The thing about a little Surrey supermarket is that you do sometimes get interesting people popping in.
That Prince Albert of Monaco nipped in the other night – pleasant little chap. He rather shyly bought a packet of Durex – and a copy of The Daily Mail to hide it under, which I thought was sweet. He asked me quietly if he could get a refund later if he didn’t need them, so I just told him to keep hold of the receipt and that seemed to make the little fellow happy.
Rupert Murdoch was in. All he bought was phone top-up cards, which I thought was unusual, but then he has lots of relatives in Australia, doesn’t he, so he must be on the phone all the time...
Whenever I see The Queen going down the aisle, I always say hello and see if she needs a hand. She’s got to the age when she's starting to forget things – she’ll ask where the Marmite is when she’s standing right next to it, bless her – and she’s always asking me to get her a can of Basics tuna off the top shelf. She just can’t reach up there, the little dear. I do think supermarkets should consider the needs of short people more. Don’t tell anyone, but I put through her two cans of dog food but only rang one up on the till – well, you’ve got to help the old folk a little, haven’t you? She always gives a little wave as she leaves, which is nice.
Well – time to go, I guess. Oh - we might see Nick and Dave in the shop today. It’s so good, I think, that we’re so relaxed about gay couples now that a pair can govern the country and no one makes any comments. Nick will get his champagne, and Dave his six-pack of Stella... Nick always seems to pay though.
See you later!
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Wednesday 23 November 2011
A string of consciousness
25 Jan 2009
Use your mind.
Sometimes we echo newspaper headlines to be accepted in a group. Be careful to keep knowledge of reality. Weigh truth on your hand. Lightly, with wonderment and respect. You can dash it to the ground, or just let it slip off carelessly, or treasure it.
Every good boy deserves favour, for all children enchant.
Good God, there’s an orchestra playing in my head! (Ah - I’ve got my headphones on.)
My hip hurts. Never fall off a ladder. Never fall - off a ladder, in love, under a spell, from grace... There’s always at least a bruise, and sometimes it gets worse with age.
My ankles itch like crazy. Dry skin, or wrong wash powder. ‘Scratch my back’ we say. I literally used to for a partner - there was a spot low down that needed a good doing over now and then. Then she ended up doing me over and is now just an itch in my mind. Life’s a circle, eh?
Or maybe it’s a string (or a superstring)? I guess DNA is a string - so life literally is a string! I wonder if it’s tuned? Is that why music exists? The harmonic resonances resonate with our DNA? It’s not the music of the spheres but of the string... And though we're tied to our past, as our lives unravel we're pulled forwards...
Take more time, listen more carefully, and filter out the noise for the real music of life. It is there. I can hear this orchestra... in my head...
Sometimes we echo newspaper headlines to be accepted in a group. Be careful to keep knowledge of reality. Weigh truth on your hand. Lightly, with wonderment and respect. You can dash it to the ground, or just let it slip off carelessly, or treasure it.
Every good boy deserves favour, for all children enchant.
Good God, there’s an orchestra playing in my head! (Ah - I’ve got my headphones on.)
My hip hurts. Never fall off a ladder. Never fall - off a ladder, in love, under a spell, from grace... There’s always at least a bruise, and sometimes it gets worse with age.
My ankles itch like crazy. Dry skin, or wrong wash powder. ‘Scratch my back’ we say. I literally used to for a partner - there was a spot low down that needed a good doing over now and then. Then she ended up doing me over and is now just an itch in my mind. Life’s a circle, eh?
Or maybe it’s a string (or a superstring)? I guess DNA is a string - so life literally is a string! I wonder if it’s tuned? Is that why music exists? The harmonic resonances resonate with our DNA? It’s not the music of the spheres but of the string... And though we're tied to our past, as our lives unravel we're pulled forwards...
Take more time, listen more carefully, and filter out the noise for the real music of life. It is there. I can hear this orchestra... in my head...
Down The Roker Hotel...
17 Dec 2008
“By, but Howard Wilkinson was a barmpot, though!”
“There was ower much abstruse dialecticism in his half-time talks, man - not enough tea-cups being hoyed aboot”
“Aye - abstruse dialecticism is a bugger, mind.”
“Well, there’s a time and place, man, bonny lad...”
“Aye.”
“Aye.”
“Wee do yee fancy, like?”
“Oooh, that Penny Lancaster... legs up to me ears”
“Nah, nah, man - for manager?”
“Oh aye. Why Martin Jol would be canny, like. He’s done areet with the jormans.”
“And he’s Dutch, so he’s bound to be relaxed, eh?”
“By, we weren’t half relaxed when we went to Amsterdam!”
“Horizontal, man.”
“Nah that was later”
“Oh aye”
“Or maybe Gerard Hoooooulier? Canny name to chant that, mind.”
