Quiztime

 

Well, there hasn't been a "Quiztime" for a month so I thought it was about time. Today's cheerful topic is dead politicians. All of the figures shown below were famous in their time but who were they? For each of them, I have provided an helpful clue. Answers will, as usual, be given in the "Comments" section.

______________________________________________________

1.

Born in Predappio, Italy in 1883.

2.

His middle name was Rudolph.

3.

His body was exhumed and moved to Mingorrubio Cemetery, Madrid in 2019.

4.

Assassinated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in December 2007.

5.

The 23rd prime minister of Australia.

6.

Don't cry for her.

7.

Born in The Ukraine region in 1906.

8.

In 2007, he was the first international figure to be stripped of an honorary degree by a British university (University of Edinburgh).

9.

When he died in 1976, his internal organs were preserved in formaldehyde.

10.

Born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire in 1916.

⦿

That's all folks! How did you do?

Reappearance

"Yorkshire Pudding" by Daniel Halksworth

Having "come out" in my last blogpost, finally admitting through poetry that I am a poet, I tracked back through the annals of this ancient blog to find a poem that I posted years back. Yes - it was getting on for twenty years ago when I shared "Ode on Yorkshire Pudding" with an unsuspecting readership.

Actually, in those days, my readership was exclusive which is often a euphemism for small. Where are they now... Alkelda the Gleeful, Brad the Gorilla, Hazed, By George and The Blind Winger Jones? And I was but a sprightly lad of fifty two.

Poets are generally spurned and privately accused of being word-juggling weirdos. Coming out as a poet, I wonder if there's a liberation movement I might join with placards and marches and a certain unique colour for our lapel ribbons. Masses of poets descending upon London, raising our voices outside The Houses of Parliament...

"What do we want?"

"Poetry!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!" 

⦿

Ode on Yorkshire Pudding

How simple thou art, risen through the years

I recall you marked my Sundays
Fat laughter and sharp tears
Golden wert thou - a vessel for mum’s gravy
Mashed potato memories
Brown ocean for a navy...
Of minted garden peas.

What an ordinary pudding you are -
Milk and eggs and plain flour
In a hot oven for half an hour.
You’re even made now by the famous Aunt Bessy
Supermarket packaging being not quite as messy
As beating those ingredients
In an old mixing bowl.

You bear my county’s name -
My land of hopes and dreams
From Flamborough’s chalky cliffs
To Barnsley’s deep coal seams
But in googling the world wide web
I find your fame at last has spread
From Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
The Yorkshire pudding rises…

Poet

Poet

I’m a poet I am.

I lurk in pubs taking mental notes

Or wander about on moorland

During thunderstorms

Or sit beside rivers in summertime

Observing ducklings under yon tree

As mellifluous water burbles 

On its journey to the sea.

When I am feeling bored

I wield my quill like a sword.

Yes, I’m a poet I am -

Seeking inspiration

Wherever I might find it

See me in the throbbing city

Or in the flattened streets of Gaza

Or in the throes of love

Or drawing images

From the well of memory.

Meticulously, I polish my lines

Occasionally making rhymes.

And when my poems are done

I bury them every one

In secret moorland hollows.

Yes, my precious treasure

Is hidden midst the heather.

Words like these together.

Folk say I seldom show it

But I’m a bona fide poet.

Friday

Just back from "The Itchy Pig" where I drank two pints with Alan the CAMRA man. CAMRA stands for Campaign for Real Ale. This is an organisation that celebrates good beers and well-kept hostelries. Recently, Alan has been on his rounds across Yorkshire seeking "the pub of the year". It is a hard job but somebody has got to do it.

This afternoon I was mostly out in the garden trimming hedges and bushes. Our garden is 45 metres long or 49 yards if you prefer.  There's a lot of trimming to do but fortunately on the left-hand side  the boundary hedge is only about twenty metres long. After that we have a fence, borders and the neighbours' garage.

