Smiles

The BBC News 24 channel has rolled all day with the amazing real life tale of the rescue of thirty three miners from the San Jose copper and gold mine near Copiapo in Chile. It is a wonderful, uplifting tale filled with smiles and it reminds us all that we human beings are capable of extraordinary things, extraordinary determination, ingenuity and love for our fellow men.

The miners have been arriving back on the planet's surface like returned astronauts or like floodlit musical heroes in their Easy Rider shades. In contradiction to that image is a heart-rending appreciation that these are all of course just ordinary, previously anonymous working men with calloused hands and hard wrought lives.

The whole world has been watching. "The Boston Globe" said of Mario Sepulveda, the second miner to emerge from the rescue capsule, "he bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter". Others have come back more shyly but for every rescued man there have been loving reunion embraces that will have brought tears to the eyes of onlookers far and wide. Instantly, The President of Chile articulated his nation's pride quite brilliantly, already viewing these events as a turning point in his country's history.

If only the same levels of ingenuity, determination and sheer goodwill were currently being applied to other trapped minors. A year ago, UNICEF reported that approximately 3.5 million children - mostly in The Third World - die each year from diarrhoea - largely because their families lack easy access to clean water. Think of that. Today most of the world shares Chile's euphoria that the thirty three have been rescued while conveniently forgetting that on the very same day thousands of small children have died more mundane, more easily preventable, less televisual deaths from Bangladesh to Mozambique and from South Africa to Borneo. Time for a bigger rescue capsule? Or 3.5 million smaller ones?

Pubs

"The Bell Hagg"

Rambling earlier today on the green outskirts of Sheffield, I observed the dilapidated state of "The Bell Hagg Inn" on Manchester Road. I remember the very first time I went in there thirty years ago for a hearty Sunday lunch. The view from the lounge window was truly spectacular, with an unexpected panorama of the lush Rivelin Valley with its old stone farms and ancient green pastures.

Erected in 1832 as "Hodgson's Folly", the building became a public house some time in the eighteen sixties - no doubt serving travellers on the Snake Pass turnpike road between Sheffield and Glossop. Its construction must have been challenging for although you can't tell this from the photograph, the main building had five separate floors and was cleverly built into the valley side. Behind the pub, down a steep track, is where you can still find the old stables - testament to a time long before the internal combustion engine and tarmacadam - when a journey to Glossop would have been as stupendous as a transatlantic flight nowadays.

Back in the nineties, I attended a few folk sessions at "The Bell Hagg" with a friend I have since lost touch with - Big Jim. My God that man could sing! His booming voice must have not only filled the tap room with sound but also the pastures in the valley below, waking whole flocks of sheep and farmers' wives in flannelette nightgowns.

Across the valley you can still see another old pub - "The Rivelin", serving the hamlet of Undertofts and visitors like me from the big city down the road. Lord knows how that pub continues to survive. The death of the English pub has been a quiet national tragedy these past twenty years. Our pubs have been central to English culture - a drinking culture of rowdiness, social gathering, music and singing, darts and skittles, finding a home from home, a place to relax, to talk, to laugh and try to make sense of the world. No other country in the world has pubs like ours where you can spend as little as a couple of pounds and still have a pleasant night out.

Just last week, I noticed that "The Millhouses Inn" in Abbeydale was boarded up. Perhaps "The Rivelin" will be one of the next to go. And in the end, what will we have left? Corporate chain pub-restaurants with background muzak, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and ultimately the sofa at home with a plasma screen television and cans of "traditional" beer in the fridge. I'd rather fight for the English pub than for whatever mysterious cause we are currently engaged in in faraway Afghanistan.

"The Rivelin" viewed from "The Bell Hagg"

Arachnophilia

Woke under a blanket of mist. Downstairs, through our kitchen window, I noticed a bejewelled cobweb connecting ivy with cotoneaster. The clever arachnid had embroidered a tiny oblong for every year of my life. Heinz varieties. Upstairs, on our crumpled bed, the guidebooks that Shirley bought for me and a map... of Sri Lanka. Seems that I am destined to travel there where once my father panned for semi-precious stones in a mountain stream and rode from the jungle on an elephant that wasn't grey. More research required and a ticket for an aeroplane.

Deportation

"Border Force" at Dover.

What do you do with twelve smelly, frightened parking officers when you have kept them in a cellar for up to a month? I'd like to tell you that I had had it all planned out - like a military operation from first to last - but that just wasn't so. If I am honest, I should say that I had a clear vision of how to capture and detain twelve civil enforcement officers (parking) but beyond that point my thinking was woolly, vague.

