Duggee

Sunday. Phoebe's doting parents were still up in West Yorkshire for the wedding of one of their best friends - Mark who was tying the knot with social worker Sarah from Mirfield which is situated between Huddersfield and Dewsbury. Mark is a nice lad. I knew his grandfather and his father too. I am glad that he married a Yorkshire lass.

Phoebe had a bit of a lie-in today. She first yelled "Grandma!" just before six. Poor Grandpa felt neglected  and promptly fell back to sleep. By the time I got up at around eight thirty, Little Phoebe was in a screen-induced trance, having already sat through twenty or thirty episodes of "Hey Duggee". Earth to Phoebe, Earth to  Phoebe - come in please!

We have to remind ourselves that it is not Phoebe's fault that she has been born into a world where screentime is so prevalent. In a genuine sense, it is our fault. Three or four decades ago these screentime options were just not available. I am not sure that it is a good thing for small children to become so transfixed by what appears on their screens. Peeling Phoebe away from "Hey Duggee" or "Peppa Pig" can be like depriving her of oxygen.

In the early afternoon, I drove into the centre of the city to visit "Waterstone's" bookshop.  There I bought Phoebe two traditional books - "The Three Little Pigs" and "Chicken LIcken". I also bought myself a walking book by Simon Armitage called "Walking Home" and a map of the middle of the Yorkshire coast - around Flamborough Head.

We are heading up there tomorrow to stay in a "cottage" on a farm though it's not really a cottage at all. It is an accommodation unit within a former barn. Ours is called "Nightingale Cottage".  Sadly, it appears that the good weather we have been enjoying since September began is about to break. We will be there for four nights.

This evening Phoebe's mum and dad came home and I made them a tasty Sunday dinner of roast beef, roasted potatoes, carrots, parsnips and tenderstem broccoli with Yorkshire puddings and homemade gravy. This was  followed by a banoffee pie from the big Tesco supermarket.

Later I went up to "The Hammer and Pincers" once again for the Sunday quiz. We didn't win but it was nice to congratulate my friend Mike on the safe arrival of his third  grandchild - a healthy  little girl called Joni with her whole life ahead of her. May she thrive and find happiness.

Napping

I was never one for napping. To me, sleep was something you partook of while lying in bed - not a state that I ever experienced while sitting in an armchair

In my old family home, after we had consumed our evening meal which is simply known as "tea" in Yorkshire, I often noticed both my parents napping. Comfortable in front of the fire and the television set, they would slip away from consciousness over the border into the land of dreams. One or both of them would start to snore - ever so gently but loud enough to distract me from the evening's local news on "Look North". They would normally sleep for ten or twenty minutes.

One of the things that bothered me about napping was its propensity for hindering proper sleep when tucked up in bed. Napping  can refresh us too much and if it goes on too long one might suffer from related bouts of insomnolence - perhaps entering a vicious cycle of sleep-related difficulties.

But now, as I reach the very end of my sixties, I have started to nap quite regularly in the early evening - just like my parents. If the room lights are low and my belly is full and I am warm and comfortable, quite often my eyelids will close as if pulled down by invisible lead weights. I might fight it for a while but the urge to nap tends to win out. Fortunately, it is normally only for ten or twenty minutes.

We never quite remember the moment when we drift off do we?

Shirley and I have been looking after Phoebe this weekend. She was awake just after 5.30 am this morning, calling out "Grandma!" before the sun had even risen to start a new day. She had breakfast, watched several episodes of "Hey Duggee", played in the garden, went swmming, ate lunch, read books and still wouldn't take a nap. She was still on full charge after I returned from visiting my old pal Bert in the middle of the afternoon.

We put her in Shirley's car and drove out into the nearby countryside beyond Ringinglow and as we travelled along Phoebe's eyes began to close. This being the hottest day of the year, we parked in the shade of trees at "The Alpaca Arms" with the door open and she was still napping when we got home. I guess she had had about forty minutes - just enough to avoid fractiousness before bedtime.

Now please excuse me as I need to go and take another nap.

Spike

Spike Milligan was in actuality half  Irish but he was one of Britain's best loved comics - silly, irreverent and off-beat but with a heart of gold. He was born in India in 1918 and died  in Rye, Sussex in 2002.  He was a stalwart of the old "Goon Show" on BBC Radio in the fifties and sixties. It helped to pave the way for a lot of modern comedy. I saw him once in the the dilapidated Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield - he had come to help to raise funds for that theatre's repair and refurbishment.

He was buried in Winchelsea churchyard in Sussex where famously - but written in Irish, the inscription upon his gravestone reads, "I told them I was ill".

Here he is in 1994 receiving a lifetime achievement award for his comedy. Of course it was over thirty years ago so many of the familiar comedy figures in that room - familiar to British people anyway - have now grown old themselves and some have also passed away...

Three

Ron was a couple of years older than me and he lived in the village of my childhood. It was he who first introduced me to the songs of Leonard Cohen in the late sixties. We played those first albums over and over - "The Songs of Leonard Cohen" (1967) and "Songs From a Room" (1968). Later I bought "Songs of Love and Hate" (1971) and we gave it the same treatment - played over and over.

From the very start, I never thought of Leonard Cohen as a mournful, gloomy singer songwriter. There was humour there and humanity and of course an intimate affection for language. He was a poet who had lived and loved. I looked on the back of the album cover for "Songs From a Room" and saw his one time lover, Marianne, sitting in a humble room on the Grecian island of Hydra where Leonard Cohen lived for a year or two long before he became famous. 