It was hot and sticky out there. I made a dinner of chicken, salad and new potatoes. I had grown the lettuce myself - lollo rosso which is strangely unattractive to slugs that clearly prefer other lettuce varieties.

Later, after more garden work, I came back in the house to watch football on the television. It was the third quarter final of the Women's Euros in Switzerland. The host nation were playing Spain who fluffed two penalties but still manage to win the match by two goals.

It was dramatic but not half as dramatic as England's victory over Sweden on Thursday night. Our lasses won that game after extra time in a penalty shoot-out. Hurray for The Lionesses! They will play Italy in their semi-final next Tuesday night. Come on England!

Midnight is fast approaching. I have got to get this blogpost published by the witching hour. All I need to do now is find an  image I can slap at the top of this hurriedly written blogpost - something relevant to the content would be good.

Neighbours

We have lived on this street for thirty six years. There have been many comings and goings. Generally, it is a quiet, law-abiding street where residents look after their homes and show good manners towards each other. In thirty six years, you get to know people while often maintaining a polite distance.

Immediately next to us there's Joseph and Mary. Now in their eighties, they have been perfect next door neighbours. We attended  the weddings of two of their grown-up children and they came to Frances and Stew's wedding in August 2019. Joseph was an academic in the metallurgy department of The University of Sheffield and Mary was a primary school teacher. The only time we ever really hear them is when Joseph is practising his french horn. He is in a local brass band. As time has passed, Mary has become noticeably less mobile as arthritis claims yet another victim. She and I share the same birthday.

On the other side there's Wally and Dolly and their teenage daughters Molly and Polly. They arrived in 2007 and though I am not fond of them they are generally quiet people - except when he's engaged in one of his D.I.Y projects that always involves a lot of banging. During the main COVID lockdown in 2020, he decided to build a big shed at the bottom of their garden which meant that on many of those lovely warm days I could not sit outside reading. Too much sawing, hammering and drilling. They call that shed their studio but in the past five years they have hardly used it.

Directly opposite us there's Carol and Nigel and their teenage daughters Lucy and Laura. Actually the girls were not conceived with Nigel's kind assistance. Fourteen years ago, their blood father Maurice the laser scientist hooked up with a German work colleague and buggered off to Southampton to live with her. Lucy has special needs and is on the autism spectrum. She is picked up by a taxi driver every morning and brought home by taxi in the late afternoon. Her special school is twenty five miles away. The school fees and the taxi bills are all paid for by cash-strapped Sheffield City Council.

On the other side of Joseph and Mary lives a German woman called Hanna and her teenage son Lukas. His electrician father did a Maurice several years ago - buggering off with his new fancy woman.  Hanna is lovely and when Lukas was little I used to whistle the theme tune to "Postman Pat" when I knew he was playing in his garden. A kind of magic through the hedges. He remembers it to this day.

On the other side of Wally and Dolly there's Gertrude who has lived in the same house for sixty years. She is ninety now and gradually, like Mary, being claimed by the arthritis beast. She has always had an upbeat, cheerful attitude to life but nowadays you can see the pain in her eyes. I hope to god that that nasty creature does not get me or Shirley as more years trundle by. Stay away Arthur Itis! Not wanted here!

Very often when I go to our back door to put vegetable waste or teabags in our compost caddy, I think of Sharon who lived just a few doors away. One evening she was doing the same when she tumbled down her outdoor concrete steps and broke several bones - including her skull. She was never the same again and was dead within three years - at the age of seventy.

There are many more pieces of information I could convey about our neighbours but  I am drawing a line at this point...↓ ↓ ↓

_____________________________________________________________

We never really choose our neighbours do we? People randomly come together - often for years on end. On the whole, I think Shirley and I have been pretty lucky with our neighbours. None of them ever behaved as if they came from Hell though they might not say the same of us!

P.S. In case you had not guessed, for privacy reasons, all actual neighbours' names were replaced in this blogpost.