“Worth considering just on that basis”
“Mind... Penny’s got better legs.”
“Oh aye. Never did like frog’s legs, like, me.”
“Nah.”
“Nah.”
“My round, then”
“There was ower much abstruse dialecticism in his half-time talks, man - not enough tea-cups being hoyed aboot”
“Aye - abstruse dialecticism is a bugger, mind.”
“Well, there’s a time and place, man, bonny lad...”
“Aye.”
“Aye.”
“Wee do yee fancy, like?”
“Oooh, that Penny Lancaster... legs up to me ears”
“Nah, nah, man - for manager?”
“Oh aye. Why Martin Jol would be canny, like. He’s done areet with the jormans.”
“And he’s Dutch, so he’s bound to be relaxed, eh?”
“By, we weren’t half relaxed when we went to Amsterdam!”
“Horizontal, man.”
“Nah that was later”
“Oh aye”
“Or maybe Gerard Hoooooulier? Canny name to chant that, mind.”
“Worth considering just on that basis”
“Mind... Penny’s got better legs.”
“Oh aye. Never did like frog’s legs, like, me.”
“Nah.”
“Nah.”
“My round, then”
Monday 21 November 2011
'All these worlds are yours - except Europa. Do not land on Europa.'
Studies of data from Galileo appear to show a huge lake, not far below the surface, and it's mixing with the ice above. All apparently very good signs for potential life there.
europa
Will Arthur C. Clarke turn out to be 'on the money' yet again? The quote was from 2010, when a re-activated HAL conveyed a message from the beings responsible for the black monoliths, who had seen emerging life on Europa - and did not want it interfered with.
So my question is - do we have a right to potentially muck up life on another world? This isn't a tribe in Africa who are just going to want TVs and Man Utd shirts anyway, even if we try not to spoil their current native lifestyle. No - this is life (if indeed we find it) that has evolved entirely off this planet (assuming panspermia is not correct). Extra-terrestrial life - which could be changed/damaged/destroyed if we send probes there, contrary to HAL's warning. Haven't we ceased colonial ways of thinking? Should we not tread very carefully? Or do we have a right - or even a requirement - to spread our human seed on other worlds?
europa
Will Arthur C. Clarke turn out to be 'on the money' yet again? The quote was from 2010, when a re-activated HAL conveyed a message from the beings responsible for the black monoliths, who had seen emerging life on Europa - and did not want it interfered with.
So my question is - do we have a right to potentially muck up life on another world? This isn't a tribe in Africa who are just going to want TVs and Man Utd shirts anyway, even if we try not to spoil their current native lifestyle. No - this is life (if indeed we find it) that has evolved entirely off this planet (assuming panspermia is not correct). Extra-terrestrial life - which could be changed/damaged/destroyed if we send probes there, contrary to HAL's warning. Haven't we ceased colonial ways of thinking? Should we not tread very carefully? Or do we have a right - or even a requirement - to spread our human seed on other worlds?
Thursday 17 November 2011
Autumn
04 Nov 2009
Autumn just seems to arrive one day. As if there were a knock at the door, you wonder who it could be, go to answer and... ‘oh - it’s you’. Like a sudden splash of cold water to the face, it’s not completely unpleasant, even a bit refreshing, just a slight shock.
To be honest, a week or two before, as I walked for my morning bus, overhead a v-shaped flight of geese headed steadily away to the South. I thought ‘Ah-ha! The geese are flying South. This means that either our paratroopers are dropping into plucky little Belgium tonight to meet up with the Resistance, OR summer may be over...’ I forgot it then, but two weeks later, suddenly, one morning it was autumn.
The sky was a paler, insipid light blue. The jacket collar came up for the first time. Two Surrey dinkies kettled the windscreen of their little car in our quiet street, laughing softly, intimately. With my hands in pockets and my breath steaming at the bus-stop, I watched every car driver go past, hunched forward to peer through that one area of the windscreen that had properly cleared. (Do we all do that? Like picking our noses at the wheel at traffic lights?) The bus stopped, the door opened and the driver was wearing a cute little woolly hat.
‘Autumn - appearing now at a street near you...’
The driver actually said ‘Hi, Cliff!’ as I got on. Rather surreal, but - hey - I do surreal, so that’s fine. It's the season for changes, anyway...
I don’t think of years ending at the end of December, but rather when autumn shows up on my doorstep. The warmth of summer is finally lost, the plants will die and the world loses a little joy and sparkle. This is really when the year is expended and nearly done. I don’t mind - autumn has a beauty of its own. The wonderful variety of leaf colours. The childish pleasure of kicking up the leaves on woodland paths. Walking with a chill on your cheeks, but simultaneously cosy inside under a quilted jacket and scarf.
