Aarrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!
It’s flaming clock change day again!
I get really fed up with continually changing the clocks … forward an hour … backward an hour … forward an hour … ad nauseam.
Why? It isn’t necessary. It isn’t as if are at war now. And the myth that summer time saves lives has been exploded as just that: a myth. All it does is create an irritation and cost industry money. FFS why can’t we stay on GMT. We need to start a campaign:
David Masey Grave, originally uploaded by kcm76.
This is the grave in churchyard of St Nicholas, New Romney, Kent of David Masey (b 1807, d 1882) who was my great-great-grandfather and his wife. Also commemorated are a number of his family members (none in my direct line). I’ve been told that David Masey was variously a fisherman, greengrocer, fishmonger, boatman and a lifeboatman at Littlestone.
I was there, rather fortuitously on Saturday afternoon but had only a few minutes to find and photograph the headstone. Had I had more time I was hoping to be able to scour the churchyard for other Masey graves – although sadly very many of the headstones are so weathered as to be unreadable; hardly surprising just a mile or so from the sea. I must check if New Romney have yet catalogued all the graves in their churchyard. More research for one of these fine days when I no longer have to worry about working for a crust!
I saw this today posted on the wall of the gents in the Royal Oak at Brookland, Kent. It has to be preserved for posterity …
Modern Day Prayer
Gordon Brown is my shepherd, I shall not work.
He leadeth me beside the still factories.
He restoreth my faith in the Conservative Party.
He guideth me in the path of unemployment.
Yea, though I wait for my dole,
I own the bank that refuses me.
Brown has anointed my income with taxes,
My expenses runneth over my income,
Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of his term.
From hence forth we will live all the days of our lives in a rented home with an overseas landlord.
I am glad I am British,
I am glad I am free.
But I wish I were a dog
And Brown was a tree.
Theobald’s; Early ’60s
I was brought halfway between Cheshunt and Waltham Cross, about 13 miles north of London and just in Hertfordshire. And I actually lived about 5-10 minutes walk from the site of the long vanished Tudor Theobald’s Palace – built by Lord Burghley and later exchanged by Robert Cecil for James I’s Hatfield House.
Part of the grounds of the old palace were a local park which I visited regularly so we got to know the park keeper. Behind the park was the early-Victorian Old Palace House, built on the actual site of the old palace.
This is of the back of Old Palace House in the 1930s; it wasn’t a lot different when I knew it. Notice the two Tudor windows salvaged from Theobald’s Palace.
By the time I got to know the house it was uninhabited and had passed into the ownership of the local council, so on a Sunday it was under the stewardship of the aforementioned park keeper. Thus it was that we got to help ourselves to apples (gorgeous old varieties) from the wonderful old orchard and also on one occasion to go round the inside of the house.
The house was interesting, but of course slowly becoming derelict having been unoccupied for some years. So it was cold and dank, even on a hot summer’s day. Walking round the house (I guess I would have been 12, maybe 14) we had our small Cairn Terrier sized dog with us. We went up the main staircase to the first floor. But the dog would not, absolutely would not, go up to those stairs. I had to carry her up; she was shaking like a leaf. What it was I don’t know but there was something up there that terrified her. And it did strike me as especially chill.
We never did find out any more, although I have found this on the Paranormal Database:
Location: Cheshunt – Old Palace House, Theobald’s Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: It was claimed that this building was haunted by a number of ghosts, though details are sketchy
A few years later the old house burnt down; as far as I know it was never concluded whether this was “suspicious” or an accident. Except for a large specimen walnut tree the orchard was grubbed out and became an extension of the park.
Follow the links to find lot’s more about the interesting history of the Cheshunt and Waltham Cross area at British History Online.
Norwich; Summer 1973
My only other experience of ghostly presence was when I was a post-graduate student in Norwich. I was friends with a couple (let’s call them B and J) who, at the time, were devout Catholics and lived in a flat (part of a Victorian house) halfway between the city centre and the university.
One hot summer Saturday afternoon I was working in my lab and B was also working 3 labs along from me. We had agreed that I would eat with them that evening and then we’d go out for a few beers. I finished my experiments in mid-afternoon and B said to go on to theirs and he would follow. I duly did so.