Novel

 

I gobbled up "God's Own Country" by Ross Raisin in three days. It grabbed me from the first page. Of course "God's Own Country" is a term that is frequently used to describe Yorkshire so that is what probably first caught my eye and indeed the novel is set in Yorkshire - mostly on the North York Moors where there are sheep farms, picture postcard towns and villages and incomers from other parts of the country seeking some sort of rural idyll.

The central character is also the narrator. He is Sam Marsdyke the nineteen year old son of a poor sheep farmer. What should we make of him? He is a fantasist with a big chip on his shoulder. He seems to spend a lot of his spare time brooding alone upon the moors.

Sam is clearly in partial denial about past misdemeanours and his version of events that occur in the novel itself seems unreliable. He is a hard narrator to like or trust. As the novel ends, you wonder what might become of him, suspecting that all will not be well.

In the acknowledgements, Ross Raisin cites "The Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore " by Arnold Kellett which clearly helped to make Sam's narrative voice  sound  authentic.

He reserves a special disdain for country visitors: "Ramblers. Daft sods in pink and green hats. It wasn't even cold. They moved down the field swing-swaying like a line of drunks, addled with the air and the land, and the smell of manure".

And here's Sam observing a school bus as it disgorges pupils from a nearby fee-paying school: "I crouched behind the hedge, spying through the mesh of thorns at the hubbleshoo of small boys spewing out the bus. They were all over the road in an instant, squawking zigzags through the mass to clobber each other round the head with their bags. Next were the little girls, slower, mingled in with the big-belly boys who weren’t so partial on chasing about. And then the older ones. The girls kept separate from the lads, paired up tantling down the road with a snitter of talk kept close between the two as if all they had to say was secrets, meant for the hearing of nobbut themselves."

In this blogpost/review I have tried not to give too much away about the book. The main things I wish to say are that I really enjoyed it and it was quite disturbing too. In America, it was published as "Out Backward". Lord knows what American readers will have thought about all the North Yorkshire dialect words and expressions.

Sentenced

Foreign visitors to this blog who inhabit far flung places like Australia, Ireland, Canada, Tristan da Cunha, Sweden, Germany and Trumplandia (formerly the USA) may be interested to learn what has happened to the two ignorant oiks who in 2023 cut down that iconic sycamore tree near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. They were sentenced today - several weeks after they were found guilty of a crime that pricked the conscience of  the British nation.

Daniel Graham (39) and Adam Carruthers (32) were both sentenced to four years and three months in jail. The judge - Mrs Justice Lambert - found them "equally culpable".

This was my original blogpost from back in October 2023 - just after I had heard the news about the cruel felling of the famous sycamore. And here I was in May of this year writing about the trial.

It seems to me that justice has been done in this case. Even though Graham and Carruthers may not serve all their allotted time behind bars, a significant chunk of their freedom has now been taken away. I doubt that they have the wherewithal to ponder upon their offensive crime with true regret - such is their ignorance.

Natural beauty is something to cherish and respect be it a mountain top, a rainbow, a swathe of heather on a moorside, a frog leaping into a pond, swallows winging in the summer air or a lone sycamore tree standing proud in the rolling Northumberland landscape.

Of course there are far worse people than Graham and Carruthers. They didn't kill anybody. They didn't fly an aeroplane into a skyscraper. They didn't detonate a rucksack bomb on a tube train. They didn't abuse a child or rob a bank. But they offended the society of which they are meant to be a part, finding inexplicable pleasure in destroying something that was so beautiful and defenceless and loved by thousands of their fellow citizens.

Throwback

Here in Britain, people of my generation had to endure some pretty ropy children's  television when we were little. Even so, we were enthralled by the limited menu - all in black and white of course. I guess that as children we had a better capacity than most adults  for making allowances for the amateurishness of it all.

This is a "down memory lane" kind of blogpost. I thought that visitors from foreign lands might be interested in getting a taste of what British children lapped up in the late 1950s through to the early sixties.

Here's "Andy Pandy"...

Here are "The Woodentops"...

And here are Bill and Ben  "The Flowerpot Men"...

