Honour

Forget The Oscars and The Golden Globes, The Booker Prize and Sportsperson of the Year because just around the corner the winners of this year's Laughing Horse Blogging  Awards will soon be announced - including the identity of the overall winner and therefore the Blogger of the Year for 2025. Who will it be? Speculation echoes around the blogosphere like Keith Richards's guitar in Madison Square Gardens.

All around the world, blogger excitement builds. After all, a "New Yorker"  correspondent recently suggested that the principal source of blog writing motivation is, "the remote possibility of joining the prestigious Laughing Horse winners list".

Please listen to the music as you slowly scroll back through history...

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The Hall of Fame...

2008 – Arthur Clewley for “Arthur Clewley”

2009 – Daphne Franks for “My Dad’s a Communist”

2010 – John Gray for “Going Gently”

2011 – Ian Rhodes for “Shooting Parrots”

2012 – Kate Steeds for "The Last Visible Dog"

2013 – Tom Gowans for “A Hippo on the Lawn”

2014 – Meike Riley for “From My Mental Library”

2015 – Lee George for “Kitchen Connection”

2016 – Steve Reed for “Shadows and Light”

2017 - Keith Kline for "Hiawatha House"

2018 - Mary Moon for "Bless Our Hearts"

2019 - Jenny O'Hara for "Procrastinating Donkey"

2020 - Cro Magnon for "Magnon's Meanderings"

2021 - Andrew de Melbourne for "High Riser" (Now "From The High Rise")

2022 - Bob Slatten for "I Should Be Laughing"

2023 - David Godfrey for "The Adventures of Travel Penguin"

2024 - JayCee Manx for "Nobody's Diary"

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The venue for this year's Awards Ceremony remains a closely-guarded secret in order to thwart yet another plague of gawping paparazzi invaders. In addition, the unique designer widget for 2025 has not yet been revealed owing to fiery disagreements between top brass decision makers in Laughing Horse Tower. I have it on good authority that this matter will be sorted during the Christmas period..

Home

Chris Rea died today at the age of seventy four. Given the various health issues he had to deal with during his adult life, it is actually quite astonishing that  he made it this far. He was a Yorkshireman, born in Middlesbrough within this fair county's historical boundaries before those idiots in Westminster adjusted our borders without even properly consulting the citizens of Yorkshire. It still rankles.

I will be driving our Ian home for Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, having lodged on Tuesday night in Woburn, Bedfordshire. I didn't fancy two 3.5 hour drives in one day. Besides, I hope to manage a long walk down there on Tuesday afternoon. Cloud is promised but not rain

"Driving Home for Christmas" is an easy, laid back kind of Christmas song that has endured through the decades and it's kind of fitting that Chris Rea finally shuffled off his mortal coil just three days before Christmas. His song will live on for many Christmases to come. Much better than a chiselled gravestone or a black urn. Take it away Chris...

Solstice

Yesterday - near Sand Hall

On the morning of this winter solstice, I lay in bed for an hour after I had woken up. Together, the quilt and the sheets had created a snug cocoon around me and I had no pressing reason to leave it. Over the radio came sweet Christmas songs from Belfast and those monotone perennial readings from "The Bible".

Pulling back the curtains, I looked out on a misty neighborhood. Fog hung like static white smoke and colours had been drained away as if the world outside was fading just as underexposed photographic paper in a dark room is liable to do.

On the morning of the solstice, I came downstairs to boil two eggs which I ate with a single rice cake and a dash of seasoned French sea salt that I bought in 1998 somewhere in the Réserve Naturelle Nationale de la Baie de l'Aiguillon north of La Rochelle, France.

On the morning of the solstice, I thought of yesterday and how I walked in dank river mist down to remote Sand Hall along a bend in The River Ouse, not far from Saltmarshe Hall in East Yorkshire.

Then I drove on to Hull where my beloved Tigers were playing the Birmingham club - West Bromwich Albion. I met up with my old friend Tony and a newer friend - Karl. Both have their own ongoing health issues. Tony had a small stroke earlier this year and because of cancer Karl has had a kidney removed and is beginning a second course of chemotherapy. His prospects are not bright but he is still fighting for the privilege of life.

