|
1 June 2011
(Wednesday) - A Rant. (Sorry!)
Yesterday I ranted about kites being
banned at Bexhill. Today I’m going to rant some more about it. Because
it’s important, and because if you don’t stick up for yourself, you get
walked all over. And because I’m sick and tired of being
banned by officialdom. Many years ago, together with a gaggle of
mates, I'd go to "Star Trek Events". Between 1993 and 1997
we'd go to all sorts of trekkie-related things.
Conventions in the But not any more –
it all got banned. I used to keep large
snakes as a hobby. At first sight you might think it's a dangerous thing
to do, but you would be wrong, as anyone who’s ever held a royal python would
know. No one in the (Having said that, the hobby is once more
picking up, but realistically it is but a shadow of what it once was.) One of the pastimes for many years has been
mass outings to a lovely picnic site at Kearsney Abbey where anyone who knows
me will tell you what I do there. I guzzle two bottles of beer and fall
asleep. Not any more! I
can’t do that any more as the area is now a “zero
tolerance for alcohol” zone. I enjoy a cigar. I used to sometimes have as
many as six in a year. Now thanks to the smoking ban I can’t remember my last
cigar. In 2001 I bought my first power kite. It was
great fun. A few months after that we experimented with the fun and frolics
of people lifting and “arsing”, but it didn’t take long to realise
that what we were doing was potentially dangerous, not only to ourselves, but
to passers-by, so we formed a formal kite club and got insurance. Very soon
after this we began hearing rumours of certain councils banning kite flying
on their land. Wonderful! There is a Google group called rec.kites.
If you go back far enough on that site you’ll find my comments on the subject
are still there, some years later. But then – Salvation!! This bloke in
Yorkshire was getting in touch with all of the kite clubs in the So we joined up with them from the start,
enthusiastically supporting them. Mind you, they were never easy to support.
It took some weeks to get a straight answer to the question of how much they
wanted off of us as a subscription fee. Our enthusiasm was somewhat blunted
by the observation that as members we were liable for anything they did
wrong, and incredibly blunted by their flat refusal to take the problem
seriously. We let our affiliation lapse until such time
as the liability issue was sorted. During this time my support for the ideals
of this club remained as enthusiastic as ever. I would regularly post on
their club Internet forum, but as time went on, my enthusiasm was more for
the ideal than for the club itself. Having drawn up a constitution and having
very rudely told me how important said constitution was, the BKFA then
flaunted it several times. And so I for one rather resigned myself to
losing yet another hobby. And I was right. The ban at Bexhill is the thin end
of the wedge. Whilst there is some pyrrhic satisfaction in
saying “I told you so”, didn't I spend years ranting at the kite
flying community that this would happen? Didn't I? And did anyone listen? Did
they? Let’s no one act surprised about this. I
ranted about this over six years ago…… But ranting is easy. Doing something about
it….. is easy too. Should this ban be enacted at Bexhill, does anyone fancy
joining me in some mass civil disobedience? |
|
2 June 2011
(Thursday) - Stuff
After brekkie I popped to Asda for various
bits and bobs. Amongst the stuff they were flogging this morning was washing
up bowls. It was pointed out last weekend that some of the bowls we take
camping have seen better days, so I thought I’d get new ones. At the bargain
price of three for a fiver, it wasn’t to be sniffed at. However there was a
problem. When I came to pay for them at the self-service checkout, the device
had a minor humdinger. Its programming couldn’t comprehend anyone buying
three washing-up bowls. It flashed up a warning about triplicate item
purchase, and flashed the “ask the nice lady” warning. Eight members
of staff then ignored me. Eight! – I counted them. As a ninth tried to ignore
me I made great show of shouting at her and loudly broadcasting my problems.
She politely (but firmly) told me that it wasn’t anything she could
deal with: she’s not trusted on the tills. I firmly and noisily (but not
politely) told her to go and get someone who was trusted on the tills. A manager-type came over to find out what all
the noise was about. I explained that I quite understand that the machines
are fallible, and that not all of the staff are till-worthy. But that it was
rather frustrating to be obviously studiously ignored. Picking up my sack barrow from HomeBase was (in comparison) utterly painless. Work was much the same as ever, and after
work a gaggle of colleagues went into town to the Wetherspoons’s curry night.
After a quick diversion for a McFlurry we had a pint and ordered our food. In
retrospect a vindaloo was perhaps not the most sensible of choices, but it (eventually)
went down well. There are those that run down Wetherspoons,
but I must admit to liking them. They aren’t the most up-market
establishments; the food isn’t haute-cuisine, and the service often
leaves a lot to be desired. But a curry, dessert, two pints of ale, and
change out of a tenner isn’t to be sniffed at…. |
3
June 2011 (Friday) - Exploration
I started reading a new book on my Kindle today – the memoirs of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton is a personal hero of mine. He was a major figure in Antarctic exploration; at one point holding the world record for the person who’d got closest to the South Pole. I won’t go into endless details of his life – there’s a good summary here. A brief synopsis would be that despite three failed Antarctic expeditions, he was embarking on his fourth one when he dropped dead. (That’s what being British is!) What I find so amazing about the chap is that he was one of the last “proper” explorers. I’m currently reading about his expedition of 1914 in which he planned to cross the Antarctic from one side to the other, via the South Pole. He didn’t quite achieve it; in fact he never quite got started. But he got to the Antarctic, and made his way through hundreds of miles of uncharted oceans and ice floes and coastlines. He was going through utterly unexplored territory. He was drawing the maps as he went along, naming mountains, cliffs, beaches and other geographical features after the patrons who’d financed his expedition. And had he actually managed to start his intented traverse, he may well have been utterly scuppered by as-yet undiscovered mountain ranges. But the fear of the unknown didn’t bother him. Or any of the other explorers of his time (or earlier). There will never be an age of exploration quite like Shackleton's. Even as mankind (slowly) reaches for the Moon, Mars, and beyond, everywhere we go will have been mapped out by satellite radar long before any explorers get going. And the same satellite technology will allow explorers on the ground to locate themselves on their maps to within a yard or so thanks to the wonders of GPS technology. Whilst our interplanetary explorers will be brave and bold, they will none of them face the unknown in quite the same way that Sir Ernest once did…. These profound thoughts came to me today,
when ‘er indoors TM and I field tested her latest
acquisition: a set of cards detailing short walks round We had a wonderful walk: ‘er indoors TM missed seeing the fox, but we both saw the water vole – I’d never seen one before. I know it was a water vole because I took a photo and looked it up when we got home. And we will do more of these walks. Yesterday I thought of them as walks into unexplored territory. Now I know that they are only unexplored by me. No one has been to "unexplored territory" since Sir Ernest died… |
|
4 June 2011 (Saturday) - One Step Beyond....
The last two days have taken their toll. My
stomach’s not been right for a day or so. I blame Thursday night’s curry. The
menu did rate my vindaloo at six chillies, and the next hottest dish only had
four. But it was tasty at the time. I expect my insides will be back to usual
(if not “normal”) in a day or so. As well as intestinal discomfort (posh for
excessive farting) I also woke this morning feeling almost unable to
move. I’m getting un-fit. I think I need to do more walks like yesterday’s. I worked this morning: I wasn’t rota-ed to, but the
boss was, and she wasn’t keen to work. Did I want to do her shift? So I had
the chance of overtime and I took it. After a dull morning I came home and cleaned out
the fish pond filter, then (having scrubbed myself) I ironed for two
hours, whilst watching the film “Aliens”. And then, having fallen
asleep for an hour or so after the film, the day had been pretty much wasted. Fortunately we had plans for the evening. To Fortunately for all, we soon reached our
destination. A friend of a friend’s daughter is a member of the Stage Theatre Society, and tonight
they put on “Our House”:
the Madness equivalent of “Mamma Mia”. As a young lad in the late 70s
I was there when Madness first appeared on the music scene. I remember when “Baggy
Trousers” and “Night Boat to Cairo” first came out. And so I
really enjoyed tonight’s show, quietly singing along to all of the songs.
