Nails

 

What is it with nails? All over Great Britain, nail bars have sprung up in our towns and cities in the past decade. Along the main road that runs through our neighbourhood then on to the city centre there are now ten nail bars. The newest one has just opened five minutes walk away and it is called "Phoebe Nail".

Naturally, I had to take our Phoebe down there at the weekend - not to have her nails done but to get her picture taken outside the new business. The owner - probably from South East Asia  - came out to talk to us. 

Naturally, Phoebe kept shtum as small children will frequently do with strangers. The owner seemed very nice, telling me that this was the second shop she had opened. I wished her well with her new venture even though I will not myself be paying for "French tips" (£45) or even an "Eyebrow wax and tint" (£15). What the hell are "French tips" anyway? Are they like "French letters"?

Just before Halloween, I processed a picture a picture of our granddaughters with the aid of Microsoft Image Creator (AI). This is what came out:-

The image was grown from this one:-

The wee varmints were standing on our front doorstep back in September.

Speaking about those varmints. On Sunday afternoon, they came over to our house with their daddy ahead of Sunday dinner. How joyfully they arrived. Phoebe said "Can we watch something?" - referring to the television. I went back to my kitchen work and a minute later it was as if World War III had broken out in the front room.

There was yelling and crying and foot stomping. I wondered what the hell was going on. And when I went into the room both girls were in tears and distraught. Stewart and Shirley were trying to placate them

And what was this all about you might ask? It was simply to do with seating and status. 

Ever since she could sit in that room, Phoebe has sat on a little green wooden chair with a woven rush seat. Normally Margot sits on her canvas "Fireman Sam" chair. But on Sunday, Margot got into the room first and claimed the green seat.

"It's my seat! I always sit there!" cried Phoebe but Margot was having none of it.

Usually the girls get on very well and sororal love flows like a gentle stream but just sometimes they can kick off. They both have strong personalities and can be very stubborn - like horses that refuse high fences in a steeplechase.

It took five minutes to calm them down and I now refer to this incident as Chairgate!  However, by the time their roast pork dinners arrived at our dining table they were as right as ninepence again.

Branded

Are you there Washington D.C.? Come in please! This is England calling!

Today, at Southwark Crown Court in London, the rapist and sexual predator Russell Brand was put away for ten and a half years having been found guilty of his crimes. It didn't matter that he was a rich media star, famous "comedian" and "writer". It didn't matter that he had settled down in recent years with a  loving wife and their three young children. It didn't matter that he had turned to God or that he wore a crucifix.

Past crimes came back to haunt him and the women he had abused earlier this century at long last achieved some kind of justice. There are at least two other cases against Brand still pending. He may yet have more years added to his sentence.

I began this blogpost in the way I did because I had Jeffrey Epstein and his associates in mind. Numerous other men - mostly wealthy and powerful - were involved in his predation and not one of them has been suitably punished. They used young women like playthings.

Blatant efforts have been made to hide the guilty men's identities through redaction and selective editing of  "The Epstein Files". Months and years pass by and yet still they have not been brought to justice. One of Epstein's closest chums  still occupies a very, very important role in Washington D.C.. He should certainly not be above the law.

Here in England, we have reduced a prince to a commoner and today a wealthy, wacky celebrity has deservedly been sent to prison. It's high time that the wheels of American justice turned  to bring Epstein's associates to courts of law. No more hiding in plain view. No more redaction. No more dodging responsibility with the aid of overpaid lawyers. The oft-forgotten  victims deserve retribution and the perpetrators deserve to be branded criminals - just like Russell Brand today.

Boundaries

Visitors who only read blogs will not have seen the following background alert that has recently been appearing on the dashboards of blog creators:-

Updates to the Blogger Content Policy
We are making some changes to our policies, effective December 16, 2026. To see how these changes may affect you, please find more information in the Blogger Content Policy.

I thought that it was about time that I investigated what this is all about. What changes are coming and how will they impact on everyday blogging?