When I arrived J open the door and said “Thank God you’ve arrived I been struggling with this presence all day and can’t banish it”. On a baking hot summer’s day I walked in the door and was hit by this wall of freezing cold – real freezing cold, not just a cool house. It tuned out that J had been beset by this “demon” all day and could not banish it from the house – we were great believers in the power of the mind to control these things. She and I set about working on it together and eventually managed to banish it as far as the bathroom.
B arrived an hour or two later and before anyone said anything his comment was along the lines of “What on earth is wrong; what’s happening?” J explained. As I recall we spent the rest of the evening finally removing the presence from the house. We didn’t resort to bell, book and candle, but we were pretty close to doing so. Luckily the presence never returned.
I would have to say, in all honesty, that I’m fairly agnostic about ghosts and presences although these two events were real enough (horribly real in the case of the latter). As Hamlet observes (Act I, scene i):
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
One of the flowering cheery trees on the Greenford Road, near junction with Whitton Avenue, just round the corner from home. Taken today on what was a lovely warm, sunny, Spring morning. A definite improvement on Winter!
There’s something about daffodils originally by MagicAttic88Neither is D for Dolphin! Not that I have anything against dogs or dolphins; they’re just not creatures which interest me. But D is for Daffodils …
OK, so here’s one of the current interspace memes. A blogging friend issues you with a (random) letter. You then have to write a weblog post around ten things beginning with that letter which you like, or are at least meaningful to you. So thanks to Hails over at Coffee Helps for giving me the letter D. So my ten things are:
Donuts
No not those toroidal creations so often topped with sugar icing and ADHD-laden e-coloured sugar ants. Definitely, No. Donuts here have to be the roughly spheroidal, cricket ball-sized variety in the middle of which there is a large dollop of gooey red jam just waiting to squirt out all down the chin and shirt-front. It’s the special red sticky jam otherwise reserved only for the fingers of two-year-olds! Good donuts are wicked but heavenly. Bad donuts are evil.
Desprez, Josquin
Josquin is here as a representative of all composers of the early music era. Although perhaps not my all time favourite Josquin’s work is sublime. My real interest is more in the liturgical works fo the English Medieval and Renaissance composers, especially Nicholas Ludford and William Byrd. Byrd is in fact one of my heroes. How he survived as a recusant in Elizabethan England is something of a mystery. Although arrested and fined for recusancy on a number of occasions he not executed or imprisoned at length – something any other person at that time would have been. Moreover he kept his place at court. One can only think that he had special royal protection for some reason, perhaps as a valued spy? And his liturgical and keyboard music is for me unsurpassable.
Drinking
Let’s be open and frank. I enjoy a drink or three; beer or red wine for preference. It’s fashionable these days to knock anything to do with alcohol, and, yes, I admit it is a drug. But the anti-booze campaigns have in my view gone too far. Yes, it isn’t good for you to get smashed out of your skull regularly. But a few drinks? I seriously doubt a few drinks really hurt anyone (with perhaps the odd exception). Indeed there is good medical evidence that small quantities of alcohol (like a glass of red wine a day) are beneficial and help protect against things such as heart problems.
Diabetes
I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes about 3 years ago, and it can be a real pain in the posterior, although I will be the first to admit that I still haven’t fully engaged with it. You’re supposed to watch what you eat and need to rebalance your diet away from naked sugar to complex carbohydrates which release energy slowly. Diabetes is actually, in my view, two distinct diseases which result in the same long-term effects.
Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease where the body does not produce Insulin (the islet cells in the pancreas either don’t work or are destroyed), so the body cannot metabolise sugar (glucose/glycogen). It generally appears at a young age and often runs in families. Type 1s are the people who have to inject themselves with Insulin, often several times a day.
Type 2 Diabetes normally appears later in life and although there can be a genetic tendency it is also triggered by things like excessive weight. In Type 2 the body produces Insulin but the transport mechanism which allows the Insulin to diffuse from the blood though the cell membrane so it can work in the cells, fails. The effect is high blood sugar, as with Type 1. Type 2 is mostly managed by lifestyle changes and drugs, although through complex feedback mechanisms in the body it can destroy/disable the islet cells so that one progresses to needing Insulin injections.
