Edge

The Salt Cellar on Derwent Edge

Yesterday... in need of a long walk, I travelled out of the city along the A57 until I came to the turn off to Strines. Soon Clint was parked up and I set off along the by-road, passing "The Strines Inn"  and then up onto The Derwent Moors.

It was a mile long slog up to Derwent Edge with its various millstone outcrops. I met no one along the way until just before The Wheelstones I bumped into Paul, an ex-military man from Colchester. He told me that he was fifty seven years old and that his nickname was Shabba after Shabba Ranks - the reggae star. "I used to be a bit of a ladies man before I got married," he chortled.

Approaching The Wheelstones on Derwent Edge

In the British countryside, it is quite unusual to see Afro-Caribbean people out walking. It's the same with Asians. Articles have been written about this. However, Paul had travelled the world as a soldier so why should he be daunted about a long ramble? After all, this is the country he fought for.

My lovely walk lasted almost exactly four hours. It was territory I had explored before but I had not been up on Derwent Edge for perhaps ten years. "You took your bloody time!" snapped Clint as I lifted his tailgate.

Cakes of Bread on Derwent Edge

Back home, I made the evening meal and later snoozed on our Layzee-Boy sofa, completely forgetting that Mike and Danny were going to pick me up at 7.45 to take me to the Crookes Folk Club in the upstairs room of "The Princess Royal".

It was a great evening. Both Mike and Danny played songs. It was the first time I had heard Danny and I especially enjoyed the song he sang from West Virginia - about coal mining. Well done Danny! I have seen Mike many times and he was as brilliant as ever though I had never before heard him sing "Out On The Weekend" by Neil Young. Super rendition.

However, the star of the evening was undoubtedly Stanley Accrington from Oldham in Lancashire. Such an assured guitarist and a really funny guy. His mostly self-penned songs ranged from absurd ditties to heartfelt ballads. I loved his version of "The Dirty Blackleg Miner" - so bitter and a timely reminder that industrial action has always been a vital tool for working folk protecting their rights and their livelihoods. Stanley Accrington has been on the folk circuit for forty five years. I shook his hand and thanked him before we left. Here's a flavour of Stanley Accrington's creativity that I found on YouTube:-

Clown

 

I realise that visitors who reside in other lands may not realise that Great Britain is in the middle of a political crisis. Professed loyalty to PM Johnson has been draining away like dirty water down a plughole.

Apparently, he is unable to see that the writing is on the wall for him but this evening he hangs on to power by his fingernails. Like a toddler refusing to give up a toy. It makes no sense. Soon he will be history. More than forty members of his Conservative government resigned yesterday.

Johnson's number one problem is his character. He is a chancer, a charlatan and a proven liar. I don't believe that he has ever really cared for the British people. For him, being PM has merely been a glorified ego trip - what he dreamt of when he was child. It's all about him - BoJo The Clown. He has wallowed in the limelight and relished the attention.

His popularity amongst the public has plunged like a space module returning to Earth. It would be funny if it were not so tragic.  It was this clown who swung the balance and brought Great Britain out of The European Union. Without his interventions we would still be in the European fold - not  floundering outside it counting the economic damage that Brexit continues to cause. Have there been any benefits? Most of us cannot see them.

It makes me sad and mad that millions of my fellow citizens voted Johnson into power in December 2019. They were fooled by him. Why could they not see then that he lacked integrity and the only human he genuinely cared for was himself? It was all hollow words and false promises and that will be his legacy.

I made this cartoon of him in December 2019... Bojo the Clown and so it came to pass...

Today

The view from Simon's back yard.

It takes an hour and a half to travel to the village where I was born and raised. Today, Shirley came with me and saw my brother Simon for the first time since August 2019.

As a nurse for more than forty years, she was not daunted by his changed appearance. With the cancer and everything he has become a bag of bones. So painfully thin - like a malnourished prisoner working on the Burma railway under Japanese supervision.  Wasting away.

We stayed all afternoon.  Shirley had his washing machine on and we changed his bedding. I had bought a new fitted sheet, duvet cover and pillowcases from Tesco. Shirley said that his old bedding was "disgusting". 

We brought tins of mushroom soup and cans of "Fanta" and "Coke" and some pots of chocolate mousse plus a couple of pints of milk. They were received with zero gratitude. In fact, he insisted that six cans of soup was far too many.

While we were there he had a fall in the sitting room, near the little bay window area and both of us had to help him up. He was as light as a feather. Of course it made us worry about him having a fall when we are not there.

Long ago, I used to love him. My cheeky little brother. He was good at football and fishing and climbing trees and later he became a guitar maestro. There are many other things I could say about him but I won't do that right now. He went upstairs for a lie down at 4pm having got up at 2pm. 

When the time came for us to go, it was like leaving a skeleton behind in the new daisy bedding I had purchased for him. No will made and no willingness to be moved to a nursing home for residential care. It's not easy. We will be back there on Saturday. What was it the song said - "Things can only get better"? In Simon's case, the opposite is true.

Heeley

Almost every week of the year I take photographs. Usually, I take them on my regular country walks. After editing, I submit many of these images to the Geograph project which I have regularly contributed to through the last thirteen years.

However, there are rare weeks when photo expeditions just don't happen for one reason or another and that's where last week seemed to be heading. Zero! Zilch!

