From the past

Reminders

Thinking about my memories of the Life Boys/church, and now the production of photo's via facebook from the family archives brings to mind  happenings that still produce memories.

This picture brings to mind probably one of my earliest memories at just over 4 years old (the 3rd one along on the left at the front is me) and it was the Queens Coronation street party held somewhere close to the Edgware Road in London.Look at the jumpers to find my two younger brothers
I can't really remember the party in any detail, but I remember a song, probably because of my aunt Alice, it was this one, not the same version though.



Sometime during my Junior school days, after a sickness break for mumps, or something like that, we had a arithmetic test and I can remember what may have been my first use of logic, or common sense , when I realised none of the ounces went above 15 and got praise for my  correct answers.
Arithmetic was always my best practical subject, geometry and algebra never seemed to be worth the effort.
I've touched upon my earliest public appearance in this Blog before, so won't remind myself of my red face version of a robin redbreast song.....too late.
I remember at 11 the test we took to see if we were up to 11 plus standard for grammar school, and we were confronted by a booklet of mensa type questions.
Something we had never seen before, my logic, and that of many others, defeated us that day.
But I have often wondered, being council estate kids, if we were chosen not to be grammar school types, because none of the school ended up taking the 11 plus!!

Shortly after, sitting at the back in my soon to be secondary school hall, taking a blackboard written test with over 150 others, and realising for the first time...I needed glasses...too late, streamed as average.
After that, I'm of a view with the benefit of hindsight, I only ever did enough to get average results in most subjects.
My GCE studying years were spent mainly on the sports field, or painting the scenery for the girls school plays. I got Art & Craft O level...just!
Our teachers on the whole weren't interested in teaching, most had a sports grounding and were mainly Welsh, so rugby, football, athletics and cricket got higher priority.
I represented the school in all of those.
We were segregated from the girls throughout the secondary school years, so I was a late developer in meeting female friends. Being a basically shy individual didn't help.

One thing I  learned, from really early on probably from 11 years old, is that somebody is always out to map your status/course in life, it's up to you, the individual, not to let that happen.

It worked for me, 50 years later I still don't, and won't fit into the mould that others want!


Cricket

Took to my bed when rain stopped play at lunchtime,quite satisfied.
Had another listen at about 4:30am extremely satisfied, but not confident.
Woke again later than usual at 8am for the news, more confident but not yet convinced.

My view remains, we let them off the hook, and made them look better than they are in the last test.
 
We shall see.

Good health

Cheers

To all my readers have a great Christmas(yes and you)  and all you would wish for yourselves in 2011.

The Nativity


Have a look at this , it's very clever.





.......and finally


It's late fall and the Indians on a remote reservation in Nebraska asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.
Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.
But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?'
'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,' the meteorologist at the weather service responded.
So the chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.
A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?'
'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'it's going to be a very cold winter.'
The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again. 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?'
'Absolutely,' the man replied. 'It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we've ever seen.'
'How can you be so sure?' the chief asked.






The weatherman replied, 'The Indians are collecting a shitload of firewood'

Fairy tales?

Organised Religion

Yesterday was the first in a daily series of 4 on BBC1 of the story of The Nativity.
I've just finished watching part two, and it brought back memories of my younger days and stories from The Bible in general.
It had to do that, because I watch very little TV, so a half hour burst was enough to get me interested.
This programme which I do recommend to those who may be interested in the stories of The Bible, brought back good memories of my early childhood interest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00x1699/The_Nativity_Episode_1/

My interest in bible stories goes way back to my early days at school, but became more important to me from I think, about the age of 8, when I joined the Cabin Boys at my local Evangelical church.
For those of you that were lead to The Cubs and then to Boy Scouts, it was the starting point of the sea version of much the same sort of thing.


All that's left and  my memories



Cabin Boys, lead on to Life Boys, with sailors hats and lanyards etc; and then at the age of 11 to the Boys Brigade.
I developed so much of an interest in religious stories that Religious Knowledge became my best subject in school, I can also recall picturing myself having a job in the church, maybe even a priest when asked "what do you want to be when you grow older?"
But that didn't last after my 11th birthday.

On a Sunday afternoon after morning service, it may well have been on my birthday, a church leader and main man with the Boys Brigade, came to the house to see me and talk about joining the Brigade.
Now, up until this time, I had visited the church on regular occasions for religious instruction, Sunday school, and joined in all the functions attached to that church including the choir and football team.
BUT, the church leader told me that day, for me to become a member of the Boys Brigade, I had to attend church.
So at a very early age, and probably the start of my stubbornness to anything or anybody who tried to enforce my participation in anything in life, I made the decision that I wanted nothing further to do with organised religion.
To this day I have not attended a church other than for other peoples weddings,Christenings and funerals and can't see myself ever doing so again.
Me and organised religion just do not mix still.

