environment, photography

Buggered Britain 18

It’s a long time since we’ve had an instalment in my occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.

These choice dwellings are is in Acton Vale, in West London. The photo flatters them — in real life they’re far more picturesquely scrofulous!

Buggered Britain 15
Click the image for larger views on Flickr

quotes

Quotes

Another in our series of quotes which have amused or interested me recently …

There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
[Oscar Levant]

Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at.
[Jimmy Demaret]

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.
[William Ralph Inge]

The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
[Bruce Cockburn]

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.
[Gustave Flaubert]

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
[Henry Adams]

[I]f everyone could just increase the openness and truthfulness of their sexual communication, or their communication about sex and sexuality even a little bit, it would create a great big change: a big change in each person’s own life, a big change in our world as a whole.
[Heather Corinna in It’s My Birthday: What I Want Is For You To Tell the Truth at Scarleteen]
At last, I’m not the only one saying it!

Our freedoms and privileges in a liberal democracy are ultimately guaranteed by the willingness of the state to use violence to protect them.
[Stephen Batchelor, quoted in More Thoughts on the Boston Bombings at Hardcore Zen]
Just think about that for a minute!

[C]ome either with arguments and demonstrations and bring us no more Texts and authorities, for our disputes are about the Sensible World, and not one of Paper.
[Galileo Galilei, Dialogue On Two World Systems]

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.
[Leonardo da Vinci]

While a seaman might survive the suction and swallow, his arrival in a sperm whale’s stomach would seem to present a new set of problems. (I challenge you to find a more innocuous sentence containing the words sperm, suction, swallow and any homophone of seaman.)
[Mary Roach; Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal in a section on, inter alia, Jonah and the whale]

words

Word: Zaftig

Zaftig

Of a woman: plump, curvaceous, ‘sexy’.
Full-bosomed.
Having a full, shapely figure.

From the Yiddish zaftik, juicy.

The first use recorded by the OED is in 1937.

photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph is of Lydd Church in Kent. It is a large church — it not know as “the cathedral of the marshes” for nothing. (That’s the Romney Marsh, by the way.) There has been a church on this site for 1000 years or more — there is a piece of Saxon wall in the NW corner of the nave which has only relatively recently been recognised as such. This is a panoramic joiner image of the south side of the church taken in August 2007.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Lydd Church, Southern Aspect
Lydd Church, Southern Aspect
August 2007

food+drink, ramblings, topographical

British Asparagus Festival

The British Asparagus Festival in the Vale of Evesham kicks off on Tuesday 23 April and runs until 21 June.

The official start of the UK’s eight-week asparagus season launches with the Great British Asparagus Run. This celebrates the first-cut round of asparagus with all the pomp and ceremony you’d expect on Saint George’s Day. The Run traditionally begins at the National Trust’s only pub — the Vale of Evesham’s Fleece Inn. Following a morning of festivities, the newly-harvested spears are escorted by a fleet of Morgan Cars to destinations such as Parliament and Buckingham Palace.

Following the Run, Worcestershire goes asparagus crazy throughout May and June. Scores of pubs and restaurants serve asparagus-themed menus whilst shops sell an array of asparagus products ranging from sausages, jam, ice cream and even soap. Visitors to the county can hop on an Asparabus for a tour of the local growers to learn more about the venerated vegetable as well as enjoy cookery demonstrations and tastings.

Find out more on the British Asparagus Festival website at .

As I love asparagus and will only buy British, I might even have to go myself! Let’s hope it isn’t too badly affected by the last year’s awful weather.

medical, ramblings

National Stop Snoring Week

22 to 26 April is National Stop Snoring Week. This is one of the few medical awareness weeks which I am going to mention, because snoring is usually ignored but can actually be life threatening.

National Stop Snoring Week is the annual event, sponsored by the British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association, promoting general awareness that nobody need suffer as a result of snoring: it is a condition that can be treated.


And indeed snoring is a condition which should be treated as it is often a symptom of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea, a condition where the airways collapse during sleep preventing breathing. If untreated, sleep apnoea not only destroys restful sleep (and thus quality of life/ability to function) but can lead to heart disease and strokes. Luckily it is easily and successfully treated in 90% of diagnosed cases.

Of course snoring may have other causes and other effects. If nothing else it often disrupts the sleep of family members. And contrary to popular belief snoring is not something which affects only middle-aged and elderly men; anyone can be a snorer.

More information on National Stop Snoring Week at www.britishsnoring.co.uk/national_stop_snoring_week.php.

Transparency: Yes, I suffer from Obstructive Sleep Apnoea which is now well controlled.

arts, ramblings, words

National Stationery Week

Monday 22 to Sunday 28 April is National Stationery Week. Yes, that’s “stationery” with an “e” as in “envelope”.

The aim of National Stationery Week is to get people writing. It is a celebration of the written word and all things stationery. The idea is to get more people putting pen to paper and writing by hand more often, especially children. Oh and to get them spelling stationery correctly with an “e”!


Some would have us believe that, in this digital age, letter writing and writing by hand is dead in the water and no longer matters. But in truth technology has merely distracted us from the joy and importance of writing, it hasn’t replaced it — we still have to write note, postcards, posters and exam papers; and many still enjoy writing letters and even novels by hand. Indeed there remains something special about receiving a handwritten letter or card.


There’s a whole website devoted to National Stationery Week at nationalstationeryweek.com including a page which focuses on children and schools.

food+drink, ramblings

Great British Beef Week

Great British Beef Week runs from 21 to 27 April.

Great British Beef Week is an annual celebration of the British Beef industry. Timed to coincide with St George’s Day each year, it is supported both at a local level, with regional events, and nationally with the backing of the nation’s biggest supermarket retailers.

This year, Ladies in Beef is joining forces with the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, a charity which helps farming families in financial difficulty. Its work is funded by public donations, fundraising events and initiatives and support from businesses and community groups.

More information at www.rabi.org.uk and www.ladiesinbeef.org.uk.

words

Word: Ebonics

Ebonics

African-American English, especially when considered as a distinct language or dialect with linguistic features related to or derived from those of certain West African languages, rather than as a non-standard variety of English.
What linguists far more often term African American Vernacular English, and that was originally used with strong connotations of the African origin of this language.

The term is a conflation of “ebony” and “phonics” and , according to the OED, was first used by Prof. RL Williams in January 1973.


Examples, as quoted by the Urban Dictionary, are:

Ebonics: “Yo G, you frontin me?”
English: “Excuse me, my peer, are you attempting to influence me to engage in a violent action with you?”

Ebonics: “You gots to git those Benjamins so you cin git dat bling-bling fo yo ride.”
English: “You need to get money so that you can get expensive accessories for your car.”