As far as I can make it out, it's all about tightening the system up and ensuring that Blogger is not used maliciously or for unsavoury purposes. It appears that Blogger has seventeen key guidelines that bloggers are meant to follow. Now it seems that these principles will be given more weight and there will be better enforcement. I copied and pasted the guidelines for your interest:-

1. Absolute zero-tolerance policy; results in immediate removal, account termination, and reporting to law enforcement.
2. Violence & Gore: Explicitly prohibits graphic depictions of violence, gore, or encouragement of self-harm.
3. Violent Organizations: Content promoting, supporting, or representing terrorist groups, hate organizations, or violent extremist groups is banned.
4. Harassment, Bullying, & Threats: Direct personal attacks, systematic harassment, and threats of violence against individuals are strictly forbidden.
5. Hate Speech: Content that promotes violence or incites hatred against individuals or groups based on race, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity is prohibited.
6. Impersonation: Deceiving users by pretending to be another person, official entity, or organization is a violation.
7. Personal & Confidential Information: Disseminating private details (e.g., medical records, social security numbers, home addresses) without explicit consent—commonly known as doxxing—is restricted.
8. Non-Consensual Explicit Imagery: Sharing intimate, explicit, or sexually suggestive photos or videos of someone without their clear, written consent is illegal and banned.
9. Adult Content Restrictions: While explicit or adult content is permitted on Blogger, it must be properly marked as "Adult" in the settings to trigger an interstitial warning page. Missing labels will be force-applied or result in blog removal.
10. Deceptive Practices, Fraud, & Scams: Fake reviews, romance scams, investment fraud, or "get-rich-quick" schemes designed to defraud users are prohibited.
11. Phishing: Operating blogs that mimic authentic login screens or banking pages to steal credentials or personal data is banned.
12. Malware & Viruses: Distributing harmful code, malicious scripts, ransomware, or linking directly to malware-hosting hubs is entirely prohibited.
13. Spam: Automated content generation, link-stuffing, scraped text, or utilizing blogs purely to funnel traffic to affiliate networks or external search loops is penalized.
14. Regulated Goods: Operating a storefront or facilitating transactions for illegal or strictly regulated items (e.g., firearms, prescription drugs without a license, alcohol, tobacco) is banned.
15. Misleading Civic or Health Content: Intentionally spreading demonstrably false and harmful medical claims (e.g., dangerous alternative cures) or civic manipulation data (e.g., false voting timelines) is restricted.
16. Unauthorized Images of Minors: To protect children online, sharing imagery of individuals under 18 without parental consent is actively restricted.
17. Copyright Infringement: Stealing intellectual property, providing unauthorized links to copyrighted media streams, or plagiarizing material violates DMCA parameters and will cause post or blog takedowns.

⦿

On the face of it, it might seem that what will be happening from December 16th onwards is all for the good, making Blogworld safer and happier. However, I worry about the policing. I assume that this will be undertaken by AI bots and at the margins will any humans be available to settle differences and misunderstandings? Several of the seventeen guidelines seem very much open to interpretation. It's not all as clear-cut as Blogger implies.

I always think about Andrew in Melbourne.  It is a few years ago now but there he was merrily blogging away as he had done for the previous eighteen years and then suddenly Blogger destroyed his blog and made the content irretrievable. All those hours, all of those ups and downs, all of those photographs - the record of his life gone up in a puff of smoke and why? What for? What had he done wrong?

To add insult to injury, there was no one at Google Blogger he could ask, no helpdesk, no e-mail address or phone number.  Perhaps is was all just a hiccup, a robotic glitch but the upshot of it was that Andrew lost his blog and struggled to get started again. I really felt for him.

And it worries me now that if Blogger plans to become more stringent about content - probably with the assistance of AI checking - will other blogs be wrongly deleted without recourse to justice or appeals that will be properly  taken on board?

I sincerely hope that I am wrong but I vaguely  detect  the smell of rats.

Film

On Friday, I walked into the city centre to be at the lunchtime screening of "Wild Horse Nine" in The Showroom - my favourite  local cinema. Starring John Malcovich and Sam Rockwell and directed by Martin McDonagh,  it is a dark comedy with a political edge set in Chile in 1973.  Many people do not realise that the most westerly part of Chile is Easter Island - 2330 miles across the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Malcovich plays the part of Chris and Rockwell plays the part of Lee. They are CIA agents involved in the pending overthrow of Salvador Allende's democratically elected left wing government. They have been planted in Chile for many months. For some reason - it is never explained why - their boss sends them to Easter Island.