I'm still a sucker for a good story though!

Diary of a Londoner living in the Marches...

Our First Winter
(with apologies Steve)

DEC 20th
It's starting to snow.
The first of the season and the first we've seen for years.
The wife and I took out our hot toddies and sat on the porch watching the fluffy soft flakes drift gently down clinging to the trees and covering the ground.
It's so beautiful and peaceful.

DEC 24th
We awoke to a lovely blanket of crystal white glistening snow covering as far as the eye could see.
What a fantastic sight, every tree and bush covered with a beautiful white mantle.
I shovelled snow for the first time ever and loved it. I did both our driveway and the pavement.
Later that day a snowplough came along and accidentally covered up our driveway with compacted snow from the street. The driver smiled and waved. I waved back and shovelled it away again.

The children next door built a snowman with coal for eyes and a carrot for a nose, and had a snowball fight, a couple just missed me and hit the car so I threw a couple back and joined in their fun.

DEC 26th

It snowed an additional 5 inches last night and the temperature dropped to around minus 8 degrees.
Several branches on our trees and bushes snapped due to the weight of the snow. I shovelled the driveway again.
Shortly afterwards the snowplough came by and did his trick again.
Much of the snow is now a brownish - grey.

JAN 1st

Warmed up enough during the day to create some slush which soon became ice when the temperature dropped again.
Bought snow tyres for both our cars.
Fell on my arse in the driveway.
Went to a physio but nothing was broken.

JAN 5th

Still cold. Sold the wife's car and bought her a 4x4 to get her to work.
She slid into a wall and did considerable damage to the right wing.
Had another 8 inches of white sh*te last night.
Both vehicles are covered in salt and iced up slush.
That bastard snowplough came by twice today.
Where's that bloody shovel?


JAN 9th

More f*****g snow. Not a tree or bush on our property that hasn't been damaged. Power was off most of the night.

Tried to keep from freezing to death with candles and a paraffin heater which tipped over and nearly torched the house.

I managed to put the flames out but suffered 2nd degree burns on my hands. Lost all my eyebrows and eyelashes.
Car hit a f*****g deer on the way to casualty and car was written off.



JAN 13th

F*****g b*****d white sh*te just keeps on coming down. Have to put on every article of clothing just to go to the post box. The little bastards next door ambushed me with snowballs on the way back - I'll shove that carrot so far up the little b*****d's arse it'll take a good surgeon hours to find it.
If I ever catch the a***hole that drives the snowplough I'll chew open his chest and rip out his heart with my teeth.
I think the b*****d hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shovelling and then he accelerates down the street like Michael SchuF*****gmacher and buries the f*****g driveway again.

JAN 17th

Sixteen more f*****g inches of f*****g snow and f*****g ice and f*****g sleet and god knows what other white sh*te fell last night.
I am in court in 3 months time for assaulting the snowplough driver with an ice-pick.
Can't move my f*****g toes.
Haven't seen the sun for 5 weeks.
Minus 20 and more f*****g snow forecast.



JAN 18th

F*** THIS, I'M MOVING BACK TO LONDON.












John Martyn

This is some of the music I was listening to in the late 70's, see what you think of him.

Ah well!

Cricket

Not a lot to say, apart from, over the years we English do get our hopes lifted only to be let down with an almighty dump, by those who really have the talent but consistently fail!

Once again we let a side off the hook, gave them the boost of confidence they certainly needed, and now look where we are.

Collingwood as brilliant as he may be in the field, will need to show something more than he has so far. I can see Bell promoted up the order. As for Pieterson,words fail me.

Taken up residence

Our friend from the Caucasus's first pictured in November and his 4 plain male Chinese friends are still in residence, taking the crumbs and spill off the bird feeders.

The beech have lost their colour, but he seems even brighter.

He'll have to watch out though,if we get the promised snow, and we can't get to the dealer in Louth, our ordered goose may have to wait until the New Year!!

Just found this!

Just having a clear up of stuff and found this from October 1998 our 25th anniversary trip out to Jamaica

We had been out for a few hours catching nothing and was on the way back in when we got the take.

It came in like a heavy wet blanket, they did the big acceleration to set the hooks and the hook slid down the side of the fish and it ended up coming in backwards, and as a result drowned. Not a proud moment, but the hotel wanted a shot.

