Quiztime

As usual we were up at the quiz at "The Hammer and Pincers". Of course,  the quiz questions tend to have a British bias but with that in mind I am nonetheless giving you ten of the twenty five questions to have a stab at. The answers will be given in the Comments section.

1. Which national flag is green with a red circle in the middle?

2. Which Beatle would have been 81 years old this past weekend?

3. In translation which Italian pasta means "little ribbons"?

4. From which sport do these terms come - turkey, badger, sparrow and gutter ball?

5. Which term connects  offence, annoyance and the shadow cast by trees?

 6. Anagram of a famous person - CAKE CLAIMS JOHN.

7. Name the year -  (It's the same year!)

• The film "Grease" was released starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton John
• "Space Invaders" the computer game was released
• The American soap opera "Dallas" was first aired on TV.

8. Which vehicle was the subject of the 1990 film, "The Hunt For Red October"?

9. Which flavour of soup is made from the tails of bovine animals?

10. Which well-known family resided at 0001 Cemetery Lane?

Explanation

Over several months, I became friendly with Janet,  a dizzy grandmother who used to come into the Oxfam shop where I worked. She usually appeared in the last hour before closing time. I also met her daughter, her son-in-law and her two young grandchildren - Loretta and Roy. They were the reason she had moved up to Sheffield from Birmingham.

Janet was always looking out for things she could buy for the kids - little treats, toys, books or items of clothing. She was very kind and I often chatted to her. Like her daughter and son-in-law, she was staunchly working class with typically old-fashioned values.

The manager of the shop was Catherine - a couple of years younger than me and in most ways a great, hard-working shop manager but looking back I think she was also  a bit of a misandrist*. She had put a poster up in the shared staff toilet advising men about how to use toilets, including leaving the toilet seat down for female users. It was not a joke.

Anyway at the back of the shop floor there was a door that led to the staff area and just beyond that door you would often find Catherine sorting out clothing donations -  separating the wheat from the chaff as it were. On the shop side of the door was where children's books and toys were displayed.

Late on a Wednesday afternoon in March 2020 with no other customers in the shop, Janet had found a colouring book that she wanted to give to her little grandson Roy. She showed it to  me and asked what I thought about it. Now this colouring book was very clearly aimed at little girls. It had a pink cover and contained mermaids and seahorses and cute little princesses.

I said to Janet, "I think it's aimed at little girls and I am not sure that your daughter and son-in-law would be too happy about it, Maybe we can find something more suitable for Roy."

At that moment the back door opened and in front of Janet I was angrily  berated by Catherine, "How dare you say that! If my daughter heard you saying that about books she would rip your head off!"

I was flabbergasted but because Janet was still standing there I could not say a thing.

I had worked at the Oxfam shop for just over five years and because of that had received a bronze badge for my voluntary service. Although I could have done battle with Catherine and given her a piece of my mind about this incident, I decided to walk away instead.

The following week when she was having a day off, I left a letter on her desk saying, "I have always been happy working in this shop and I am proud of the service I have given to Oxfam but I am not happy any more and so I won't be returning". When you are an unpaid volunteer you have that luxury of being able to just walk away.

The following week the shop closed for the duration of the first COVID lockdown. I still think to myself - how dare she try to angrily  correct me in front of a customer and how dare she jump to such a wrongful conclusion anyway. She had, I think, never seen or met Janet before and knew nothing about her circumstances.

* misandrist = a person who hates men just as a 

misogynist is defined as a person who hates women.

"Sheffield"

I was going to  apologise about the messy video content in this blogpost. It just would not load up and display as I intended. All I was trying to do was to upload a single tiktok video - the subject of which is a poem called "Sheffield" read out on a BBC radio show by John Cooper-Clarke who is sometimes referred to as Britain's alternative poet laureate. He is also often called our number one punk poet though he scorns that label

He's 75 years old now and still going strong in spite of the fact that he looks as though he is suffering from some kind of terminal disease. Anyway, I hope I have got the tiktok link almost sorted now.  You may only get to see a section of the radio reading.Afterwards, you'll find the written version of this poem.