But there was one more surprise that morning. As the bus pulled up over a small rise into Cranleigh, low across the common, there was suddenly a massive nuclear explosion that flooded my vision with white, yellow and orange light before I blinked and averted my eyes, the incredibly bright light still ghosted on to my retina. The low early autumn sun shone right in, along the bus, sudden and startling. Why that day? Why do you suddenly notice so many things on one day? Autumn - it catches you out, I tell you.
I wonder if more relationships die in autumn too? Do we sense the time for change?
The very air is different today
A flock of geese flies honking away
Through autumn sky of pink and lead grey
Haze round the streetlights dulls every ray
And warmth ebbs away: this is the day
No talk of weather: I have my say
Love thought immortal was naught but a play
Whose scenes are done and so I must pay
Emotion flies South, cold reason holds sway
Seasons must change, so go your own way
Though long delayed, autumn came today
Yet the birds had known as they flew away
That this was the time, this was the day.
To be honest, a week or two before, as I walked for my morning bus, overhead a v-shaped flight of geese headed steadily away to the South. I thought ‘Ah-ha! The geese are flying South. This means that either our paratroopers are dropping into plucky little Belgium tonight to meet up with the Resistance, OR summer may be over...’ I forgot it then, but two weeks later, suddenly, one morning it was autumn.
The sky was a paler, insipid light blue. The jacket collar came up for the first time. Two Surrey dinkies kettled the windscreen of their little car in our quiet street, laughing softly, intimately. With my hands in pockets and my breath steaming at the bus-stop, I watched every car driver go past, hunched forward to peer through that one area of the windscreen that had properly cleared. (Do we all do that? Like picking our noses at the wheel at traffic lights?) The bus stopped, the door opened and the driver was wearing a cute little woolly hat.
‘Autumn - appearing now at a street near you...’
The driver actually said ‘Hi, Cliff!’ as I got on. Rather surreal, but - hey - I do surreal, so that’s fine. It's the season for changes, anyway...
I don’t think of years ending at the end of December, but rather when autumn shows up on my doorstep. The warmth of summer is finally lost, the plants will die and the world loses a little joy and sparkle. This is really when the year is expended and nearly done. I don’t mind - autumn has a beauty of its own. The wonderful variety of leaf colours. The childish pleasure of kicking up the leaves on woodland paths. Walking with a chill on your cheeks, but simultaneously cosy inside under a quilted jacket and scarf.
But there was one more surprise that morning. As the bus pulled up over a small rise into Cranleigh, low across the common, there was suddenly a massive nuclear explosion that flooded my vision with white, yellow and orange light before I blinked and averted my eyes, the incredibly bright light still ghosted on to my retina. The low early autumn sun shone right in, along the bus, sudden and startling. Why that day? Why do you suddenly notice so many things on one day? Autumn - it catches you out, I tell you.
I wonder if more relationships die in autumn too? Do we sense the time for change?
The very air is different today
A flock of geese flies honking away
Through autumn sky of pink and lead grey
Haze round the streetlights dulls every ray
And warmth ebbs away: this is the day
No talk of weather: I have my say
Love thought immortal was naught but a play
Whose scenes are done and so I must pay
Emotion flies South, cold reason holds sway
Seasons must change, so go your own way
Though long delayed, autumn came today
Yet the birds had known as they flew away
That this was the time, this was the day.
Underpants in Guildford
19 Nov 2009
I went into Guildford to buy new underpants. It’s not really such a big day, is it? Not really up there with ‘my first sexual experience’ or ‘the day I met Eddie Izzard in a lift in Boston...’ It was a problem though. I mean for decades I have always bought whatever pants my current partner liked. My ex-wife, of a lifetime (and a house) ago, liked boxers, so it used to be those. Mind you I was never that comfortable - they always seemed to be the loose, floppy insubstantial kind back then, and after a lifetime of things being held snugly in place, it almost felt like stepping outside naked.
My next long-term partner had a preference for slips and targas and the like and they did the job for her, which was fine by me, but years later this 59-year body looks a tad ridiculous clad like a lad from The Chippendales. So now, on my own, with no one to please, interest, (or make laugh) - what to buy? Well, working class habits die hard, and there was a deal on boxers, so that made the decision. It turns out these are the snug kind now anyway, so I’m quite happy with that. At 59 I discover new underwear - the world continues to astonish, eh?
Since when did most shop assistants start wearing all black? I noticed that nearly everywhere I go that is now the regulation uniform. It’s ok - just odd that it seems to be across the board, and it seems a bit... um... ‘military’. The security guards I see wear all black, too, and is it mandatory that all security guards have shaven heads? It’s like an audition for ‘The King and I’...
Where do birds go to die? I walked under a bridge on a path by the riverside and passed close by a sad pigeon huddled there who barely moved as I passed him - I nearly stood on him. He didn’t look too grand - and it made me wonder why I never see dead birds. The towns are always full of pigeons, sparrows (though fewer these days), starlings, etc., and gardens have their blue tits, robins and others, yet I can’t remember the last time I saw a dead one.