Last weekend, I had it in mind to execute the lot of them for crimes against humanity. They were whingeing about hygiene and food and about how Frances had neglected them when we went on holiday to Portugal. I was getting fed up with their moaning so I yelled at them to shut up. I have had a lot of experience of disciplining unruly groups of kids. The way they were carrying on it was as if they had formed some sort of trade union down there. But what the hell could I do with them? I mean, I'm the kind of guy who refuses to kill flies or wasps so how could I murder them - even though they were/are parking officers? I knew I just couldn't do it.

Watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary series on Sky 3 called "Border Force", I suddenly had a brainwave. The programme is all about the British Border Agency's attempts to halt illegal immigration. In perhaps the second programme, they showed what Border Agency officers discovered in the back of a huge articulated lorry at Dover. Eleven wide-eyed young men from Afghanistan. They had created a little den in the middle of hundreds of stacked cardboard boxes - presumably containing "Opium"perfume and studded collars for Afghan hounds - and had journeyed all the way to England from Kabul to seek their fortunes. It suddenly occurred to me that I could copy their plan but in reverse. Send my whining parking people to Afghanistan!

Now it just so happens that a couple of dodgy long distance lorry drivers frequent our local pub. I've known one of them vaguely for years. He's called Des. Expensive items often fall off the back of his truck! Know what I mean?

"So Des. How far do you go in your truck?"

"All over the place mate," says Des.

"You mean like Germany and Italy?"

"Oh no mate much further than that. Turkey. Iran. I've just got back from Rabbit in Morocco."

"Do you ever go to Afghanistan?"

"Well I've never been but it's funny you should mention it. Terry here's off on Thursday morning!" grins Des, knowingly.

"Aye, I'm delivering Buxton mineral water to some godforsaken place called Kandahar!" says Terry who's about fifty and gnarled like an old pine tree. "Some new security firm called Aliban, Saliban or something."

Didn't he read the news?

We kept talking. I was winning Terry's confidence. After buying him a pint, I took a deep breath and whispered to him what was in my underhouse. At first he was open-mouthed in disbelief. "No way man!" I tried to offer him a thousand pounds to take the captives in his truck but when he heard they were parking officers, he insisted that he would help me for free. " I 'ate em!"

Des went home - he had an early start the next morning - so Terry and I put some flesh on the bones of my crazy plan. By closing time, it didn't seem so crazy after all.

In the early hours of this very morning, when nobody was about and with lights off, I drove a white Ford Transit van I had specially hired from "National" up the green lane at the back of our garden. Then it was back to the underhouse where my twelve captives were all waiting to go with gags around their ungrateful mouthes and heavy duty plastic plant ties securing their hands behind them. I felt like a biblical shepherd guiding them up our garden to the waiting Transit.

As I drove to my agreed rendezvous with Terry on a small industrial estate in the Don Valley, I could hear them bouncing about in the back as I screeched round corners. There were a few stifled groans and moans but I didn't care. I was going to see the last of them. It had all become a huge weight on my mind.

Terry was there already with the back doors of his Volvo FH 500 open to receive the extra cargo. There seemed to be millions of plastic wrapped litre bottles of Buxton water - both sparkling and still - all on these massive wooden palettes. Terry proudly confided that when loading up, he'd created a void in the very centre of the truck to accommodate my parking officers. You could only reach it by crawling over the top of the load and jumping down. Border immigration officials would never find it.

I unlocked the back of the Transit and pulled my prisoners out one by one. They had to crawl on their bellies over the top of the mineral water palettes until they met Terry at the top of the void. Only then were their plastic ties cut - just before they were forced to jump down into their special "compartment". At least they'd not go thirsty on their overland journey to Afghanistan. The last one out of the Transit was co-incidentally the very first parking attendant I plucked from the streets back on September 2nd. Robert was his name. He looked at me with pleading puppy-dog eyes but I wasn't feeling merciful. "You're going on holiday Robert!" I grinned like Hannibal Lecter.

Terry slammed the back door with a thunk, bolted it and sealed it shut. "With any luck I won't be opening that again till I get to the Aliban depot in Kandahar!"

"When?" I said.

"Should be Monday afternoon," said Terry. "But it can be a bugger driving through Turkmenistan. They've got bloody highwaymen out there you know. Riding frigging camels!"

