Miscellany

First of all, I am happy to announce that our son Ian and his Bosh! partner Henry are going to launch their third book in September. This one is not a cookbook. It is just about being vegan - as the title says - "How to Live Vegan". Their publishers deduced that it would be a great idea to pursue since it's almost impossible to find any up-to-date and fully-developed statements of what being vegan means in present times.

Secondly, Shirley and I are going on holiday for a week on Thursday afternoon. We are going to the unique Greek island of Santorini. I was last there forty years ago and slept on the black sand beach at Perissa. That's the very resort we are heading for this time, staying at the thirty room Perissa Bay Hotel. I imagine it will be a bit different from sleeping on the beach.

Thirdly, one of Britain's candidates to replace Theresa May as  Prime Minister is Michael Gove. Yesterday he admitted that when he was younger he snorted cocaine several times. He says it was "a mistake" but it wasn't a mistake was it? It was several mistakes. If a young man or woman got arrested for snorting cocaine then that arrest and subsequent conviction would have to be disclosed if they should ever apply for a position as a teacher. In effect, they would not even be considered and yet apparently it's okay to snort cocaine and possibly get to be the new P.M..

Fourthly, I went for a nice walk yesterday afternoon - in countryside to the south of Sheffield. It took in Cowley with its little mission chapel, Brindwoodgate, Barlow Lees and Dronfield Woodhouse. Two hours of plodding and then home for a late lunch and another chapter of a novel out on the decking before making another Sunday dinner - with Yorkshire puddings of course.

Heading to Cowley Mission Chapel

Time

How wonderful that Britain has made the front cover of the latest "Time" magazine. The design is by a pop artist called Cold War Steve. His real name is Christopher Spencer and he was specially commissioned by "Time" to create the striking image shown above.

Cold War Steve frequently uses his mobile phone to create collages that include odd assemblages of politicians,  show business celebrities and other famous people. There's Prince Philip driving the bus and at the front of the upper deck there's the odious Brexit charlatan - Nigel Farage with the equally odious right winger Jacob Rees-Mogg just behind him in his top hat. Roger Daltrey of The Who is performing with his crotch disturbingly close to David Cameron's head.

And can you see the Trump baby blimp flying up high?

It's interesting that the explanatory straplines are "How Britain Went Bonkers" and "The Brexit Fiasco". They announce searching articles within the magazine.

I must say that I entirely endorse the assessments those headings make. Since the Brexit referendum three years ago, Britain has indeed seemed like a crazier and more troubled place. Our big red bus is sinking in The Thames. It is a madness that should never have been unleashed for, as Pandora discovered, once the bad spirits are out of the box, you just cannot get them back in.

63UP

Neil at 7

For the benefit of  non-British visitors, I must explain the background to "63UP". 

 First let me tell you that it is a documentary TV show that first began in 1964 when it was titled "7UP" - nothing to do with fizzy lemonade. Seven years after that it was "14UP" and then it became "21UP"(1977), "28UP"(1984), "35UP(1991)", "42UP"(1998), "49UP"(2005), "56UP" (2012) and finally - just this past week "63UP"

Neil at 63

The show focuses on fourteen people. They were filmed and interviewed when they were seven years old with their whole lives ahead of them. Every seven years the programme makers have sought to re-interview all of them to consider how their lives are going. One has died and two or three have been reluctant to extend their participation.

I remember the very first programme in the sequence - filmed in black and white - and how fascinating it was to see the differences between the children. I have watched the show each time since and have keenly observed how the subjects' lives have evolved. At the same time of course my own life has been evolving in parallel though not filmed each seven years.

The project's central theme has always rested on the Jesuit motto, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." Indeed, the way that the various lives have unraveled seems to confirm that the die is more or less cast by the age of seven.

It is a beautiful series that speaks of what it means to be a human being. Along the way there have been marriages, the births of children and grandchildren, health problems, financial problems, dreams fulfilled and others left behind, laughter and tears. They battled through it all and now they are sixty three - Tony and Paul, Symon and John and Jackie , Sue and Suzy and Bruce and Neil, Peter, Nick and Andrew and Lynn (now deceased).

The next sequence will appear in 2026. It will be "70UP". Incredibly, the current director has been with the "Up" series since its conception. He is Michael Apted - now 78 years old himself. I wonder  if he will be around to witness the next steps of those fascinating journeys through this thing we call life.

Lynn at 56 - now deceased

Testing

Out walking again yesterday. This time I was in the area where our daughter will be married at the end of August. They have had a vision of a Sunday wedding walk the day after the knot is tied and I was on a test mission.

Above you can see Peter's Stone at the head of Cressbrookdale. It is a dome of hard limestone.  The story goes that it got its current name because it is reminiscent of the dome of St Peter's in Rome. Once it was known as The Gibbet Rock for more grisly reasons.

Below a painter is working on "The Red Lion" pub in the village of Litton which I reached after a long climb up Tansleydale.

After Litton I walked across pastures before a steep descent back into beautiful Cressbrookdale through woods where banks of wild garlic were returning to the earth after their springtime blooming. Then over the dried up stream at the bottom and up the other side towards Wardlow.

I saw a brown cow watching me as she lounged in the limestone landscape of The White Peak. 