A white van goes past with ‘TRW Solicitors’ on the side. It has a roof rack with an extension ladder lashed to it. For a firm of solicitors? What next? A motorcycle delivery man for La Senza? Would he have to wear black leather boxers, then? Actually, I think both my ex’s would be happy with that... probably Eddie Izzard too...
My next long-term partner had a preference for slips and targas and the like and they did the job for her, which was fine by me, but years later this 59-year body looks a tad ridiculous clad like a lad from The Chippendales. So now, on my own, with no one to please, interest, (or make laugh) - what to buy? Well, working class habits die hard, and there was a deal on boxers, so that made the decision. It turns out these are the snug kind now anyway, so I’m quite happy with that. At 59 I discover new underwear - the world continues to astonish, eh?
Since when did most shop assistants start wearing all black? I noticed that nearly everywhere I go that is now the regulation uniform. It’s ok - just odd that it seems to be across the board, and it seems a bit... um... ‘military’. The security guards I see wear all black, too, and is it mandatory that all security guards have shaven heads? It’s like an audition for ‘The King and I’...
Where do birds go to die? I walked under a bridge on a path by the riverside and passed close by a sad pigeon huddled there who barely moved as I passed him - I nearly stood on him. He didn’t look too grand - and it made me wonder why I never see dead birds. The towns are always full of pigeons, sparrows (though fewer these days), starlings, etc., and gardens have their blue tits, robins and others, yet I can’t remember the last time I saw a dead one.
A white van goes past with ‘TRW Solicitors’ on the side. It has a roof rack with an extension ladder lashed to it. For a firm of solicitors? What next? A motorcycle delivery man for La Senza? Would he have to wear black leather boxers, then? Actually, I think both my ex’s would be happy with that... probably Eddie Izzard too...
A day at the seaside with Sue
11 Feb 2010
Unseen beyond the sand hill
The wind-raged sea is heard
Groaning and moaning
Growling and rumbling
You stagger up the mound
While the caged beast
Is thrashing on the other side
At the top now -
- And senses swing to overload
Foaming, churning banks of angry waves
Crash and smash before you
The wind strains your hair with its force
Pushes your head sideways
Salt spray lashes your tongue
As you turn, gulping to catch breath
Laughing, gasping,
Straining, resisting,
Exulting in agreed surrender
Raw and hungry nature
Roaring with menace - only just held back
Heaving and pounding and alive
The sea - and you.
Another day
07 Apr 2010
and a thousand and one things I want to say
but there's no one to hear this one-man play
my stage is bare and the theatre too
just these few scribbled words to pester you
so on with the wig and mask for my face
and wait for the call to take up my place
but there's no one to hear this one-man play
my stage is bare and the theatre too
just these few scribbled words to pester you
so on with the wig and mask for my face
and wait for the call to take up my place
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern LIVE !
03 May 2010
I read a book over the weekend. Now that’s not exactly world-shattering, but I’m quite pleased with it, as I was thinking lately how little I now read, yet how avid a reader I was as a teenager. Perhaps the simple option of the TV remote is too easily at hand. Perhaps the need to find reading glasses now lazily mitigates against it. Whatever - I want to get back to it, and thoroughly enjoyed reading Shapiro’s ‘1599’ - one year in Shakespeare’s life and the changing world about him that year and how each intersected and interacted. Fascinating and revealing - about both.
I always found his plays impenetrable because of their language, so had taken little interest in them, although I have long enjoyed the theatre - and especially anything by Tom Stoppard. So, having hugely enjoyed his ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, and then later ‘Shakespeare in Love’, which he co-wrote and is full of his usual jokes and allusions, I found myself, against my previous inclinations, becoming interested in the man Shakespeare. When I then read that Hamlet seemed to have references to the contemporary debates about the cosmological alternatives of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Thomas Digges et al., then I knew more was going on than I had realised, and I was finally, officially, interested. It’s a bit like Googling, in a way - one thing leads to another and you reach a destination that was never on your original road map. Oh - and I went to The Globe for the first time last year and suddenly I also ‘got’ the way he included the audience. Of course he wrote for them, but I suddenly realised that he really did write for them: ‘we are all players’ It was their daily Eastenders, block-buster, and comedy programme - and they were a tangible, visible, smell-able, reactive part, not invisible behind stage lights in a blacked-out auditorium.
So I’m on a new voyage. Isn’t it great when you discover a new area to investigate at this age, and know there is just loads to get your teeth into? Why then, the world’s my oyster...
