Mr Healey's sheep

I still seem to be suffering with the rural. It is not at all like me and I dont think it will last much longer.
This is a picture which should excite my sheep farming neighbours.

Nice Cows

Went to Dinefwr Park and Castle today. Very pleasant National Trust house, park, gardens and castle. By the way I love that line in Dinner ladies where one them, her marriage unsatisfactory illustrates with; “ We are members of the National Trust, but we never go”.
Im not terribly enthralled with livestock as a rule but the park contained some very ancient looking white cattle which turned out to be a pedigree herd that had been at Dinefwr for a thousand years. Cow Information here

Another record failure

Just been looking round for a disk to put a database on and found this on a disk.
Its a project I had in 2003 to take a picture everyday for a complete calender year and to write a brief diary. I see I didnt get round to starting it until January 15th - 14 days late and then forgot to take the picture and then the next day I seem to have taken the picture but misplaced it and the day after that I seem to have forgotten the project altogether. But I will leave this little scrap here as it is fossil evidence of my existence on this planet.

15th January 2003

Forgot to take a picture!!
Ian arrived back from Naples just after 2pm much to Ann's relief. (and mine but I realise that this little episode is nothing like that which is to come.)
Poor old Monty admitted to Bronlly's with water works problem.
Jim Mayers has been up there all day waiting for a blood transfusion - they forgot the blood!!
Been trying to understand W B Yeats poem the 'second coming' as it seems absolutely loaded with significance. But on the internet even those who teach the subject seem remarkably ignorant.
One academic said '….the centre cannot hold…..' referred to the collapsing of the 'Gyre' of the opening lines. Even I see that this is nonsense and it's primarily a military metaphor. And that silly bitch taught English, this being her 'favourite poem'!.

16th January 2003

Thursday and I am at the Builth Office again. Picture - Our car park at the back of the office/bank and Builth bridge from over the road. Weather much milder but no sign of any big winds. When I get home tonight - should be about 5.15pm from Builth - I will have a cup of tea and go and see Monty at Bronllys. Today I am burdened with many commercial risks and nobody sensible enough to talk to about them - i.e. insurance companies.

You heard it here first

Here is a journalist with her finger on the pulse. And its an 'exclusive' too.

Lost data

I have lost count of the number of times I have been seated round about middle and off as you look at this Picture taken today in Saundersfoot carrying out valuable research. I realised today that it has been a wasted effort because I neglected to keep the proper records.
What happens is that Ann goes round the shops and I sit quite near to the whelk stall as was and sneer internally at the passers by as I await her return. In itself this would not be a valuable contribution to the advancement of science. However in addition to sneering I got into the habit of assessing each person who crossed an invisible line running from the whelk stall as was to me. I put them into one of two pigeon holes. The slim and the obese. Those of indeterminate size I mentally discard.
So I sit there counting the obese on the fingers of my right hand and the slim on the fingers of my left hand and when I get to more than five I perform a strange little mental trick that I cannot explain that enables me to continue counting.
How valuable this data would have been had I written it down when Ann turned up instead of immediately forgetting it and saying something like "Where have you been?"
I realised today too with even greater regret that were I to observe my present self crossing the line from where the whelk stall was to the bench where I sit I would have no option but to count myself on my right hand.

Politics explained

I remember as a child asking my mother what all these poster were about that kept appearing in windows. She told me that labour stand for the poor and that conservatives stand for the rich. And the liberals?. “They don’t stand for anything your father votes liberal”.
I think she was essentially right except I would change ‘stand for’ to ‘use’.

Collapsing Rhino

Aunty B: “She has to loose 2llbs if she wants Brecon to do it (general anaesthetic), otherwise its Nevil Hall.(big hospital).
Me: “Doesn’t sound right - Brecon gave me a general anaesthetic”
Son: “What did they do shoot a dart into you?”

Mirror

Im not sure where I got this but refound it in some corner of the computer.
If you load it into ,Paint Shop pro say, and flip the image , maybe rotate it too, then the love in the mirror does become hate and the other love.

Alice

The other day in the hut I read Alice in Wonderland again.
I have never seen a decent representation of this book on screen they all feel compelled to fiddle with it for some reason.
Given away with the Daily Mail recently was a version of Alice with one Tina Majorino as Alice. (Surely they MUST have called her Utterly Butterly at school or even ‘I cant believe shes not butter’. If they didn’t then they should have been ashamed of themselves and all got jobs in the Royal Navy collecting goody bags)
This version occasionally had the feel of Alice despite from the start the ridiculous motive for the dream that they felt compelled to add that she was worried about having to sing a song in front of some grown ups. However I felt more uneasy about Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee turning up played very badly by Robbie Coltrane and some other fat chap and soon after that an elderly knight. My rereading confirmed that the Tweedles and the knight do not belong to the book.
These tales were supposed to have been told to Alice Liddell while on a rowing boat hired from Salter Brothers of Folly Bridge Oxford for a trip on the Thames.
I hired a boat for the first time from Salter Brothers. It was a motor boat called Pilgrim and it was hired during ‘Bumps week’ After being shown how to steer/drive they asked me if I felt competent to go and of course I replied yes. So we set off down river and shortly came upon the races in full flight. I steered in and out of the speeding boats in a most embarrassing manner. Ann hid below decks while Bertie Wooster types shouted at me from the bank through megaphones. Eventually we got past. But then Ann said we had left the bedding behind at Salter Brothers and would have to go back for it. I was all for leaving it there and pressing on down river but she insisted. So I had to turn and weave my way back past now frantic screaming from both banks. At one point I glanced over my shoulder and saw a crew of eight bearing down on me at fantastic speed – all facing the wrong way so far as I could see. I shut my eyes but thankfully there was no collision. We picked up the bedding and set forth again downstream. Those students must have thought I was really taking the piss but luckily there was some kind of break in the proceedings and this coupled with my newly acquired navigational skills allowed us to pass incident free.

Tomlinson

Did this one of Kipling's in school but I have seen neither hide nor hair of it since.



Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost at his house in Berkeley Square,
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair—
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,
And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
"The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die—
"The good that ye did for the sake of men on the little Earth so lone!"
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as the rain-washed bone.
"O I have a friend on Earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide,
"And well would he answer all for me if he were at my side."
—"For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair,
"But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square:
"Though we called your friend from his bed this night, he could not speak for you,
"For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two."
Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there,
For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare.
The Wind that blows between the Worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his good in life.
"O this I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me,
"And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy."
The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,
And Peter twirled the jangling Keys in weariness and wrath.
"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run:
"By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer—what ha' ye done?"
Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore,
For the darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before:—
"O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I heard men say,
"And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway."
"Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate;
"There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate!
"For none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin
"Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within;
"Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for thy doom has yet to run,
"And . . . the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!"
The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell
Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell.
The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain,
But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again.
They may hold their path, they may leave their path, with never a soul to mark:
They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease in the Scorn of the Outer Dark.
The Wind that blows between the Worlds, it nipped him to the bone,
And he yearned to the flare of Hell-gate there as the light of his own hearth-stone.
The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew,
But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through.
"Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he,
"That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me?
"I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn,
"For I strove with God for your First Father the day that he was born.
"Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high
"The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die."
And Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night
The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light;
And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet
The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat.
"O I had a love on earth," said he, "that kissed me to my fall;
"And if ye would call my love to me I know she would answer all."
—"All that ye did in love forbid it shall be written fair,
"But now ye wait at Hell-Mouth Gate and not in Berkeley Square:
"Though we whistled your love from her bed to-night, I trow she would not run,
"For the sin that ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!"
The Wind that blows between the Worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sins in life:—
"Once I ha' laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave,
"And thrice I ha' patted my God on the head that men might call me brave."
The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and laid it aside to cool:—
"Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool?
"I see no worth in the hobnail mirth or the jolthead jest ye did
"That I should waken my gentlemen that are sleeping three on a grid."
Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and there was little grace,
For Hell-Gate filled the houseless soul with the Fear of Naked Space.
"Nay, this I ha' heard," quo' Tomlinson, "and this was noised abroad,
"And this I ha' got from a Belgian book on the word of a dead French lord."
—"Ye ha' heard, ye ha' read, ye ha' got, good lack! and the tale begins afresh—
"Have ye sinned one sin for the pride o' the eye or the sinful lust of the flesh?"
Then Tomlinson he gripped the bars and yammered, "Let me in—
"For I mind that I borrowed my neighbour's wife to sin the deadly sin."
The Devil he grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high:
"Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!"
The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran,
And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man:
"Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth:
"There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be spawn of Earth."
Empusa's crew, so naked-new they may not face the fire,
But weep that they bin too small to sin to the height of their desire,
Over the coal they chased the Soul, and racked it all abroad,
As children rifle a caddis-case or the raven's foolish hoard.
And back they came with the tattered Thing, as children after play,
And they said: "The soul that he got from God he has bartered clean away.
"We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind,
"And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find.
"We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone,
"And, Sire, if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own."
The Devil he bowed his head to his breast and rumbled deep and low:—
"I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go.
"Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place,
"My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face;
"They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host,
"And—I would not anger my gentlemen for the sake of a shiftless ghost."
The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame,
And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name:—
"Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry.
"Did ye think of that theft for yourself?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay! "
The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care:—
"Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, "but the roots of sin are there,
"And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone,
"But sinful pride has rule inside—ay, mightier than my own.
"Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit, to each his Priest and Whore;
"Nay, scarce I dare myself go there, and you they'd torture sore.
"Ye are neither spirit nor spirk," he said; "ye are neither book nor brute—
"Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute.
"I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain,
"But look that ye win to a worthier sin ere ye come back again.
"Get hence, the hearse is at your door—the grim black stallions wait—
"They bear your clay to place to-day. Speed, lest ye come too late!
"Go back to Earth with lip unsealed—go back with open eye,
"And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:
"That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one,
"And . . . the God you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!"

Good Friday walk round the block and an omen in the gutter

Went for a circular walk on Friday - about 60 minutes in all - should have been quicker as it wasn't very far but I am grossly unfit.
The inadvertent picture of my shadow appears to indicate a rather nasty prognosis à la Omen to my nether regions.

Forget dark matter

If I were to give you some data on an inside leg measurement and various other figures and angles taken from the drawing below then you would probably be able to come up quite easily with the conclusion that what you are dealing with is a pair of trousers. It would be easy because thats the perspective that we have on trousers.


However as I was seated
this morning I observed my trousers in a heap around my ankles and it occurred to me that the measurements and angles of the same pair of trousers but collapsed and seen from the top would make it no easy thing for some one to identify a pair of strides from the mathematical data only. Suppose that data of this type was the latest data on background radiation in the universe fresh in from Hubble. I imagined the best scientific brains being totally stumped by the mysterious figures and what it could mean for cosmology. Then somewhere, perhaps in an observatory high up in the Andes, a spectacled geek pouring over a computer print out of the data, his jaw dropped exclaims in wonder. "My God - its a pair of trousers!"

Ish programmes’ Schlafly

I like maths but Im not very good at it.
This is my favourite computer programme of any kind and it was written in 1992 by Roger Schlafly and is free to download at; www.mindspring.com/~schlafly/roger.htm
With this programme you input an equation and it solves it! Brilliant indeed it occurs to me that this would be one of the very, very few times you could legitimately use the word awesome – well maybe you couldn’t but I could because I do , maybe in my ignorance, wonder at its power.
Yesterday for example a client had £10,230 and wanted to invest it for as long as it took to reach £12,500 with an interest rate of 5%.
Now I know you can do this easily with Excel but it is so boring with a spreadsheet.
With this programme you type in your equation and it solves the equation. So you need to construct an equation first. In this case 10230 X 1.05^x = 12500. When you type it in you get the result, 4.107 years. Which equals 4 years and 39 days.

He also has a very nice collection of quotations too including this one from CS Lewis;

‘Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.’

Christmas Notes

I am making a note here in case I forget of a few ideas I have had for the next party.
Every year we have a parish Christmas party in the village hall. Since there is only one village hall but two villages Llyswen (Breconshire) and Boughrood(Radnorshire) , divided by the Wye, the village that holds the second party often finds it taking place well into January. I cant help thinking when its our turn for the late Christmas party that seeing Santa Claus , when he turns up, is a bit like answering a knock on the door to find that a relative who had been staying with you for two weeks but left at last for home that morning had turned up again in the afternoon having missed the train.