It was this factor that drew me to the film because I spent a happy week on Easter Island seventeen years ago - an experience that meant the world to me. Surely the film's use of Easter Island as a backdrop would bring back some special memories.

And that did happen. There were some great shots but in a sense being on Easter Island was quite incidental with regard to the plot. Chris even refuses to use the word "moai" to describe the iconic stone figures, opting to call them "big heads" instead. We don't really tap into the mystery or the history of Easter Island - well that's not the purpose of "Wild Horse Nine" anyway.

Wild horses do appear in the film and have a fairly significant role to play in the drama. It put me in mind of the day I was inside the crater of Rano Raraku  - an extinct, low-lying volcano with an open side. There's a small lake there now. As I was photographing two unfinished moai statues, I heard the thundering of hooves behind me and a herd of twenty or so brown horses arrived at the lake to drink. It was a thrilling moment.

Getting back to the film, although there were some pleasing features and moments, I ultimately found it quite irritating. It moves along at a laconic pace and it contains some rather gratuitous killing. 

I like most films to be believable so wondered how Chris (Malcovich) was able to have three changes of clothes when he boarded the LAN plane at Santiago with just a small suitcase. And magically, he had another case containing a rifle. How did he get that on the plane? And how come phone lines home were so clear and reliable? After all, it was meant to be 1973!

A lot of suspension of disbelief was required but that was not the fault of the two lead actors. They played their given parts well. There was even a cameo role for the legendary singer-songwriter Tom Waits, Chris's grumpy brother Jim, who resides in a very lonesome cabin in Arizona. Chris phones him from the island to tell him about his terminal cancer diagnosis.

I know that some film critics have raved about "Wild Horse Nine" but not for me I'm afraid. Too light, slow and silly in spite of the awesome setting... Easter Island or as descendants of the original inhabitants still prefer to call it - Rapa Nui.

Leaves

Every leaf that falls in autumn is a little different from its neighbour. They each have their own story to tell - like the lines revealed on an open palm.

Over the last week, the tree friendly southern suburbs of Sheffield have been carpeted with leaves and sometimes you walk ankle deep along the pavements, listening to the leaves' crinkly soundtrack. The air has been still but yet there are nooks and crannies, corners and gateways where the autumn dead have drifted.

Yesterday, I raked and swept up a great pile of leaves in our garden then I decanted them into an old dustbin where they can gradually rot down for a year or so ready to enrich the soil. A virtuous circle perhaps.

"Leaves" is a word used more than its synonym - "departs" and on Thursday our decorators left after a two week stint of meticulous work - preparing, sanding, undercoating, coating and recoating. They have done a great job of our hallway, staircase and landing. Although five different young men and one woman contributed to the team effort, it was mostly down to Josh. He was with us every day from eight till four. Such a pleasant young man and a real grafter. When he left for the last time, we gave him a "thank you" card with some money in it

This is the very first time we have ever employed any decorators. Over the past forty five years we did it all ourselves. This has been a real treat in spite of the eye-watering price. 

Next will be new flooring and that might not be down till after Christmas. Maybe then I will share two or three photos of the refreshed area.

Another use of the word "leaves" relates to books. Every page is a new leaf. After the  decorators had gone, I turned the last leaves of a short novel  called "Seascraper" by Benjamin Wood.  

It had me enraptured - the style, the simplicity and a sense of otherworldliness. I won't say too much about it in case there's someone out there who intends to get it - like voracious reader Kelly in Arkansas for example.

But what I will say is that the main character is a young man who ekes out a living on a wide beach in north western England. He is a "shanker". He pulls his unnamed horse through shallows at low tide. Behind the horse is a net with a scraping implement - its simple purpose being to harvest shrimps. Some low tides are good but others are abysmal. 

Here's a short extract to give you a flavour:-

“The closer they get to Broughton, the more the sand dunes bunch together on the collar of the road. He'd wander out here as a lad, carefree, and tumble down the slopes for hours with kids from other towns he'd never see again. Back then, he wouldn't give much thought to smashed-up bottles that were dumped there, or the damage he could do an ankle treading in a burrow. He's forgotten that simplicity, that joy. It's true what Mr Acheson is saying about the world and all its noise, but most folk seem to carry on undaunted, just like children gaily sliding down a sand dune. When did he stop sliding for fear of broken glass and bloody knees?”

