Web

It was Tim Berners-Lee who first coined the term "world wide web" back in 1989. Soon afterwards, users of the internet commonly shortened his self-explanatory term to "The Web".  And this in turn led to the word "website" - "a set of related web pages located under a single domain name, typically produced by a single person or organization." In fact, when you think of it, each blog is a website. The term "blog" evolved from the earlier name - "web log" - meaning a kind of diary or evolving record located within "The Web".

Being so connected to the internet, very often we might even forget that the word "web" also describes an intricate trap made by a spider using only thin gossamer filament. Now I would like to attempt to connect the two meanings by reflecting on how I have spent the past two mornings after getting up... 

...Sitting in my dressing gown and slippers, I have been like a spider's victim trapped in the constantly alluring world wide web - moving from one website to another and unable to detach myself from the invisible thread.

I have gone around in circles from Hotmail to BBC News to the Geograph photo mapping site to various blogs to Wikipedia pages to Hull City to YouTube to Hotmail and round again, sometimes veering off on  sidetracks but always returning to the circle. Yes, it's as if I have been caught like a bluebottle or moth -  unable to pull myself away from the web.

Time passes and I keep urging myself to get away from this keyboard and this mouse only to confirm that I am helplessly trapped, possibly waiting for the responsible spider to do its deadly rounds. I need to shower, get dressed, simply do something else but the web holds me back and before you know it two or three hours have passed by.

Finally, like a racing driver who has lapped the course over and over again, I drive into the pits. The session is over and, returning to my main metaphor, I can at last escape from the web and begin the day properly.  

Even after a quarter of a century of visiting the web, it remains as addictive as ever. What on earth was life like before? I can barely remember.

Siblings

Siblings are always there. A part of your life. You remember how they were as children. And they remember you. In adulthood, you may remain very close - in regular contact or you may possibly be at loggerheads with one another - rarely speaking but still always connected. You can never get away from that.

Several regular visitors to this humble Yorkshire blog have revealed how important  their siblings or particular siblings are to them in their lives. A sibling always gives you something different from a friend and though you might divest yourself of a friendship, you can never fully break free of a sibling. Other friendships can be made but you cannot create new siblings.

My wife Shirley has one sister - Carolyn - who unexpectedly became a widow in 2011. Not a week goes by without the two of then nattering on the phone. It's like an endless conversation with breaks in between. I am sure this sororal relationship strengthens their self-confidence in everyday life. It's comforting to be able to share pretty much everything with your sister or brother.

I only have one sibling left - my brother Robin who resides in south western France with his girlfriend Susie. We might only speak on the phone once a month but when we do, the conversation  will invariably bounce along for over an hour. We respect our differences and we share many memories. It always gives my batteries a boost when I talk with him.

Earlier today a brown envelope dropped on our doormat. It came from Sheriff Hutton near York where my late cousin John dwelt with his wife Ann. It contained two family photos - John was very keen on family history and had gathered a lot of genealogical  information over countless hours.

The picture at the top is I think from 1957 showing me in the centre with my three brothers and at the top that's a studio picture of my father with his three siblings. I estimate that that picture was taken in 1925 when dad would have just turned eleven. He's top left with his hand on his sister Evelyn. Sitting to the right is my Uncle Jack who was killed in World War II. Previously, I blogged about him here. Standing to the right is my Uncle Frank about whom I know very little. There was a fourth half-brother called Uncle Tom who was older than my father and as far as I understand was born out of wedlock. He became a lovely man and was a fine uncle too.

And you dear reader, what of your siblings?

Parable

Excessive Revenge in the style of Picasso

⦿

Vengeance

(A parable)

Once upon a time, there was a man who had a neighbour called Gaston. The man and his family had been troubled by Gaston for years. They judged him to be a bad neighbour. Sometimes Gaston played his music loud. You could hear the booming of it through the walls. And once he cut down the branch of an apple tree that he claimed had been overhanging his garden. There was much tension between the neighbours.

Gaston had a Nissan pick-up truck and the man had an Alsatian dog called Brutus. One morning, Brutus was off his lead yet again running hither and thither - up the street and down. At the same time Gaston was off to work in his Nissan pick up truck. He backed out of his driveway looking up and down the street. If the truth be known, Gaston saw Brutus in his rear view mirror but he was late for work and you can guess what happened next.