Notes

Get a load of plastic bags from Morrisons.
Two teams of men against the clock strive to open as many bags as they can.
When they’ve finished doing that the plastic bags can be left there in a big heap for the children to play with.

We give someone a pram and a walkman or whatever you call them these days and he has to push the pram in time with the music. Everyone else guesses the music playing from his ridiculous movements. It is in order to shout contemptuous remarks at him while this is going on because the ear plugs and the music means he wont hear it and get upset.

As we go into the hall we could each draw a random card . All those people who draw the right card would have to keep it to themselves. Then just as the tea is about to end the music would start playing and the chosen ones in sequence would have to sing a few lines from ‘Perfect Day’. For the rest of us the excitement is in anticipating where the next humiliating contribution is coming from. On second thoughts might need to ‘seed’ the random cards to achieve maximum audience interest.

D Side

I bought a box of used seaside postcards. These two were the most subtle. I wont pretend I didnt laugh though.

I am a camera.

I remember a film of this title which I have forgotten but the title lives on.
Having spent my life first listening to the radio, Dan Dare, Journey into Space, The Goon Show , Round the Horn etc and then graduating to television, ‘I love Lucy’ , Quatermass etc and then films, Jason and the Argonauts, American musicals etc etc I found myself sitting in the window of a Chinese restaurant watching the street while recorded music played through concealed speakers. I soon noticed that what was happening in the outside world was being beautifully choreographed in response to the music and that it must have been me that was doing it. Around the corner limped a fellow his awkward movements perfectly in time. My eyes subconsciously choosing the right beat cut to a woman who circled once as she walked to call out to a friend . I found my eyes moving naturally from one rhythmic object to another and sometimes I moved the whole head. But always there was never any difficulty in keeping the music and movement together.
So all those years of sitting down in front of the radio, the TV and the cinema were not wasted they have turned me into a sort of artist.

More refined than Rab C

Alan Johnston sent me these - I couldnt even find a picture of Chick Murray with Google image

Chic Murray (glasgow legend from the 60s) - just for douglas:


'I was in London the other day and this man came up to me and asked me if I knew the Battersea dog's home. I said that I didn't know it had been away.'


'So there I was lying in the gutter. This man stopped and asked '"What's the matter? Did you fall over?" So I said "No. I've a bar of toffee in my back pocket and I was just trying to break it."


I made a stupid mistake last week. Come to think of it, did you ever hear of someone making a clever mistake?


So I gave him a wave. Actually, it was more of a half wave, because I only half know him.


What use is happiness? It can't buy you money


If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it?


I had a tragic childhood. My parents never understood me. They were Japanese.


I won't say I was slow developer, but our teacher was quite pleased to have someone her own age in the class to talk to.


If it weren't for marriage, husband and wives would have to fight with strangers.


After I told my wife that black underwear turned me on, she didn't wash my Y-fronts for a month.


Kippers- fish that like a lot of sleep.


The boat was so old; it must have been launched when Long John Silver had two legs and an egg on his shoulder.


It was a pretty posh place. They were so used to fur coats that two bears strolled in and ordered lunch and nobody even noticed.


I felt as out of place as a left-handed violinist in a crowded string section.


I drew a gun. He drew a gun. I drew another gun. Soon we were surrounded by lovely drawings of guns.


There's a new slimming course just out where they remove all your bones. Not only do you weigh less, but you also look so much more relaxed.


The police stopped me when I was out in my car. They told me it was a spot check. I admitted to two pimples and a boil.


I first met my wife in the tunnel of love. She was digging it at the time.


I dreamt I was forced to eat 25lbs of marshmallows. When I woke up, my pillow was missing.


I got up this morning. I like to get up in the morning; it gives me the rest of the day to myself. I crossed the landing and went down stairs. Mind you, if there had been no stairs, I wouldn't even have attempted it.


We were so poor; the ultimate luxury in our house at the time was ashtrays without advertisements. It was all the wolf could do to keep us away from his door. A luxury meal was prairie sandwiches- two slices of bread with wide-open spaces between them. There were so many holes in my socks I could put them on seventeen different ways.


My mother was so house proud that when my father got up to sleepwalk she had the bed made by the time he got back.


I went to the butchers to buy a leg of lamb. "Is it Scotch?", I asked. "Why?Are you going to talk to it or eat it?". "In that case, have you got any wild duck?". "No", he responded, "but I've got one I could aggravate for you".


I rang the bell of this small bed-and breakfast place, whereupon a lady appeared at an outside window. "What do you want?", she asked. "I want to stay here", I replied. "Well, stay there then", she said and closed the window.


There are two rules for drinking whisky. First, never take whisky without water, and second, never take water without whisky.


My wife went to a beauty parlour and got a mudpack. For two days she looked nice, then the mud fell off.


My father was from Aberdeen, and a more generous man you couldn't wish to meet. I have a gold watch that belonged to him. He sold it to me on his deathbed. I wrote him a cheque for it, post dated of course.


I went to the doctor and he told me I only had three minutes to live. I immediately asked if there was anything he could do for me, to which he replied, that he could boil me an egg.

Murder he wrote

If he does turn out to be strangled then I think the chances are it was a spin bowler as they would have the necessary power in their fingers.

Replace wife with mechanical woman for only £119.99

About 5 or 6 years ago we were visiting an émigré from the village who had gone to live in Sleaford , Lincolnshire. I was driving and Ann was navigating with her usual reluctance. After half an hour of driving without seeing anything that looked at all reassuring to me I stopped the car and asked Ann if she was sure that she knew where we were. She showed me the map and pointed out the thin, meandering road upon which we were set and assured me that soon we would arrive at Pinkies. When I pointed out to her that the road was meandering because it was in fact a river and this might have been guessed to be the case even by the inexperienced map reader because it was coloured blue she did not seem at all ready to accept the necessary sarcasm but rather threw the map at me and refused to go on.
Last Thursday I bought from Aldi a satellite navigation system for £119.99 and it works beautifully. It has a female voice. Apart from calculating the route accurately, should I make the occasional error she does not say “You should have turned where I said – I dont know where we are – youll have to go back. This is the last time…..etc etc”. Instead of all that stuff the mechanical woman quietly recalculates the route and tells me the way in a voice that bears no recriminations and does not humiliate by forcing me back to face the precise point of my error

Grocer menace

Just popped down to the Spa for a sandwich.
There is a chap there normally whose name I do not know and with whom I have never had any kind of a conversation who always greets me with; “ Yall right?” I used to find this very disconcerting and wondered what he knew about my life.
I have just returned with my sandwich having been served by a new one who saves his little dose of paranoia until the end of the transaction when he closes with “Take care now”. Its all very worrying.