I always found his plays impenetrable because of their language, so had taken little interest in them, although I have long enjoyed the theatre - and especially anything by Tom Stoppard. So, having hugely enjoyed his ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, and then later ‘Shakespeare in Love’, which he co-wrote and is full of his usual jokes and allusions, I found myself, against my previous inclinations, becoming interested in the man Shakespeare. When I then read that Hamlet seemed to have references to the contemporary debates about the cosmological alternatives of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Thomas Digges et al., then I knew more was going on than I had realised, and I was finally, officially, interested. It’s a bit like Googling, in a way - one thing leads to another and you reach a destination that was never on your original road map. Oh - and I went to The Globe for the first time last year and suddenly I also ‘got’ the way he included the audience. Of course he wrote for them, but I suddenly realised that he really did write for them: ‘we are all players’ It was their daily Eastenders, block-buster, and comedy programme - and they were a tangible, visible, smell-able, reactive part, not invisible behind stage lights in a blacked-out auditorium.
So I’m on a new voyage. Isn’t it great when you discover a new area to investigate at this age, and know there is just loads to get your teeth into? Why then, the world’s my oyster...
The stars are going out
06 Feb 2011
The stars are going out.
One by one – I hardly noticed at first. Then I realised The Plough was missing one star. Then Orion looked wrong...
I know they aren’t really going out. It’s all in my head. Somehow I can selectively and repetitively block out stars. I have no idea how that is possible – but then I have no idea how I lift this glass either – I just do. My brain takes care of it. Or maybe the glass isn’t there. That’s the problem now. Once you start to doubt reality – once it starts to change, and you know it hasn’t really (no one else notices) – then where does it stop? What is ‘reality’ out there, and what is ‘reality’ inside my head? And is there – was there ever – any difference? Do I really know that no one else notices the stars, or is that something else my brain has made up for me?
The stars are going out.
Or maybe it’s just clouds.
One by one – I hardly noticed at first. Then I realised The Plough was missing one star. Then Orion looked wrong...
I know they aren’t really going out. It’s all in my head. Somehow I can selectively and repetitively block out stars. I have no idea how that is possible – but then I have no idea how I lift this glass either – I just do. My brain takes care of it. Or maybe the glass isn’t there. That’s the problem now. Once you start to doubt reality – once it starts to change, and you know it hasn’t really (no one else notices) – then where does it stop? What is ‘reality’ out there, and what is ‘reality’ inside my head? And is there – was there ever – any difference? Do I really know that no one else notices the stars, or is that something else my brain has made up for me?
The stars are going out.
Or maybe it’s just clouds.
A teen in Sunderland
17 Feb 2010
Did you rebel against school uniform in your teens and start to add ‘extras’ ? Around 17, I was under the illusion that my bright yellow M&S cardy gave me the all the insouciant rebelliousness of a young James Dean. An impression which I sought to enhance by always turning up the collar of my pale green mackintosh - passed down to me by my raffish cousin, an oral hygienist in the RAF, who allegedly serially seduced young women by letting them know (confidentially) that he 'worked for the government’ but would then steadfastly refuse to say any more about it.
His best mate (who he had schooled to call him ‘James’ in blond company) had several wonderfully placid black Labradors that would always pad along calmly a pace or two behind The Master. My parents always had pets too - well, to be pedantic, a succession of strays - of varying pedigree, demeanour and ability to reciprocate emotion. There was a sad works cat which had had far too many kittens in its short life and now just wished to be left alone quietly underneath the bed. There was a fox terrier (ish) who, as soon as he got excited at all, would start chasing his tail in demented circles, and if the excitement continued would also start to bark at it quite angrily as it continued to run annoyingly away from him, until he collapsed in a panting and unfulfilled heap. And there was once a pet snail that left messages for my mother on the kitchen floor - if only she could decipher what they meant.
My favourite, though, was Percy the Pigeon. Percy had damaged a wing and so was duly adopted, and being temporarily relieved of all flying duties, was happy enough to walk around the kitchen for a week or two, skilfully dodging feet, while repairs were effected, occasionally walking out into the yard where he could look up and count his brothers out and then count them all back in again. Eventually he recovered enough to rejoin them, but never forgot his nurse and would occasionally pop in. Now the kitchen led out to a small hall, and the door to the yard was off to the left, but this did not faze the returning Percy, who banked in with a hard right turn and much frantically flappy braking to make the occasional spectacular entry if the kitchen door happened to be left open. He never stayed long, though - only flying visits...
His best mate (who he had schooled to call him ‘James’ in blond company) had several wonderfully placid black Labradors that would always pad along calmly a pace or two behind The Master. My parents always had pets too - well, to be pedantic, a succession of strays - of varying pedigree, demeanour and ability to reciprocate emotion. There was a sad works cat which had had far too many kittens in its short life and now just wished to be left alone quietly underneath the bed. There was a fox terrier (ish) who, as soon as he got excited at all, would start chasing his tail in demented circles, and if the excitement continued would also start to bark at it quite angrily as it continued to run annoyingly away from him, until he collapsed in a panting and unfulfilled heap. And there was once a pet snail that left messages for my mother on the kitchen floor - if only she could decipher what they meant.