What a trio! Cancer, Stroke, High Blood Pressure etc.. watching healthy young men battle it out on the pitch. By the way, we won by a single goal - a deft penalty scored just before halftime by Oli McBurnie.

In the early darkness, aboard the "park and ride" bus back to Butch, I sat with a very nice man who lives on the south bank of The Humber. He told me that for forty years he had run his local football club as chairman, secretary, treasurer, bus driver, shirt launderer, counsellor and whatever else might have been required.  At first, he suspected that I was just jossing when I remarked that he deserved a medal but then I explained the huge beneficial impact his unsung work would have had upon the lives of generations of lads and young men. I was being perfectly sincere.

I drank coffee from a flask after I had opened Butch's boot (American: trunk) before driving home to Sheffield on the eve of the winter solstice.

On the morning of the solstice, I sat at this computer keyboard in my study with the anglepoise light shining down as I typed. And I thought of smoky feasts and yule logs burning and dancing and drums and flutes and flagons of cider and holly and ivy and a suckling pig roasting on an iron spit in a bleak midwinter on a day that marked and celebrated the turning of time and the gradual return of light and warmth and snowdrops and tender green leaves and renewal and hope .

Goole Bridge - ten days apart from different banks

Stanage

Yesterday afternoon, I drove over to Stanage Edge. Leaving Butch parked up by a road called The Dale at the southern end of the escarpment, I then walked three miles north to  the triangulation pillar at High Neb. As per normal, a lot of the walk was squiggly and up and down as I negotiated puddles and ancient stone slabs.

It was bitterly cold with the prevailing winter wind buffeting from the south west. I was wearing my orange "Mammot" coat with a hood and I was also glad that I had remembered my woolly fingerless gloves. For me, fingerless gloves are best because they allow me to operate my camera properly.

I watched a kestrel expertly hovering on the wind above the rocks. Intermittently, the bird plunged down with its wings tucked in. It was clearly on the look out for prey but I do not know exactly what it was after. Perhaps a weasel or a resting songbird.  Nearby eleven sheep were half-hidden in the heather as they sought nourishment

At this latitude in mid-winter, the veil of night descends before five o'clock. After a well-deserved rest at High Neb, I realised that I would have to quick march it back to The Dale as the golden orb was already sinking behind the Pennine hills and sure enough by the time I pressed the button on my car key there were only a couple of minutes of murky daylight left.

It was completely dark when I walked into "The Norfolk Arms" at Ringinglow where I ordered a latte and a glass of tap water. Stupidly, I left my car keys on the bar and by the time I had confirmed this one of the barmaids had already phoned Shirley about the discovery. You see, on my keyring I have my name and phone number - something that I would highly recommend to all car owners - just in case.

Some of you may recall that I am currently brewing a poem called "Stanage Edge" and on yesterday's walk some related words came  into my head  - "buttress", "ramparts", "wild" and "defiant" for example. I will mull them over in case, in a poetic sense, they have some purchase.

The triangulation pillar at High Neb

Gingerism

Peter Baker 1939-2019 (aka Ginger Baker)

On Wednesday afternoon, I collected Phoebe from her primary school playground and walked her back to our house. This journey takes less than ten minutes.

On Glenalmond Road some pupils from our local secondary school were passing by also on their way home. They were younger pupils - probably from Y7 or Y8. There were three boys and two girls. One of the girls had red hair - not bright ginger but a colour that contained some honey and copper tinges too.  I suppose that some might refer to her hair colour as "strawberry blonde".

There was some playful after-school banter going on between the kids. Then one of the boys called ahead to the strawberry blonde girl that was she was ginger-haired. "Ginge!" he called and "Ginger!" The girl yelled back that she was most definitely "not ginger". On the surface at least, she took the taunting in her stride. I imagine that it was not the first time that she had had to deal with gingerist banter.

Back in 2009, I blogged about another example of gingerism. It concerned Christmas cards being sold in "Tesco" supermarkets that bore the very unfunny legend, "Santa loves all kids. Even GINGER ones" followed by a picture of a little boy with red hair sitting on Santa's knee. Go here.