Mind you, the plot was somewhat difficult to figure out, but if you’ve seen
the movie “Sliding
Doors”, you’d soon get the hang of what was going on. I for one had
an wonderful evening. (And on the way home we got to see a seriously
foxy transvestite, which isn’t something you see every day). However (and there is always a “however”),
I’ve always said that I don’t like going to the cinema; preferring to see the
film in comfort at home. The same is doubly true of theatre. Tonight’s show
was excellent; there’s no denying that. However (like every performance
I’ve seen at the Hazlett Theatre) the hard work of the performers was let
down by the sound system. For about half the time it was not possible to hear
the actors because the band’s music was too loud. The theatre was too hot,
and I was very uncomfortable and very sweaty for the entire performance. And then there was the Great Unwashed. There was a
constant stream of the Lower Orders walking in and out of the theatre on
various missions of their own. The porky biddy next to me stank to high
heaven, and wouldn’t shut up about her grand daughter
who was playing the part of “second baggy trouser”. And I came very
close to slapping the prat in the queue for the ice cream stall who was
oblivious to the rest of the world. Could he honestly not see that whilst he
was attempting to charm his way into the knickers of the young lady selling
ice creams, the queue was growing longer each second? The same company will be putting on a production of
“Les Miserables” in a few months time. For all that I know I would really enjoy the
show itself, I might give that one a miss…. |
|
5 June 2011 (Sunday)
– Fossils
Anyone who knows me will know that I organise
my calendar. I plan for events months in advance. There are several reasons
for this – it’s very easy to find that I’ve agreed to go to several
conflicting events; it’s very easy for me to forget about events, and that if
I don’t have something planned, it’s very easy to waste precious time doing
nothing. Some months ago when making plans, bearing in
mind that this would be the first weekend in June we naively thought that
this would be a good day to go to the beach. We woke to find light drizzle,
but if we gave up every time the weather was against us, we’d give up an
awful lot. We set off, only ten minutes later than
planned, and narrowly avoiding the police speed trap at Cliff End, we arrived
at our destination (Cliff End) five minutes before the Folkestone
contingent arrived. We had a quick cuppa, and then wandered down to the
cliffs, where we embarked on our fossil hunt. Fossil hunting is rather akin to arky-ologee. It involves taking an inordinate amount of
time to not find very much. But occasionally there’s something worth having.
And there’s probably more to be found in fossil hunting that in arky-ologee. I
think it’s fair to say that in an hour’s fossiling
we found far more than we ever would in a day’s arky-ologing.
We found fossilised sponges, fishes teeth, fossilised wood, and even a
crocodile’s scrote. And I got to clout things with
a great big hammer too (!) It took me a little while to realise that one
shouldn’t bam just any old rock; fossils are (apparently) quite fussy
about where they lurk. But I soon found the right sort of rock. Having got the hang of what I was supposed to
do, it would have been good to have continued, but the rain was getting
heavier and heavier. And the tide was coming in fast. Very fast. So not
wanting to get cut off we beat a hasty retreat back to the cars. On the way
back we were accosted by a normal person who asked if we knew anything about
fossils. We laughed, but he was serious, and he showed us his find. We
scratched out heads over what he’d found, and eventually concluded that it
was some sort of stone. Possibly a rock or even a boulder. The normal person
didn’t seem impressed with our sage wisdom, and we left him to get cut off by
the tide and we went back to the cars for our picnic. The original plan has
us picnic-ing on the beach. In the end we picnic-ed
in the cars to shelter from the rain. As the rain increased from “deluge” to
“monsoon” we sadly gave up with the beach, and drove into |
|
6 June 2011 (Monday)
– Stuff
I suspect that I don’t like the attempt at
having bits of an ongoing story interspersed in various episodes. They should
either have a story in several episodes, or have the stories utterly separate
from each other. Having silly little disjointed fragments here, there and
thither is not keeping my attention – it’s just annoying. Doctor Who is now on hold over the summer and
returns in September. While I’m keen for its return I’m hoping for the best
whilst expecting the worst. This morning I had an email from Aleksandra;
a Russian lady of (presumably) dubious morals. Her email was entitled
“Amorous message #17375756”. I must admit I wasn’t impressed at being
her 17375756th choice. But as well as asking for my hand in
marriage, she assured me that she’s never married (a) lady with hazel
eyes and brown hair. I’m not sure if that is good or bad. Here’s
an interesting tale. Canadian parents David Stocker and Kathy Witterick have had a baby. That’s nothing unusual –
parents have babies all over the world. Baby boys and baby girls. However
this baby is neither. Yet. The parents have decided not to tell the world
what gender the child is (biologically): the idea being that “they
want (the child) to discover him/herself by shielding the child from cultural
influences that would otherwise influence gender identity”. An admirable
sentiment in a perfect world. But we don’t live in a perfect world. My
first thought was that in this imperfect world all these silly parents are
doing is ensuring that the child will receive a serious dose of bullying and
victimisation at school should the boy like playing with dolls, or the girl
like football. But then I thought again. If a boy of twenty
years ago liked playing with dolls, of a girl of twenty years ago liked
football then there might have been problems.Nowadays
does it really matter? I can’t help but feel that these people’s
silly idea will achieve nothing other than make the child the attention of a
media circus. And if that doesn’t screw up the child’s sense of
self-identity, nothing will…. |
|
7 June 2011
(Tuesday) - More Stuff
Having lain awake for what seemed like hours, I
gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs and put on a South Park DVD. I
selected “Play All”, and woke up with a stiff neck two hours later. If
only I could sleep where and when I’m supposed to sleep. To Asda to buy lunch. Having spent a small fortune
on my Kindle, I was somewhat dismayed to see that they were selling Binatone e-book readers at a third of the price of a
Kindle. I contented myself with the fact that I knew the Binatone brand. I can remember that as a child the Binatone brand was (in my experience) synonymous with
cheap and nasty. And then I realised that my experience was of thirty-odd
years ago. If Binatone are still going after all
these years, they can’t be all bad. And so I sulked for an hour or so. My sulking wasn’t improved by the news on the
radio. The government has announced its latest anti-terrorism measures. They are going to stop funding
extremists. Wow!! I wonder how many think-tanks it took to come up with
that stroke of genius? And then there was an article about the latest
proposed changes to the NHS. I’ve maintained for a long time that the NHS
doesn’t need change; it needs years of stability to actually get on with the
business of health care, rather than struggling with the business of coping
with endless political reorganisations. Interestingly the pundit on the radio agreed with
me. He explained that no reform of the NHS has ever been planned or
evaluated. He claimed that all the NHS reforms had been instigated and
abandoned at the whim of the prevailing political climate at the time, and
likened the reasoning used as being akin to Sooty waving a magic wand. That cheered me up. And so home, where I loaded the car up with all the
camping gear. I say “all” – I mean enough to be getting on with for
today. I’ve got all the tents, chairs and tables loaded up. The more
important stuff (like the beer) will be packed tomorrow. I’ve just realised I’ve forgotten to pack the
dingy…. |
|
8 June 2011
(Wednesday) - Even More Stuff
Again after having lain awake for ages, I
went downstairs and put on a South Park DVD only to wake up with a stiff neck
two hours later. And then to work, which was much the same as ever.
Fortunately being on an early start made for an early finish, and I came home to finish the packing. I eventually
found “Daddies Little Angel TM ” ‘s
dingy. It was in a tent bag. I can’t help but wonder whatever possessed me to
put it in a tent bag. I also found the washing bowls I’d lost. We’ve now got
nine. Talking of lost things, I found the spanner I use to assemble the
buggy. I shan’t need it for a year, but I know where it is. I’ve also aquired a length of hose pipe (from the home brew kit)
which will hopefully save my back when I’m on water duty whilst at camp. On
the other hand I’ve lost my flannel. I shall wash with a pair of pants
instead – they will do the same job. Whilst loading the last of the odds and ends
into my car I noticed that my neighbour (the ones that hate me) was
parking her car, so I stood and watched. Watching her park her car is a sight
to behold. She cuts across the traffic and reverses so that the rear end of
her car is square with the pavement – actually at right angles to the
position the car should be in. She then shunts forward and backward (sometimes
for over half an hour) until she’s turned her car through a right angle
and has it parking against the flow of traffic. Having watched her parking (and
driving in general) I am convinced that she can’t have passed her driving
test. But the car is taxed (and therefore presumably insured). Talking of neighbours’ the ones we get on
with have taken over feeding the Koi for the weekend. She told me that her
lad goes to cubs where I was a leader, and that the leaders there send their
regards. Whilst I really should pop round and see how they are at some point,
I *really* don’t want to because I just know that I’ll volunteer to take on
something or other to do with the scout group, and having done the scout
thing for thirteen years I really think that I’ve done my bit. And having got the packing done rather
quicker than I was expecting I’ve got the next batch of home brew into a
barrel. It’s a light coloured summer ale, and is as yet un-named. Suggestions
are welcomed. And today’s photo is one of the space
shuttles docked at the I.S.S. We won’t see the like of this again. (Well,
maybe once more). As a child I had such high hopes for the future of
humanity…. |
|
9 June 2011 (Thursday) - Off to Teston
With the loading up all done, over a spot of
brekkie I saw that B&Q were selling small gazebos for seventeen quid, and
bearing in mind the weather forecast wasn’t good, I thought it wouldn’t hurt
to have some shelter. We set off arguably far too early and made our way
to Teston via B&Q for a gazebo. The traffic on the way wasn’t good, but
we arrived on the field before10am, and set to setting up camp. With rain
forecast for 1pm I wanted to have all the tents up before the rain started.