Of course there was no catch-up TV back then. No videos. And these shows were screened only once a week. If you missed "Andy Pandy" you would have to wait till next week to see another episode.

Looking back, it is easy to deduce that the programmes I have flagged up were crude foundation stones  from which later, much more sophisticated children's television could evolve. Everything has to start somewhere.

Vicariousness

 

When you have children and grandchildren, you do not really need to live your own life. Instead, you can live their lives vicariously. You are with them as they suffer their lows and their disappointments and equally you are with them when they achieve special things - their highs, their moments of joy.

Above, that's a picture of our son Ian, taken this very afternoon. He successfully completed an ultra-marathon, running (and walking)  fifty kilometres from Wantage, Oxfordshire to Avebury in Wiltshire in an event called "Race for The Stones". Most of the way, competitors ran along an ancient track called The Ridgeway.

Shirley and I were quite concerned about this event as it happened to fall upon one of the hottest weekends of the year. However, all was fine. Ian set off at 5am in an early morning mist that hung about till around 7am before being burnt off by hot sunshine. He approached it all sensibly, taking advantage of aid stations along the way and he was buzzing at the end.

In Great Britain, it used to be that graduation ceremonies only happened in universities. However, probably owing to American influence, our secondary and primary schools picked up on the idea of graduation ceremonies for younger students too.

Yesterday, there was even a graduation ceremony at our oldest granddaughter's nursery school. Phoebe has been in attendance there for almost three years but now she only has a handful of weeks left before moving on to the local primary school.

The video of the ceremony made me laugh when I saw Phoebe literally skipping to the stage. That doesn't usually happen at university graduation ceremonies.

Tickets

Ring-ring, ring-ring...

"Hello. Wimbledon Ticket Office. How can we help you?"

"Oh hello there. My name is David Beckham*. I would like to speak to your manager."

"Of course. Just a moment Mr Beckham."

"Hello. Deborah Snodgrass here. I am the ticket office manager . How can we help you Mr Beckham?"

"Well, I would like to see the men's final this year and I was wondering if you had any complimentary tickets left in the royal box for VIPs?"

"Oh, for you Mr Beckham. I am sure we can sort something out. How many tickets do you need?"

"Just two Deborah. For me and my oldest son - Brooklyn."

"No problem Mr Beckham. I will leave two tickets for you at reception. You need to pick them up by three o'clock."

"Thank you for  your help Deborah."

"Bye-bye."

 Ring-ring, ring-ring...

"Hello. Wimbledon Ticket Office. How can we help you?"

"Oh hello. I am just phoning on the off chance that you might have some spare tickets for tomorrow's men's final?"

"Excuse me. Who are you?"

"My name is Grace Honey. I have been a tennis fan all my life but I have never been to Wimbledon."

"Are you a celebrity?"

"No but I am well-known here in Bridlington. I have coached children's tennis for the past thirty years, rain and shine."

"Oh. So you are not a celebrity?"

"No. Not really."

"I am afraid we can't help you then. Bye!"

Ring-ring, ring-ring...

"Hello. Wimbledon Ticket Office. How can we help you?"

"I would love to get a ticket for the men's final tomorrow but I am afraid I don't have any money."

"You must be kidding me! If you are not a bona fide celebrity then there's no way we can give you a complimentary ticket."

"But I am dying of lung disease."

"No way!"

"I am a paraplegic!"

"Nope!"

"I  once saw Roger Federer in a Subway sandwich shop."

"Just a minute. I will have to talk to my manager."

_____________________________________________________________

* - for David Beckham, you may substitute 
the name of any other well-known celebrity.

Nightwalking

 

Midnight on Shorts Lane.

The new car is parked snugly by a wall.

As soon as I turn the engine off I hear owls.

Not just one owl -

There seem to be several of them.

Night's timeless soundtrack.

No need for my fleece.

It is a warm night between two hot days.

The Buck Moon is rising

But still low as it climbs over Totley Moor.

It offers little illumination

As I walk along the valley of Blacka Brook

Under the arching trees

To the stepping stones.