In that blogpost I alluded to my past observations of the treatment that ginger-haired schoolchildren frequently have to suffer in secondary schools.  Why should they have to tough it out?

Around 10% of people in both Ireland and Scotland have red hair. The figure is much lower in other European countries, including England. Teasing red haired people is simply not nice and shows a kind of dismissal or disrespect that is invariably very hurtful. In that sense, gingerism belongs in the same bag as sexism, racism and disablism and I mean this most sincerely.

Historically, many people with red hair have even lost their first names - replaced by the label - "Ginger". This does not happen to folks with brown or black hair.

Take the superstar drummer of the progressive rock band Cream for example. Everybody knew him as Ginger Baker but how many were aware that his real name was Peter - yes - Peter Baker? He wasn't "Ginger" at all. The unimaginative nickname was foisted upon him and it became inescapable though he did not choose it and he did not like it.

So my Christmas message to the world is STOP GINGERISM! Treating other people as your equals includes refusing to mock or perhaps even mention the natural colour of someone else's hair.

Neuropathy

On Monday of this week I learnt a new word: "neuropathy". If I had heard it before, I certainly did not know what it meant. The alarming reality is that it was being applied to me by a physician's assistant down at our health centre.

She had my bare feet on her lap and she was testing my reactions to a simple instrument I had never seen before. It is called a monofilament. Please see the top picture.

I kept my eyes closed as she poked the filament on and around my toes, asking what I could feel. I am afraid that this is one examination that I did not pass with flying colours.

In the past fourteen months, I have been teetering around the threshold of Type 2 diabetes. That is why I stopped taking sugar in hot drinks, reduced my alcohol intake and even paid good money for continuing weight loss reduction injections.

Monday's meeting has added impetus to my efforts and the next time I see my doctor I am going to be asking about a prescription for a drug called metformin which helps to reduce blood sugar levels. All my googling makes me wonder why it was not prescribed last year.

As some of you may recall, I recently finished reading "Entangled Life" which has a strong focus upon the underground characteristics of both fungi and plant roots. At the extremities of both systems there are tiny filaments. If the plant or fungus suddenly starts to retract, it is those tiny hair-like threads that die back first.

It is the same with the human body. When able-bodied people are in the vigorous health of youth those internal filaments - our blood vessels and nerves are in prime condition - reaching effectively to every part of the body and functioning well. However, if diabetes starts to creep inside us then those tiny threads begin to retreat and well, die.

We can be like deciduous trees that shut down every autumn, dropping leaves from their extremities as arboreal energy is drawn back into the heartwood. But unlike trees, we will not see spring returning for ahead of us is just the end - sooner or later.

I can walk for miles and my feet look pink and healthy but the physician's assistant was painting a different picture. She warned me about cuts to my feet, told me not to use scissors to trim my nails, be scrupulous about washing and drying my feet and said she would be referring me to a podiatrist. It all came as a shock - I can tell you, especially as the appointment was allegedly for an "annual  hypertension review" which is what I wrote on our kitchen calendar.

Hell, I do not want to end up with amputated toes or sores that will not heal but that could so easily be the way of things. Those who crept into the diabetes nether zone before me never imagined that such things might happen to them.

Throughout my life I have been blessed with good health. My body was just a purring vehicle that carried the inner me through life - into adventures, pubs, love, foreign lands, jobs, libraries, dining rooms, oceans. I guess I took it for granted that it would always function like that until it simply conked out but that might not be the way of things and tonight I feel quite fearful.

Offing

 

It took me a month to read "Entangled Life" by Merlin Sheldrake but "The Offing" by Benjamin Myers only took a week. The novel flowed and made me hungry to read on. The language was rich and fulsome - almost as if Myers was moulding clay or enjoying a good meal.

The only other book by Myers I had read was "The Gallows Pole", recommended here in the blogosphere by Christina from Blackburn and Thelma from "North Stoke". That was a great read. I reviewed it here. So when Shirley told me that her reading group would be talking about "The Offing", I asked her to pass the book on to me when she was done with it.