Of course those descriptions are a generalisation and it isn’t as simple as I make out. Both types of Diabetes are serious but often don’t get taken seriously, even sometimes by those with the malady. They are largely invisible (unless someone passes out, which can happen with either very low blood glucose (hypoglycaemia) or too much blood sugar (hyperglycaemia); both are medical emergencies). But ignoring one’s Diabetes is a mistake as it can lead to many serious complications including major effects on the circulatory system, the nervous system, the kidneys and the eyes. If you even suspect you might have Diabetes then get it checked out by your doctor and take it seriously.
Dentist
Am I sad? Am I really the only person in the country who doesn’t dread going to the dentist – and even enjoys it? Judging by conversations I have I seem to be. But it is true; I genuinely do enjoy trips to the dentist, even when he’s doing nasty things in my mouth! Jonathan, my dentist man at White House Dental is a dream and a genius. Were I female I would swoon. He is just the best dentist – ever. OK so I have the privilege of paying him privately, but is it worth it! He is a superb technician, incredibly dexterous and his attitude is “the best will do”. And I have that on authority too. A couple of years ago he wanted a problem in my mouth checked by an oral specialist at the local BUPA hospital. While looking at my mouth the specialist’s (quite unprompted) comment was “I don’t know your dentist; I’ve never met him; he just refers people to me. But I see a lot of dentistry [well he would, wouldn’t he!] and your guy does the best dentistry I ever see”. Can one get better than that? Well yes, because not only is Jonathan a brilliant dentist, he’s an interesting guy to talk to and we almost always have chat about something medical or scientific between bouts of jovial banter.
Daffodils
Daffodils are one of my favourite flowers and for me the real harbinger of Spring. I’m not so fond of masses daffodils (as on the walls of York), and I detest that awful piece of Wordsworth poetry! I’m happier with a few bright golden trumpets in a vase; they are a real joy.
Driftwood and Dunes
Driftwood and dunes here stand duty for the seaside; not tourist infested beaches but the quieter shores of the less fashionable seaside towns. I’m a Londoner, born and bred, but like so many Londoners I would rather be in the country or, better, by the sea. Especially if it is warm, sunny and there’s an interesting beach with driftwood to find or dunes to explore and where one can laze out of the wind. Sun, sea, sand … what could be better?
Dungeness
Still on the seaside theme one of the places I love is the Dungeness headland in SE England. It is a relatively modern wilderness, created naturally by the sea in the last few hundred years, and is one of the largest expanses of shingle in the world. It is a wilderness of shingle; with scattered shanty housing, a lighthouse, a nuclear power station and one end of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (see also here for more on RH&DR). It is genuinely wild, a haven for birds, especially as a stopover for migrants, and for salt-loving flora.
Devon and Dorset
Dorset and South Devon are another area of England which I love, both for their countryside and for their coast. With a few large-ish towns (Exeter, Weymouth, Torquay, for example) large areas of the counties are open rolling countryside with patchworks of fields, woods and villages, fringed along the southern edge by the sea with some glorious relatively quiet beaches, beautiful sandstone cliffs and fossils – it isn’t called the Jurassic Coast for nothing.
Drupe
Isn’t that a wonderful word: drupe. And it is pronounced, as one would expect, just like “droop”, which means something totally different. Drupe is a word which is not much used and hence known by few. Drupe is the correct botanical name for what are sometimes called the “stone fruits”: the fruit of all the genus Prunus (cherry, plum, almond, peach, etc.) as well as oddities like olives and most palms including coconuts and dates. They are characterised by having a hard kernel (hence the “stone”) which contains the seed and a soft, often fleshy and edible, outer. Apparently the word drupe derives from the Greek druppa olive, via Latin druppa, overripe olive. These are fruits which I love.
So there you have it. Ten things which are meaningful to me and begin with the letter D. Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments. And if you’d like your own letter why not visit Hails over at Coffee Helps and ask nicely (would you do otherwise?) for a letter.