And we achieved this. We even had time to put the curtains up in “Brown
and Smelly” – a tent’s not a tent without curtains. And these were
particularly sexy curtains. Having put the tents away wet two weeks ago I was
pleased to find they hadn’t grown any mould. Another pair of friends arrived in their camping
van and caravan, and we greeted our old friends before having an inaugural
pint of beer. ‘er indoors TM and Tony arrived shortly after, and we had a
bite of lunch, including a Wagon Wheel. Apparently when eating a Wagon Wheel
you have to “grin to get it in.” I would recommend that my loyal
readers bear that adage in mind (!) And with lunch scoffed I decided to try
out my new water-fetching apparatus. Collecting the water at Teston Kite
Festival is something of a caper: there is a tap in the gents some hundreds
of yards away from where we camp, and in the past we’ve struggled with pliers
to work the tap (the tap has no handle), and we’ve strained ourselves
holding the water container under the tap (the water sprays everywhere)
and we’ve done ourselves mischief trying to haul the water back to camp. This
year I was going to simplify the job with a handle and a hose for the tap,
and a sack barrow for lugging the filled water container. In theory this
should have worked well: in practice my tap handle only worked in one
direction. It turned water on. It didn’t turn water off. Fortunately I had a
pair of pliers in my pocket. Having had the forecast rain at 1pm, the weather
cheered up, and we got kites out. Whilst ‘er indoors TM flew her spirit nicely, the Rear Admiral and
me flew his NASA power wing. I even put on my battle nappy and had a go at
arsing. For those of my loyal readers who are as yet unaccustomed to “battle
nappies” and “arsing”, a battle nappy is a harness one wears
around one’s hips when flying a power kite. The handles of the kite line
attach to the harness, and when one flies the kite in a sitting position one
is dragged around the field on one’s arse. Hence the expression “arsing”.
And then we sheltered from the rain. Batty arrived
and did us fajitas for tea. Very nice! And then my brother arrived to set up
his tent. He was only able to come out for one day (Saturday) and so
to save time, I’d suggested that he set his tent up early. Once his tent was up we had a wander round the
field, and after he was on his way home we settled down to do the Rear
Admiral’s crossword over a pint. There were also mathematical brain teasers
which I think had the wrong solutions given. But then I would, wouldn’t I? By now it was very dark, and we could see some
lights in the field. Someone was lamping for rabbits. We left him to it (as
it was nothing to do with us) and seeing that the clouds had parted and
that the stars had come out, we spent five minutes stargazing. I spotted
three separate Castor and Polluxes in various parts
of the sky. And so to bed at 12.30am, where ‘er indoors TM
was doing a silent version of the Birdie Dance. I am reliably assured she
had a valid reason for doing this, but I shall let her version of history give the
explanation…. |
|
10 June 2011 (Friday) - It Rained
An uncomfortable night: incredibly cold, and ‘er
indoors TM and her airbed managed to take up all the space in
the tent, leaving very little (i.e. none at all) for “Yours Truly”.
And it was a noisy night too – the assorted wildlife was making a terrible
din all night long, including heart-rending screaming noises. I have since
been assured that these screams were made by rabbits falling prey to foxes.
But there were a lot of these screams. I lay in bed till 7am when the urge to tiddle
became too much, and I got up to find the field awash with fog. Very scenic.
As I performed my morning ablutions I made polite conversation with passing
dog walkers; none of whom seemed at all fazed to find a fat balding man (wearing
only shorts) having a strip wash and shave in the middle of a field.
There was a minor dilemma as I ran out of shaving gel, and I spent ten
minutes wrestling with the gas regulator. And having made myself a cup of
coffee I then spent two hours sheltering from the rain whilst waiting for
everyone else to get up. After brekky, Jose arrived just in time to see our
washing up getting done, and as the rain slackened off to a medium monsoon I
put up our second new gazebo. Having been rather impressed with our first
B&Q gazebo we bought yesterday, I’d asked ‘er indoors TM to
obtain us a second one. CA then arrived with littlun, and we put up Time for lunch, and as the rain slackened off, I
moved my chair outside. We sampled my latest home brew “Test ‘Un” and
had a cheese roll. And then I dozed off, only to wake an hour later to find I
was on my own, sitting in the rain. After the thunderstorm had passed I found
a wasp’s nest within a few yards of our camp. That was handy (!) so I
set up the wasp trap. By now the tribes were gathering, and the field was
starting to fill up. For some reason we’d been selected as being
responsible enough to be trusted with the locking of the gates to the field,
and so having chased the doggers out of the car park we locked up. And went
back to base for more beer. On arrival at base we turned round and unlocked
the gate to let in the late arrivals. By now I was worn out with walking up
and down the field, so we rewarded ourselves with port and cheese. And then a
second bottle of port and more cheese, finally staggering off to bed at 1am. |
|
11 June 2011
(Saturday) - Teston Kite Festival
Another restless night, with the noise of
rain on the tents, rain falling from trees onto my tent, and zips opening and
closing. Following a call of nature I found myself opening the gate to the
field at 6am. Perhaps too early to be opening the gate, but I was in the
general vicinity of the gate at the time… Following my ablutions I then dozed in our
communal mess tent until everyone was up and about and brekky was served. And
as more people arrived I played with my air-yo
until lunch time. A bottle of stout with bread and cheese was perfect, and I
then dozed for an hour or so. And then the rain had gone, and the wind had
picked up a little, so we got out the power kites and played silly beggars
with them. After all, is there anything that one can do with a power kite
other than playing silly beggars? The Rear Admiral had a go at arsing, but
went face first, and was proudly showing blood stains among the grass stains.
And then my nephew learned how to fly his delta. Twenty of us sat down for a wonderful bit of
tea, and following washing up we watched the Old Gits playing with their
spud gun. And then we wandered back to base camp for a crafty half. On the
way back to base camp I was given a message – would I be gatekeeper again? So
I locked up, and then…… As the evening wore on, so I got more and
more tired, and so I sat and listened to the chat in between dozing. I could
vaguely hear one of my nephew’s mates getting rather drunk and raucous and
offensive. And then this lad was firmly put in his place. And then another
nephew’s drunken mate made a complete tit of himself by trying to act as
peacemaker when he should really have gone to bed. Perhaps I should have told
the boys off there and then, but they’d been firmly told that they were out
of order. And then the first drunken child started pissing in our mess tent.
I saw red. I’ve not actually shouted “Just F@*!
Off!!!” at someone for over ten years (that time, it was my boss(!)),
and perhaps my ranting and screaming at the drunken child at 2am wasn’t the
most opportune time for me to have had a rant. But one of the advantages of
being a (generally) amiable and easy-going kind of guy is that when I
do have a screaming fit, people sit up and take notice. I’ve told my nephew it’s entirely up to him
to choose his friends, but that this particular friend is not welcome in our
campsite again. Harsh? Perhaps. Following this little bout of excitement the
adrenaline was running, and I finally went to bed shortly after 3am. |
|
12 June 2011 (Sunday)
- Rained Off
I didn’t sleep very well, and despite a good
gutful of ale and port, I only slept for two hours, opening the gate at 6am.