Walking up to Lenny Hill

I can hear my own heart beat

Thumping in my head.

This is a route I have often plodded

But never before in the depths of night.

I have a little torch

For the pools of darkness.

There are tree roots and hollows.

I don't want to go tumbling down

Through the bracken.

Who would find me?

Da-dum-da-dum-da-dum goes my heart.

Up to the new bench on Lenny Hill

In memory of teacher Trish Brooks.

Breast cancer - that over-familiar marauder.

I sit and observe the stars

As my heart beat quietens.

Is that a satellite up there or an aeroplane?

What I am doing seems almost illicit.

Walking at night.

That's all.

I reach tarmac - Strawberry Lee Lane.

As anticipated, no need for the torch now.

Strolling along in the single headlight

That is The Buck Moon.

They say it was so named

Because by this time of year

Stags' antlers were fully grown.

The night air is delicious -

I breathe it in like honeysuckle.

Somewhere far away a dog is barking.

Soon I arrive once more at Totley Bents

"The Cricket Inn" is just a silhouette.

I hear voices by the cottages at Bents Farm.

A woman jumps in alarm

When she spots me.

They are care workers from foreign lands.

After putting an old lady to bed

They are getting in their little car.

Off to their next job.

I wonder if they have care workers

In Somalia and Sierra Leone?

After Avenue Farm I reach Redcar Brook

But there's no water at all

Just the rocks over which it is meant to burble.

A brambly briar attacks me

Causing a little blood.

Vengefully, I trample it down.

Under the trees, my silver torch is required again 

I tread with trepidation.

Minutes later I am over the old stone stile.

Back on silent Shorts Lane

The Buck Moon floats like a balloon

Painting sheep pastures with its heavenly light.

Are we allowed to worship the moon any more?

At least it is real and majestic.

Our forebears looked up to  the very same orb.

It's 1.22am and I am back at the car.

Then through the sleeping village of Dore

And back to our street - houses without lights.

The nightwalker is home again.

Boosting

Here on the inscrutable internet, as well as churning out blogposts, I sometimes post reviews on TripAdvisor. To date, I have posted almost 700 items there - mostly reviews of hotels and eating establishments but also photographs.

It is easy to leave a review on a previously listed business but sometimes the establishment you wish to review may not be up so then you have the hassle of getting a new listing approved. That is what happened with "Urban Burger" on Ecclesall Road, Sheffield.

I had been in there four times in the last six months and each time the freshly made burger with fries has been truly scrumptious. Sadly, the place never seems busy and I wanted to give this homegrown Yorkshire business a boost with a glowing review  and a few pictures.

This was my review:-

James and Mel were happy to pose for me

Etcetera

Stone finial in the grounds of Thornbridge Hall

Well, yesterday I snapped sixty pictures on my walk out of Bakewell and I only showed you four of them. In this blogpost, I am just sharing six more of those images because I am an idle so-and-so and at the moment I cannot think of anything else to blog about. 

Phoebe is asleep upstairs for she is having a sleepover at "grammar n' granpa's house". No nursery school for her tomorrow. We picked her up at 5pm today - just the third time I have visited her nursery school. She has been very happy there but soon she will switch to our local primary school.

Rear view of Cracknowl House

I do not visit pubs as frequently as I used to do but tonight I moseyed on down to "The Itchy Pig" where I  guzzled two pints of Abbeydale Heathen. On Friday, a hosepipe ban will begin in Yorkshire so tomorrow I plan to  give our upper garden a good soaking - especially the vegetable plot. After Friday, I will no doubt be lugging buckets and watering cans  up to that top section. I have already filled the water butt up there but that water won't last long.

The city's reservoirs are less than half full but sometimes they are brimming in July. Not this year.  The weather has been pretty glorious for weeks on end. I am not complaining.