It would have been returned but ended up as a fine meal for the villagers. We had a steak, very nice too but what a shame.

Today

Cricket

Let off the hook!!

Some may say the balls gone soft, some may say the bowlers are worn out, but when will bowlers learn that bowling short with a "soft" ball, at blokes who just want to knock the skin of the ball won't work.

Put it on their toes!!


Meanwhile

We have a blizzard!

But others have it worse!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20101216/video/vwl-lighthouse-becomes-icehouse-15af341.html

Lifestyle Choices at Christmas

This woman is 51.

She is a TV “health guru” advocating a holistic approach to nutrition and ill health, promoting exercise, a pescetarian diet high in organic fruits and vegetables. She recommends detox diets - colonic irrigation and supplements, also making statements that yeast is harmful, that the colour of food is nutritionally significant, and about the utility of lingual and faecal examination.

This woman is 50.

She is a TV cook, who eats nothing but meat, butter and deserts, and probably enjoys a beer.

So forget “join a gym and eat more celery”. This Christmas, it's food and booze all the way. And the only exercise you need is dancing and shagging.

Merry Christmas!

Just like them

Envy?

A certain Blog writer/journalist/ angler Bob Roberts appears to be showing signs of the little green un .
With his complaints about others blogs getting noticed, and that he is missing out on awards, or recognition, perhaps he has reason to!

Or, is he so far up his own oriface that he can't see there may be a reason for it, and it's nothing to do with his writing?

Only kidding Bob !
 (The excuse used by many who think being rude about people is funny)

This and That

Another trip down south

A visit down to mum's for 2 nights bed and breakfast, and for the Friday meeting of the old boys.
She's still not heard from the hospital  3 weeks after her CAT scan.
I've got to the stage where, I don't know if that's good news, or poor patient after care! Mum feels about the same ...I think.


Dirty Old man?

Does it happen to all 60 year olds?
I have to admit the "girls" were probably in their 40's but in good shape ,well built and in tight fitting dresses that showed off everything, and at the same time nothing....commando, I think is the term?
We intruded upon their Christmas doos.
Well we didn't , we just happened to be in the Jugged Hare a fine Fullers establishment in Vauxhall Bridge Road when 2 functions appeared at 1o'clock, only one "youngster" in sight, is that a sign of the times in London business, or don't they wish to be associated with older collegues?
My mate Ivan's (65) usual quote of "I've shagged that one" were silent, he was coughing and spluttering all over us, and feeling sorry for himself. Anyway, I think he's worn it out in front of his collection of porn films.

from our French trip on his 65th

Thanks for the Christmas present mate!!
Our numbers were short, but we still enjoyed each others company. I do like the London Pride.They also do a particularly fine pie, which believe it or not, is  Jugged Hare, other pies are available.
Oh yes, the dirty ol' man in me watched the "girls" many a time traverse the staircase to the gallery area from the bar.
I did it without dribbling though...I think .
It must be the pub for it though because a rather attactive well suited up lady waltzed in later and sat down with her pint with an ol'boy. I thought may have been her dad from the peck on the cheek she gave him. But that peck soon turned into something that was far from saying hello to daddy, funny the things you see  in a Victoria pub.



Christmas Ideas (One)

A key hook












New Bra

Dr. Calvin Rickson, a scientist from Texas A&M University has invented a bra that keeps women's breasts from jiggling, bouncing up and down, and prevents the nipples from pushing through the fabric when cold weather sets in.





At a news conference, after announcing the invention, a large group of men took Dr. Rickson outside and kicked the shit out of him.



Toon for the day

Whoops!!

Today: This morning 


While we are being topical

..and you thought it had been cold this week!

Are we prepared ?

Power cut

Something woke me early this morning and looking for the bedside clock noticed it wasn't there. Well it was, but the red lights for the clock were not on, power cut!

Laid there for a while thinking about what we hadn't done to prepare for this eventuality, and what have the elderly neighbours done?

We have oil fired central heating , no gas in the village, so no heating , no hot water and no cooking facilities either. No lighting!

Thought about cooking . We bought when we moved up, one of those portable cookers, with the gas cartridge within the case. Never used it.
Did we still have the cartridge, did we have any spares, where is it?
I couldn't remember, and I wasn't going to wake The Boss to ask, that would be a death sentence for the day.
There's always the BBQ.

What about tea?
Ah, the Kelly Kettle, keep that going all day, if the neighbours have flasks I can keep them topped up. Got enough back issue BF magazines in the garage to keep the kettle going!!