Reading this lovely little book was a like sipping a glass of good quality merlot. If you will excuse the maritime allusion, it warmed the cockles of my heart.

Origin

This is the second in a series of blogposts that explain the origins of the unusual names of several stations on the London Underground railway system. The first in the series was published a mere fourteen years ago when the author of this blog considered Shepherd's Bush. Today, we are thinking about Canary Wharf. Who knows - it might be another fourteen years till we reach the third selected station. I bet you can't wait. Just to warn you - the author will then be eighty seven years old and may be even more doolally.

Before people got used to money, there was something called bartering. You didn’t need money. You could just exchange things with your neighbour. You might have admired your neighbour’s bantam chicken so you’d say “I’d like to have that little chicken” and your neighbour might say, “Okay you can have that bantam for a sack of turnips.” Then you might say “No way Jose! Half a sack of turnips and it’s a deal but not a full sack. Turnips are hard to grow.” And then you might shake hands and the deal would be done with no money involved.

People swapped puppies for kittens and kittens for puppies. When they weren’t working, eating or sleeping they’d be bartering. Once a miller called Mr Russell Square or Square the Miller traded his own daughter’s hand in marriage just to get a carpenter to fix the sails of his windmill and for bags of flour he regularly received sausages, candles, juicy lamb chops and farm crates filled with green cabbages. You didn’t need money.

As years passed, bartering became all the more intense. Some things were great for bartering with and other things were almost useless. You couldn’t get much for a bucket of horse manure but you could get plenty for a brand new wooden chair or a straw-filled fabric snake to stop icy draughts from slipping in under your door. They were all the rage.

Peacock feathers and genuine fox fur scarves became highly prized by fashionable women while men developed a liking for clay pipes filled with dried tobacco leaves. You had to offer plenty to get such things in exchange.

In those days, very few ships came up the River Thames to London. England imported as few goods as it exported. We didn’t need things from anywhere else. We could manage thank you very much but gradually that state of affairs began to change.

Tempting and previously unseen items began to appear. Ivory from Africa. Peppercorns from India. Sandalwood from Asia Minor. Small carvings of leprechauns from Ireland. To acquire these things using historical bartering methods became a real challenge.

In 1641, a Spanish sailboat named “Margaret of Austria” slid west along the Thames, using the power of the high tide to reach wooden jetties east of the city of London. It had become a popular place to unload cargoes. That shoreline, upon a bend in the great river, had seen many things coming and going in preceding decades but nothing like what had been loaded into the hold of “Margaret of Austria” a few weeks before.

There were over a hundred portable bamboo cages and inside each one  small yellow birds from faraway. The din they made was sweet but cacophonous.

“What are they?” asked Huggins as he stacked the cages on the jetty.

“Birds,” replied Dalton.

Huggins whacked him playfully. “Idiot! What kind o' birds? I amn’t seen none like these 'afore. They’s yellow as buttercups.”

“One o' them dago sailors sez they picked 'em up from Spanish islands off the coast of Africa. He sez they’re called The Canaries.”

“Canaries?” echoes Huggins who thought that Dalton was referring to the birds and not the islands.

Anyway. That night, one of those canaries just happened to finish up in Huggins’s tiny house where he lived with his wife Griselda and their nine children - Andrew, Boadicea, Charles, Dave, Elizabeth, Frederick, Gwendoline, Henry and Imelda. Mr and Mrs Huggins planned to complete the alphabet in the next twelve years.

The children were fascinated with the canary. They clapped their hands and yelped with joy to see the little bird hopping about and singing more sweetly than a robin. However, the Huggins family’s possession of the pet bird did not last long. The vicar of their parish, Reverend Biggs heard about the incarcerated bird and decided to barter with Huggins to secure it. He imagined it sitting in a gilded cage in his parlour, twittering away. It would be the talk of clergy throughout the region.

Huggins agreed to exchange the little yellow bird for a suckling pig called Sheila.

This was just the start of the canary trade. People who dwelt by The River Thames went wild for the exotic birds. They became more popular than opium or brandy. To be somebody you really had to have a canary.