I was not disappointed. The novel tells the story of a young coal miner's son called Robert Appleyard who, just after World War II, leaves his home in County Durham to have adventures that will keep him away from the pit that is meant to be his destiny.

Near Robin Hood's Bay on the coast of North Yorkshire he encounters a rebellious and intellectual older woman called Dulcie Piper. It is a meeting that will change his life.

Well maybe I should not say much more because I do not wish to be accused of creating spoilers but I will say something about the title. An "offing" is described as “the distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge”. It's like a place that blurs boundaries.

And here's a typical sample of Benjamin Myers's writing:

“At times like this, or when hoeing soil or sanding wood, or just sitting on a bench with my face turned to the sun, I appeared to slip out of the moment so entirely - or, conversely, perhaps was so deeply immersed in the here and now - that I forgot who I was. The slate of self was wiped.”

You might say that "The Offing" is a coming of age novel and it illustrates the point that the course of someone's life can turn on a pinhead - a chance encounter, being in a particular place at a particular time. That's life. For most people, there's a randomness about the choices we make at junctions.

Apropos of almost nothing, I just want end by saying to Meike in Ludwigsburg that an important but never seen character in "The Offing" was German.

Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire

Quiztime

My, how sand flows through the hour glass! Many days have passed since the last exciting edition of "Quiztime". Time for another one I think and for today I had the bright idea of focusing upon words and their definitions etc.. As usual, the answers will be given in the comments section.  Good luck! (You'll need it... tee-hee).

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1. What is a "rapscallion"?

(a) a thin onion often chopped and added to salads  

(b) a kind of pirate ship with two sails

(c) a mischievous or roguish young man 

(d) a copper kitchen vessel with holes in the bottom

2. What is the Latin term for common ivy?

(a) Ursus arctos horribilis (b) Hedera helix 

 (c) Helianthus annuus (d) Ilex aquifolium

3. What does the Russian word "Glasnost" literally mean?

(a) openness  (b) security  (c) hatred (d) it'a a kind of copper samovar

4. What does the word "butt" mean? (Trick question 😄!)

(a) slang term for a human backside

(b) the thicker or blunt end of something

(c) a large cask for beer or wine

(d) to push with the head

5. In Australian slang, what does the word "drongo" mean?

(a) Aboriginal rock mural  

(b) another way of saying, "That's wrong mate!"  

(c) small marsupial only found in Western Australia 

(d) a fool, idiot

6. "phantasmagoria" is a lovely sounding word but what does it mean?

(a) a mental condition akin to  schizophrenia

(b) when an orchestra reaches its crescendo during a symphony

(c)  a shifting, dream-like series of illusions

(d) it describes a location that is allegedly haunted

7. "prattle",  "company" and "pandemonium"  are all collective nouns but which particular bird species  do the terms relate to?

(a) pigeon (b) penguin (c) sparrow (d) parrot

8. If someone is said to be "ostentatious"what is meant by that?

(a) well-educated, knowledgeable  (b) prone to showy displays 

(c) suffering from bone degeneration (d) cunning or sly

9. From which language is the English word "bungalow" derived?

(a)  Hindi (b) Russian  (c)  Swahili (d) Ancient Greek

10.  What is a "costermonger"?

(a) a banker or moneylender

 (b) a travelling minstrel

(c) someone who sells "costers" (i.e. fish)

(d) someone who sells fruit and vegetables

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That's all folks! How did you do?

Balls

 

Balls? I thought that might get your attention for some reason. 

Above that's one kind of fungi known as earthballs and below that's another kind of fungi called  puffballs. I googled images of them sliced open to see how they might compare with the "thing" I shared with you on Saturday night.

I am still no closer to coming up with an airtight explanation. If I had spare banknotes aplenty I might send the curious item off somewhere for chemical analysis.

I should emphasise how light the item is and when you squeeze its surface it is springy - like a sponge. It has no odour and since I sliced it open its inner whiteness has not changed. Just as a reminder, here's the dissected image that I posted on Saturday:-

Maybe it is some kind of sponge for cosmetics or their removal but no amount of googling revealed anything similar.