All these things going through my mind, I had better get up before my tossing and turning disturbs someone...bugger, no electric .
Lights? Those wind up lamps are somewhere.

Got up anyway, found the wind-up lamps bought for fishing, found the cooker and a working cartridge. All ok.
Get some root veg out, prep and cook up a stew....bing bong ...front door bell, telephone answer machine telling me something, fridge kicking in

06:45 full power restored.

All equipment put where it can be got at, make a cup of tea, turn the radio on, 292-2.


Ah, all is well

The first?

First Christmas Joke

Three men died on Christmas Eve and were met by Saint Peter at the pearly gates.
'In honour of this holy season' Saint Peter said, 'You must each possess something that symbolises Christmas to get into heaven.'
The Englishman fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it on. 'It represents a candle', he said.
'You may pass through the pearly gates' Saint Peter said.
The Scotsman reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He shook them and said, 'They're bells.'
Saint Peter said 'You may pass through the pearly gates'.
The Irishman started searching desperately through his pockets and finally pulled out a pair of knickers.
St Peter looked at the man with a raised eyebrow and asked, 'And just what do those symbolize?'

The Irishman replied, 'These are Carols.'

And So The Christmas Season

Begins......

It's no good

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Got to go out

Milk run out, no sign of the cow, things to do.
A walk to the pub proved ok last night, and the birds have eaten all the seed, so we're on a mission, if I survive the dig!!
I may be a while. -6.7c

Dig the car out

The path to the pub!

Looking south 08:55

11:41

Oh sod it, where's the Coffee Mate ? -3.8c



14:20

Local ol'boy farmer who saw me digging, talked about what we were running out of etc etc.
Knock on the door later.

Anybody know what I can do with a 6 pint carton of milk?  Between the two of us, that's almost weeks supply??
I suppose I'll have to take a rest from the cooked breakfast, and put up with Quaker Oats for a few days
Totally unexpected, some people just don't need asking, do they?
Tell you what though, we have our milk delivered. I like the idea of keeping local people in work.
But who are Tesco robbing, when 6 pints from them is £2.17, and it's 62p a pint delivered to my door?
Methinks the dairy farmer!!

No wonder they have to look for economies of scale!

"The farmers behind plans for a 23-hour-a-day industrial scale dairy farm with 8,000 cows face strong opposition from animal rights activists and local residents.
The 22-acre dairy facility at Nocton, not far from Lincoln, would produce 220,000 litres (387,000 pints) of milk a day and include several 80-animal circular milking parlours."

Sad World

Sad People

I've taken the opportunity to have a look around a couple of the so called Blogs and the following three turn up,as they have for here.

All three give the distinct impression of being particularly sad individuals.
In fact it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they were the same individual, maybe from the same geographic location, so at least related.


Now, there's "Sad sorry Mad Gerrard", he apparently keeps copies of Blog outtakes.
Then there is "Pete" who goes around correcting peoples Blog spelling, now that should keep him busy!
and
The "Cardinal" well he has the ability to look at an auction list and foresee the outcome a week before it even starts.
To top it off, he also counts who is taking part, and actually  lists the status in life of those early bidders.
Never mind son, we'll find you something to do when it ends.

Not only that, he assesses who has friends by the friends list on Blog sites, next thing he will say is that all friends on facebook are really friends.

It's time you all got on with life, the petty little hobbies really take the biscuit, or is it fruitcake.





Friends

RIP Denise
Sorry no last goodbye












Now Steve Pope I'm sure, will confirm that we are not friends.
If we've met each other socially on more than the fingers on one hand, I would be surprised, so we are not friends.Acquaintances and associates, yes.
During the occasions we've met however, I've gained  a great deal of respect for him as an individual, and one day we may see each other as friends.
I for one can't see why not.
There are a few others, I always had big nagging doubts about, first impressions count a lot with me, and have proved me right, particularly over the recent years. They are no longer on my radar.

Only one first impression in very recent years has let me down. No doubt that will be another story.I still hold out hope that it's temporary.

All's well

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Mum


Thanks for asking, my mum is still awaiting the results of her CAT scan last week(Monday).
I think no news is possibly good news in respect of the spread.


Today

Still snowing this morning in fact it's blizzard conditions.Out of the drifts one foot deep.
Just tried to use my B&Q card to clear the car windscreen, didn't do much good though..I only got 10% off!!