Brutus ran behind the truck and in an instant was killed. Gaston pretended to be mortified. He picked up the dead dog's limp body and carried it to the man's front door where he explained what had just happened.  Then Gaston went to work.

The man was furious. This would surely be the straw that broke the camel's back. Brutus was dead and it was Gaston's fault. Pure and simple. The man lay in bed that night seething with rage. Gaston could not be allowed to get away with this and gradually thoughts of vengeance began to swirl in his imagination.

Two days after the killing of Brutus, in the middle of the night, the man took a canister of red car paint and quietly sprayed a rude word across the front of Gaston's house. It was the word "BASTARD" in big capital letters. Excess paint dribbled down the wall and the door.

Gaston suspected his neighbour but could not prove it so with great difficulty he simply cleaned the red paint up and hoped that that would be the end of it. Just a one-off.

But it wasn't the end of it. That Sunday morning Gaston was woken by a loud explosion. His house shook.  It was his precious Nissan pick-up truck. It was ablaze and flames were leaping everywhere. He called the emergency number and soon the fire brigade arrived. The flames were damped down. Luckily, though the truck was now a write-off there was only minor property damage.

The man was still not satisfied. The need for yet greater vengeance festered inside him. After all, Gaston had killed Brutus. 

The man bought several gallons of petrol from the Esso garage on the edge of town. He carried it to his van in green plastic containers. 

That night, when Gaston, his wife Marie and their three children were asleep in their beds, the man broke into their house through the french doors at the back. Almost silently, he swilled the petrol upon the floors of every downstairs room. The smell was noxious and knowing how flammable petrol is,  he realised he had to ignite the fire with great care.

Upon leaving, he threw a burning rag into the house and in an instant there was a massive conflagration. He stood on Gaston's lawn for a few moments before scurrying back into his own house. There were the sounds of windows shattering, the roaring of flames and the screaming of a child from the back bedroom.

Gaston would not be causing the man any more problems. The family was wiped out and later what was left of the house had to be demolished. "Well," the man thought, "he should not have killed my dog!" and he smiled, enjoying the sweet taste of vengeance.  Perhaps he had forgotten that Gaston had brothers.

Update

 

Remember my old mate Bert?  He was 87 years old on November 24th. Of course he had a fall in his house back in early July and was then in hospital for almost a month. He had broken his hip - an injury which required surgery.

For four and a half months Bert has been housebound. He has a walking frame and he cannot get upstairs. His bedroom is now in the front room of his terraced house and he uses a commode for his daily "discharges". Fortunately, his 55 year old son Philip is able to act as his live-in carer.

However, Philip is a football safety steward and every two weeks he spends five hours at Sheffield United's football ground - Bramall Lane. He was there today as United were playing Brentford in a Premier League fixture. I knew that Bert would be on his own all afternoon so I went over to see him and stayed in his house for a couple of hours.

I was able to make him a mug of coffee and a snack. I had also brought over a couple of bottles of beer for him, a banana, a chocolate roll and a bag of cheese and onion crisps (American: chips).

Bert's house

He finds it very difficult to use the TV remote even though his son has helpfully made a big drawing of it with arrows pointing to the vital buttons. I played around with it and was able to get "YouTube" on screen. Then I searched for a couple of Bert's favourite songs that he used to sing in our local pub.

I was able to locate "Whispering Grass" by The Ink Spots, "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn and his most favourite of favourites - "Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?" by Allan Smethurst - a.k.a. The Singing Postman.

It's a novelty song that was a hit in this country in 1966. Sung in a Norfolk dialect, it concerns a relationship in which the need to light cigarettes seemed to be ever-present. The object of the postman's affections was one Molly Windley, his "little nicotine girl". It's got to be one of the weirdest songs ever by one of the most unlikely pop stars and if you are not English you may struggle to understand it. But it's a song that always brightened Bert's face.

I left him after five o' clock watching "Crocodile Dundee" but here's "Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?" Don't have nightmares.

MacGowan

Shane MacGowan (1957-2023)

Another death. Another funeral. Like Benjamin Zephaniah, Shane MacGowan was only sixty five. He was born in Kent in England but his parents were Irish and his spiritual homeland was back in County Tipperary. With drink and drugs, Shane seemed to have an active self-destruct button so I suppose that it is something of a miracle that he made it to sixty five.

He was the creative force behind The Pogues and managed to find a way to marry punk with elements of Irish traditional  music. He had a way with words.