I then spent a little while tidying up the wreckage of the previous evening’s
drinking session. Being rather “oiled” at the time myself, it never
occurred to me to wonder how my nephew’s idiot mates had gotten that oiled as
well. I found out as I tidied up. Our half-bottle of Southern Comfort was
empty. As was our quarter bottle of vodka. And the full bottle of home made wine the park ranger had given us. And most of
the bottles of lager that my brother had brought along. And I’m sure my
barrel of home-brew was a lot emptier than how I’d left it. After brekkie I refilled the water container
and gossiped with Simon. And then I had a look at Simon then roasted a Camembert for our lunch,
and we played Blokus as we listened to the rain of
the tent. ‘er indoors TM was about to go shopping for the
makings of tea when we stopped and had a think. The weather was awful with no
respite forecast. With “Daddies Little Angel TM
” ill and going home with the next transport, were we to stay overnight
there would be four of us to take down a wet camp. At that moment there were
eleven of us. So we decided to abandon ship. Normally taking down the camp
takes most of a morning. With the concerted effort of eleven of us we were
packed up and on the way home in less
than two hours. We’ve still got a wet mess tent and our tent
and it’s groundsheet to dry off, but were we to stay we would probably have
had that anyway. Much as I enjoy camping, when camping one is seriously at
the mercy of the elements, and today (and all this camp really) the
elements had not been kind to us. Which was a shame…. |
|
13 June 2011 (Monday)
- Bayham Old Abbey
I went to bed last time, listening to the
rain in a rather smug sort of way. Camping is all good fun when it’s warm and
dry. And you can cope with a degree of cold and wet. And this morning I awoke
to find it had rained seriously hard overnight: the water level in my fish
pond had gone up a couple of inches. For all that it was mostly dry today,
the grass in the garden was still wet at midday. If I had any doubts about
the sensibility of packing up camp early yesterday; I’m now convinced we made
the right decision. Talking of decisions, I’ve told my nephew not
to bring his idiot friend camping again. Over the years we’ve had no end of
kids and teenagers camping with us in various places, and this is the first
time there’s ever been a major problem. My immediate reaction yesterday was
to ban all under-18s from our mess tent. Which would have been utterly unfair
on the vast majority of under-18s because they are (99.9+%) decent
well-mannered people. People like my nephew’s idiot friend annoy
me. Not so much because of their behaviour, but because the actions of one
idiot spoil everything for everyone else. He made me (nearly) tar everyone of his age with the same brush when I know full
well that not all youngsters are like that. And I don’t like that! Take for example the contingent that “My
Boy TM ” is currently with. A gaggle of them set off to I woke rather early this morning very
conscious of all the wet tents needing drying, and seeing how it wasn’t
actually raining at the time I thought I’d get some of the tents on the line.
After all, if it should start raining they were already wet. I got my tent’s
groundsheet on the washing line… How easy it is to type that: I wrestled with
the thing for forty minutes, covering myself with day-old mud from the
groundsheet. And having got it on the line I realised that having fought like
that with a groundsheet, there was no way I could do anything else on my own.
So I went back to bed. After a bit of a lie-in and a bit of brekkie I
enlisted the help of ‘er indoors TM. The groundsheet was
dry, but the grass was still very wet, so we got the groundsheet in without
letting it get near the ground, which is another thing much easier said than
done. And then we pegged out our tent on the washing line and left it for the
day. We mucked and fiddled about for the morning
putting the last of the bits and bobs from camping away. And at midday I went
out to see our tent. Not quite dry. I then noticed my feet were wet. For all
that the rain had stopped, the grass was still sodden. Again feeling
vindicated for packing up camp early we decided to do something with the day
we had taken off work. We started with McDinner.
There were a whole load of soldiers at McDonalds. Soldiers all have their
names emblazoned on their uniform chests. I sniggered at Private Sergeant; I
don’t think he saw me. It’s odd; for all that soldiers have guns I felt
somehow reassured that there were a gaggle of squaddies in McDonalds. I
know that I would have felt most uncomfortable if there was a similar
contingent of police in their place. And then we went on to Bayham
Old Abbey. The official line is that Bayham Old Abbey makes “a
fascinating day out on the Kent Sussex border. The impressive ruins include
much of the 13th to 15th-century church, the chapter house, and a picturesque
14th-century gatehouse”. My personal view is that it’s not a bad place to
waste half an hour purely because I get in free with my English Heritage
membership. It’s not worth the fiver (near enough) that the general
punter would have to pay. We came home via the caravan shop in Hurst
Green where they had the same chair that he Rear Admiral used this weekend.
For ten quid cheaper than he paid for it. I did snigger. And then on to
John’s Cross. I wanted one or two camping bits, but we found ourselves
spending about an hour looking at the motorhomes. We can’t afford one yet,
but one day….. |
|
14 June 2011 (Tuesday) - Road Trip
I woke feeling rather exhausted after a night of
very vivid dreaming. Perhaps I shouldn’t eat Monster Munch just before bed
time. Over brekkie I spent a little time looking at some of the blog’s
settings including font sizes and the like. I’ve also (hopefully) made
the blog appear much better when viewed on mobile devices. Having said that
it looks awful on my mobile, but then most stuff does. I think that when I
bought my SmartPhone I actually got a DumbPhone. For all that one hears talk of “Android”
and “iPhone”, having bought one I’ve never heard any mention of the
Nokia N8. I also updated the “Dates for the Diary”
section of the blog – I now have stuff planned for most of the weekends over
the summer. This leaves me with precious little time for fishing. Talking of
which, if anyone would like to take up membership of a rather exclusive
syndicate with rights to fish a private late just outside Ashford (for
only twenty quid a year), please let me know. Having spread the canvas of our mess tent out to
dry and having put my tent’s carpet on the washing line I then phoned Kent
Police. Whilst on a shopping mission when camping last week, ‘er indoors TM
inadvertently parked where she shouldn’t and got a parking ticket from “AM
Secure Services Ltd”. I phoned the Old Bill to check the validity of this
parking ticket. The Old Bill neither knew nor cared and said to phone Tesco.
Tesco didn’t care either. They changed their tune slightly when I told them
that I was going to tell the hundreds of people at the kite festival to do
their shopping elsewhere. But they still maintained it wasn’t their problem. So in the end I phoned “AM Secure Services Ltd”
themselves and told them I had some land I might like to use as a car park. I
asked how they would deal with someone who wouldn’t pay the parking ticket.
Eventually they said they would take the person to court, and whether or not
the court ruled in favour of the parker or the ticketing company was entirely
down to the whim of the presiding judge. I’ve told ‘er indoors TM
that if it was me who’d had the ticket I’d let them take me to court. And seeing as today was booked as holiday I went on
a bit of a road trip. First of all to PC World to have a look-see. Since I
got the new wireless modem I’ve had far fewer (i.e. hardly any)
connection problems. And since I abandoned using Safari as a browser and went
to Firefox instead I’ve had far fewer (i.e. hardly any) incidents of
the PC freezing up. But it wouldn’t hurt to see how much replacing the PC is
going to cost. And I got the answer – about five hundred quid. I then popped
into the Home Brew shop to get the makings of some beer for our next trip to
Teston. I expect that I shall be there again in August, but there’s no
denying that following two wet camps I’m rather having a downer on the idea
of camping at the moment. Mind you not that much of a downer – I then went on
to Aldi in Hythe because I’d heard they were selling self-inflating camping
mattresses cheaply. They were. I picked one up for twelve quid. It still
remains to be seen how much of a bargain it actually was. The last one sprung
a rupture last weekend and had lasted about four years. Camping shops are
doing them for about twenty five quid, so I would hope that this one will
last me at least two seasons. And then onwards. As I drove through Folkestone I
saw the house that we rented for two years (Sept 84 – Apr 86) is currently
up for sale. It’s listed as having four bedrooms: it had one when we
rented it. I wonder what’s going on there? I’m very tempted to arrange a
viewing just to be nosey. I then popped in to the Battle of Britain museum to
use their facilities. Whilst I was there I bought a souvenir bookmark – the
shop was closed when I called in last year. I then went to a car showroom in Capel – the last
time I drove past they were selling motorhomes and campervans. They weren’t
today. So I kept on going and eventually found the camping shop in Sturry where I had a look-see. The pet shop next door was
interesting as always, and the motorhomes round the corner were cheap. Mind
you they weren’t unlocked. The bloke there offered to open the one(s)
I wanted to look at and stand over me, but I wasn’t keen to have this sort of
pressure, so I thanked him and made my way to the motorhome showroom in And so home where I slept through the third “Alien”
film. And once I awoke I folded away the last of the camping gear which I’d
popped on the line this morning. I was going to then put my tent, the carpet
and the mess tent away, but the lock-ups are full to the point of being
overflowing already. So I need to strip them all out and re-pack them. That
which needs to go away can stay in the shed for the time being: I’ll worry
about it later… Meanwhile if any of my loyal readers think I might
be storing any camping gear, tents or chairs for them, could they please
retrieve them by the end of the week. There is stuff in there which I know is
not mine, and I do not have enough space in the garden lock-ups. That which
is still unclaimed on Sunday will be either eBay-ed or taken to the tip (!) |
|
15 June 2011 (Wednesday) - A Lunar Eclipse
Back to work after a few days off, and within a few
minutes it was as though I had never been away. It’s not that I actively
dislike my job: more that I’ve been doing it since September 1981, and I’m so
bored with it. We had the weekly weigh-in; I’ve not lost any
weight since last week, nor have I gained any. Which in a non-dieting frame
of mind is probably how it should be.