As a result, more and more ships arrived at the now expanding port on that same bend of The River Thames east of London, carrying vast cargoes of canaries. The wharfside was filled with their avian music. They waited there, stacked in their bamboo cages ready to be transported hither and thither by horse and cart or barge. Canarymania was rife and there was money to be made. The age of bartering was almost over as the seventeenth century reached out to meet the eighteenth.

And it was those bargemen and carters of long ago who gave the port its name.

As they sat in their favoured east London taverns supping ale and literally chewing the fat, they spoke about their work days – where they had been and what they had done. To distinguish the canary landing point at Wapping from other piers and jetties on the river, they began to refer to it as “Canary Pier” and later “Canary Wharf”. It is the second name that stuck and is still used to this day even though the rampant canary trade of yore dissipated long ago.

Applause

Applause is due to the ordinary working people of America who turned up in their millions yesterday to change the political tide. They passed judgement on Trump and his gang and the divisiveness they have wrought - including starting an unnecessary war that threatens peace and economic stability around the world.

Of course, the increasingly senile president accepts no responsibility for this electoral battering. He has even claimed that if his name had been on the ballot papers instead of the nominees he endorsed, the defeat would not have happened.

But deception and dodging responsibility is part of his DNA. The other night I tuned in to a video that examined his academic career at Fordham University in New York (1964-1966) and The Wharton Business School at The University of Pennsylvania (1966-1968).

Although Trump has often boasted of his academic prowess and high achievement, it seems more than likely that he made it all up or at least exaggerated everything. He left virtually no mark in the two universities' records and former students who should have been his classmates simply cannot remember him being there. His transfer to Wharton was a very dodgy affair with his father calling in favours to get him in.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone. 

Anyway - back to yesterday. As I am sure you already knew, The Democrats did better than  expected - convincingly winning back both houses. Some great Democrats have emerged through the process including James Talarico in Texas and surely a true presidential candidate in the form of Jon Ossoff  from Georgia.

This morning I had tears in my eyes as I watched Amy Klobuchar's acceptance speech upon becoming the new Governor of Minnesota. I believe that, like Jon Ossoff, she also has the potential to go on to be the next Democrat president. She emanates intelligence, humanity, honesty and doggedness. Four qualities that Trump has never possessed.

Prior to the elections, Rep. Ilhan Omar from Minnesota was victimised by Trump's agents. They surrounded her humble Washington D.C. home at six o'clock in the morning before searching it thoroughly - taking away laptops and phones and private papers. It was a blatant attempt to discredit and shake her. So far no evidence of any wrongdoing has surfaced. Yesterday her victory at the polls in Minneapolis was resounding - winning 76.5% of the votes cast in District 5. I think that this is what Americans might call giving Trump "the bird" (English: two fingers).

And so yes - applause to Democrat voters  who turned out en masse in every state yesterday and won the day. But now the battle begins to make a better America - to make the great ocean liner of nationhood shift its course, to see beyond the Trump years and re-establish fundamental political values and aspirations that chime both with ordinary Americans and the free world beyond its shores.

Karl

 

I guess most foreigners who are visiting this blog will not have heard of Karl Bushby. He is fifty seven years old and has just come home after twenty eight years away and guess what? He is a Hull City supporter - just like me.

But where has Karl been?

It was back in 1998 that he set off from Punta Arenas in Chile, planning to walk back to Hull without using any trains, planes, motor vehicles or ships. He wanted to walk the whole way and guessed it would take a long time but perhaps not twenty eight years!

Karl Bushby with The Beast

His marriage had broken up and he was no longer cocooned by army life. He had some mental health issues too. The walk would be a kind of therapy.

Along the way, he temporarily settled in both Colombia and China after falling for two women. And he had various visa problems that held him up for many months - mostly connected with his travels through both Russia and China.

All of his worldly belongings were in the trolley that he pushed. He called it "The Beast". And please don't think that he entirely cast off the world that we occupy because for the last decade or so he had a laptop with internet access and a smartphone. Karl is no mug. He knew he needed to attract funds if his ambition was ever to be achieved. Once or twice he flew away from the point he had reached, returning much later to the same spot before continuing.

Crossing the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia was a big challenge. He had to wait until the sea was iced over to get across. And to get back to England from France last month, he simply swam across The English Channel (French: La Manche) without any special training. Easy peasy.