British First

I have deliberately kept this film of me dark so as to avoid identification.
I now make public my discovery which advances human kind and gives justification to my life.
Since the dawn of time if somebody wished to make a popping sound they took their index finger or that long one in the middle of the hand the name of which I do not possess although I am sure it has one and placed it inside the mouth flicking it from inside to outside to produce the pop. I have discovered, and up until now kept it secret, that placing the finger on the outside of the cheek and flicking inwards produces a much more satisfactory sound. I should say that to produce the best sound you do need to inflate the cheek and this is done by blocking the mouth with the middle finger. It is well worth the effort of practicing this technique.
It is only fear of publication in America that leads me to rush ahead with this announcement now.

Sharper than a serpents tooth all round

Back to the Black Prince. There was just one child among the passengers aged 3.
She was called Regan. Didn’t her mother research the name before bestowing it upon her? Cordelia I can understand but Regan? I like to think though that in later life she might be grateful for not being called Goneril.

There was one real disaster on board though, more horrific than the already reported near sinking and the non-exploding Muslim. One day I misread the ‘dress code’ for the day and took it as ‘informal’ when in fact it was ‘casual’ and not even ‘smart casual’. I was devastated to find myself in a jacket and tie when all about me smirked in open necked shirts. The shame of it.

Greenwich Park

I just bought this postcard of the refreshment Pavilion in Greenwich Park - posted 1910. It was still there and operating in 1960, 70 years later. I hope it is still there.

The non appearance of toast makes the idea of God more plausible

Leibniz said in effect that out of the infinite number of possible universes that God could have created he chose the one that produced the greatest good.
This makes sense. If everything were ‘perfect’ , no pain, no death etc then apart from the fact that we wouldn’t be human in the way we have been up to now, apart from that, we would soon invent new trivia to get heated over. On this Black Prince the service is fantastic and the meals excellent, by my definition of the word it is a perfect eating experience and provided by Philipinos . For some reason though the other day at breakfast the toast did not turn up on cue. I would guess the period of uncertainty between its absence being noted and its actual arrival was less than 3 minutes. However in this plane of perfection the miniscule ripple of ‘no toast’ seemed to cause tremendous waves of panic on our table. ‘where is the toast’ , ‘he hasn’t brought the toast’, ‘my eggs going cold -I cant eat it without the toast’ ‘Excuse me toast here please!’. Gradually the panic and aggression seemed to mount and Ann and I wished we were not sitting there. Had these people forgotten what the service was like in England ?
I draw the conclusion that Leibniz’s contention is therefore tenable. If as human beings we have the capacity to suffer pain then in a universe where perfection reigns except in the matter of the regular appearance of toast at breakfast people will begin to feel real pain when they don’t get their toast on time.
We do not know what the output of good would be under any other possible arrangement of the universe compared to the present one but there is no reason to suppose for example that the removal of all pain automatically increases the good

Big bang didn't happen

There were about 400 passengers on the Black Prince and practically all of them/us were British, white , over 50 and by nature conservative. After we left Liverpool there appeared among us a young Muslim couple, the wife wearing black and the burqa, only her eyes visible in the exposed slit. When I was very young, too young for it’s rating, I managed to get in to see the cult film ‘The Day the Earth stood still’. This involved a Robot called Gort who was capable of destroying the world by activating a slit in it’s face and this silent unsmiling couple came with a similar kind of alien menace. They spoke to nobody and remained in their cabin. A few days later we were walking along the narrow corridor of cabins from fore to aft when the brighter light at the end of the corridor illuminated the figure of the woman leaning with her back against the ships side and I could make out from her silhouette that she appeared to be pregnant. As we approached I kept thinking to myself, ‘please don’t let her explode, please don’t let her explode, please don’t let her explode’. She didn’t .

Instruments

I lay on my bed with my body running from port to starboard.
On my left hand side was a window with a curtain which I could see edge on. The window was secured with great bolts and could not be opened. Ahead of me just beyond my feet Ann’s Jacket hung on a hook.
As we began to cross the Bay of Biscay the jacket moved on its hook. More correctly the jacket remained where it was and the whole ship oscillated about it. The instrument of Ann’s jacket recorded the pitch of the ship.
Out of the corner of my eye I observed the curtain move into the cabin or rather the whole ship moved away from the curtain. The instrument of the curtain measured the roll of the ship.
Round about two O’clock in the morning Ann said she had had enough and was going collect her life jacket from the bottom of the wardrobe and go and wait in the ‘muster station’ for the inevitable call. I shouted at her to get a grip of herself and felt much better for my little bout of nastiness.
There were not many for breakfast the next morning

Black Prince second attempt

Off on the Black Prince tomorrow for a cruise . At least it doesn’t look like a chunk of Shopping Mall has broken off from a city centre and is floating gently round the shores of lake placid. The first 3 or 4 days will be the Irish Sea and the Bay of Biscay and so it should feel like a proper journey at least. I shall report in due course.

Cheese Mission

There are many little peculiarities in border speak.
Ann asked me to get some cheese from the village shop Saturday. “..and be sure to ask for the tasty cheese”.
The following shop conversation ensued.
“Oh and could I have some cheese?”
Ivy replies “ Do you want the tasty cheese Doug?”
“yes please but what would happen if somebody said to you – please don’t make it the tasty cheese, I cant stand tasty cheese”
Ivy “then they would have the mild cheese”.
At last I got it.