Apart from a colleague crashing his bicycle, the rest of the day was
dull, and I came home to sleep in front of my PC for an hour or so. And then after a cracking bit of scoff we set off
to Folkestone. A few weeks ago As the cloud thickened and we lost sight of By now the mist was rolling in, and it was no
longer possible to see Capel which was only one mile distant, and one or two
of the more fair-weather astronomers were beginning to speculate on the
possibility of daring to question the wisdom of attempting to see the moon
when we couldn’t actually see the end of the street. And there’s no denying
that had this event not been run in conjunction with SEKAS but had been run
just by the Ashford Astronomical Society, we would all have gone inside and
looked at pictures of what an eclipse would look like if there was no clouds. The mist was rather thick by this point, and it was
raining; so much so that my trousers were soaked and my pants were damp. So
we decided to give up and try again next time. Next time being 7pm on Saturday 10 December. See
you then…? |
|
16 June 2011
(Thursday) - This n That
Following on from a talk I gave to the astro
club last year, the nice people at the South East Kent Astronomical
Society have asked me to talk to them. Well, not so much talk to them as
give a lecture. I’ve given loads of talks on astronomically-related subjects
before, but they have mostly been to my own astro club where they all know
me. I’m the amiable harmless bloke on the door who sells raffle tickets (noisily).
But SEKAS say on their website “ALL our speakers are distinguished and are
worthy of support and should be honoured with a good-sized audience.” I
somehow can’t see myself as “distinguished”, but I won’t tell them
that. I’ll let them find out the hard way. I’ve got a lecture on comets which
I’m preparing for our own astro club. I’ll give them the same talk
and see if they like it. After all, the worst that can happen is that they
won’t ask me back again. A late start gave me some time to fiddle around
putting the finishing touches to this talk on comets. Having gone through it
a few times I can’t help but feel it’s a bit light on knob jokes, but that’s
not necessarily a bad thing for an astronomical lecture. And so to work. Yesterday I mentioned that a
colleague had crashed his bicycle. I saw him in the gents as I came into
work. He was dusting himself down as best he could. He had a nasty graze on
his arm, and I suggested that (since we work in a hospital anyway) he
might pop up to the A&E department and get himself a once-over. He wasn’t
too keen on the idea initially, but I insisted. As he went he said that his
side did hurt. This morning we found that he’d got a
deflated lung and a broken thumb. It’s made me think twice about getting back
on my pedal bike. After work was committee meeting – the astro
club is making plans. Possibly a day out at Herstmonceux
Castle, probably something for “Observe the Moon Night”,
definitely a new club logo for clothing and merchandising. All sorts of stuff
in the pipeline. The club is going from strength to strength. And in closing, some news from over the
Channel. A few days ago I mentioned that “My Boy TM ” has
gone to Bearing in mind his definition of “a big
fish” starts at over twice the weight of the biggest fish I’ve ever
caught, I’m tempted to go with him next year. |
|
17 June 2011 (Friday) - Some Ranting
An interesting article: there may well be Bigfoots
in the And then I read the article some more. The bloke
who claims to have found the Bigfoot fur runs a website.
On this website he posts crackpot gibberish about UFO sightings, ghosts,
conspiracy theory nonsense and no end of old tripe. Why is it that non-loony people rarely report
seeing Bigfoots or UFOs or ghosts? Having seen what I think may well have
been a ghost myself, I know that my experience doesn’t mesh at all with what
the paranormalist crackpots would have us believe. And then I found that a good friend had posted
something onto my Facebook page. The article warned us not to expect to
inherit great sums of money from our parents. What with one thing and another
the article seemed to think that most people won’t have great heaps of cash
to pass on to their descendants when the reaper comes calling. But realistically are people seriously waiting for
their parents to croak in order to maintain financial solvency? I actually
laughed out loud when the phrase “needy children” was used to describe
the average man in the street. At forty seven (and a third) years old
I can hardly be described as a “needy child”. But apparently one person in ten is depending on an
inheritance to pay their pension. Bearing in mind how much cash one gets from
the sale of someone’s estate, and also bearing in mind the general cost of
living, this one person in ten must either be the offspring of someone very
rich or living in cloud cuckoo land. Talking of cloud cuckoo land, my piss boiled when I
read a comment on a good friend’s blog this morning. My friend is not well:
she is looking at embarking on another course of therapy which will involve
drugs and feeling very sick and nauseous. She is understandably nervous about
the prospect, and is wondering if embarking on this would be for the best. Someone has commented on her blog “…but I do
think that we (the patients) have a RIGHT to say what we want, and When we
want it, and how we want it. No matter what that IT is.” I *so* disagree with the whole concept of “patient
choice”. When a consultant physician (hospital doctor) proposes a
course of treatment, it will be the treatment that in their opinion would
give the optimum result. Any deviation from that course of treatment will (by
definition) give a non-optimal outcome. Those who advocate “patient choice” are
often doing so to people who are ill, and are often a little confused and
unsure. And these people find themselves having their confidence in their
doctors undermined by those who (while are very well-meaning) have
absolutely no medical knowledge or experience whatsoever. “Patient Choice” works well in alternative (crackpot)
medicine because alternative (crackpot) medicine is mostly all psychosomatic:
it works because one thinks it works and if you feel that snake oil would be
better for you than horse dung, then swapping treatment is fine. Neither
works anyway. But in reality, “patient choice” starts and
finishes at the point of deciding what treatment to get. It is about deciding
whether one is going to take sage and considered medical advice, or whether
one is going to drink bleach for medicinal purposes on the advice of some old
loony. It should not be about picking and choosing what
parts of proposed treatments one will and will not take, and then afterwards
whinging that one is still ill…. I mention drinking bleach because there are those
who actually regularly drink bleach for medicinal purposes. I personally
think this is crackpot behaviour, bordering on the eccentric, but this really
is “patient choice” in action…. |
|
18 June 2011 (Saturday) – Stuff
The fact that I was looking forward to a tad of
financial solvency having paid off my mortgage is clearly neither here nor
there. I must admit I’m a tad hacked off with the whole
pension squabbling. Thirty years ago I was sold a pension by the state. We
both (me & HM Government) knew it was a long term investment. Over
the years I had the option to change it for a private scheme, but we both
agreed to keep what I’d bought. And now it’s three-quarters paid off, I can’t
help but feel it’s rather late for HM Government to start quibbling about it.
The thing was bought and sold in good faith. If it’s now an unaffordable
proposition, the government should go kick the ass of the people who’ve
caused that, not me. It’s odd how a free market economy is such a
brilliant idea all the time its working…. And it’s also odd how we begrudge the pensions of
workers, but happily throw away public money… Leicester City Council has admitted that it is not ready
for an attack by zombies. Some twit wrote to Leicester City Council and
asked for details of their plans to combat a possible zombie attack. Normally
such idiocy would be treated with the contempt it deserves, but if one asks
for such information and quotes the Freedom of Information Act, then public
bodies crap themselves in terror and provide whatever trivial information the
public demands. However, for all that this might seem like a
frivolous joke, it’s a joke which costs the taxpayer. Freedom of Information
requests are dealt with by Information Governance Officers who are paid (about)
twenty three quid per hour. Take our newspapers for example. There was an
article on Radio Four today which claimed that the Daily Express runs about
ten stories every day based on information obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act. Even if each of the paper’s enquiries only takes half an
hour of a single Information Governance Officers’ time, that’s thirty
thousand quid a year that newspaper is costing us. Somewhat closer to home, after a morning at work I
had a plan to mow the lawn. It’s not been mowed for some time. But rain
stopped play. Having checked blog entries, every Saturday from the end of
February till the end of May has been dry. And now we are in what one
traditionally considers to be the summer, it rains every weekend. What’s that
all about? Bearing in mind that its three weeks since the lawn
was last mowed, I gave it a haircut despite the rain. And I then gave myself
a haircut. Spending fifteen quid on a pair of shears about fifteen years ago
was one of the best investments I ever made. I then did the ironing – it’s a
couple of weeks since I did any of that. We then made out way to the Trattoria Romano in We came home to find the prod-it-all son has
returned from his fishing expedition. He’s caught loads of big fish. He’ll be
publishing an album later, but for now he said I could use one photo for
today’s blog piccie. I am seriously considering
going with him next year…. |
|
19 June 2011 (Sunday)
- Slow
Today we went on a Reptile Ramble with the
Tree Huggers (I shall continue to call them that!). Having met up, we
then drove through miles of tracks through Kings Wood to an obscure corner.