He arrived back in Hull yesterday to a hero's welcome and embraced his mother. I hope to see him at Hull City's next home game against Brighton and Hove Albion and I will applaud him with the rest. A slogan often attached to Hull City is "Dare to Dream" and Karl Bushby certainly did that. Welcome home Karl!

Karl in his new Hull City shirt

Adelaide

What do you know about Adelaide, South Australia? Until deciding to create this blogpost, I knew almost nothing apart from the fact that the blogger Elsie "River" lives there. I also knew that the city had been named after Queen Adelaide who married King William IV in 1818. She had previously been a German princess, born Adelheid of Saxe-Meiningen in 1792.

Okay let me give you some key facts about Adelaide - just the low hanging fruit of my googling. First of all, the city should be called Tarndanya which was a name that indigenous peoples had used for millennia to describe the location. It means "male red kangaroo rock" after a particular stone outcrop that disappeared forever as the first European settlement grew.

St Peter's Anglican Cathedral

Adelaide is Australia's fifth largest city. Its metropolitan area has a population of 1,469,163 so if you removed Elsie River it would be 1,469,162. Adelaide is known for its food and wine industries, its coastline and hills, and defence and manufacturing industries. The city "consistently ranked within the top-ten most liveable cities globally for much of the 21st century".

North Terrace in the centre of Adelaide

The population density is around 1,100 people per square mile compared with Greater London - 15,000 per square mile or New York City - 29,300 people per square mile. 

The Luxe Cafe and Bakery on Sheffield Street. The city also 

contains a Yorkshire Street and two Hull Streets.

Adelaide really only came into being in the 1840s. It was a well-planned city that employed a logical grid system for its central area which was deliberately ringed with green spaces. Unlike Sydney, Melbourne or Hobart it had no connection with historical penal servitude. In fact, the city's optimistic founding fathers thought that it would be so law-abiding that a prison would be unnecessary. Several prominent churches were built from local stone in the nineteenth century, including St. Peter's Cathedral. Even today, Adelaide is sometimes known as "The City of Churches".

Typical homes in the Aberfoyle Park district

Ethnically, Adelaide has a fairly diverse community with immigrants from China, Vietnam, India and Germany amongst others but the core population identifies its ethnic origins as English (36%) and Australian (29%). Only 1.6% of the population is "Australian Aboriginal". No longer do they gather serenely at that male red kangaroo rock, in dreams of the natural world they inhabited for fifty millennia, little changing, at peace with their environment. Now there are cars, sirens and trucks carrying their payloads to retail parks while aeroplanes rise and fall like huge birds of prey over at the international airport.

The top picture is from Google Images but the other five pictures of Adelaide and its environs were randomly snipped from Google Streetview as I cruised around enjoying the comfort of my computer chair.

Angas Inlet between Torrens Island and Garden Island

Brincliffe

On Friday, I walked through nearby Brincliffe Edge Woods and took several pictures. I was again hoping to capture something of the essence of  autumn in this northerly corner of England. The image shown above is the best of the bunch. I think it is rather like a painting but I wish that along that canopied track a figure had been approaching wearing a bright red jacket like the solitary woman who passed me by just a few minutes earlier. That would have really "made" the composition.

It's only ten days since I shared an image of Brincliffe Edge Road, and here we are again as autumn strides a little further towards wintertime. I love that road and though you cannot see this, the woods tumble down to the right. There are several tracks there and even a concealed encampment where three homeless people live. I would never snitch on them. It's not a bad location to choose and we all need somewhere to live - even those without money, hope or good fortune.

Looping round through Chelsea Park I then strode along Chelsea Road to the modern apartment blocks that occupy the site of a former stone quarry. It is also where "Baldwin's Omega" restaurant used to be. I saw a polished metal door sign and noticed how it was reflecting autumn trees so I  snapped this picture...

And when my little neighbourhood walk was over I had a light lunch before keeping my appointment with Richard Hines and his wife Jackie. At eighty years old he is not in the best of health and is pretty much housebound.

Befriending him has been the absolute highlight of my year. Talking with the man who inspired "A Kestrel for a Knave" or "Kes" as it is usually known has been a genuine privilege. Every time I have seen him our conversation has flowed so naturally and happily and it was the same on Friday - two and half hours of rabbiting on, putting the world to rights and sharing memories.  I don't mind saying that these meetings have enriched me. As Richard said, "We have a lot in common."