My favourite, though, was Percy the Pigeon. Percy had damaged a wing and so was duly adopted, and being temporarily relieved of all flying duties, was happy enough to walk around the kitchen for a week or two, skilfully dodging feet, while repairs were effected, occasionally walking out into the yard where he could look up and count his brothers out and then count them all back in again. Eventually he recovered enough to rejoin them, but never forgot his nurse and would occasionally pop in. Now the kitchen led out to a small hall, and the door to the yard was off to the left, but this did not faze the returning Percy, who banked in with a hard right turn and much frantically flappy braking to make the occasional spectacular entry if the kitchen door happened to be left open. He never stayed long, though - only flying visits...
Wednesday 16 November 2011
The Big Bang
05 Dec 2008
And now, as part of Radio Four's ˜Big Turn-on Day', we go over live to our reporter somewhere deep beneath Soho - John?
Hello, Sally, and welcome to the 'LHC', or the 'Large Hard-On Collider' deep beneath Soho - in fact this massive underground chamber spans the Soho-West End border. Soon in this room, researchers will bring a male sex worker and an anti-male (or 'female') together with tremendous energy.
What do you expect to see, John?
As much as possible, Sally. Possibly the ˜Jigs with Clothes On'
John - some outsiders have questioned the huge expense of this project?
Indeed, Sally. It cost me £100 just to get in.
There have also been some concerns expressed about the safety of this event. Many have suggested that ˜the Earth may move'. What are you hearing from the experts there, John?
Well, Sally, many of the experts I have spoken to here - especially female workers - have quite frankly laughed at that idea. They say any event will dissipate almost immediately - probably with a sound described as 'rather like snoring'.
Just before we leave you, John, can you set the scene? What's the feeling in the room just now?
Sally - there are a lot of people getting quite excited down here, I can tell you! Myself included, actually.
John - thank you for that report. We'll try to get back to you for a minute - after Woman's Hour...
I... I love you Sally!
Bye, John.
A musing train
29 Jun 2008
How I came to be on a coach from Newark to Grantham along with the girls from ‘Kirsty’s Hen Party’ and the members of the ‘Esh Winning Senior Citizen’s Social Club Outing to Mamma Mia’ might sicken anyone sensitive to expositing opening sentences, so I’ll move on. Or at least branch off on a sideline...
Thoughts from a train.
The old and the young have surprising things in common.
Microwaves, for example - both pensioners and youngsters (especially students) couldn’t survive without them.
Public transport. Buses are full of both - anyone else seems to be driving blacked-out 4X4s, or Subarus, the non-thinking man’s bling on wheels.
Neither are interested in politics.
At the extremes, the very young and the very old both end up in nappies. The wheel of life...
We pass a pub called ‘Middle of Nowhere’. Now there’s some refreshing honesty - I’d drink to that. I sometimes go to one that should be called ‘Great local apart from beer’. At least you would be prepared - it could even be a perverse selling point. Like Italian restaurants (we all know one) where people go to be insulted - it’s their version of breaking plates... More inventive pub names: how about ‘The Paper Shop’, then you could tell suspicious wife - ‘I’m just nipping down The Paper Shop, dear’. Possibly ‘Toms’s Place’ might work just as well...
Thoughts from a B&B.
Who designs a shower where the control starts at scalding, life-stoppingly hot, then gets colder as you rotate it? Is it the same person who designed those little metal tea pots, that (a) you can’t grip since the handle is metal, and ...er... gets hot, and (b) always dribble down the side of the spout as you pour?
Public transport. Buses are full of both - anyone else seems to be driving blacked-out 4X4s, or Subarus, the non-thinking man’s bling on wheels.
Neither are interested in politics.
At the extremes, the very young and the very old both end up in nappies. The wheel of life...
We pass a pub called ‘Middle of Nowhere’. Now there’s some refreshing honesty - I’d drink to that. I sometimes go to one that should be called ‘Great local apart from beer’. At least you would be prepared - it could even be a perverse selling point. Like Italian restaurants (we all know one) where people go to be insulted - it’s their version of breaking plates... More inventive pub names: how about ‘The Paper Shop’, then you could tell suspicious wife - ‘I’m just nipping down The Paper Shop, dear’. Possibly ‘Toms’s Place’ might work just as well...
Thoughts from a B&B.
Who designs a shower where the control starts at scalding, life-stoppingly hot, then gets colder as you rotate it? Is it the same person who designed those little metal tea pots, that (a) you can’t grip since the handle is metal, and ...er... gets hot, and (b) always dribble down the side of the spout as you pour?