I watched Terry's Volvo truck signal left into Attercliffe Road. He'd be down in Dover by nine o'clock and then well on his way to Afghanistan.

I hestitate to think what the Taliban will do when they find a nest of Sheffield parking officers in the middle of their truck load of Buxton Mineral Water. Perhaps they'll use them as hostages to win concessions from occupying western forces and thereby pave the way for a lasting peace. Or maybe brainwash them and train them up for guerilla action amidst the hills of Helmand. But it doesn't matter much to me. I have got our underhouse back. There'll be some cleaning up to do I'm sure but at least I'll be able to sleep more easily in my bed, knowing that I have done my duty.

Cohabitation

What have we done? What are we doing? What will we do? We share this planet with others. Thousands of different creatures - of the earth, the sea and the sky. In 2004 it was calculated that there were 9717 different bird species, 5416 different mammals, 28,500 types of fish and 950,000 different insects. But these were only known species. There are many as yet undiscovered creatures as has been demonstrated by the work of the worldwide Census of Marine Life. This organisation's vital work has identified 6000 new species, including this unusual crab in the Pacific Ocean south of Easter Island. Understandably, it has been named the Hirsuta Crab:-

Some scientists involved with the project have suggested rather ominously that countless marine species will become extinct before we have even discovered them. Why? Because of what man is doing to the oceans - overfishing them, using them as a giant cesspit for our waste, "accidentally" polluting them. I sincerely doubt that our race of billions will ever find the resolve, the vision or the practical means to halt our onslaught on the very planet that bore us.

And we will never appreciate the true significance of the saying "As dead as a dodo". Within a hundred years - from 1581 to 1681, this unfortunate, flightless bird was discovered and then persecuted to extinction on the island of Mauritius. Even now, the dodo is more likely to figure as a laughable animated figure in a TV commercial than as a symbol of the stupidity of our species - we so-called "homo sapiens".

Sermon

The last post was something different - a sort of blogging experiment that I arranged with Lady Elizabeth of Burton Agnes Hall, East Yorkshire. If you hadn't figured it out, she wrote my last post and I wrote hers. Being technologically advanced computer users, we were able to email our posts and pictures to each other ahead of a carefully synchronised posting at midnight on Sunday. I expect we will be nominated for Blogger's Innovation Medal later this year.

An enjoyable collaboration with a nice, intelligent woman who for one reason or another has not always found blogging a comfortable or easy activity to get into. Whereas most of we Yorkshire folk are hard as nails - about as sensitive as the rocky outcrops on Ilkley Moor - a few of us are almost as soft as Aunt Bessie's instant Yorkshire Pudding mix.

Comments we make after other bloggers' postings can sometimes be misconstrued. Receivers can jump to wrong conclusions. Equally, it is easy for senders to pitch comments inappropriately. I suppose this is all bound to happen when the medium is the electronic keyboard and the bloggers we are exchanging comments with are far distant and unseen. In ordinary face-to-face relationships, which are symbiotic, what we say is clarified through body language and further explanation. We also learn to hold our tongues, keeping many possible wisecracks or objections under wraps for the sake of social harmony.

Therefore, when commenting, would it be wisest only to write lame and pleasant remarks? Platitudes? "...Another marvellous post which I enjoyed reading" or "Thank you. You have taught me something today." Do you know these sayings - "Manners maketh the man" and "Manners don't cost anything but are worth a lot"? In everyday life, my manners are exemplary. They call me Mr Please. However, in my estimation, if your whole life is about being well-mannered and always saying the right thing for fear of upsetting people, it will be extremely dull and rather false. We've got to laugh, to rib, to be light-hearted and sometimes to reveal the thoughts that are usually hidden, even if they may cause some offence. As long as we are not downright abusive, we owe this honesty to ourselves.

Sermon over. Here's a horse I snapped on Lady Elizabeth's vast estate. But look carefully. It's an optical illusion. Can you see it? If commenting, please don't say what you see as this could spoil someone else's revelation. In the light of what I have just said about comments, I guess that's a rather ironic request!

A horse is a horse of course of course...

Intruder

I went away for the weekend, got back and found that there had been an intruder in this blog's mission control. She'd made a post ready for publishing complete with pictures. This is what my mystery visitor left behind...

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A right how de do this is. Oh’ I’m Liz, by the way. This is me ‘ere...