Remembrance

 

A single herring gull weaves under an October sky, crying plaintively for the seaside. It is the only sound that registers in the minute that follows the bugler's final note. He has played "The Last Post" as perfectly as you will ever hear it. And now there's only silence and a single gull. The air is still.

Below the seabird, 24,459 people stand in respectful silence. We are thinking of the brave men and a few women who never came home from war. They were members of our families. Now just names, blurry black and white photographs and tarnished war medals. But we still honour them, giving thanks in remembrance. It is the least that we can do.

And maybe we are also half-thinking of the world today, the conflicts in progress, the uncertainty of the future. Having just finished that Beatles book, I realise that John Lennon's simple request, "Give Peace A Chance" has never been given a chance.

At exactly two minutes to three, the referee blows his whistle and the silence is over. Supporters roar in unison and the herring gull floats off towards the trees of Hymers College grounds. They are putting on their autumn costumes - russet and yellow and pumpkin orange.

I had walked to that school earlier. The first time in fifty six years but I felt nothing. I left there in the summer of 1970, ready to transfer to Beverley Grammar School which suited me much better. It was less rigid, more friendly and was not trying to be Hull's answer to Eton and Harrow.

Hymers College affected me deeply. The teachers wore black academic gowns like Halloween fans of Dracula and they only ever called me by my surname. At Beverley Grammar School they called me Neil. I should have gone there in the first place and would have done if I had not been awarded a free scholarship to Hymers at the age of eleven. How silly of me to do so well in my crucial "Eleven Plus" exam! If only I had known, I would have deliberately scribbled down a few wrong answers.

Over at Hull City's stadium, I watched an exciting football match that swung one way and then the other but finished up as a 2-2 draw. Our opponents had been Ipswich Town. I caught the 18.25 train back to Sheffield and as we rattled along I got stuck into a book by the acclaimed English novelist Benjamin Wood - "Seascraper". I have read forty six pages so far and I am hooked.

I wonder where that screaming herring gull is now as I click on "Publish".

Finished

No. This blog is not finished and neither is its modest author. "Finished" refers to my reading of "John & Paul - A Love Story in Songs" by Ian Leslie.

I would not say that I was ever a rabid Beatles fan but the cultural significance of The Beatles phenomenon impacted on all who grew up in the three decades that followed World War II. You cannot deny that. Their very presence was symbolic of a changing world and many of their songs feature in our imaginary soundtrack for the nineteen sixties and seventies...

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain,

Don't carry the world upon your shoulders.

For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool

By making his world a little colder.

Ian Leslie is to be commended for crafting this intelligent and well-researched book. Though it honours the two leaders of The Beatles, it is never fawning nor sycophantic. He examines the evidence and presents a very believable thesis - that John and Paul's relationship was something akin to love.

That special bond had its ups and downs, its tears and its laughter but at the heart of it all was a unique chemistry that neither of them could ever resist even when circumstances and other people got in their way. They would always be the music-obsessed Liverpool lads who first met at the Woolton parish church garden party on July 7th, 1957.

Each chapter of the book focuses on a different song. I was very familiar with most of the songs but after the band's break up happened in 1970, I kind of lost touch with their music preferring singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Donovan, Melanie Safka and the great Bob Dylan. So I had to use Google to search up several of the songs that Ian Leslie bases his final chapters upon.

Here are two extracts to give you a flavour of what I thought was a most enjoyable and insightful treatise:-

“In October, Yoko and John celebrated John's thirty-first birthday with friends, including Ringo, in a hotel room in Syracuse, New York, where Yoko had an exhibition. There is a tape of a rowdy singalong, led by John on an out-of-tune guitar. It includes a slightly drunk and maudlin rendition of 'Yesterday'. John gets the words wrong (‘now it looks as though I've lost my way'), and replaces ‘she’ with ‘he’: why he had to go, I don't know, he wouldn't say...”

&

“At one point in his 1981 conversation with Hunter Davies, McCartney said rather miserably, "I realise now we never got to the bottom of each other's souls." In the end, McCartney had to settle for not knowing, and not understanding. So do we all. What we can say for sure is that they loved each other, that through music they found a way to share this love with everyone in the world, and that in doing so they made the world an immeasurably better place. Because it was John; because it was Paul.”