But then Friday night came along and before I headed out to the Lidl store on Chesterfield Road to do some shopping, I remembered that I had been meaning to take a few pictures of the Labour Party's constituency office for Sheffield Heeley. The current MP for that section of the city is Louise Haigh - presently the country's Shadow Minister for Transport at the tender age of thirty four (see right).

That office is just across the road from Lidl and what had frequently caught my eye was the slightly surreal painted images of this city revealed in the windows. They are all by a local artist called Bryan John.

Consequently, I took my camera this time but the evening light was sub-optimal. As well as snapping photos of Louise Haigh's offices, I collected images of two businesses further along the street. The Tramshed" is a  popular micropub and   "Baked and Caked"  is a specialist bakery business.

Anyway, that's all I have for you on the night of American Independence Day. I know it's not the most scintillating blogpost I have ever released and for this I apologise. I must try harder...I must try harder... I must try harder.

Disgraced

There are plenty more where these fellows came from. It's a kind of rogues' gallery showing the faces of four Conservative MPs who have recently disgraced both The Conservative Party, this great kingdom and the ordinary people who voted for them. It has all happened on PM Johnson's watch and in each instance Johnson has sought to brush the embarrassment and wrongdoing under the carpet. I guess it is a technique he has often used in relation to his own misdemeanours of which there are many.

At the top is senior  Tory MP - the appropriately named Chris Pincher - who got as drunk as a lord in the Carlton Club in central London and then proceeded to grope other men. Not the first time he has been guilty of such misconduct. Maybe he should have his name changed to Dick Pincher.

Below there's Imran Ahmad Khan, the former MP for Wakefield. He is now languishing in prison after he was found guilty of sexual assault on a fifteen year old boy. Again - not the first time his sexual predilections have been observed.  and noted.

 

Now we are looking at Neil Parish - the former Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton. He was observed in The House of Commons chamber drooling over porn material that he was watching on his smartphone. Not a "smart" thing to do in such a place. He was supposed to be there to work and to represent the people who had voted for him but he preferred looking at naked women and sex acts. In addition he has let down the illustrious Society of Neils.

Finally, here's Owen Patterson who blatantly tried to use his position as an MP to benefit two companies who had given him money - Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods. Johnson even tried to change the standards rules to save Patterson's bacon.  I remember him trying to use his wife's illness as a suitable reason for not pursuing his wrongdoing. He was like a schoolboy in denial, stomping his feet and yelling, "It's not fair!" Thankfully he has gone never to return. Johnson's support was once again badly misplaced.

See - it's not just in the USA or Australia where citizens find themselves lumbered with disgraceful politicians who get too big for their own boots and  are very slow to confess. Usually they only get round to spitting out words like "sorry" and "I take full responsibility" when they have been caught out  and they are cornered like rats in a barn.

Keith

Keith? No I am not talking about Keith Kline (a.k.a. Red) who resides in Red Deer, Alberta. I am referring to Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. I believe they were playing a concert in Hyde Park, London this very day.

Keith is greatly admired by Mary Moon in Lloyd, Florida.and by thousands of other fans of The Rolling Stones. He will be seventy nine years old later this year and his life story is etched in his face. So many experiences and so many lines. What a hell of a life he has led and the joy he has brought to millions of fans through his music is incalculable. 

Today I came across this time lapse video in which a skilled and confident oil painter creates an image of Keith Richards. It is really quite mesmerising but I should warn you that the video is thirteen minutes long. If you haven't got thirteen minutes to spare, you might want to do some jumping along. 

 

House

Thirty three years ago today we moved into this semi-detached house in the south west of Sheffield. It cost us £65,000 but today it would sell for - around £450,000.  That summery day back in 1989 we had no idea that we would live here so long. I guess that at the time, I viewed it as a stepping stone and before too long we would move on but it never happened.

Our two kids were always very happy here. They attended two good schools - both within walking distance and they grew friendships here that will last them a lifetime. How could we rip them away from this suburb, this street, this house?

I remember how neglected our garden appeared the day we moved in. Evidently, the previous owners had zero interest in gardening. The garden is forty five metres in length and it was a jungle when we moved in. It hadn't seemed so bad when our house offer was accepted the previous February.   One of the first things I did was to hire a petrol-driven strimmer and cut the vegetation right back as I accepted the challenge to make a usable garden in which there would be a lawn, a shrubbery and at the top a vegetable patch and a place for occasional fires. 

I had to pull out hundreds of bricks that had once formed the edgings for paths. They were all embedded in the ground at a forty five degree angle with just the tops showing. A pick axe was required to lever many of them out. There were enough to build a small cottage but of course I didn't do that.

Since 1989 we have done a lot to the house. Usually this is at Shirley's behest because I'm not passionate about home improvements. I could live in a cave and not wish to change it. But she has always got another idea up her sleeve  and I find myself being nudged to change things from time to time. Pick up a paint brush, make a phone call. There's always something.

On the whole we have been happy here and safe too. We have good neighbours and there are plenty of facilities within easy walking distance - including bus routes and shops. There are certainly a lot worse places you could live and looking back, I think we made a good move back in the summer of 1989. I have lived in this house longer than I have lived anywhere else. It would be hard to leave it.