Snow

From the Llyswen side of Boughrood Bridge Friday 9th Feb 2007

2007

New Year started badly. Toilet wouldn't flush. Drain blocked.
Travelled 28 miles to Merthyr B&Q and bought a set of rods.
Didn't help and the plunger dropped off in the pipe.
Had to lie flat on the ground and stick my arm up to recover it.
The professionals sneered at my incompetence and agreed to come round and fix it tomorrow. There then followed between me and Ann a risk assessment of the coming 24 hours and possible contingency arrangements involving a bucket and her Aunt who lives in the next village but who goes to bed at 7.30pm.
Then had shower and noticed Homer Simpson soap on a rope Christmas present.
Decided to use but on applying to my body his head immediately fell off leaving a jagged edge upon which jagged edge I severely bruised my left nipple.

Christmas Eve

Olive -Did you watch the final of 'Strictly Come dancing?
Caroline- No we were watching 'World War' - Who won?
Ian- We did.

Super Annuation

I don’t know if this is in your papers or not I don’t bother with newspapers these days.
In ‘Pension Week’, where I get my kicks , there is a headline ‘FAS pays out pitiful £1.7m in three years’

FAS = Financial Assistance Scheme and it is this scheme which is supposed to compensate people who have lost money in occupational pension schemes.
What I found interesting and entirely in line with my view of government, the ones who put this scheme in place, are the following facts.
100,000 people lost pensions when their sponsoring employer collapsed.
£2.3bn was earmarked in this scheme as a lifeboat.
In 3 years the FAS has paid out £1.7m to 454 of those 100,000 but has also paid £10.4m in staff wages and running costs.
The number of people paid out works out at about 6 people for every member of staff employed and that’s over more than 2 years.
I must see if I can get a job there. I reckon I could spend most of my time lounging round here in Brecon and maybe pop up to London on Ladys’ Day , Midsummer and Michaelmas do my three cases and then go home.

Bait

Did you get here searching for any of these?
If you did then let me know Im looking for them too.
Elsie Doreen Grantham
Elsie Doreen Mcleod
Alfred George Mcleod
Montgomery Graham
David Silver
Wendy Davies Lee Manor School
Martin Rhodes Bland Welch
thanks

He she it

It is always odd when reading the human element in a statement to find it referred to as 'she' , when of course it should be 'he'.
'The scientist in such instances will consult her data'
'The philosopher knows that her training will cover this'
When I encounter 'she' in such circumstances I always wonder what that womans doing in here when 'he' is perfectly understood as neutral.

I can smell burgers now the rain has come

Went to Brecon Fair yesterday. It was very many years before the magic of hot dogs and burgers finally deserted me and even now like an old dog my metaphorical ears still prick as if to the word ‘cats’ when the smell of frying onions wafts in.
Marcel Proust can keep his dainty cakes with me it’s the smell of frying onions and the front at Southend on Sea.
We wandered around these stalls – all containing Welsh food products.
By the way many years ago we visited the Kestrel pub just outside Brecon and it was kept by a German prisoner of War who had remained behind. We went there to see a Badger who had taken to coming into the bar and circulating among the clientele before departing into the night. The badger arrived dead on time and passed along the guests shaking hands and presumably making representations about the source of bovine TB before leaving by his usual exit and making his way back to the set.
An American visitor then asked the owner for something to eat that was typically Welsh. The landlord replied “Well there is only Welsh rarebit and that’s bloody awful”.
Back to yesterday it began to rain and at the same time I caught the smell of frying onions. Although I don’t eat the stuff these days I think subconsciously I probably resented the fact that it had started raining just as I had been ‘offered’ a hot dog, and I found myself saying to Ann, “I can smell burgers now the rain has come”.
I suppose I should have sung it and she might have sung back “Think of the cholesterol in your veins”
I did try desperately to get a picture of an enormous elf especially when she was eating cod & chips from out of the paper but failed. They all came out blurred

Macworld

I sometimes think what would have happened if the human gene pool were from the beginning of time composed entirely of my genes and that the genes did not mutate.
What would be the consequences for humans?
Well never in a million years would a human have contemplated milking a cow and then drinking it! So we can rule out everything that follows from that disgusting aberration including rice puddings. In fact I cant see my genes allowing the killing and eating of animals at all. Although I do eat meat my behaviour is acquired but with a universal predisposition not to eat meat in the genes then such behaviour is likely to remain deviant. “He was seen scoffing a bacon sandwich” would have the same effect in Macworld as “Gary Glitter is minding the children” has in this.
I think my genes would predispose humanity to invent the wheel and other things like computers etc.
I also think that human kind would be predisposed to the idea of God.

They all look/sound the same to me

Last month I noticed a new CD - 'Girls Aloud Greatest hits'.
That was 4 weeks ago - I wonder if volume 2 is out?

Llandovery

Well I thought I was destined to sail aboard the Black Prince however it seems that I was destined not to as Ann got taken ill on the day it was due to sail.
Just goes to show what a misleading thing destiny is.

Here is a good place to visit. Llandovery. Interesting shops with lots of cafés one of which seems to be always surrounded by motorcycles like white corpuscles round a wound.
The café I chose was slightly up market to the bikers grotto. Ann wanted a cappuccino and not seeing it on the menu I asked; “Have you got any cappuccino?”.
“Whats that ?” . “Well it’s got a sort of frothy top to it”. “Oh you mean milky coffee?” “Yes alright”.
Anyway the bacon egg and chips were top hole and very cheap too.
Actually whenever I see that combination of motorcycles and café I think of the café there used to be next to Forest Hill Station in the 1960’s. I went in there once and found several aggressive looking rockers on the pin tables. Not wishing to show fear I strolled up to the juke box and inserted some money , this gave me the opportunity to legitimately turn my back on them and to work out how to extricate myself more permanently. Unfortunately I pressed the wrong button and instead of some respectable ‘hard’ tune reinforcing my rightful presence the unmistakable sound of Hayley Mills singing ‘Lets get together , yeh ,yeh , yeh, why don’t you and I etc’. I retreated at once.