Breakfast is the single most important thing about a B&B. Even if the bed is too short, the milk is long-life that has still managed to go off somehow and the sheets are pink bri-nylon, a couple of pieces of top class black pudding and some really tasty rashers make it all worthwhile.
Thoughts from a short break
Is a doublet like a singlet, but twice as long?
I decide to be a sparky person who has a notebook on him at all times and whips it out in a flash to write down wild and unlikely ideas as they race through my brain. I make my first entry: “Bought notebook and mechanical pencil from WH Smith. Price £3.70. Got some Terry’s orange chocolate bar at a discount in consequence.” Can’t decide whether to make it into a play or a heroic poem.
Was it not Herbert Mangle, the Wallsend Poet and Ernie Wise impersonator, who once wrote
O wandering muse, help me not lose
Thy spark of poem or play
And let me note it and fast wrote it
Or I’ll be here all day!
Final thought
"Line works at Newark".
Oh no it didn’t.
God, pills and birds - another walk in Surrey
09 Oct 2010
A day off, hints of one of the last mild sunny days of the year, so it must be time for another walk through Surrey woods...
Thanks to the wonderful bus-pass, I bus it to Shere to pick up from my last walk and head from Shere to Dorking along the top of the North Downs.
The start is the most heart-pumping section as I have to head up a wooded muddy and rutted footpath from Shere up the Downs to intersect the North Downs Way that runs along the top. (˜Up the Downs' - don't you love English? And when a batsmen is in he goes out, and when he's out he comes in... )
That gets a good sweat and heart-beat going, so at the top I pretend to look at my guide for a few minutes (‘Surrey walks for alcoholics' or something like that) until I start to cool down. For the next two or three miles this is really a gentle woodland stroll - firm wide path, canopy of trees, gentle bird song, filtered sunlight - very peaceful and relaxing. Since it is early October, there has been enough leaf fall to provide a red and gold path, yet there is still a bright green leafy canopy right over me. With the brown and silver tree trunks between, I'm walking through a colourful layer cake.
The next stage starts to wind in and out of the side of the Downs, so you start to have occasional excellent views south over the valley to the next ridge - The Greensand Ridge. By this time the sun has cleared the earlier slight mist and it's a perfect walking day - a 'goldilocks' walking day, not too hot, not too cold...
I hadn't expected such good views, and another thing I hadn't expected were pill-boxes. Ultimately I pass 7 or 8 during the walk, and of course, as this was the last range of hills before London, it was the perfect line to build a range of defensive pill boxes in the 40's when invasion seemed inevitable - they are just so incongruous now along this quiet woodland walk. One of them is even preserved by The National Trust and I take the chance to have a walk inside. I wouldn't want to spend too long cramped in there, Mr Mannering...
Surprise number three is not long coming. Whenever I stop from here onwards to look at the views or the guide, I become a 'lady magnet'. Sadly though, these are ladybirds. A sudden red hail deposits 10 or 12 of these on me - tiny red limpets on my shirt. One even seems to have a go at hiding in my right ear. If it's about to lay eggs in there I'm not having it (certainly not without rent) so they get chased away each time, including on one occasion a bee who seems to think that any human lay-by good enough for an army of ladybirds is good enough for him.
The path now dips into the woods, now out on to the downs, so you get both types of walk. Ranmore Common is supposedly an absolute haven for butterflies in the summer, but it's too late now, although one Red Admiral keeps the ladybirds company for a few yards.
I can see Dorking laid out now below - very pretty from up here - and I pass a man on a bench flapping away. "Ladybirds?" I ask, smiling, and he laughs... and flaps...
I start to imagine Bob Newhart doing one of his famous one-sided-conversation monologues. He phones God:
"Hey, God, Bob here. So - what you creating today?"
"A small flying insect? Ok, but we've got a lot of flies already, haven't we? Kind of a saturated market..."
"It has what? A shell? So where are the wings?"
"Oh - ok. So how do they come out?"
" 'The shell hinges open' ? ˜Like a DeLorean' ? "
"Does it go back to the future too?"
"No, no - it was a joke, God. A joke. No, no - forget it. I'm sure it's sensible. Hey - it's not as if it were covered in polka dots, eh? Ha, ha..."
"Oh... I see. Ok. No, no - that one wasn't a joke. Sorry. No - I'm sure it looks great."
"Ummm... Look, God, you've been working really hard recently, you know. Maybe you need to have a rest? How many days have you been working now?"
"Six days, non-stop? Man, I'd be seeing spots myself... Look - take a day off, relax, ok?"
"You were going to do what tomorrow? ˜Yorkshire'? Well, you've done the rough outline, right? "
"Ok - so just leave it like that, and have a break - they'll think it's supposed to look like that... trust me..."