And I feel sure that if The Beatles ever meant anything to you, you would also appreciate "John & Paul." You will learn a lot of things you never knew before.

Quotations

 

Most people value astute or pithy quotations that seem to capture fundamental truths in just a few words. I see quotations cropping up a lot in Blogworld where blog owners or commenters often strive to tell it like it is. Quotations can help - like handles to grip on to when riding on a bus.

When I was a student at The University of Stirling in Scotland (1973-1977) I honed my academic papers and essays with care and commitment. I sought the right words and backed up my arguments with textual references and points sifted from other writers. My courses were chiefly in English Literature and Education. I took great pride in my work.

Perhaps it was in my second year (American: sophomore) that I fell into the habit of beginning each academic essay with an epigraph - a quotation that somehow captured the essence of the writing that was to follow, setting the tone. You often see epigraphs where books or chapters of books begin and I guess I thought to myself - why can't I do that? I enjoyed the slightly electric juxtaposition.

Some of my epigraphs emerged from previous reading but I found others in  the book pictured at the top of this blogpost. "The Quotation Dictionary" was one of my constant companions through university but for the last four decades it has mostly just filled shelf space in our house, its pages never more turned. When I opened it today, I half expected book worms to wriggle out.

But they didn't. However, I noticed that the previously well-thumbed pages have yellowed slightly with age. In spite of that, the truth, insight and wisdom that most of those quotations contain has not withered. It's still there. A useful source of quiet reflection. Keyholes that look in on the very meaning of life.

"The Quotation Dictionary" was first compiled by Robin Hyman  and printed in New York by Collier Books in 1962. My edition is from 1967 and it was given to me by my late American friend Richard when we were volunteer teachers on the faraway island of Rotuma (1972-73). He had noticed how I often flicked through the book so he said I could have it.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to pull out five quotations that might appositely be applied to America's forty seventh president. What do you think? 

O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrranous 

To use it like a giant.

- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE -

Isabella in "Measure for Measure" (Act II scene ii)

He that would govern others, first should be

The master of himself.

- PHILIP MASSINGER -

in "The Bondman" (Act I scene iii)

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.

- WILLIAM PITT Senior -

Speech in The House of Lords, Jan 9th 1770

Hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue.

- DUC DE LAROCHEFOUCAULD -

in "Les Maximes" (17th century)

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more

epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

- SIR RICHARD STEELE -

in "The Spectator" No. 238 (September 1711)

Peacefulness

 

You never know what you are going to get. Monday was grey and chilly with rain. Tuesday came with blue skies and sunshine so I marched away from the house. My route took me up to the top of Greystones Road then down through the woods into The Porter Valley. I took extra care during my descent because of the stormy, wet weather we had just experienced and the fallen leaves all around. Potentially, a lethal combination.

From Forge Dam I ascended the hill to Fulwood aiming to catch a bus to Broomhill or Hunters Bar.

My first two pictures were taken in the affluent suburb of Fulwood from 

viewpoints just five yards apart. The street is called Chorley Road

We have got decorators in our house at the moment, patiently working on the heart of the home - hallway, staircase and landing so it was good to get out. I don't know why exactly but having workmen in our house for any period of time really puts me on edge even when they are as professional and considerate as our decorators have been.

We will be paying them a king's ransom for the transformation - soon to be followed by the expense of new floor coverings but as they say - it will all be worth it in the end. No pain = no gain.

Fulwood's elegant war memorial

Talking about pain, I was appalled by recent comments from The President of The USA. Once again, he was banging on about the "injustice" of not being awarded The Nobel Peace Prize. In his crazy wrath, he seemed to equate The Nobel Committee with the kingdom of Norway when in reality the only connection is that the Nobel organisation is based in Norway. How could he be so stupid?

Then he referred to Norway as a "s**thole" of a country, causing many members of his partisan rally crowd to guffaw with laughter. Why? What he said was so wrong, so coarse and so undiplomatic. And that leaves aside the ridiculousness of  even contemplating the idea of giving the Nobel Peace Prize to an arrogant, unpredictable world leader who has created an unnecessary war upon Iran and who sides with Putin, the aggressor, in his war upon Ukraine. Where's the peacefulness in that?

In the woods on Greystones Cliffe, approaching Hangingwater Road