Willersley unruined ruin

I love this place that I pass on my way back from the dreadful Hereford. Completely unrestored. What a pleasure to see a decrepit ruin untouched and rotting away as nature intended. Maybe it is owned by somebody who doesn't care about the mazooma he is letting slip , but more likely there is some unresolved ownership dispute and greed pulling in more than one direction causing the whole thing to stagnate.
My earliest recollections of play are of exquisitely overgrown bomb sites in South East London. Now even here everything is being tarted up and 'improved'. The bombsite long ago became anonymous blocks of flats in the early 60's but there is no comparison aesthetically with bombed out buildings filling up with nature 6 years after the war ended. The ruined watermill on the Wye over the bridge in Boughrood is done up and lived in now it is the way of all things round here these days.

Things I never want to do again

Drive to or from any address in Birmingham.

Reprogramme Sony bedside clock/alarm.

Telephone Nationwide Building Society.

Give the Peace.

That will do for the time being.

Das Boot

In 8 days time I am steaming across a storm tossed Bay of Biscay in a plague ship – it is my destiny.
36 years ago while queuing to see a Lloyds underwriter I first saw this particular ship on the back of a magazine and liked the sound of it. I never thought about it again until it miraculously rematerialised in late September.
Every morning the news programs were full of tedious stuff about the size of the bags you could or could not take onto a plane and the different objects you could or could not take and vast hordes of would be passengers getting held and fed up.
I was asked to arrange a surprise holiday for Ann’s birthday by her mother and couldn’t face all that flying nonsense when the idea of a cruise occurred to me.
I rang to see what was available close to the date and leaving from the UK.
The Black Prince was leaving Liverpool on the 7th of November for France, Spain and Portugal. Instantly my mind went back to that Lloyds office long ago and the picture of the Black Prince in the magazine and I felt compelled to book it. I must say that we have never been on a cruise and have never wanted to or looked into it or have any knowledge of cruise ships. I recognise the names Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Aurora but that is all. I did feel that I had to book this one though.
Having paid the money it then occurred to me that we would be travelling most of the time back and forwards across the Bay of Biscay in a small cruise ship, during November; the Bay of Biscay not being known for it’s gentler side.
Ann was stunned and pleased by her mothers present but she recognised the name of the ship instantly as having been recently in the news for ¾’s of her passengers going down with some vomiting virus. I don’t read the papers or pay too much attention to the news since history invariably repeats itself and I have seen it all the first time round. I keep hearing in my head Eva Cassidy singing ‘People get ready there’s a train a coming you don’t need no ticket just climb aboard’

Happy Birthday to me

Received this card from Ian and Caroline today.

No work in a fair lumper

There is no work in a fair lumper

You can rely on this observation in practically all cases.
Maybe there are exceptions but I cant think of them and as I sail further into lumpishness myself, I feel the work in me just ebbing away.
I do have some exquisite examples of local lumpers but cant , due to cowardice, bring them to a wider audience.
I heard TP in the office, staring at the keyboard of her computer, mutter to herself with a sigh. ‘There is no work in me today’. I had never heard that expression before and took it to be a Radnorshire saying. They seem to revere work in these parts. ‘He’s a good worker’ is the highest possible praise. I don’t see work as a virtue but I wouldn’t dare say that here, local political correctness would be outraged.
The idea of work as being something that is contained within a person must affect the way that work is understood.
Last week while mentioning somebody she knew TP said, matter of factly “mind you she’s a fair lumper”. I rushed to Google, having just used up the last few crumbs of my self contained work to check the phrase. I couldn’t find it even connecting it with Radnorshire in the search terms. All the other locals understood the expression perfectly so I conclude that a ‘fair lumper’ is a Radnorshire expression for somebody who is ‘big boned’.

Last Post

The next post I make here will not be sarcastic, ‘negative’ or heavily ironic.
I may be away for quite a while now trying to get myself into an appropriate mood to produce such a thing
Look back at Christmas time if its going to happen at all it must be by then.
So for the second time I say “I am just going outside and may be some time”

Scott of the Antarctic “ Quick lock the bloody tent this time”

Encounter with a lady in a Victorian Spa Town

Yesterday went out to get a cold drink from JO’s and thereabouts came upon a young female built like a prop forward loudly effing and blinding as she marched down the street , her feet forming an obtuse angle between them in the most aggressive male posture. My father used to tell me I walked like a poof but Ann says I walk like Inspector Frost. I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window and noticed she was right. Don’t look in her eyes, don’t look in her eyes I told myself.
I breathed a sigh of relief as she macho'd off at a fast rate round the corner effing loudly at some unseen prey. At least on this occasion I should not be tested/humiliated.
And then I imagined the six girls in our office as policewomen all armed with truncheons and attempting to arrest two ton Tessie Berserk. I could see her fling them right left and centre like so many kittens and then effing off into the sunset to the sound of ‘Born Free’.

Graft

Working from home today. Its 5pm and Ive done bugger all. Have just drunk a pint of John Smith bitter and pointed the camera out of the window next to the desk where I am supposed to have been working.

The Wye Valley Mysteries

Its the Royal Welsh Show next week and that and the hot weather reminds me of the events of just a few years ago. Events that would change our lives forever.
Ann was working at the Erwood Craft centre half way to Builth Wells.
The Craft centre, the remains , post Beecham, of a railway station including some railway carriages and an engine or two was adapted mainly as a workshop for the talented wood turner who owns it. Ann was working part time in the teashop.

One morning she came into work and put her handbag down in the shop and went behind the counter to put the coffee machine on. A young woman with child, about 6 or 7 entered the shop and engaged my trusting wife in happy conversation while the Artful Dodger removed the handbag from its secure location, on the floor in the shop on the public side of the counter.
She didn’t discover the missing bag until later and although to my mind there was no great tragedy , cash trifling, credit cards insured, junk in purse a welcome evacuation, Ann was devastated particularly about the contents of the purse and the lost forever telephone numbers, recipes, addresses, till receipts etc. So she called the police. A policeman did arrive and gave his opinion his, politically incorrect opinion with which we both strongly agreed, that it was probably a tinker, one of a great horde who turn up each year for the show.

He suggested they drive down to the camp and see if they could see this woman walking about. They did but found nothing. Ann insisted on me and her revisiting the camp in the evening but again we saw nothing and although I felt myself turning into a character from Hetty Wainthrop Investigates, Ann was deadly serious I am only thankful she wasn’t armed, ‘go ahead punk make my day’.