My Guardian has arrived

Yesterday I was in Doncaster today York it must be something to do with wind direction. ;O)

Fishing

Not much chance of doing any of that, so I thought of a couple of points I've made elsewhere in respect of peoples style of explaining river fishing tips.
Some people took great delight of challenging these when it suited them, to twist what I had stated.
What some of these individuals seem to forget is that certain methods, don't in all cases apply.
So anybody giving advice should think of the circumstances of use, by say a novice angler, some of those will be taken as the correct way to fish in all situations.


Bivying up

My view is that if you are going river fishing, remember you are fishing not camping, so don't leave your rods fishing the river whilst you are tucked inside the sleeping bag...asleep.
Notice I said fishing a river, where at the very least you could lose your rod(s), let alone snagging a fish, which has the time it takes you to rise from your slumbers, to find shelter.

Snag Fishing

A suggestion from me during an exchange of posts about fishing snag swims in a small river, was to not securely clip your weight/feeder to the swivel link, keep it unsecured. Other methods were suggested by others .
Not doing so should produce a weak point that could open up the link under pressure, effectively ditching the weight.
This lead to accusations of suggesting the casting 4 ounce leads across a river, and causing damage to the guy fishing opposite!

Piling it in

This is simple really, if you are suggesting filling a swim with "ground bait", consider that what may apply to rivers such as the Trent or Severn should not apply to smaller rivers.

Just think before giving fishing tips of the potential consequences.

Scenes from this morning

I don't think we will get the Guardian today.
Anybody got a spare bottle of milk?





Looking East from the sheltered side



South

and from just now 13.00

It’s as if it never happened

Yesterday 

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I have a habit of tidying this infernal machine and yesterday was one of those days. There was no real point in venturing out, as we were in constant snowfall.
So I was fiddling about with the Comments behind the scenes as it were,looking for Spam and ended up accidentally deleting quite a number, particularly the most recent.There was no Spam by the way this system is very good for stopping that.

Anyway, the result of which was that all of yesterday's Comments for the last two Blog entries and responses in particular, were wiped out.
It was a good day yesterday for them.

What it did help me see, without tracking back, was that I have never stated that a certain individual was gay, proving to me, as if I really needed proof, that the man is a manipulator of the truth , as I have stated so many times.
It’s there to be seen if anybody cares to look, because my axe didn’t go back that far!!
What also happened, is my Trash folder for emails also emptied overnight, so I couldn’t get to the advices of Comments and reproduce them here word for word.

They sit in there for ages usually, but the system must automatically clear at the end of the month!!


Anyway, it all more or less started with a Comment from “Trevor” of Nottingham asking if it was true that I had been banned from a certain Barbel Fishing Website.
My responses to him were effectively why do you want to know, because as far as I am concerned "Trevor" from Nottingham could have been any one of the undead who give Anonymous Comment on this and other Blogs.
It turned out, at least in my eyes that Trevor was genuine in his question.
My response was, yes I had been banned for “showing disrespect to the site”.
My explanation of this stated.
As a result of getting fed up with the lack of moderation on the site, to anything my Society collegues and I stated on the site, instead of answering any responses, good or bad, I decided to link the queries direct to the specific areas, in our two means of internet communication,the website and our Blog site.

This was stated to be “Spam”



I also had passed a comment on here, which I had erased, that I had heard rumour that the Barbel Fishing Website was effectively passing its forum activities to a new group. Who could blame them?
There then followed comments from Steve and Rich confirming that they had indeed beat me to resigning their membership of the site and were not BANNED, as was stated on the site. Yes, I was going to resign my membership too.
This was later changed and the word BANNED was replaced with GUEST.
Being unable to gain access to the site, I assume my IP address is blocked, this clarified the point.

There were other usual silly comments from the Anonymous, who haven’t the courage of their convictions to use their name. What have they to fear?

One Cane

Unlike the short one from up near the Humber, I have never offered anybody violence, and never will, I will only respond, or if you will, retaliate.
Perhaps they are scripted?











So on with today, I may have a competition of, CAN GUESS WHAT THIS IS later, as the landscape around here, which is worse than last winter, has taken on new shapes.

Oh I forgot, “Pete's” Comment, had words to the effect, “when you get rid of all the dissenters (not his word, he didn’t come across as literate) you will no longer have any “friends” they will get rid of you.
To which I responded, again with words to the effect,
“I would be happy with that, if I have achieved my goal, no crusade, of ridding the Society of the minority of individuals, who have plenty to say, but will do sweet fuck all, to help to change it to the way they want it to be”

If you're talking behind my back, you're in a good position to kiss my arse

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Creche