Having parked up in the obscure corner we then walked along even more obscure
paths to find a wonderfully secluded valley. This was perhaps one of the most
beautiful places I’ve ever seen; but the view was marred. There were random
bits of corrugated iron here and there, and on closer inspection there were
random bits of roofing felt littered about. My immediate reaction was to have
a tidy-up, but our guide stopped me. Our guide was one of the herpetologists from
the nearby university, and the corrugated iron and roofing felt were
carefully laid out to attract reptiles, and to make it easier to find them.
Corrugated iron and roofing felt make warm areas which reptiles like: they
formed part of an ongoing survey, and the herpetologists just hated people
like me tidying up what looked like litter. Woops! We were told that four of the Our resident expert really brought the
subject to life: he was keen and enthusiastic. Amazingly he said that it’s
not unusual to find reptiles under the corrugated iron and roofing felt at
any time of year. He’d even found adders under them when there was snow on
the ground. And far from being asked not to go back there
unsupervised, we were told we were welcome to have a look-see if ever we were
passing. But we were told to be sure to report any reptile sightings back to
him. I intend to go back in the autumn when the reptiles will be a bit more
sluggish. Rather than going home we then drove on to
the motorhome showroom on the The prices of motorhomes ranged from fifteen
thousand pounds up to fifty thousand pounds. I quite liked the look of the
ones in the twenty to thirty thousand pound price bracket. We got chatting to
the salesman (always a bad thing to do) and it transpires that the
road tax and insurance on a motorhome is comparable to that on a car (i.e.
affordable). The major problem would be the initial outlay of lots of
thousands of pounds for the thing in the first place. We said we’d think
about it some more, and made our way home. On the way home we saw a sign for a new Koi
shop, so we thought we’d pop in. The car park was by a second hand caravan showground. One of
the caravans caught my eye, so we thought we’d have a look. We got chatting
with the salesman. It has to be said that this salesman started at a serious
disadvantage – he looked just like Dexter from the BBC series “Survivors”.
I was honestly scared of him, and I was expecting him to pull out a shotgun
at any minute. But the bloke spoke sense. The sort of motorhome we’ve been looking at will
cost about twenty five thousand pounds. Borrowing that amount of money is
easy enough, but the repayments would be crippling. We may well inherit that
sort of money following the death of parents (to be rather mercenary and
heartless), but that money would be far better given to the fruits of my
loin for them to get houses. And if we’re camping in a motorhome and we run
out of milk, then the entire motorhome has to go shopping. I can get a second hand caravan for about a
tenth of the price of a motorhome, and it wouldn’t cost anything in road tax
or insurance. It would have all the mod-cons of a motorhome and the same
storage problems and costs. And when camping if we needed to buy anything we
could just unhook the car and go off shopping. Admittedly neither of our cars
is up to pulling a caravan for any distance, but the ‘er indoors TM
–mobile is on its last legs and needs replacing anyway. I shall think some more about this idea. I’ve
asked for advice from friends with caravans and motorhomes. I shall seriously
review the situation once the mortgage is paid off in a month or so… |
|
20 June 2011 (Monday)
- Stuff
I see that on every other PC in the world (other
than mine) for the last three weeks there has been some weird sort
of video screen appearing after the day’s pictures on my blog entries. ‘er
indoors TM pointed this out to me about an hour after bed time
last night. It took an age to put the blog right. I have absolutely no idea
what that was about, and would be grateful for any comments and suggestions
as to where they might have come from. Interestingly I received an email from my
anti-virus scanner telling me that in the last month it has monitored 313
suspicious processes. It didn’t say anything about stopping them; just about
monitoring them. Equally mysterious in todays
news was the decision by a rabbinical court in I’ve mentioned before that the last thing I
ever expected from the twenty-first century was the resurgence of crackpot
superstitions as a serious political and social power. And also somewhat topical… A good friend of
mine is about (in a few months time) to
become a father. When “My Boy TM ” was born we were
the first people in our social circle to have children, and so it was very
much a voyage into the unknown. Which was probably for the best: I
seem to delight in regaling prospective parents with horror stories of
what to expect from their brats. And I always (only half-jokingly)
reassure them with the prospect that in twenty (or so) years time they leave home. However, “leaving home” is not such an
easily definable term as one might think. Take “My Boy TM ” for
example. For all that he spends his every waking hour at his girl friend’s house; I won’t consider him moved
out until I stop doing his laundry for him. Since his return from But my laundry bin is now overflowing with
his grubby smalls which came back from France with him, and that he
wants washed. |
|
21 June 2011
(Tuesday) - More Stuff
Anyone who's met me socially is always amazed
to see my appearance at work. Naturally I am a slob, but I like to think that
I brush up well when the occasion demands. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I
think that one needs to look the part when one is at work. As a trainee this
was drummed into me, and it stuck. Even though nowadays I think I am the only
bloke in the department who wears a tie every day. Not even the bosses do any
more. One of my trainees was formally assessed
today. As part of the assessment a senior scientist from another hospital (usually
some hundred or so miles away) comes to see them. Bearing in mind the
gravity of these occasions I like the students to make an effort and try to
impress the assessors. Perhaps I should blame a management ethos
which doesn’t take a pride in its appearance, but it bothers me that I have
to tell the trainees not to wear shorts or jeans on the special assessment
day. And it bothers me even more when they whinge about having to wear a
shirt and tie. But for one day they make an effort and turn up looking like
they haven't been dragged through a hedge. It's probably to keep me quiet,
but they all make the effort. I think they look better turning up at work in
a shirt and a tie, even if I am in a minority in thinking so. It never occurred to me that I would have to
remind a student to have a shave and to brush his hair. The chap assessed
today's girlfriend is a hairdresser, and I am reliably informed that his
coiffure was actually rather splendid. Perhaps I am getting old: to me he
looked like a startled hedgehog. I don't think I did much for his confidence
by telling him so. But he passed anyway. That’s now twenty one students whose
qualification to state registration I’ve overseen. With three more currently
in progress I wonder how many more I’ll do before retiring, or somebody else
gets given the task. And then home. A month or so ago I enrolled
with a market research company. They periodically solicit my opinion on a
range of subjects, and pay me for it. So far I’ve answered questionnaires on
supermarkets, mineral water, tea bags, cars, all sorts of things. Each time I
do a survey they credit my account with up to a pound. They claimed that when
the balance reached ten quid I could claim vouchers. I was rather sceptical,
but quite enjoyed the surveys, so I kept doing them. This evening I realised
my credit balance with them was £12.50, so I claimed an Amazon voucher to the
value of ten quid. The email with the voucher arrived straight
away: I was rather pleased about that, and immediately bought an e-book for
my Kindle. And I got charged for it. What an amazing voucher that was! Once the red mist and my ranting had subsided
I checked my Amazon account. I had no credit balance. I had not credited the
voucher to my account. Woops. Having done that obvious thing, my credit
balance went up to ten quid. So I bought another e-book and this time I was
not charged for it, and I still have a credit balance of over three quid with
Amazon. If any of my loyal readers would like to get
paid for doing these surveys, please get in touch. You really do get paid,
and I get a bung every time I recommend someone. |
|
22 June 2011
(Wednesday) - More Caravan...