This northern city where I am typing now is used to being neglected, overlooked, almost unseen in spite of the fact that it has a population of well over half a million so I wasn't going to allow a frustrating technical tangle to prevent me from sharing the poem tonight. Thank you for your forbearance. 

 ⦿

SHEFFIELD

I’ve travelled up and down this country
From St Helens down to St Ives
I’ve dined in the finest of places,
and there’s one word I read on the knives
displayed on any blade of quality
Sheffield Sheffield Sheffield
It calls to me.
I’m going to Sheffield
I really rate it
I mean Sheffield
I’m gonna reiterate it

S-H-E-F-F-I-E-L-D

Sheffield Sheffield Sheffield
It’s got to be.
There’s Richard Hawley on the corner
The Cockers both Jarvis and Joe
Henderson’s Relish to order
And a steak and kidney to go
Park Hill's airborne avenues above.
Sheffield – that’s a place I love.
I’m going to Sheffield
The reputation is stainless
Oh yeah Sheffield
Internationally famous
Where hobnail boots are shabby chic
And Wednesday ain’t some day of the week

S-H-E-F-F-I-E-L-D

Sheffield Sheffield Sheffield
Shoo be doo bee doeee
I’m going to Sheffield
My destiny walks here
You heard me right Sheffield
Republic of South Yorkshire
It’s a town that’s out on its own
I’m gonna shout it down this microphone
Sheffield is my second home

Sweet home sweet home
Sweet home sweet swingin’ ho-ome

by John Cooper-Clarke

Ectopic

Probably, apart from some ignorant folk who fully support the anti-abortion movement in America, most of us have heard of ectopic pregnancies. The medical  term "ectopic" comes from the Greek word "ektopos" which means "out of place" but in emotional terms the word could just as easily mean tears and bitter disappointment mingled with fear of dying.

An ectopic pregnancy usually involves a fertilised egg attaching itself to the inner wall of a fallopian tube. Over the last hundred years, the only medical response has been surgical removal of that fallopian tube. If allowed to grow, the tiny foetus would, in almost all cases, put the unlucky woman involved in serious danger of death.

In early 1986, I remember Shirley telling me one day that she believed she was pregnant again. She had noticed the early physical signs that she had experienced just two years before after our Ian was conceived. We were both delighted and Shirley's smile was for a brief period as angelic as only an expectant mother's smile can be.

But a week later, at the doctor's surgery, though a pregnancy was confirmed, something was wrong. It turned out that her pregnancy was ectopic and emergency surgery was required. The potential human being inside her didn't have a name and we don't know if it was male or female. I was just thankful that Shirley was alive - that she had survived this serious threat to her existence.

In 2019, a bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not even exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”. The legislators pressed on without paying heed to the fact that there had never been a successful reimplanting in such circumstances. Plain crazy. I guess the reality of ectopic pregnancy does not fit comfortably into the anti-abortionist, "Pro-Life" narrative.

Fortunately, healthy women have two fallopian tubes and after Shirley had avoided possible death, our lives continued till in 1988 we were blessed with a second child - this time a beautiful daughter who we named Frances Emily. Fears about the possibility of another ectopic episode evaporated at the end of the first trimester.

In late 1989 or was it early 1990, Shirley told me that she was again pregnant. After all, she knew the signs. Instinctively, I was anxious and I even asked if it could possibly be another ectopic pregnancy but she she assured me that such a tragedy could not befall us a second time. However, my worry was ominous and after some discomfort and bleeding a second ectopic pregnancy was diagnosed and once again emergency surgery was required.

As in 1986, we never knew the gender of the wrongly placed embryo - no bigger than a small pea and we never gave it a name. Sadly, just like the other fertilised egg it was one of Nature's  errors, a stray bullet, a might-have-been. Of course this second episode meant that Shirley could never again naturally carry another child.

• Overall, ectopic pregnancies annually affect less than 2% of pregnant women worldwide.
• In Great Britain, between 2003 and 2005 there were 32,100 ectopic pregnancies resulting in 10 maternal deaths
• In the developing world, however, especially in Africa, the death rate is very high, and ectopic pregnancies are a major cause of death among women of childbearing age.
• In women having had an ectopic pregnancy, the risk of another one in the next pregnancy is around 10%

It has taken me almost nineteen years of blogging to tell this story but it has been lurking inside me for much longer than that.

