Bunter

There's something about our illustrious prime minister that reminds me of Billy Bunter. Billy Bunter? Who on earth is he? I can hear some of you saying - especially North Americans and more youthful visitors to this blog.

He was an early star of children's television on the BBC. He attended posh Greyfriars School with other posh boys and he was a very greedy, idle boy who made viewers laugh with his antics. He liked nothing more than secretly chomping cream buns and he had many tricks up his sleeve to avoid hard work or punishment.

Like Eton School - Boris Johnson's alma mater, Greyfriars is a traditional fee-paying establishment for the sons of the moneyed middle classes. The boys live in a bubble, hardly aware of life in the real world. They have their own vocabulary - "Crumbs!", "Gosh!", "prep", "rugger", "tuck" and "beastly" for example.

As BoJo walked in his green wellingtons around the flooded South Yorkshire village of Fishlake yesterday, he seemed just like Billy Bunter - hardly able to relate to the lives of the ordinary people he met. Listening does not come easily to him. You just knew that he'd have much preferred to be scoffing another cream bun behind the cricket pavilion.

How on earth British people can have any faith in this bumbling self-obsessed buffoon is beyond me. The fact that he is likely to continue as our political leader after the forthcoming General Election fills me with both despair and shame. What is happening here in my beloved homeland? It never used to be like this...

"I say, keep that beast Coker off! I wasn't in his study when he found me there, the 

suspicious beast! I wasn't after his cake! There wasn't any cake, and I never touched it, 

and I had hardly a mouthful when the brute came in! I say, you fellows - ow! Oh crikey!"

Judgement

You may remember that one of my photographs was the Week 43 Picture of the Week winner over at the geograph website. My reward was to pick the Week 44 winner from a shortlist of fifty images that were pre-selected from 3814 eligible submissions to the site.

At the top you can see the image that I put in third place. It was taken from the coastal town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. The unusual vessel was specially designed to play a lead role in the construction of off-shore wind farms.

In second place I chose the following picture of a cock pheasant taken by an acquaintance of mine - Walter Baxter - who has snapped many wonderful photographs in The Scottish Borders:-

But the picture I chose as the overall winner was this lovely image of a woodland path near the village of Evanton in the Scottish Highland region. I admired the colours in this photograph and the fact that the path is on a ridge. You wonder where that path might be leading. 

Quotations

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, 

may be preserved by quotation. Benjamin Disraeli

Of course there are dictionaries of quotations. They can be interesting to flick through. Sometimes you don't need to read an entire book or witness an entire play or film. Truth or wisdom may be contained in a kernel, a smidgeon, a line.

Considering quotations is a different way of reading, a different way of thinking.

In the mid-seventies when I was at university, I produced a series of well-honed essays. They were mostly for English Literature or Education courses. I worked conscientiously on all of them for I took my university studies seriously and I was intellectually engaged by the academic tasks I faced.

I don't know how it happened but I picked up the habit of choosing epigraphs to precede each essay I wrote. An epigraph is "a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme." There is an epigraph at the beginning of this blogpost.

I remember one lecturer being irritated by my epigraphs but I persisted with them in spite of his grumpy reaction. Another lecturer told me he liked them for they were like musical notes that echoed through the essays that followed them. You cannot please everyone.

A watercolour portrait of Robert Owen
by Auguste Hervieu (1829)
National Portrait Gallery, London

I have several favourite quotations. There is one in the header of this blog. It has been there throughout the fourteen years of this blog's existence. And here's another that has always stuck in my mind:-

“All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.”

It is attributed to Robert Owen (1771-1858). He was both a textile manufacturer and a social reformer during the early years of The Industrial Revolution. His life philosophy was about togetherness and social cohesion but in this quotation he appears to be saying that the bottom line is that the only human being you can depend upon is yourself. Everyone else's viewpoint and experience of life will be at odds with our own. At least that is how I interpret the quote.

I could ramble on and on with this blogpost, exploring quotation after quotation but I am going to cease my peregrination at this point and ask you if you have any "favourite" quotations that have for one reason or another stuck in your mind?

Remembrance

The numbers are disputed but it is generally thought that 37 million people 

died in World War I and 60 million died in World War II.

At 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month...

"At the going down of the sun and in the 

morning - we will remember them..."

Kindness

Being on the receiving end of acts of kindness is wonderful. Perhaps the only thing that might better it is dishing out acts of kindness yourself.

Let me tell you about two acts of kindness that I experienced last week.

First of all, going back to last Monday. Shirley and I had been to the Meadowhall Shopping Centre on the edge of the city. Afterwards, we stopped off at the Centretainment complex intending to find somewhere for lunch.

We decided upon Nando's. Previously, I had only experienced this restaurant chain twice. They have very confusing menus. Anyway we managed to place our order - two "mozamb" chicken wraps with sides of chips and mixed salad. Then Shirley went to find some sauce and came back with a delightful lemon and herb peri-peri sauce which was an excellent accompaniment to the meal.