A day or so later we learned that the credit card had been used at a petrol station near Brecon and then the police turned up with a polythene bag containing the entire contents of the handbag, a pile of utter trash. Ann however was over the moon. Some workmen on the A470 had found the stuff in a ditch. The thief, being of the same opinion as me, had removed the good stuff and flung the rest. Ann went through every little slip of paper lovingly until she came to a piece that wasn’t hers. This turned out to be a social services form with the thief’s name and address on it. Hetty put her theory to the police and Ms Fagin was caught bang to rights. Ann , who earlier had been demanding the death penalty recovered her peaceful good humour and put away the magnum. The police were happy with a detection and a conviction.

Now I come to think it didnt change our lives at all.

Poesy

You know how you can find a piece of driftwood and without doing anything to it beyond displaying it turn it into a work of art? I think they call such things objets trouvés although that may refer to the bags of soiled nappies I find that are occasionally hurled over our fence from the pub car park next door. I suppose given the right institution and hype even these might have some artistic pretensions.
But I think you can 'find' poems too and not just by noticing the occasional sometimes Freudian rhyme that slips out. My favourite I heard while listening to the late night shipping forecast on radio four delivered in the deadpan voice of, I think his name is Perkins, Low ,heading west, slowly losing identity. Not much of a poem and maybe I am relying on the rhythm of his delivery to give it any claim at all but it sums me up.

TWO DAYS LATER ANDI REALISE I HAVE ALREADY SAID THIS BACK IN SEPTEMBER 2005.
I WILL LEAVE IT IN THOUGH AS EVIDENCE OF A MIND CRACKING UP.

Sale

Here is an automated email Ive had from the Downing Street website in response to the message left below.


Dear Mr Mcleod

Thank you for your message to the Prime Minister which you sent through the Downing Street website (www.number-10.gov.uk).We need to confirm that we have your correct details and that the message shown at the bottom of this email is from you.
Click on the link below to confirm your message.Once you have confirmed your email, your message will be passed to Downing Street staff to read. Although the PM is unable to answer emails personally, all your messages are read and the PM is given a report on the issues raised, along with a selection of messages.
Thanks,
The Number 10 Web Team
Here is the text we received:
RE: The sale of honours
Dear Prime Minister,
Could you let me know the cheapest honour youve got - not counting your
own of course.
best wishes

12 months extra time

7.25am last Monday in Llandrindod Wells. You cant quite see it in this picture but the monument is to the Great War 1914 - 1919. I wonder if there were pockets of German resistance still operating behind enemy lines in Llandod after 1918 or Is there a better reason for the extra time ?

Same

Why is consistency a virtue?
A television programme must repeat the same elements it displayed last week in order to continue to be watched.
The supermarket requires all vegetables to conform to a consistent pattern.
The laws under which we live must be the same everywhere.
The decision of Judge B must be consistent with the decision of Judge A.
The untruths a politician told today must be consistent with the untruths he told yesterday. He can lie as much as he likes so long as he is consistent.
If Gravity or the other laws of nature were not themselves consistent then life would be impossible.
But life is not impossible without the same TV programme being shown endlessly, the same tomato being eaten again and again. Perpetrators of graffiti getting locked up in Surrey and it counting towards their GCSE coursework in London is inconsistent but not impossible and not undesirable. A politician occasionally telling the truth would be a novelty. No they are not unfairly criticised they are all, every last man jack of them consistent liars.
When I was about 7 I noticed at election times all the Labour and Conservative posters and the occasional Liberal poster. I asked my mother what it was all about.
She said; "Labour stand for the poor and the Conservatives stand for the rich - the Liberals dont stand for anything - your father votes Liberal"

Sunday Lunch 9th July 2006

Today went for lunch with Ann's Aunt, on the left and her mother on the right.
The following conversation is in progress.
Aunt - Did you read about that man in Lyonshall? He jumped though the patio door and attacked another man. He bit off his thumb and ate it. Then he bit off his nipples and ate them too. They took him away and I think he is in a mental hospital somewhere.
Pause.
Mother replies -The patio door cant have been double glazed

Economics

Called in at Leigh Delamere motorway service station on the M4.
A one litre bottle of still water to 'take away' was very finely priced at £2.07.
Obviously £2.00 was insufficient to provide a profit and required a careful balancing of the forces of supply and demand to get it right.
Meanwhile in Builth Wells yesterday the petrol station puts its price for a litre of petrol up to £1.01. I think though I can rely upon upon the thrifty spirit of the Radnorshire people to jerk quickly on the choke chain of demand and bring this impudent cur to heel.

Rien ne va plus

I didn’t pay too much attention to the news stories about the Government inviting license applications for a number of ‘supercasinos’ except to wonder in passing why a British Government would want to create these kind of monstrosities and putting it down to the general degeneration of life.
Now the answer appears simple they flogged the Dome to an American and in return for this they had to fiddle some kind license for a supercasino there. Hence the blind of seeking multiple license applications and Prescott the heavy putting the screws on Southend to withdraw from the special one.

Feng sui

We closed our Builth Wells Office and moved everyone to Llandrindod Wells - hence it's a bit crowded. So crowded that two days a week I work from home and a colleague occupies my desk. I think I can call it my desk as I am in it 3 days to her 2.
She now tells me that according Feng sui the state of my desk is not conducive to something or other and the same can be said for leaving the toilet seat up.
I am not sure whether FS requires that the lid be lowered as well as the seating facility although I can see a case might be made for leaving the lid up in the kamikaze position. kamikaze I recall meaning divine wind.
The position of objects may be significant in a real way. I remember sitting on the beach at Pendine and poking at the sand with a stick. I observed as three grains of sand moved a small distance from each other. It occurred to me that although they had only moved a matter of millimeters the distance of every other point in the universe to the grains in question had altered and immediately. Therefore no action however trivial has less than universal consequences. This sudden insight into the nature of existence occurred to me 7 years ago and I can honestly say that since that time it has made no difference whatsoever. Perhaps I should try closing the toilet seat?