I was having a rather disturbing dream last
night in which I believed I was trying to sleep underneath a tap dancing
school for elephants. A particularly loud crash woke me, and I realised that
there were no tap dancing elephants upstairs; merely “My Boy TM
” quietly getting ready for work. After a little stomping about he came
downstairs. It might have been quieter if he just came straight through the
ceiling. He then clumped about downstairs for a while before setting off to
work; closing the front door behind him so quietly it was probably heard
clearly three counties away. Fortunately being on a late start I got the
chance for a bit more kip once he’d set off, and over a bit of brekky I did a
bit more finding out about caravans. The obvious first question is to find
out whether my car is up to towing a caravan, or do I need to trade it in? It
turns out that my car weights (about) 1430 kg and therefore it would
be capable of towing a caravan (and associated luggage) of up to 1215
kg. Needless to say, that figure meant absolutely
nothing to me. I have no idea how heavy a caravan might be. So I phoned the nice bloke at Chilham
who I saw on Sunday. He was of the opinion that I can tow anything up to a “small-medium”
caravan. He went on to add that he caravans regularly and his towing weight
is restricted to 1000 kg. The obvious next step would be to get a tow
bar attached. Ironically when I chose my current car I had to decide between
the one I got and another which was almost identical. The other car was at
the same price, but with slightly more mileage so I went for the one I’ve
got. However the other one had a towbar. I phoned Renault – they could sort me out
with a towbar. Together with fitting the thing I would be looking at six
hundred pounds. Ouch! ‘er indoors TM had found another company that fitted
towbars, so I gave them a ring. It turned out that they were part of Trident
Trailers (who are quite well known locally). The nice man there said
he could fit a fixed swan neck tow bar and the electrical fittings for three
hundred quid. That’s more affordable. I then had a look at my diary dates. The year
has rushed by, and I’ve plans for most of the weekends for the next few
months. It occurred to me that we’ve two trips to Fortunately for us the British Library is
almost on top of St Pancreas station (named after the patron saint of
abdominal organs!), so having got to London all we’d have to do would be
to get to the museum at Kensington and then get back to where we started. It seems like a good plan….. let’s see how it
pans out. |
|
23 June 2011 (Thursday) - A Day in the Wicked City
“My Boy TM
” actually did get up quietly for once,
and for the third time this week I was woken by my alarm. After a bit of
brekkie I set off to the railway station – me and a colleague had business in
the wicked city. When I met up with him, my colleague looked somewhat
haggard. Apparently his beloved had bought some “sexy kit” and was
showing it off in a manner intended to incite his base urges. My colleague
was quite impressed with the tightness of the corset which accentuated his
beloved’s “lady dumplings”. So impressed that he couldn’t wait to take
off said corset, and get down to what I can only describe as “sordid
beastliness”. However it transpired that the lady in question had
overlooked something rather obvious – to wit to try on the garments before
buying them. Instead she spent twenty minutes at home wedging herself into a
corset which was clearly far too small. When my colleague attempted to give vent to his
base lusts, he was unable to remove the corset as rolls of back fat obscured
access to the zipper. However, the urge was upon him, and with a concerted
tug he managed to break the zip fastener, leaving it stuck fast. And then a combination of breaking the zipper on an
expensive corset and being unable to escape from a corset which was far too
tight brought on an asthma attack in the lady in question. Having attempted
to arouse her lover, she found herself thrashing about on the floor, gasping
for air and unable to breathe. Fortunately (or not, depending on your
perspective) my colleague had a With all that excitement, a near-death experience
and all that money wasted, my colleague then spent the night on the sofa, and
is still in the doghouse. And they say romance is dead. After waiting for the train to pull off for twenty
minutes there was an announcement. The train manager was trying to find a
train driver. As soon as one became available we’d be on our way. That filled
me with confidence, and after five minutes a big fat man in train driver
costume was seen running along the platform. We got going soon after that,
and were only five minutes late for our day’s outing. I say “five minutes late” – we’d been told
that the NHS National Sickle Cell and
Thalassaemia Screening Programme’s Laboratory Training Day started at
9.30am. Having run from St Pancras to We started with an update on what the programme had
been up to for the last year. This lecture was the worst of the day. Lacking
any structure, it was not so much a lecture as a disjointed rambling in which
the speaker leapt from one topic to the next (and back again) at
random, seemingly contradicting herself at regular intervals. The second talk was more interesting; covering
screening programs and the management of risk in haemoglobinopathy screening.
It’s actually a fascinating subject; the science behind it is something which
I personally find the most interesting part of my job. And there are some
serious ethical dilemmas. Thalassaemia major is one of the most serious
genetic conditions there is – babies with it can die before birth, and many
of those that do survive can only live because of life long blood
transfusions. But screening of parents can avoid such children being born. In
the The third lecture was interesting covering serious
incidents and lessons learned. Like everything and anything, the screening
programme is not perfect, and has had some failures. Lessons have been
learned and the service has improved, but what does anyone do when a couple
decide to breed, having been told of the risk of conceiving a child who will
be born to suffer? After a tea break was the best part of the day – a
lecture from Professor Bain, who is a world-renown expert on the subject of
haemoglobinopathies. And then dinner – not too sad, as the first fruit of my
loin would remark. After dinner I slept through a session on data
interpretation. I knew the session was going to be bad: over the years I’ve
formed a serious distrust of anyone who refers to a blood-testing machine as
an ”instrument”. I could feel myself nodding after only a couple of
minutes, and was soon sound asleep. I awoke with a start and the thought “F@!!
- I’m in a lecture” ran though my mind as the
speaker asked “did everyone find that helpful?” After another cuppa the day closed with some
fascinating case studies. For all that I find the haemoglobinopathies to be
fascinating, they are not common conditions. In fact I often describe then to
my students as being as abundant as rocking horse poo. And this last session
gave some seriously obscure tales, involving sickle cell trait with a
duplicated normal beta gene, and the discovery of the unstable Hb Kingsbury. All things considered it was a good day out, but I
did have a couple of criticisms. The projector screen was too small – I could
hardly see the presentations. And the venue. Has anyone realised that the country
is in financal queer street? Surely the Imperial Hotel in Russell
Square isn’t the most cost effective place to hold such a meeting. Heaven
only knows what the place cost to book, but I did see that the lunchtime menu
was seventeen quid a head. With about forty of us on the course, I expect the
total cost of the day would have been about a thousand pounds. Whilst I realise that a And then back to Ashford, and to the Wetherspoons.
Works curry night: the second in as many months. Wetherspoons do a good curry
at a good price. Two beers, curry and extras, and change from a tenner. Can’t
be bad… |
|
24 June 2011 (Friday)
- Art & Astronomy
I had an interesting conversation at work today.
The boss told me that with immediate effect we would not be able to claim
overtime money for working on a Saturday morning. I asked her who was working
tomorrow morning. She wandered off, and came back and told me that it was me.
I told her it wasn’t. She checked the rota and assured me that I was working
tomorrow. I assured her I wasn’t, and I wandered off myself. Five minutes later management had a change of
heart, and told us that we can continue to claim overtime for the rest of the
published rota. I wonder what standing that announcement would have in
employment law. If only our union wasn’t so useless…. Then to the college - “Daddies
Little Angel TM ” has some of her work in the end of year art
exhibition. Her drawing and montage were really good. As was all of the work
on show, to be honest. It was clear that the students had all worked hard,
but I can’t pretend to understand modern art. The photograph of Little Red
Riding Hood holding hands with the Big Bad Wolf was somewhat surreal. And was
made more so by virtue of the fact that both were in the nip. The
installation piece of a destroyed painting was clearly interesting, but would
not practically fit into anyone’s house as an art work. And the statue of a big fat woman with an
oven for a stomach permanently pissing out green urine was just weird. And then to astro club. As I was meeting and
greeting, something interesting happened. A lady who’d joined a couple of
months ago asked whose phone number was on the membership cards. I had no
idea, and told her so; with the assurance that I’d find out. The nice lady
went on to say that she’s tried phoning the number, and it came up with the
number unobtainable tone. After a little asking around it turned out that the
number on the membership cards was indeed unobtainable: in fact we had no
idea whose number it originally was. Woops! And then on to the main business of the
evening. With over sixty people along we had an update on what’s going on in
the world of astronomy. And then the main talk – “Wow Factor Fifty” in
which five different people presented ten amazing, strange or just plain
weird astronomical facts. With different people speaking I thought it worked
very well. After I’d hawked the raffle we had a Stellarium show of what we might have seen outside had
the clouds not been there. Again we had a wonderful astro club – I’m proud to
be a part of it…. |
|
25 June 2011
(Saturday) - Astronomy & Cards
I was up relatively early, and over brekkie I
looked at the household accounts. I can hardly declare bankruptcy, but
there’s no denying that more cash would be good. I’m not entirely sure that
I’m not paying too much in mortgage repayments: I shall find out in a month
or so when the next part of the mortgage is due for completion. With the
mortgage (mostly) paid off a caravan might become a feasible
proposition. Apropos of nothing I came across this web site. I love the
bit about “We live in the countryside. Our house dates to around 1570,
with 3.5 acres of land. We grow our own vegetables and fruit, and sheep graze
our meadow”. The chap who wrote this was someone with whom I went to
school. We were in the Boys Brigade together. Best of mates for many years.