I was having a very pleasant day out on the Ecclesall Road; t’ sun was shinin,’ an’ ah’d ‘ad a reet grand stroll in that Endcliffe Park, popped into Felicini’s for a spot of snap an’ bought missen a bunch of carnations at that lovely Katie Peckett’s - bit pricey they were, but she is a florist to the stars an’ ye do ‘ave to pay fer that an’ they’re in a shade of red that’ll show off my black sheets a treat. Well, I was just lookin’ in t’ window of Guiseppe’s ‘airdressers an’ wondering whether ti treat missen ti a purple Mohican, when ye’ll nivver, in a month of Sundays, believe what ‘appened.

This fella, big brute of a chap he was, came out o’ nowhere and man-handled me into his car. A Vauxhall Astra – I wouldn’t normally know owt like that, except that my boyfriend, Wayne,’s boss ‘as one in an unusual shade of puce and its sorta stuck ‘cos o’ what happened at t’ office party – they call it that, but its not really an office, it’s Kwik-Fit’s car-inspection pit, but it can be very cosy when its got up with a bit o’ tinsel and there’s no doubt about it, those lace-up thigh boots can be a thrill to a man whose wife slops about in Damart slippers. Ooo, look at me, ye don’t want to know about that...it wasn’t a pleasant ending, anyway.

Where was l? Oh, yea. I only know that I glimpsed the police station out of t’ window and read in huge letters, ‘Sheffield police – dealing with issues that matter to you,’ afore I was shoved into this room. There’s a dreadful smell of sewage and sweat and it looks like he’s ‘ad a fair few folk holed up in ‘ere, already. I’m glad o’ mi carnations fer a bit o’ fragrance.

Course, I should be back ‘ome whisking up a few Yorkshire Pudding’ for my Wayne and mi two bairns, Damien and Chardonnay, afore I go on t’ night shift. What? Yer dian’t know what a Yorkshire Puddin’ is? Well, I’ll ‘ave ti tell ye t’ story then...

A fair few years ago, an angel ‘ad a day off frev ’eaven an’ was floating aboot ovver t’ Yorkshire wolds. Bonny thing she was, golden ‘air and a fine set o’ feathers. Well, poor lass got cramp i’ one of her wings an’ landed slap-bang in t’ garden of a local schoolmaister. She knock’d on t’ door o’ t’ ‘ouse and schoolmaister’s wife oo was a gentle, lovely soul, took one look at ‘er and exclaimed, “Eee, lass come on in, ah’m reet capped ti see thee. Ah’ll mash thi some tea an’ thi can rest awhile.”

Angel sat in t’ nook o’ t’ fire an sipped her mug o’ tea, munchin’ on two drippin’ slices an’ a Sally Lunn, whilst woman looked up a’ t’ clock and busied herself saying, “Ye’ll ‘ave ti excuse me, love. School bell’ll be gannin’ an’ my man’ll be in fer ‘is tea. You sit there, whilst I mix up some puddin’s.” A little lad sat up in ’is ’igh chair teckin’ in what was goin’ on. Well, t’angel sat watching it all fer a few minutes an’ then she jumped up.

“ ’Ere gie us yer bowl and let mi do it. Ah’ll show thi ‘ow we mek t’ puddin’s for Saints Peter and Paul. Flour, milk, salt, eggs...now, hush.”

Schoolmaister’s wife gawped as t’ ‘eavenly lass stuck ’er wing i’ t’ bowl, stirrin’ the mixture like an artist ed paint wi a brush. Puddin’s so light an’ airy that they fair floated ti t’oven.

“It’s nowt i’ t’flour or watter that matters. Just mek sure that tha meks it wi’ luv.” The angel thanked the wife fer ‘er kindness. “Gie it nobbut ten minutes,” she said, as she lifted the child to kiss ’im, afore flyin’ off, leavin’ t’ first Yorkshire Puddin’ that were ivver properly made. T’ schoolmaister and ‘is missus were so delighted that they named the child, Yorkshire Pudding, an I ‘ave ‘eard tell that that little lad grew up to be a reet angel, nivver gev fowk any bother and that if yer chance ti look ‘neath the surface, tha’ll find a pair of feathery wings sproutin’ frev his back.

Can’t be the chap that shoved me in ’ere then, can it? If I’m not mistaken you’ll find him here today, ransacking my ‘ouse. I just ‘ope he doesn’t come across the shibari ropes and nipple clamps or that’ll be my career gone fer a burton. If only I’d not hesitated and chanced the purple Mohican, this would nivver ’ave ’appened.