Grandson

Last evening - that's my son with his son. Little Zach will be four months old on Saturday. It's sad that they do not live just round the corner from us so that we can be a big part of our grandson's life - just as we are with Phoebe and Margot. At least Ian and Sarah and Little Zach do not live in some faraway country like Australia or Canada or Lesotho. I guess we should grateful about that.

Zach is doing nicely. He likes kicking his feet in the bath and watching the world go by. He has just had his first spoonfuls of baby rice - helping him to put on more weight.

Next week we will be heading down to London to stay with Zach and his mama. We will be staying for three nights. Ian will be away on business and we want to give Sarah some support as well as cuddling Zach.

If any unscrupulous bloggers, blog visitors or nasty trolls imagine that they might burgle our Sheffield mansion while we are away then think again!  The premises will be temporarily occupied by my old friend, the weightlifter Tyson Grimes and his ex-police dog Satan. Besides, anything of value will be placed in secure storage over the weekend. Naturally, every room is covered by our CCTV system.

While in London, I hope to go south of The Thames to Putney Vale Cemetery where I have recently discovered that one of my musical heroines is buried. Sandy Denny died in 1978 and here she is singing her most famous song...

I might take her a flower or two.

Navalny

We have all heard the news. Alexei Navalny is dead. Nobody apart from The Russian State doubts that he was killed by The Russian State. He was a thorn in Putin's side and so Navalny was killed. Ultimately, it is as simple as that.

Intelligent, brave and charismatic, Navalny represented hope for a new Russia, a better Russia, a Russia in which ordinary Russians could be free and optimistic - instead of suffering and keeping schtum under the brutal dictatorship of the widow maker - Vladimir Putin.

Navalny didn't need to die. He could have claimed sanctuary in the west but after recovering from a botched novichok  assassination attempt, he returned to his home country in January 2021 and was promptly arrested. He was then of course on the inevitable road to martyrdom. It was just a matter of time.

The Russian authorities have still not released his body as they try to cover up their sins. Perhaps they will never release it and in the meantime they clear up the floral tributes that have been laid in sweet memory of Alexei Navalny.

Of course, he said many things, including this: 

"All evil needs to triumph is the inaction of good people"

Let us hope that he did not die in vain and that one day Putin and his ilk will be long gone as Russia begins to blossom in the healing light of freedom and hope echoing these words from another legendary freedom fighter who also gave his life for a righteous cause... "I’ve been to the mountaintop … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land."

Alexi Navalny with his wife Yulia, daughter  Darya and son Zakhar

Threesome

Over at Orinoco, book sales have been rising like murmurations of starlings. The first edition of "Going Gently" by John Gray has completely sold out. For the second edition, the author requested a different, more cheerful front cover and our design team were happy to oblige:-

In other book news, we finally agreed a contract with the elusive Anglo-American writer Stephen G. Reed. He had been frolicking over at Leonardo di Caprio's pad in Palm Springs, California. So anyway here's the 1,370 page tome's first public viewing with a teasing extract from Chapter Eleven:-

Olga strained on her leather leash, pulling our intrepid hero deeper into the overgrown cemetery. They were in a brambly thicket where he had never been before. It was a shadowy place but under the overarching trees he spotted some light. There were torches (American: flashlights) and three burly, whispering men were busy digging. Our hero crouched behind a purple rhododendron bush (rhododendron catawbiense) observing this furtive activity and hoping that Olga would stay quiet... (page 684)

⦿

As the CEO of Orinoco, I decided that it was nigh time to cast off my innate modesty and use my advantageous position to finally publish a novel I wrote several years ago. It is called "Love in The Peak District" and it is literally the best romantic novel ever written. Eat your heart out Barbara Cartland! No doubt film makers will be squabbling to secure the film rights to this timeless story. I advise readers of "Yorkshire Pudding" to purchase their copies immediately to avoid severe disappointment. The golden vans are ready.

"A rollicking good read that made me laugh as much

 as it made me cry" -  James Wood "The New Yorker"