And now there he is – a company director rolling in cash: with his own wine
merchant as well (!). I can’t pretend I’m not jealous. The only consolation I have is that browsing
his web site I found his Amazon wish list, He’s a train spotter. I don’t feel
quite such a failure now. Off to work, and after a relatively dull day
I then went on to We had several telescopes set up, all
focussed on a distant TV ariel, and the idea was that the punters could
compare the telescopes. We also had the solar scope to look at the sun: a
shame the sun hid behind clouds all day. We also put up a display board of
our posters. It has to be said that the posters aren’t
what they might be. For all that they actually look really good, they are now
four years old and some of them are rather dated. For example the poster on
extra-solar planets is hopelessly out of date. I’ve suggested we might run a
competition for the club membership to design various A3 and A4 posters on
various topics of their choice to replace what we’ve got. Getting the public to have a go with
telescopes was an idea which worked well – there was a lot of interest from
the public about joining the club. Perhaps we might make up some fliers for
advertising purposes for future events of this sort? The time flew by, and all too soon the fete
had ended. Once packed away I went home – my plan was to get the ironing
done, but my mobile rang. There was a problem at work – could I go in? Our work has what I call “typical I.T.”:
ideally computer A could plug directly into computer B and it would work. In
fact it is possible for computers A and B to work in that way. I have been
assured by the manufacturers that this would be a workable proposition, and I
have begged management to allow this. However, I.T. bods have installed five
separate interfaces between computers A and B. All interfaces must work
perfectly, and it only takes one to go wrong for the entire system to pack
up. I am reliably assured that one day I will be grateful for this arrangement,
and to be fair it does work most of the time. But when it goes west it takes
an age to recover. And it is never those advocating such a needlessly
complicated working arrangement who do the recovering. But it was good for two hours overtime for
me. And then round to Matt’s for a game of cards.
An hour or so of Texas Hold’em followed by an hour
or so of Omaha Hold’em. “Daddies
Little Angel TM ” wiped the floor with all comers tonight, but
there was an amazing five minutes during a game of On the way home I saw a strange sight –
hundreds (probably over a thousand) of people all walking along my
road; all wearing the weirdest clothing. They were obviously an organised
bunch as there were marshals guiding them as they went. It turns out they
were a sponsored walk raising money for a local hospice, which was a relief. I thought they were a strange religious
cult…. |
|
26 June 2011 (Sunday)
– Barham
This morning I effectively received a turd in
the post: some coward didn’t like what I’d posted over on another
blog. Perhaps the fault is mine: perhaps I sometimes forget the fact that
every fascinating illness has an ill person at the end of it. It’s a shame
that “Anonymous of Chicago” couldn’t have attempted a reasoned
discussion. It amazes me that anyone expects to be taken seriously when they
rant anonymously. Still, (to coin a phrase) bovvered? – Not really.
This isn’t the first cowardly anonymous rant I’ve received; I doubt it will
be the last. Once we’d got ourselves organised we popped
down to Folkestone and having harassed the cats we then went on to Barham. ‘er
indoors TM recently bought a set of guided walks round We parked up by After a month of rain I’m not complaining,
but it was hot today. It was ironic that having spent all afternoon yesterday
with a solar telescope and 100% cloud cover, today there wasn’t a cloud in
sight. And then home. I had planned to do the
ironing yesterday, but events conspired against me. So after tea I ironed
whilst watching telly; “Alien Resurrection”. Over the last month I’ve
watched all four of the “Alien” films. This was the first that I
didn’t sleep though, but it has to be said that I wasn’t impressed. |
|
27 June 2011 (Monday)
- Dull...
A late start gave me some time to waste this
morning, so I had a look round the Internet. With UFOs
flying over the BBC and senior politicians being found
dead at Glastonbury, there’s not really an awful lot going on in the
world today. Bearing in mind yesterday’s hike I found an
interesting article claiming that I’m probably
fitter than a lot of people who are half my age. If that’s true, then
there are a lot of *very* unfit twenty-somethings about. And with a couple of hours to kill, I dusted
off an old game – Star
Trek Elite Force. The game is now ten years old, and the graphics are
somewhat dated compared to today’s modern games. But it’s fun, it passes an
hour or so, and I like it. Which is probably a good thing. And then to Tesco. The intention was to buy
lunch; I nearly committed murder. For every one person who was doing shopping
properly there were a dozen old ladies blindly blundering about. Crashing
into shelves, trolleys, other shoppers, not one was looking where it was
going, and not one was actually buying anything. When will these old
dodderers realise that Tesco is a shop where you go to buy things, not a park
or a drop-in centre where you go to pass the time. I received a phone call from the treasurer at
Woodchurch Memorial Hall today. She’d heard that I’d taken over as treasurer
of the astro club. News travels fast (!) Would I like to talk pounds
and pence with her? Certainly. The trouble was that she’d phoned me on my
mobile at work, using her husband’s mobile phone. I made a note of all that
she said and all of the telephone numbers she mentioned, and I then promptly
lost that note. I came home and after a bit of phoning round I managed to get
the nice lady’s home phone number. But when I rang, it just went to
answer-phone. I’ll ring her again in the morning… |
|
28 June 2011
(Tuesday) - Pi (and chips?)
Another morning wasted on the Star Trek Elite
Force game – it’s a good game really. Mind you, I didn’t get to play it for
as long as I was hoping. I found myself evicted from my own home. “My Boy TM
” had an appointment. He had someone coming round for some body art.
Described as “some fit bird and her fit mother”; it was quite evident
that my presence would queer his pitch. And so to Tesco in an oven-like car. It’s
been hot recently. So much so that I’ve had the air-con running in my car
pretty much constantly. I’ve been told by so many people that this is a
really expensive thing to do. But is it? I’ve done some finding-out. On
average the extra fuel consumption by using air-con is roughly equivalent to
the extra fuel needed to carry an extra passenger around. Or equivalent to
the reduced fuel economy caused by reducing the car’s aerodynamics by opening
a window. Or (over a year) roughly equivalent to the extra fuel needed
to carry a car full of unnecessary junk around. In short, it’s not an expensive thing to do
at all. Mind you, cars still go in the hot weather.
Trains don’t. Having been scuppered by leaves on the tracks and the wrong
kinds of snow in the past, today’s lame excuse is that the cables that power
the trains are suffering
from overheating. Thank heavens that trains in my neck of the woods get
their leccie from a third rail. Meanwhile mathematicians
are in civil war. Pi-ists and Tau-ists are squabbling as to which mathematical constant
should be the most natural to use. Being of a mathematical bent myself, I’ll
give a hint here. Tau is lame. Pi kicks ass. |
|
29 June 2011
(Wednesday) - Coldrum Longbarrow
After two days of late starts, today I was on
an early. Tomorrow is a core shift, and Friday is another late. The rest of
the world has a “shift pattern”. I have random. I have suggested that
I might work weeks of earlies, cores and lates, but (apparently) that
would be somewhat problematical to organise on a rota. Bearing in mind I
rarely get my rotas more than a few days in advance I suppose that might well
be the case. I can’t help but feel I’d sleep better if I
had some continuity in my shift patterns. After work we set off to Lenham
where we had fish and chips whilst waiting for the arky-ologee
club to assemble. Whilst scoffing chips I made an observation: why does Lenham church (a beautiful medieval building) have
a satellite dish on the top of the steeple? Twenty (or so) club members assembled,
and we set off in convoy to Trottiscliffe. I am
reliably informed that his village’s name is pronounced “Trosley”.
Pronounced “Trosley” by whom? People who
can’t read, presumably. Despite our state of the art map indicating our destination was to the left of the church, we turned right and soon found our destination for the evening –Coldrum Longbarrow .
Next time I
shall take a shovel. I wonder
what the National Trust would say about me digging up a scheduled monument…. |
|
30 June
2011 (Thursday) - Stuff
|