Approaching the end of the walk now, and after a small section of road, I enter Denbies Estate and start to drop slowly down into Denbies vineyard. It's the biggest in the UK and from here I get a wonderful (and very un-English) view of a sea of close and precise rows of vines stretching out below me in the sunshine over gently sloping green hills. Mind you, apparently there are now over 400 vineyards in the UK, so it may become a more common site. Global warming has some pluses, then...
My walk ends as the footpath levels out and I walk in the late afternoon sunlight between acres of vines, and up ahead is the visitor's centre, where they may just do tastings. This has to be a very civilised way to end a walk - cheers!
Thanks to the wonderful bus-pass, I bus it to Shere to pick up from my last walk and head from Shere to Dorking along the top of the North Downs.
The start is the most heart-pumping section as I have to head up a wooded muddy and rutted footpath from Shere up the Downs to intersect the North Downs Way that runs along the top. (˜Up the Downs' - don't you love English? And when a batsmen is in he goes out, and when he's out he comes in...
That gets a good sweat and heart-beat going, so at the top I pretend to look at my guide for a few minutes (‘Surrey walks for alcoholics' or something like that) until I start to cool down. For the next two or three miles this is really a gentle woodland stroll - firm wide path, canopy of trees, gentle bird song, filtered sunlight - very peaceful and relaxing. Since it is early October, there has been enough leaf fall to provide a red and gold path, yet there is still a bright green leafy canopy right over me. With the brown and silver tree trunks between, I'm walking through a colourful layer cake.
The next stage starts to wind in and out of the side of the Downs, so you start to have occasional excellent views south over the valley to the next ridge - The Greensand Ridge. By this time the sun has cleared the earlier slight mist and it's a perfect walking day - a 'goldilocks' walking day, not too hot, not too cold...
I hadn't expected such good views, and another thing I hadn't expected were pill-boxes. Ultimately I pass 7 or 8 during the walk, and of course, as this was the last range of hills before London, it was the perfect line to build a range of defensive pill boxes in the 40's when invasion seemed inevitable - they are just so incongruous now along this quiet woodland walk. One of them is even preserved by The National Trust and I take the chance to have a walk inside. I wouldn't want to spend too long cramped in there, Mr Mannering...
Surprise number three is not long coming. Whenever I stop from here onwards to look at the views or the guide, I become a 'lady magnet'. Sadly though, these are ladybirds. A sudden red hail deposits 10 or 12 of these on me - tiny red limpets on my shirt. One even seems to have a go at hiding in my right ear. If it's about to lay eggs in there I'm not having it (certainly not without rent) so they get chased away each time, including on one occasion a bee who seems to think that any human lay-by good enough for an army of ladybirds is good enough for him.
The path now dips into the woods, now out on to the downs, so you get both types of walk. Ranmore Common is supposedly an absolute haven for butterflies in the summer, but it's too late now, although one Red Admiral keeps the ladybirds company for a few yards.
I can see Dorking laid out now below - very pretty from up here - and I pass a man on a bench flapping away. "Ladybirds?" I ask, smiling, and he laughs... and flaps...
I start to imagine Bob Newhart doing one of his famous one-sided-conversation monologues. He phones God:
"Hey, God, Bob here. So - what you creating today?"
"A small flying insect? Ok, but we've got a lot of flies already, haven't we? Kind of a saturated market..."
"It has what? A shell? So where are the wings?"
"Oh - ok. So how do they come out?"
" 'The shell hinges open' ? ˜Like a DeLorean' ? "
"Does it go back to the future too?"
"No, no - it was a joke, God. A joke. No, no - forget it. I'm sure it's sensible. Hey - it's not as if it were covered in polka dots, eh? Ha, ha..."
"Oh... I see. Ok. No, no - that one wasn't a joke. Sorry. No - I'm sure it looks great."
"Ummm... Look, God, you've been working really hard recently, you know. Maybe you need to have a rest? How many days have you been working now?"
"Six days, non-stop? Man, I'd be seeing spots myself... Look - take a day off, relax, ok?"
"You were going to do what tomorrow? ˜Yorkshire'? Well, you've done the rough outline, right? "
"Ok - so just leave it like that, and have a break - they'll think it's supposed to look like that... trust me..."
Approaching the end of the walk now, and after a small section of road, I enter Denbies Estate and start to drop slowly down into Denbies vineyard. It's the biggest in the UK and from here I get a wonderful (and very un-English) view of a sea of close and precise rows of vines stretching out below me in the sunshine over gently sloping green hills. Mind you, apparently there are now over 400 vineyards in the UK, so it may become a more common site. Global warming has some pluses, then...
My walk ends as the footpath levels out and I walk in the late afternoon sunlight between acres of vines, and up ahead is the visitor's centre, where they may just do tastings. This has to be a very civilised way to end a walk - cheers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)