Ah well, thanks for all the helpful suggestions but  maybe I will never know.

I ended  yesterday's blogpost with this odd line that had Meike in Germany puzzled: "Mama done told me there'd be days like this". It referenced a song that played in my head before I pressed the "Publish" button. First recorded in 1994, that song is "Days Like This" by Van Morrison and for your elucidation and entertainment, here it is:- 

Happy

Detail of Shirley's Women's Institute tree in the cathedral

Please do not worry about me but for the second time in a week, I visited Sheffield Cathedral yesterday afternoon. There is absolutely no chance that I will be converted to Christianity as my belief in atheism is rock solid. All that stuff about the baby Jesus, wise men and  shepherds is a lovely legend that is part of our western culture but in the final analysis it is pure hogwash. Sorry to disappoint you if you had been taken in by the mythology.

I have always loved to sing Christmas carols and that is why I was at the cathedral. I had a front row seat and a song sheet. Shirley was volunteering at the "Age Concern" shop. I was set fair and from my unholy mouth burst forth the following very familiar carols:"O Come All Ye Faithful", "Away In A Manger", "The Twelve Days of Christmas",  "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night", "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

Sheffield Town Hall clock tower and a massive Christmas tree

My singing voice was in fine fettle and perfectly in tune though I say so myselff. I probably overwhelmed the excellent choir of The Sheffield Chorale who were making a guest appearance and slightly frustratingly sang three extra carols  that did not require audience participation. Grudgingly, I must admit that their delivery was damned near perfect.

It was a joyous programme, interspersed with some of the boring stuff - like slices of white bread around pieces  of grilled sausage. You know what I mean - "The Lord's Prayer "  and biblical readings from Micah, Luke and Matthew: "On entering the  house, they saw  the child  with Mary the mother and they knelt down and paid their homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold,  frankincense  and myrrh."

Sorry folks - but there is no evidence that that happened.

After the service, I had a bowl of delicious carrot soup and a small wholemeal roll in the cathedral cafe before making my way home in the fading light. Past  the town hall, down The Moor then across the inner ring road to London Road and along Abbeydale Road before making a detour down Broadfield Road to take photos of the lion with electric eyes that I have passed several times in the last two months.

For whatever reason, I felt  really happy yesterday - at peace with the world - as I made my way home in the darkness via Carter Knowle Road, Struan Road, Jowitt Road  and  Bannerdale Road. It's a long slog up that hill. Colourful Christmas lights were twinkling in dozens of windows and I helped an anonymous old man with his shopping bags before  getting home to cook rump steaks. In short, I was fully alive, entirely alert and very comfortable in my own skin. Mama done  told me there'd be days like this.

Burger restaurant on London Road

Thing

 

Yesterday, I toddled up our garden to empty the caddy bin in which we collect vegetable peelings, used teabags and other compostable stuff. On the way back, something caught my eye sitting on the bark chipping mulch that covers a little border in front of a laurel bush.

At first, I thought it was either a stone or some kind of mushroom. Crouching down, I studied it for a few moments. When I finally decided to gently lift it, I expected that it would be secured to the earth with a stalk but there was no resistance and it was surprisingly light.

I brought it into the house and asked Shirley to come and have a look at it. She was as puzzled as I was. It weighed very little and had no aroma. How had it got into our garden if it was not growing there? Perhaps a fox had deposited it or a neighbourhood cat or a bird. It remained a mystery.

Next I took a sharp knife to it and with some difficulty managed to saw it in half.  The inside was dense and almost pure white. Shirley decided that it must be a sponge but I was not entirely convinced. I mean, I have never seen a sponge like that before and the shape of it was not entirely regular.

Natural and artificial sponges invariably have a more bubbly textured interior but this thing is uniformly dense.

I have tried googling its identity, searching for likely sponge culprits but to no avail. Maybe Frances or Stewart will know what it is when they come for their Sunday dinner tomorrow afternoon. Also, I guess there's the possibility that you, dear reader, will be able to lead me to a definitive solution.