Not far from the brown cow,  I rather like the way the early June light has illuminated the simple scene below.

After getting my shoes back on and swigging cold water from Clint's boot (American: trunk), I decided to drive on to Tideswell where Frances will marry Stew in "The Cathedral of the Peak" - St John's. Let's hope the weather is kind to them that day.

Poem

A week ago, I asked for ideas or titles that I might use to spark another poem into existence. I focused upon a title suggested by JayCee, the Isle of Man based  blogger responsible for "The Diary of a Nobody". The title JayCee suggested was "The Dark Side"...

I pictured woodland in the shadow of a hill with night falling and I thought about the current rise of dark political forces in Europe, America and various other corners of our planet. I wondered if I might be able to meld the two together - the dark woods and the dark hearts. This is what arose:-

____________________________________

The Dark Side

With dusk, shadows congeal
Becoming night.
On old animal tracks
We cut through these forbidding trees
Stumbling now
In an odour of decay -
Of rotten stumps and
Gangrenous mushrooms clustered
In gangs, their flesh uneatable
With spores of nocturnal creatures
Decomposing in the gloom.
It is a place for iron hearts
And unforgiving stares.
The relentless march of brutes
Echoes everywhere -
Taking Nature in their stride,
Singing their hollow anthems,
Trampling toward pale glints of starlight
Blind in their faithless fantasies
Dark heralds of a blacker night.

Outburst

I feel that I let myself down last night.

Let me explain.

I was in a local pub with my longtime quiz mates - Michael and Michael. It is a pub we have visited many times. As usual, there were a few other regular quiz teams there. One of these teams consists of a bunch of forty something men who can be very irritating and childish. Their sense of humour is quite inane.

For example, they may often call out "Line!" when they haven't achieved a line of correct answers at all or they might call out "Corners!" when the prize for corner answers on the bingo-style quiz sheet has already gone. And if another team wins a prize they will customarily call out things like, "Check it carefully!" or "Make sure you have a look at his i-phone!" And they might mimic the other team's caller. There's no humility or respect and they are very unfunny.

"Red Tooth" Connect Five  quiz sheet

Anyway - last night - we were the first team to achieve four correct corner answers so I called out and headed for the bar where the landlady was reading out the answers. My call had already been mimicked by the juvenile gang and then one of them commented loudly, "Look he's running to get there! He's so excited!"

As I passed them, and without thinking, I said "**** off you bunch of tossers!" and proceeded to claim our prize. Behind me my angry reaction caused them much pretend mirth. As I claimed our prize, two men from a different team agreed with my rude assessment of the others. One said, "It's because they're from down south. Pillocks!"

Over the years of visiting that pub for the quiz, I have studiously ignored the mouthy quiz team - never rising to the bait but last night my reaction erupted without forethought and I regret it. I like to lead a peaceful, friendly kind of life, avoiding confrontation or angry outbursts and it was disappointing to momentarily lose control. It's something that those oiks will have banked for future reference and I know I will not have heard the last of it. But thankfully I did manage to ignore them when a couple of the group bid me good night as I left - again seeking to get a rise out of me. Pillocks!

Confession

In Memoriam I by Dame Elisabeth Frink - temporarily in St James's Square

I have a confession to make. Yesterday I did not in fact encounter Mr and Mrs Trump in Green Park, London. The meeting was merely a figment of my over-fertile imagination. Please accept my apologies if you found yourself deceived by this fantasy. I should further like to apologise to any God-fearing American patriots who were in any way offended by the ramblings of this no-good limey rabble-rouser.

But my friends, I swear I was in London. Clint took us down on Sunday morning with me at the controls. The visit was mostly connected with 60th birthday treats arranged by our beloved daughter for her beloved mother. On Monday, they went for afternoon tea in The Ritz and later they went on to the O2  Arena - once known as The Millennium Dome - to see Hugh Jackman in ""The Man. The Music. The Show."

On Sunday afternoon we ventured to Clapham where our son Ian is now based  He has lived in several houses in London and this is just the latest - near Battersea Arts Centre. It's a beautiful, modern townhouse with a subterranean kitchen and a rooftop terrace. They are the first tenants. The rent must be astronomical but I didn't ask.

Ian with his Mama

We ate a vegan lunch up on the roof and delicious it was too. Ian makes great vegan food like a musician playing a symphony. It has become instinctive. He has been really busy recently working on the third "Bosh!" cookbook but we were quite taken aback when he told us he had been in hospital on Saturday and had travelled there by ambulance.

He'd had worrying chest pains but fortunately perhaps - they were not connected with his heart. They seem to have arisen because of muscular or tendon issues caused by physical strain. This may have happened when he was dancing at a wedding on Friday or he may have done it by overusing the gymnastic rings that he has hanging from the kitchen staircase in the new house.

Anyway, Shirley and I are back in Sheffield now after a trouble-free drive up the A1 - sometimes known as The Great North Road. She wanted to visit a vast superstore near Grantham called "Downtown" as she continues her hunt for  the perfect mother-of-the-bride outfit. 

Farnese Hercules in The Royal Academy
It is a 1790 plaster cast of the original classical carving which
is  in The National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy.