wonder, do people use the insult "tosser" in other parts of the English speaking world?

Near the end of the walk I had a treacherous descending path to negotiate. Bare limestone can get very slippery and there was mud too. The steep descent was for about fifty yards and I took my time, trying my level best not to fall. I am happy to report that I succeeded.

Halfway down, I sat on a rock to rest for five minutes and another passing rambler asked if I was okay. I said I was as he promptly slipped and fell on his fat arse. The embarrassed look on his face was priceless but luckily the way he fell meant that he did not hurt himself.

Walking up Winnats Pass

Rowter Farm

Heart-warming

Ready for a heart-warming story? My apologies if you have already stumbled across it.

In the picture you have got Mr and Mrs Shears from Coventry, England. He is called Donovan and she is called Kirsty.

Back in 1998, they were both eighteen years old. Donovan , a citizen of Coventry in the English Midlands, acquired his first mobile phone and he began messing about with it. He sent out some random texts to random numbers. He was just experimenting. Each time he wrote , "Hello?" but at first there was no reply from anybody. But then he got a reply. The text just said "Hi" and it came from Kirsty in Cleethorpes - 120 miles away.

Anyway, one thing led to another. In the weeks that followed they texted each other regularly. Then they had phone conversations and after about six months, Kirsty travelled by train to meet Donovan in Coventry.

Love blossomed and they were married  in 2002. Later, two children came along - a boy called Stirling and a girl called Alora. They were blessed because Kirsty had struggled to get pregnant and thought it might never happen.

On Valentine's Day this year the couple plan to reaffirm their marriage vows in Coventry Cathedral. It turns out that that random phone text contact in 1998 changed their lives forever and for the better. Donovan and Kirsty are still very much in love  with a happy family.

Praising his Scottish wife, Donovan said,  "She is an amazing woman, she's so intelligent and we know each other so well, she's my best friend as well as my wife."

Brutalist

A grey and drizzly January day in a northern English city. What to do?

After another morning trip to the local medical centre to have a vial of my blood extracted, I decided to catch a bus into the city centre to watch the midday screening of "The Brutalist". The film's running time is three hours and thirty five minutes with a fifteen minute intermission in the middle.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't in the least bit daunted by the film's length. As long as it mesmerised me, as long as it drew me in and held my attention - the time wouldn't matter one hoot.

Starring the brilliant Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect who  emigrates to America in the 1950s, the film's director was Brady Corbet who had a big hand in writing the script too. "The Brutalist" has received ten Oscar nominations - including "Best Picture".

The title, "The Brutalist"  largely relates to the modern architectural style known as brutalism though at least two of the male characters also appear brutish beneath the veneer of their civility.

Some aspects of the film, some moments, some episodes are very effective but in the end I came away feeling underwhelmed and a little irritated with it. Felicity Jones was too young-looking to play the part of Erzsébet Tóth and when she and László talked in  bed in their thick Hungarian accents, I could hardly make out what they were saying.

It is often visually powerful and the background music enhances the drama but at the heart of it the story just didn't do it for me and I will not pretend otherwise. By the way,  László is tasked with designing and supervising the building of an enormous brutalist memorial building somewhere in the heart of Pennsylvania.

I went along and paid my admission fee to see it hoping to be wowed, immersed, entertained. But I came away feeling that it had been over-hyped. I expect that it will be very successful at The Oscars which will be awarded this year on March 2nd.

Hooverphobia

The Emperor Fountain, Chatsworth House *

In the entire history of humanity has a more annoying invention than the vacuum cleaner ever been unleashed upon the world? In Great Britain, we have called them "Hoovers" for decades even when referring to vacuum cleaners produced by other, equally annoying companies. I associate the "Hoover" brand with instruments of torture and psychological injury.

I realise that my detestation of vacuum cleaners is probably illogical but I just cannot help it. When a vacuum cleaner is noisily sucking away at nearby floor surfaces, my blood pressure rises like The Emperor Fountain at Chatsworth House.

Some time in the late 1950s or early 60s, my mother bought an upright "Hoover" in a military livery of dark blue and light grey. It had a fabric bag at the back in which the machine's  bulging paper stomach was concealed. Every so often this had to be emptied or replaced.

I can picture my mother now - plugging that sucker in - her eyes kind of wild like those of a malevolent torturer. Then she would get cracking, just as I was reading a book or making a model car from balsa wood or watching "Blue Peter". The humming/whining noise went on for hours in every bedroom and over every inch of carpet.

Suddenly, respite would happen when the foot-switch was finally pressed. The dreaded noise abated like the end of an air-raid siren warning in World War II. What blessed relief! And then it would start up again... as Mum began to tackle the stairs. Aarrgh!

One of the worst things was when she asked me or other male occupants of my house to lift our feet so that she could hoover under us. Our family cat, Oscar, had a second sense about our "Hoover". It was as if she (yes, she!) could read my mother's intentions before the terrible appliance was pulled out from its shadowy cupboard under the stairs. For that is where it resided when not in use, its electrical wire wrapped  around its carcass like a tangled liana vine in a dank jungle.

As I write this blogpost, my darling wife has chosen this very moment in time to use our "Dyson" vacuum cleaner. While I was doing things out in the garden - like feeding the birds and repairing some wind damage - she must have been waiting inside for me to re-enter the house before turning the bloody thing on. Whirring and vrooming - like sitting directly beneath an aeroplane's engine as it idles on the runway before take off. Horrible!

However, I have a confession to make. Back in 1991, I accidentally spilled some dry porridge oats on our hallway carpet. Shirley was out at the time so I bravely yanked my nemesis from the pantry, plugged it in and sucked up those oats in less than two minutes flat. Afterwards, I had to sit down with a mug of tea and a milk chocolate digestive biscuit in order to recover. Never again!

As  I have said to Dave over at "Northsider", the man or woman who manages to invent a totally silent vacuum  cleaner should be awarded an international medal or perhaps The Nobel Peace Prize. Why has it not happened yet? Look at the things that ingenious humans have created but still nobody has managed to come up with a silent vacuum cleaner. Is that too much to ask for?

* © G Laird (2019) Geograph