Zeppelin

Stealthily and slowly the zeppelin moved across that summer sky, sometimes appearing briefly and largely unnoticed in the gaps between evening clouds. In those days, military airship navigation was a rather crude process and the given targets were therefore quite general. It was August 9th 1915 and The Great War had, like my father, just passed its first birthday. The huge L9 aircraft, manufactured in Friedrichshafen, Germany was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Odo Loewe.   

Ahead was the little Yorkshire port town of Goole.  With its first few bombs, the enemy attempted to blow up Goole Railway Bridge where it crosses The River Ouse. They failed miserably before drifting on to the town itself.

Goole Railway Bridge on Wednesday

In the little terraced streets north east of the docks, citizens were getting ready for bed. No doubt some were mending shoes, ironing clothes, playing dominoes, reading books, eating supper, stoking fires or settling children. Goole had never been bombed before and the people were blissfully unprepared for what was about to happen.

In total, sixty bombs were dropped on the town that night. It was like winning a reverse lottery. Roofs and walls came down. Fires erupted. Screams were heard and in the neighbourhood of Aire Street and Bridge Street, it was as if hell had broken out. The zeppelin drifted serenely on to the docks where minimal damage was caused before turning back to The North Sea and Germany beyond. The last few bombs were dropped in fields near the village of Hotham in The East Riding.

Behind lay the innocent dead, dying and injured - victims of a war that they neither created nor understood. Isn't that characteristic of all wars? 

Those who died that night were: Sarah Acaster, 65; Sarah Ann Acaster, 34; Kezia Acaster, 32; Violet Stainton, 18; Hannah Goodall, 74; Alice Harrison, six; Florence Harrison, four; Margaret Selina Pratt, nine months; Agnes Pratt, 36; Alice Elizabeth Woodhall, three; Grace Woodhall, 31; Mary Carroll, 32; James Carroll, 26; Alice Carroll, four; Gladys Mary Carroll, three, and Alice Smith, 17.

As I was walking in and around Goole on Wednesday, I looped round the cemetery and saw this, though at that precise moment I had no idea what it was:-

It is a memorial to the unfortunates listed above. Here's a close-up:-

The second photo is from the Historic England website.

My morning research into this tragedy conjured up an evocative  letter dated August 12th 1915 and written by Mr West, a resident of Goole, to his daughter who was a student in Leeds at the time - training to be a teacher:-

Mr Gunnee carried girl out, all flesh of one leg torn away - next he fetched a young baby, but the sight finished him; he was done ... sick ... he went away ... to vomit. Had it been a man, he says he would not care. Next fell in Ouse Street (back) near T.K. Wilson's baker. Hole in wall, drive horse and car thro' - floors are all down in the cellar, furniture just a pile of ruin, pictures hang akimbo.

Let us pray especially for the children whose lives had only just begun - Violet, Florence, Grace, Gladys, the four Alices and last but not least Baby Margaret. It goes without saying that they did not deserve to die that night.

As for Kapitänleutnant Odo Loewe, six months later in January 1916, he was commanding another zeppelin - the L19. It had to be ditched in the middle of The North Sea but all of the crew survived in a life raft.  Their signal flares were spotted by a passing  Grimsby fishing trawler but when the skipper of that boat, William Martin, realised that all of those seeking rescue were German airmen, he refused to pick them up, fearing they might take over his vessel. Subsequently, all sixteen, including  Loewe,  drowned. Perhaps it was predestined that that number precisely matched the tally of death in Goole.

Goole

Terraced houses on Pasture Road, Goole

Yesterday, I boarded a train bound for the town of Goole. It's forty three miles from here. I first blogged about Goole back in April 2022. By the way, it's where my brother Robin was born back in 1951 when my family lived in the nearby village of Barmby-on-the-Marsh.

Unlike Sheffield which is a very hilly city, Goole is as flat as a pancake. Round there you could walk for miles at exactly the same small height above sea level - just over three feet. In fact, I went to Goole for a long walk that took me to the village of Hook and then along the bend of the mighty Yorkshire Ouse.