This afternoon, BBC World News  covered the three hours of his sometimes chaotic funeral, beamed live to our living room from the town of Nenagh, County Tipperary. It was a heady mix of remembrances, readings, music, prayers, mistakes and a traditional Catholic mass. The church was packed for Shane was much loved and attendees no doubt  recognised his essential humanity, his poetic soul and the struggles he had had to just to navigate life on an even keel. His friend Johnny Depp was there, reading one of the short prayers and so was Michael D. Higgins - The President of Ireland

Shane wrote "A Fairytale of New York" back in 1987 and it became one of those Christmas hits that endures as the years pass - "The boys of the NYPD choir/ Were singing Galway Bay/ And the bells were ringing out/ For Christmas Day".  The remaining Pogues and other friends played it at his funeral today as some of his family danced in the aisles. It was a hell of a way to say goodbye.

He could have lived a safer, more comfortable life but that was not in his nature. He was out there on the edge, pushing the boundaries, taking risks, drinking it all in, relishing this gift of life. Yes indeed - Shane MacGowan made his mark.

"A Fairytale of New York" at Shane's funeral in Nenagh this afternoon.

Zephaniah

A lot of good people seem to have died in the last few weeks. Today, I was saddened to learn of the death of Benjamin Zephaniah at the tender age of sixty five. It was a brain tumour that got him.

I guess that most bloggers from other countries will not have heard of him but here in Great Britain, over decades, he had become something of a national treasure. Born into an immigrant West Indian family in the city of Birmingham, he left school without qualifications having being diagnosed as "dyslexic".

Later, it was a meeting with a typewriter mixed with his growing fascination with the lyrics of reggae songs that woke up his poetic voice.

He found a way to make his poetry sing to ordinary people and schoolkids. His topics often involved injustice and the multicultural experience but he could be funny and sweet too, enjoying wordplay, looking at nature and the quirkiness of human existence.

He appeared in "Peaky Blinders" and was a lifelong vegan. He became fluent in Mandarin Chinese and since 2008 had spent much of his time living in the Lincolnshire village of Moulton Chapel near Spalding. Perhaps he found it easier to write there.

In the example poem I have chosen, Zephaniah likens Britain to a kind of cultural melting pot and the poem is written rather like a recipe. Between the lines, you sense he is poking fun at the Britain of country houses and white people hunting on horseback or attending operas - the Britain of Jane Austen or "Downton Abbey".  Especially if you live in our big cities, the Britain of today may appear very different and rather more multi-faceted.

⦿

The British

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.

Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.

Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese.

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians
And Pakistanis,
Combine with some Guyanese
And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.

Leave the ingredients to simmer.

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,
Serve with justice
And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

by Benjamin Zephaniah

(1958 -2023)

Burbage

On Carl Wark looking towards Higger Tor

Another bright winter's day before different weather arrives - wet and warmer. With Clint I headed out to the top of The Burbage Valley ready for an almost three hour walk. Many of the paths were treacherous - coated with ice. One careless step and you can be down. It's easy to break ribs or a hip.

The rocky southern edge of Higger Tor

I was down in the bottom of the valley by Burbage Brook and then I schlepped through a pine plantation before making my way up the valley side, heading for the rocky plateau that is Higger Tor - a name as familiar to me as a friend's name.

Frozen puddles on Higger Tor looking like a monster's eyes

From Higger Tor I walked south to Carl Wark which was once turned into a hill fort - perhaps older than defences built in connection with the Roman invasion of Britain between 43 & 47AD. At the western end of the one acre plateau, our forebears built a wall to deter attack.

Ancient boundary wall on Carl Wark - once a hill fort

At the eastern end of the plateau I eased down the precipitous edge, making sure than I did not fall. No need to rush. Just make every bootstep secure. Lowering my body down between the stones. Then over Burbage Brook via a little packhorse bridge.

Frozen puddle in Burbage Valley

Freezing temperatures can work artistic wonders upon water, including random puddles. See above.

Clint on the far right - parked near Upper Burbage Bridge

Here I am cheating the picture sequence in this blogpost because I took the photo of Clint near the moorland bridge soon after setting off. By 3.45pm - when the walk was over - the light was much gloomier than that as another long December night was already elbowing the day away.

Upper Burbage Bridge is a ten minute drive  from our house.