My friend Ron became a bank worker with The National Westminster Bank down in London but when his marriage broke up and he lost his job, he returned to the village of my childhood as gradually alcoholism took over his life. He lived alone in his old family home and was found sitting in his favourite armchair several days after his death. I guess that Leonard Cohen might have been inspired to write a song about Ron's death if he had only known about it.

This is partly for you Ron - in your memory - and for any blog visitors who care to listen.

Three songs

From "The Songs of Leonard Cohen"...

From "Songs From a Room"...

From "Songs of Love and Hate"...

Puzzlement

When I was sixteen, like all other academically capable teenagers in England, I had to select the three Advanced Level (A Level) subjects that I wished to pursue for the next two years - up to my final  examinations. Unsurprisingly, I picked my strongest subjects which happened to be English, Geography and Art.

I was not the most diligent of A level students because I was distracted by other interests such as girls and music. I became the singer in a semi-professional band and I also attended as many concerts as I could - including a few pop festivals. If I had been more focused in my studies, I would surely have earned better grades and I would have got into a better university.

As it was, I ended up at The University of Stirling in Scotland where I am happy to say I became very conscientious and thoroughly engaged in my studies. I was there for four and a half years and came out with a good joint honours degree in English Studies with Education plus The Diploma in Education with distinction.

To tell you the truth, when it came to academic studies you wouldn't think that the lad of 16/18 years old was the same person as the young man of 20/24 years old. I suppose it was because at university I loved the work and the independent nature of so much of it. The university library became like a second home to me.

All of the above is just background. My main reason for writing this blogpost was to share some puzzlement about what you might call my domestic life during. my first years as a university student.

Living in a hall of residence you were supplied with a  fresh sheet and pillowcase and a freshly laundered duvet cover every week. The cleaning staff left them outside your door anticipating that you would bundle up your used bedding and leave it in the corridor for collection. They probably also expected that students would have the wherewithal to then make up their beds but quite often I didn't get round to it for two or three days. Putting a duvet in its new cotton bag seemed like the most onerous task in the world. Quite ridiculous.

Later I lived with a bunch of Scottish fellows in a six man flat that had its own bathroom and shower room, shared kitchen and lounge area.  I would like to ask my younger self two questions about that time. Firstly, why didn't I invest in a dressing gown and secondly, why didn't I ever think to buy any food?

Many was the time I came home late on - after studying in the library or drinking in the pub - with an urgent need to eat - something, anything but there was nothing for me in the cupboard or the fridge. Stupidly, I never thought ahead to buy some food items in. Nowadays, I guess that similarly hungry students simply phone up for takeaway deliveries.

But back then - between 1973 and 1977 we had no phones and there were no food delivery services anyway.

So yes, I am sorry to say that although I was a diligent university student who worked hard and was appropriately rewarded, there were several aspects of my domestic life I would change if I could go back to that time. I would have a warm dressing gown, there would be food in the cupboard, I would cook more meals, my laundry would get done, I would go to bed at a reasonable time and new bedding would be on the bed that very morning - not left in a neat pile, waiting to be seen to.

Temporariness

"The news" can be a funny phenomenon. All of a sudden newsworthy matters come to the fore and attract days or weeks or months of news treatment. Then gradually these topics fade into the background or disappear entirely.

Eighteen months ago, Putin's war upon Ukraine hit the headlines night after night but now it is far less prominent and days can go by without reference to Ukraine at all. Weather events like flooding, heatwaves or fire attract the focus of news services and a week later it is as if they never happened at all.

Currently, here in England, the main news topic is concrete - or more specifically RAAC which stands for Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete. Just before our schools reopened after the summer break, our esteemed government led by Richie Rich (Rishi Sunak) announced that a significant number of our schools are potentially unsafe because of this building material which was widely used between the 1960's and the 1990's.

With the passage of time and inadequate maintenance, RAAC  will deteriorate and weaken - potentially causing ceiling collapses. It seems that our government were warned of this concerning issue years ago but chose to belittle it or turn their back on it. Now the chickens of doom are coming home to roost. It's just what The Conservatives did not need as a General Election starts to approach.

I thought to myself - surely this building material cannot be unique to Britain. After all, it was invented in Sweden. I tried hard to find if it had caused similar anxieties in  the USA. Over there, it has different branded names. They do not use the acronym RAAC but the material has been used in thousands of public buildings. Perhaps the maintenance and inspection cycle  is better over there or the stuff may simply be a ticking time bomb for America too.

To replace all of our RAAC  would cost billions of pounds  and in reality, numerous shoddily built schools and other public buildings might need to be demolished. Nobody has mentioned modern housing for the masses which was sometimes thrown up as cheaply as possible.

 It's all a massive worry but as I say, it won't be too long before all mention of RAAC pretty much fades from view as the  gluttonous news dragons breathe out new items that replace the old. Keeping it fresh, that's what "The News" is all about these days.

Baht'At

 "Baht'At" means "without a hat". It is written in a Yorkshire  dialect though of course there isn't just one way of speaking Yorkshire, there are several. Nonetheless, nearly everyone in this county of 5.5 million souls would recognise that particular dialect phrase because it comes from our county song - "On Ilkley Moor Baht'at".

It's a silly song really - about what might transpire if you go up on the moors ill-prepared for bad weather - for example not wearing a hat. It is believed that the song - drawn from local folk singing traditions commonly connected with pubs - probably emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century  - its music owing much  to a Methodist hymn tune of the early nineteenth century known as  "Cranbrook".

In this promotional tourism video from 2013, the makers have not only brought in some local stars such as Lesley Garrett and Brian Blessed, they have also sought to refresh the old anthem by giving it some modern twists...