Grab shot from the car (no I wasn’t driving!) on A11 on the way home from my mother’s last evening. I saw the picture but didn’t expect to get it across the traffic and from a moving car. Driving from Norwich to London in the evening is driving into the sunset — and East Anglian sunsets can be spectacular even on a grey day like yesterday.
This is the cherry tree in the street outside our doctor’s surgery. It looked stunning against the blue sky; the shapes and contrasts were fascinating. I’m sure I could have found a better angle, but sadly I didn’t have time: work was calling. 🙁
I’ve found a number of websites which purport to predict what will happen in 2009; for instance here, here and here. All of this looks to me like fairly non-specific commonsense readings of how the prevailing circumstances may develop, which anyone can do.
On that basis, and based partly on these predictions but mainly on my own hunches, here is my reading of what might happen in 2009.
So there you have it – a mixture of my reading of the current environment and some wishful thinking dressed up as a set of predictions. See anyone can do this based on absolutely nothing and it looks authoritative. I hope I have this all wrong (there is no reason it should be right; I have no known special psychic powers) as it is so gloomy. But I shall claim a triumph if I score anything over a 30% hit rate.
Those of us who still believe in giving and receiving Christmas cards generate a vast mountain of waste paper every year. This paper is valuable and important because of (a) the number of trees used to make it, (b) its ability to be recycled into more paper products and (c) its potential to occupy valuable landfill and generate greenhouse gasses.
Now I know some people recycle their cards by reusing (parts of) them to make gift tags or other cards. But most of us don’t. So this is a plea … please recycle your Christmas cards!
If you are in the UK** I would ask that you use the scheme run by The Woodland Trust in conjunction with WH Smith, Tesco, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer. The funds generated from this scheme will be used by The Woodland Trust to plant thousands of trees at sites across the UK – trees which will enhance our enjoyment of the countryside, restore some of Britain’s lost forests and make a major contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gasses.
The scheme’s essential details are:
When: 2-31 January 2009
Where: WH Smith1, Tesco2, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer3
Why: To create much needed new UK woodland; help to create the largest new native forest in England.
Who: The Woodland Trust
How: Take your cards to bins in participating stores and The Woodland Trust will recycle them and use the proceeds to plant thousands of trees at five UK sites
1 UK mainland WH Smith high street stores (excludes all WH Smith Travel stores, Isle of Wight, Belfast and Channel Islands)
2 Tesco supermarkets plus selected Tesco Express outlets
3 M&S stores plus selected M&S Simply Food outlets
A few more facts from The Woodland Trust’s FAQ:
1. If everyone in the UK recycles just one Christmas card this will generate enough money to plant 15,000 trees – that’s a wood the size of 30 football pitches – and save 1570 tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases.
2. In the 12 years this scheme has been running, 600 million cards have been recycled. This has enabled the Woodland Trust to plant 141,000 trees, saving 12,000 tonnes of paper from landfill and preventing 16,000 tonnes of CO2 from going into the atmosphere.
3. The UK is one of the least wooded countries in Europe with just 12% woodland cover compared to the European average of 44%. Only one-third of UK woodland is wildlife rich broadleaf woodland, something The Woodland Trust is aiming to double.
4. The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity with 300,000 members and supporters. The Trust has four key aims: (a) No further loss of ancient woodland; (b) Restoring and improving the biodiversity of woods; (c) Increasing new native woodland; (d) Increasing people’s understanding and enjoyment of woodland. Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,100 sites across the UK in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). Access to its sites is free. Further information can be found at http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/.
What about Christmas wrapping paper and Christmas trees? These are not included in the scheme but most local authorities in the UK have schemes for recycling these too. For instance my borough collects Christmas trees at about 20 key sites (mostly local open spaces) across the borough and then composts the trees. And non-plasticised gift wrap can be recycled with other paper recycling.
** If you’re not in the UK then please hunt out the equivalent scheme in your country and at least make sure your Christmas cards, wrapping paper and Christmas trees don’t end up in landfill.