Rough limestone wall and cattle north of Bakewell

Path sign north of Ashford-in-the-Water

Upper window in Millstone House, Ashford-in-the-Water

The River Wye north west of Bakewell

218

Thornbridge Hall near Bakewell - has a long history

that dates back to the twelfth century

Shirley and I used our senior citizen bus passes today. We caught the number 218 bus at 9.54 from a bus stop that is just a three minute walk from our house. Three Chinese people had bagged the prime front seats on the top deck but even so we had a great view.

The bus took us via Totley, Owler Bar and Baslow to Bakewell in the Derbyshire Dales - a journey of some forty five minutes.

I was there to undertake a long circular walk but Shirley had come along to check out the shops and mooch around in the little market town. We expected that she would return to Sheffield long before me and so it transpired.

Telecommuications engineer up a pole in Bakewell

My most pleasant summer stroll took me three and a half hours to complete. It took in the village of Ashford-in-the-Water as well as Thornbridge Hall and part of The Monsal Trail - an old railway track that ran from Derby to Manchester via Bakewell.

It was a lovely, varied walk on which I had three or four conversations with strangers. The longest chat happened to be with a drystone waller called Simon. What a coincidence - given yesterday's post! He seemed to appreciate my curious questions but he would not let me snap his photo. He said he was too shy for that. Fair enough.

Cracknowl House

South of Cracknowl Wood, I came across an isolated house that has no track to it. Fortuitously, arriving from a long sheep pasture, I met a woman with a sheepdog who knew all about the man who has lived at Cracknowl House for thirty years or more. She has conversed with him several times.

Seems he lives "off grid" without mains electricity, gas or water. He collects rain water and forages for firewood in the adjacent woods. The woman reckons that he is something of an artist and has occasionally sold pictures to make a bit of money. 

We shared some envy about the fellow. There's something very appealing about his free lifestyle. Apparently, the authorities never bother him. Seasons come and seasons go and years go by.  I could find nothing on the internet about the man and his hermit-like existence.

After a pint of bitter shandy and a vanilla ice cream cone in Bakewell, I caught the 218 bus back home at 4pm. Again the inscrutable Chinese had bagged the front seats on the top deck. Somebody should impose tariffs upon them!

Betty Lane in Ashford - this is not a drystone wall as mortar has been used.

Walls

Over at the Geograph site, I have contributed  393  images in which the principal subject is tagged as "wall" or "walls". Mostly, the walls in question  are drystone walls which are an integral feature of upland landscapes in England and Wales.

Historically, wherever stones were easily available, our forbears would build walls - rather than planting hedges. The walls were to delineate ownership and to enclose animals or crops. It is estimated that there are over 170,000 miles of drystone wall in Britain - enough to circle the globe seven times over.

I am a sucker for these walls. Many are hundreds of years old and if you pause to look closely at them you find a certain rustic beauty. I suspect that the wall builders of yore never imagined for one minute that they were producing a kind of accidental art that would endure through the centuries as testament to their hard labour and craftsmanship.

On YouTube a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the ramblings of a young Yorkshireman called Jack Roscoe. His  vlogging name is "Northern Introvert". He is a very pleasant guide to follow on his various jaunts. His most recent video sees him learning about drystone walling from a group of enthusiasts who are busy repairing a couple of walls on a North Yorkshire farm.

The video is over 23 minutes long so you might not have time to watch it all. Mind you, I suspect there will be some visitors who are already thinking, "A video about building drystone walls? I would rather watch grass growing!" Each to their own.

Remembering

Okay, I am back from "The Hammer and Pincers" quiz with four pints of "Stones" in my belly. Though we did not win the overall prize this week, we were still first to a line of five correct answers. I have just stripped tonight's roasted chicken of any remaining meat and I have put the resultant carcass out on the lawn for a passing fox to sniff before guzzling down.

And so what are we left with when it comes to blogging?

I thought I might use this opportunity to capture a memory from long ago in written words. Arguably, memories are the means by which we mark our presence upon this spinning planet. Here we go.

I am sixteen years old and I have been chosen to represent East Yorkshire youth clubs  at a special reception in St James's Palace in London. It is to mark sixty years of youth clubs in England and Wales - under the auspices of The National Association of Youth Clubs.