By The River Ouse, heading back into Goole

Goole has a population of around 20,000 people  and it is Britain's biggest inland port. The town is situated some fifty miles from the mouth of The River Humber and though really big ships or container vessels cannot use the port, it is perfect for medium sized coasters and barges. That is really the reason why the modern town exists at all.

Round the back of St Mary the Virgin parish church in Hook (below), I came across a lone woman with a backpack and walking boots sitting in the open porch enjoying some rays of sunshine in what she called a "moment of reverie" We conversed politely for a little while.

Back in Goole itself, I visited the little town museum above the library before catching the 15.48 train home. The daylight was already fading in these northerly latitudes and by the time I disembarked at Sheffield Midland Station, the veil of inky darkness had already descended. It's only ten days to the winter solstice.

The clock tower in Goole's fading afternoon light

Before catching the 81 bus back to our neighbourhood, I made a special detour to The Moor - one of the city's main shopping streets - just to see the Christmas lights. It had been another grand day out with welcome exercise in the sunshine.

Sadiq

 

Sadiq Khan shares my birthday though he came into this world seventeen years after me. Born in the London borough of Tooting, he became the Member of Parliament for that constituency back in 2005 having spent the previous ten years as a practising solicitor specialising in human rights. He became a  member of Britain's Labour Party when he was fifteen years old.

Sadiq grew up in a Sunni Muslim working class family that had its roots back in Pakistan. His father was a bus driver and his mother was a seamstress. With his seven siblings, he was raised in a three bedroom council flat. You could never say that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He attended council run schools before undertaking a law degree at The University of North London.

In spite of his native intelligence, Sadiq had to fight for everything he got,  often experiencing racist treatment along the way. He was first democratically elected to be The Mayor of London back in 2016 and has since then succeeded in two further elections. White or black or brown, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist - the people of London wanted him and that is why the majority put their crosses in his box.

Being the chief executive of a vast modern city like London - often with funding challenges - is no mean occupation. It takes a special, gifted human being to take on such a role. His areas of responsibility include policing, waste disposal, street lighting, air quality, education, transport, tourism and a whole bunch of other things not listed here.

Sadiq has had to keep a clear head and maintain focus on action plans in spite of critics such as the  generally right wing London media and wealthy landowners. He has also had to cope with attacks from both Jewish and Muslim organisations as well as extreme leftists and the ominous right wing Reform Party. The ocean he steers across is often stormy.

Sadiq married another lawyer - Saadiya Ahmed in 1994. They have two daughters - Anisah and Ammarah who are both in their twenties.  He once said, "I am proud that London is a city where, the vast majority of the time, Jewish people, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, those who are not members of an organized faith, black, white, rich, young, gay, lesbian - don't simply tolerate each other but respect, embrace, and celebrate each other."

He also said, "London is the greatest city in the world" which is of course wrong because everybody knows that the greatest city in the world is my adopted Yorkshire  city - Sheffield! He must have been joking.

Personally, I admire Sadiq Khan greatly for his steadfastness, his brilliance, his tolerance, his humility and his focus.  I am of course leaving showman Boris Johnson out of the equation when I say that being The Mayor of London is not  a job for ninnies.

Keep up the good work Sadiq!

Sadiq Khan with his wife Saadiya at a festival in Hyde Park

Sorrow

This picture was taken a good few years ago. On the right is one of my all time favourite singer songwriters - Jackson Browne. And on the left - that's his oldest son - Ethan Browne. Ethan's mother was Phyllis Major who took her own life in 1976 when Ethan was just three years old.

Now it seems that Ethan has done the same - not through an overdose of barbiturates this time but through a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died in his own home in Los Angeles which is where local police officers discovered his lifeless body. It was November 25th, two weeks ago.

Parents are meant to die before their children and  you may agree with me that there's something extra tragic about the death of a child - even when that son or daughter is fully grown up. And it doesn't matter if the only remaining parent happens to be  a millionaire singer songwriter.

I was privileged to see Jackson Browne in concert at Sheffield City Hall back in March 2009. I was there with my late brother Simon and we enjoyed the occasion enormously. For me it was almost a dream come true. I knew so many of the songs by heart and one of them was "Fountain of Sorrow" from the "Late for the Sky" album (1974).

