All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
amusements, arts, ramblings

Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering

Being Eastertide here is a lot on this week and Friday 5 to Sunday 7 April sees the Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering. As their website says:

In September 1966 a modest concert of Northumbrian music and song was held to raise funds for Morpeth Antiquarian Society. It was the inspiration for a one-day Northumbrian festival in March 1968 which evolved into the Morpeth Gathering.

The festival includes a vast array of competitions including crafts, performance and writing. Events of local interest have been added to the programme of concerts, singarounds, barn dance, storytelling, theatre and street performance which includes a young people’s pageant as part of the Border Cavalcade.

The emphasis of the Gathering is firmly upon the native traditions of Northumberland and, whilst there is plenty of scope for traditional music from all over the British Isles within the festival, the wealth of local culture is well to the fore.

For the curious the guy on the left, playing the pipes, is my godfather!
More information at www.northumbriana.org.uk/gathering/index.htm.

photography

Weekly Photograph

Paris in the Springtime … A quiet square at the western end of Ile de la Cité. This was taken on a warm Friday lunchtime. Noreen and I were sitting outside the café having a delightful lunch with our friend Allison, who was a student in Paris at the time. All the while, just visible in the middle distance, there was a group of Parisian workmen playing boules.

Click the image for lager versions on Flickr
Place Dauphine
Montage: Place Dauphine
Paris, May 2006

amusements, ramblings

International Carrot Day

Yes, I kid you not; this isn’t an April Fool! Thursday 4 April is International Carrot Day.

Indeed you may well ask, “Why?” I did.

Well as it says here …

Carrot Day was founded 2003 to spread knowledge about the carrot and its good attributes around the world. [It] is celebrated every year on April 4th and is the pinnacle for carrot lovers all around the world. It is the day when the carrot is celebrated through carrot parties and other carrot related festivities.

More information at http://www.carrotday.com/.
There’s even a list of Carrot festivals and a link to the Carrot Museum.

amusements

Alternative Proverbs

1 Comment

I found the following alternative proverbs on the intertubes. They’re probably very old, but they amused me!

Don’t change horses until they stop running

Strike while the bug is close

It’s always darkest before Daylight Saving Time

Never underestimate the power of termites

You can lead a horse to water but how?

Don’t bite the hand that looks dirty

No news is impossible

A miss is as good as a Mr

You can’t teach an old dog new maths

If you lie down with dogs, you’ll stink in the morning

Love all, trust me

The pen is mightier than the pigs

An idle mind is the best way to relax

Where there’s smoke there’s pollution

Happy the bride who gets all the presents

A penny saved is not much

Two’s company, three’s the Musketeers

Don’t put off till tomorrow what you put on to go to bed

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you have to blow your nose

There are none so blind as Stevie Wonder

Children should be seen and not spanked or grounded

If at first you don’t succeed get new batteries

You get out of something only what you see in the picture on the box

When the blind lead the blind get out of the way

A bird in the hand is going to poop on you

Better late than pregnant

As always there is more than a grain of truth in many of them.

food+drink, quotes

Food Quotes

Some more amusements for Low Saturday — that dreary day between Good Friday and Easter Day. These are all taken from Kitchen Wit, Quips and Quotes for Cooks and Food Lovers by Jane Brook, which I was given for Christmas.

Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first.
Josh Billings

Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on.
Billy Connolly

How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?
Julia Child

Cooks do meals for people they know and love. Chefs do it anonymously for anyone who has the price.
AA Gill

I have left many things unfinished in my life, but never a bar of chocolate.
Robert Morley

Having a good wife and rich cabbage soup, seek not other things.
Russian proverb

Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet-lagged, just like people.
Elizabeth Berry

Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who lie in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter.
Fran Lebowitz

In victory, you deserve champagne, in defeat, you need it.
Napoleon Bonaparte

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
Carl Sagan

A thriving household depends on the use of seasonal produce and the application or common sense.
Olivier de Serres

Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard.
Spike Milligan

amusements, ramblings

World Coal Carrying Championships

Easter Monday, which this year is on All Fools’ Day, 1 April, is the date of the World Coal Carrying Championships at Ossett, near Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Each year men and women race the streets of Ossett carrying big sacks of coal. There is a women’s race, two men’s races (all over a course of just under a mile) and also much shorter events for children. The races start at 12 noon at the Royal Oak Pub, Owl Lane, Ossett.


The Coal Carrying Championships are recognised by The Guinness Book of Records.

More details at www.gawthorpemaypole.org.uk.

links, ramblings

National Pet Month

As promised this is the first of, I hope, many posts featuring “National Awareness Days”. Well this is a whole month! So with the promised a few days warning I give you…

National Pet Month, which runs from 1 April to 6 May — so an extended month.

The aim is to help

  • promote responsible pet ownership across the UK
  • highlight the important work of pet care professionals
  • highlight the importance of working companion animals
  • help raise money for the nation’s pet care charities

As their website says:

Pets give us so much love and companionship, now it’s time to repay that kindness […] Pets make fantastic companions and so when it came to choosing our theme for this year companionship had to be top of the list. Increasingly studies show that pets really are good for our physical and mental health.

You can find National Pet Month online at http://www.nationalpetmonth.org.uk, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Personally as part of this I shall be supporting one of my favourite charities The Cinnamon Trust, who work to help the elderly & terminally ill keep their pets (for example by walking dogs for those who can’t) and caring for the pets themselves when the owners are no longer able to look after them.