We noticed that it is possible to buy bottles of sauce from Nando's but when we asked a waiter about that he said that our chosen sauce was quite a new one and they don't yet have any bottles to sell. Then he added, "But wait a minute, I will go and get some for you to take home!"

Five minutes later he returned with a paper bag containing ten little plastic pots with lids. He had decanted some of our favoured sauce into each one of them. There was no charge - it was just a simple act of kindness with no thought or expectation of reward.

Secondly, I was in Hull yesterday to watch my beloved football team being beaten by West Bromwich Albion. Stupidly, I went through my allotted turnstile without buying a programme from the sellers outside. 

Once inside the stadium I walked up and down the concourse hoping to buy a programme from somewhere else. Finally, I asked one of the yellow-coated stewards about my quest and he informed me that supporters could only buy match programmes outside.

"Tell you what though - if you give me the money - I'll go out to get you one."

He went down the concrete staircase and was let out of the stadium through one of the emergency exit doors. Three minute later, he returned with my programme.

I said to him, "Please may I shake your hand. That was such a lovely act of kindness. You did not have to do it but you did it all the same. Thank you!"

He blushed slightly. The fellow was around thirty years old. Though we lost the game by a solitary well-taken goal that steward's simple act of kindness almost made up for my disappointment. 

One of my favourite sayings is, "It's nice to be nice" and those two young men proved the veracity of that particular credo. In spite all of the badness and selfishness in this world there is a hell of a lot of kindness out there too.

Juliet

At Oxfam on Wednesday, I heard another blast from the past - "Juliet" by The Four Pennies.

It took me right back to 1964 when I was an avid follower of the British pop charts. I would copy out the "Top Ten" in my red exercise book each weekend.

There was a love, I knew before

She broke my heart, left me unsure

Juliet, don't forget

The promise you made, 

I need never be afraid

Things you do, reminiscent of you

Juliet, when we, when we met

You gave me, sweet memories

Things you do reminiscent of you

There was a love I knew before

She broke my heart, left me unsure

Juliet, don't you, oh don't you let

My love go astray, in this way

Julie , Julie, Julie, oh Julie

Oh my Juliet, Julie oh Julie

Oh my Juliet...

Formed in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1963, The Four Pennies initially consisted of Lionel Morton (vocals, rhythm guitar), Fritz Fryer (lead guitar), Mike Wilshaw (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), and Alan Buck (drums) The group's name was chosen as a more commercial alternative to "The Lionel Morton Four", and was decided upon after a meeting above a Blackburn music shop, the shop being situated on "Penny Street".

In the mid sixties The Four Pennies were probably the most commercially successful English vocal/instrumental group that failed to chart in the United States, during the so-called British Invasion. 

In Britain, "Juliet" charted at Number 1 in May 1964, staying in the charts for fifteen weeks. It was The Four Pennies' only hit. The band broke up in 1966. Their sound engineer and lead roadie Fungus O'Toole later married Christina from Blackburn who sometimes  visits this blog.

Newsworthiness

As a news junkie, my "go to" website is the BBC News. In my humble opinion, itt is brilliant. It gives up-to-date local news, national news, news from around the world, sports news, entertainment, comprehensive weather forecasts and much more. I have yet to find a better news website anywhere on the internet.

When you first click in, there will be a headline story. This often changes as each day progresses. Yesterday evening's headline might well have been, "Trump Misused Charity Fund" or "Johnson Keeps Russia Report From Public" or "Children Are Still Starving In Africa". But it was none of these. It was in fact "Biblical Rainfall Leaves Streets Flooded".

And what is more, that report was about my home city - Sheffield and its close neighbour - Rotherham. We had an absolute deluge of rain yesterday. To use a Yorkshire expression. "it pissed it down" all day. 

Like Rome, Sheffield is built on seven hills. Those of us who live on the hills are pretty much immune from flooding but those who live in the valleys, close to the rivers and brooks will occasionally experience floods. Back in 2007, I reported the last serious flooding episode to hit the city as The River Don burst its banks and young Ryan Parry drowned. Go here.

As far as I know, nobody drowned yesterday but many vehicles were abandoned and at The Meadowhall Shopping Centre on the edge of the city, more than a hundred shoppers simply could not get home. They had to sleep there.

I was like a caged beast - going stir crazy. I couldn't even get out to deposit items in our recycling bins. The rain flowed down our street like a stream. At ten o'clock in the evening I donned my raincoat and headed out to the local pub - just to escape from the house. My trews were soaked when I got there and outside a waterlogged double decker bus was receiving the attention of a mechanic dressed like a lifeboat man.

Two of Shirley's nurse colleagues were called back to their  homes during the day because of water inundation.

This morning, as I tap away at this keyboard, God's wrath has diminished and I can see some blue sky. It is no longer raining. Praise The Lord! I think we are going to survive but where was Noah when we needed him?