I leave that song for you to listen to and in memory of an American man I never knew - Ethan Browne who finally gave in to his demons...

Soup

An English lady of mature years resides by the coast in southern Spain. She has often visited this blog and left comments that reveal her genuine and thoughtful engagement. She is known widely as Coppa's Girl though her real name is Carol. 

Anyway, just last week, she planted the seed of an idea in my mind when she justly derided my consumption of packeted instant "soup in a cup". Carol said she regularly makes a big pan of nutritious homemade soup which she stores in her fridge and consumes over several days. As you can tell, she is not just thoughtful but sensible too.

The seed was planted and like most seeds it grew. Yesterday, I roasted a chicken for our family Sunday dinner and instead of throwing the used carcass out on the back  lawn for the foxes, I retained most of it for soup making. I didn't want to utilise the rather grim inner body cavity of the unfortunate bird so at least the foxes got that.

The rest of the body - legs, wings, skin and breast leftovers went into a big pan of seasoned boiling water.  Then, after a few minutes, I added yesterday's leftover gravy, one large chopped carrot, a chopped onion, a handful of dried red lentils, chopped garlic, a bay leaf and a tablespoon of chicken seasoning.

I allowed it all to simmer for an hour before carefully removing bones, gristle and shreds of floating skin with the help of a sieve.. Then I added an "Oxo" cube and little pieces of broccoli as well as a handful of grated strong  cheddar cheese.

Naturally, along the way, I kept tasting the soup  before more salt and pepper was added. 

At first, my concoction was watery so I mixed a little "Bisto" powder in cold water with some cornflour and poured that into the saucepan just to thicken the liquid slightly. I would have liked to use double cream but Shirley told me that that was fattening. Who knew?

And then the soup was done. I had a bowl for my lunch and it was most wholesome and delicious. There's half a gallon left in the saucepan. In Carol's honour I shall call my soup - Coppa's Soup which sounds, somewhat ironically, like Cup-a-Soup! Ah, well.

Development

Normally. when I am inspired to write a poem, it comes out quite quickly. I have the idea and the words swim through my brain and out onto the page or the computer screen. There are usually some small revisions as I try to get the best words in the best order but after a day or two the deed is done and by then the tide of my inspiration has receded.

With "Stanage Edge" I am deliberately doing it differently, putting reins on the emerging poem and sometimes leaving days between my tinkerings and final word choices. You may recall that I first shared my little scheme a month ago in a blogpost I titled "Incubation".

I want to do justice to this poem  because Stanage Edge is so special - not just to me but to lovers of the outdoors  in this northerly region of England. When my late brother Paul was studying biological sciences at Liverpool Polytechnic at the end of the 1960s, he was a member of the rock climbing club that visited Stanage Edge several times and when our children were very small we had a brief tradition of putting the big turkey in the oven on Christmas morning and then heading out to Stanage for a breezy winter walk. Stanage Edge is as familiar to me as Trafalgar Square is to London taxi drivers.

To write a worthy poem about Stanage Edge is a challenging but ultimately satisfying task. I might not get there but I am doing my best. Metaphorically speaking, it would be easier to stay home watching the television of inaction than tramping about on the moorland edge of poetry, exposed to the wind.

Last Sunday as I walked between the Handleys, two lines arrived in my mind like seals coming up for air. I did not consciously beckon them, they just arrived at the surface and when I got back home I remembered to write them down:-

Unfleshed the naked bones

Nothing changes like permanence

I rather like those lines for they do speak of the geology and the seemingly apparent timelessness of Stanage Edge. Now the  task is to incorporate the lines within the main body of the poem though I might leave them as an epigraph that provides a hint or foretaste of what will follow.  

In building the poem, I have written more than 2000 words so far in a Word document and I have handwritten a thousand more words on lined paper. I have researched history, geology, birds and plants as well as the names of rock climbing routes. Stable buildings require solid foundations.

So yes, I have not forgotten my ambition but I think the poem needs more time to mature like cheese or wine. I will keep working on it, editing, polishing, adding new ideas, deleting others. I feel that I owe it to myself as well as Stanage Edge.