Before the main event, I get to meet the pop singer Lulu, Lord John Hunt who led the successful Mount Everest expedition in 1953 and the famous DJ and TV presenter Jimmy Savile. He jokes that it is nice to have another Yorkshire lad down there in London and we shake hands. Retrospectively, it seems most distasteful that he was a patron of The National Association of Youth Clubs but back in 1971 nobody realised the true nature of that self-obsessed sex monster.

I visit a lavatory in St James's Palace and it is like no lavatory I have ever been in before. The Victorian toilet bowl is like a throne on a kind of platform and there are lotions and potions and soft white towels for hand cleaning.

On to the main event where there is a finger buffet with china teacups and strict instructions about where we should all stand before The Queen Mother drifts into the room with her little entourage.

She was Queen Elizabeth II's mother and formerly the wife of King George VI who came to the throne by default when King Edward VIII abdicated.

She reaches me and puts out a gloved hand, smiling with her little brown teeth on display. She would have been my current age (71) that afternoon but she seemed older. She asks me where I am from and then she asks me if I know Hotham Hall where she enjoyed some happy times when she was a child but I don't know the place. She is most charming and soon moves on to the next youth club member - representing a different county.

I find my way back to Kings Cross Station and catch an evening train back to Hull. Looking back, I think I must have had some balls back then to negotiate the London transport system at the age of sixteen when I was a country bumpkin. Stuff like that did not faze me at all.

"Ratrex"

Really I wanted to produce a spoof ad using Microsoft Image Creator (AI)  but certain words are vetoed by that system, including Trump, Republican Party and condom. I suspect that the current but very occasional resident of The White House would find a discreet private use for "RATREX" condoms or maybe he already uses these:-

or these:-

Haircut

"Monks" barbershop, Abbey Lane

This morning, I had the idea of walking to my favoured barbershop in the Woodseats suburb of the city. Normally I drive over there. It's more than two miles and there are a couple of hills to contend with. I gave myself plenty of time - setting off a full hour and twenty minutes before my appointment slot.

Down Carterknowle Road, along Bannerdale Road to Archer Road and then up Fraser Road to Holmhirst Road. I arrived on the main drag at Woodseats well ahead of time and marched into the KFC outlet where I ordered a Diet Pepsi to quench my thirst. Then it was on to the barbershop. The same fellow has been cutting my hair for twelve years.

"Usual Neil?" he always says and I confirm that I do not want a perm, highlights or a crewcut. I probably have my mop of hair cut every two months. Since schooldays, I have never worn my hair short. Blame The Beatles!

The barber is called Danny. He's 48 years old and happily married with two children. I guess I have got to know him pretty well through our conversations at the barber's chair. He is a very experienced hairdresser  and takes real pride in his work even though he himself is as bald as a coot. He always does a good job.

After the haircut, I walked along the main drag to a food outlet called "Urban Pitta". Their freshly made filled pittas are very scrumptious. I ate mine while sitting in the window with a can of Diet Coke, watching the world go by outside.

Then I checked out the book sections in a couple of charity shops but no luck! I was seeking a particular novel by one of the Brontë sisters - "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Brontë, written in 1848 in The Parsonage at Haworth when Anne was just twenty eight.

I decided to catch a No.75 bus into the centre of the city and headed straight for the "Waterstones" bookshop in Orchard Square. Fortunately, they had one remaining paperback copy of the novel I was after.

At around two thirty, I caught a No.88 bus back home.

Later I was in the B&Q D.I.Y. superstore looking for a galvanised bucket in which to place our repotted aspidistra. There I met up again with a man who has worked in the store for twenty two years. Our main conversation topic is always rats.

They target bird food and grass seed and it is an ongoing battle to suppress them. It was nice to hear my "friend" say that he does not like killing any animals - even rats  and wished B&Q would use rat contraception methods. I joked that I would not volunteer to be the one to put the rat-sized condoms on the little blighters!