Laws

This is an interesting website Megans Law operating in California.
Observe the distribution of sex offenders in an area and the idividuals themselves, their location and offence record. See if you can find any common facial attributes and thus revive the scientific fortune of phrenology - who knows its demise might be soley down to political correctness. Try to work out how John Reid will promise this sort of thing but get out of delivering anything at all.
Personally I dont care whether they introduce it or not, I might find it amusing if they did. Reason is on the side of those that say 'No' , but then reason is dead.
I used to watch/listen to Question Time years ago. But now I cannot bear to hear it.
If through error I arrive , via my remote control, at;
1) Question Time
2) Bazuka that ferruca
or
3) The advert with the hordes of aggressive women marching into some city square demanding sanitary towells.
I immediately change channels.
I am not sure what the connection is between this stuff and the Megan's Law bit but since reason is dead there doesnt have to be one.

Fête

Just this minute returned from the annual Church fête at the vicarage.
Won a very small bottle of indian tonic water on the bottle stall and bought a bottle of home made elderflower cordial. Brecon Town band playing well.

Tea in the refreshment tent only 25p in a china cup and saucer. I gave them a £1 and told them to keep the change. Does that make me a Philanthropist?

Not too well attended while I was there but it began filling up as I left - I dont think the two events are connected.

Now Ive got to spend 3 hours cutting our grass and probably will have to go into the office sometime before Monday for another 3 hours to sort out my work. I have noticed recently that if I have a problem case I have this ability to 'walk away from it in my head' - I dont have to 'walk' very far before it is lost completely .

Pork Sushi

They say we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
I think I might just have.
My son at 15 marinated some chicken.
I came home from work as he was going out and he said to me.
“There is some chicken in the fridge you can have”.
When he’d gone I took out the chicken and ate some.
It tasted lousy but as he had made it specially I persevered but even so gave up half way through the dish.
When he came back late at night he asked me if I liked the chicken.
I lied ‘yes but I couldn’t eat it all’.
He went to the fridge and saw the remains.
“You did cook it?” he asked nervously , and I swiftly realised my error.
My sausages arrived from France at last.
I began eating a long thinnish one at the beginning of the week.
It smelled disgusting and wasn’t very pleasant but nevertheless I ate my way through about a fifth of it.
Today I fried the rest and it tasted quite good, quite civilised.
Here is a picture of the wrapper. I cant see anything to suggest that I shouldn’t have eaten it in its original form but I know more sophisticated pallets than mine occasionally drop by here so perhaps they could pass judgement.

Grandmaster

The shame of it - I wasnt going to show you this, and not just for aesthetic reasons. I went to the Gouesnou chess club and played this young chap (thats the one seated nearest the camera). I lost the first two games!! uuuugh!.I won the next 4 thank God and toyed with the idea of letting it be known that I had allowed him to win the first two.
The last time I played a difficult 10 year old was at Gwbert on Sea at least 10 years ago. He was very strong although it is possible that his feet didnt quite reach the floor while seated. I really needed a win but my position was deteriorating until the best I could hope for was a draw. I couldnt even be sure of a draw though and so I was obliged to adopt some shameful tactics. I lit a cigarette and gently blew the smoke towards him. I can still see him now, poor little chap, rubbing his eyes and looking like it was well past his bed time. I did get the draw though.

More excitement

3 weeks ago while hanging on the phone waiting for, first Norwich Union and then Legal & General to put me through to a human being I traced my mothers ancestry from my mother back to 1801 in Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire. All I had to help was my grandmothers maiden name Hudson, her year of birth 1880 and the annoying music coming from the Norwich Unions automated switchboard.

Iv’e got a life and this is it

For more than a year now, every month, I get a monthly statement from Citi- bank showing 50 pence outstanding on a credit card account I cancelled more than a year ago.
Businesses strive to increase their profit margins and I would like to increase my pleasure margins by taking the next paying in slip that they send and paying in 49 pence. This would reduce the balance outstanding to 1 penny. A bit like a kind of financial homeopathy the less there is the more potent is the effect . (so Im told)
I don’t want to trigger anything like an intelligent response that might cut off these letters though. Decisions , decisions.

Are they still up?

Searching the net for the whereabouts of Richard O'Sullivan , 'Man about the House' and occupant of 'Robins Nest' I find him resident in a nursing home having suffered by all accounts a stroke, alcoholism and manic depression.
While in bad taste Death List does at least reveal the names of some people you perhaps will be surprised to learn are still alive.
Lady Bird Johnson for example.
I think it was Lyndon Johnson who said something like, 'He has pissed on his last campfire' , which is quite a good way of describing my own attempted despoiling of the awful Pearl Assurance sales meetings I was forced to attend.

Call of Duty

We had the Mothers Union round to our house on Tuesday for a meeting.
This is a very good Christian organisation for women.
Unusually the leader of the group engaged in some kind of semi scripted exercise which involved asking the members. “What is the biggest gift you have received?”
Nobody spoke and so my wife Ann to be helpful replied ‘A bicycle’.
This was duly acknowledged and then one other of the group volunteered the probably more sought after answer “Well I suppose the gift of life”.
I was on the computer killing Germans while this was going on.

From your Dance Critic

Here is a picture of a Welsh Dance troupe that accompanied us on the ‘twinning’ to Brittany. They looked pretty good but the jigging didn’t strike me as ‘Welsh’ – not that I would know anything about it. It seemed to me rather like something contrived –‘this is how we would imagine Welsh dancing to be if there were such a thing’.The Breton dancing though really did feel as if it had been around for centuries evolving like one of Darwins finches in the isolation of an enclave.

The Ontology of the Sausage and other trivia

Captain Oates would never have turned up again a few days later stuck his head in the tent and announced 'I've just come back for a bit.'
Anyway I have returned but it may not be for long.
Here is a picture of a 'cheese and wine party' attended during the week.
Thats Lord Bingham talking to our vicar.
A few years ago I remember the vicar, worried about possible lack of attendance at the Church fête, saying. " Ive managed to persuade Lord Bingham to open it so at least the IRA should turn up".
On the subject of food I inadvertently left my sausages in Brittany last week.
Our host has arranged for somebody staying on for a further week to bring them back. I wanted to take a picture of myself with knife and fork at the ready and insert a caption along the lines of 'and even as he sat his sausage had set sail for the shores of Wales'. I wasn't sure about the expression 'set sail' and also 'even as' and so used the Yahoo question site to ask someone. A lady called Vaness said she was French and gave me the translation. However she pointed out that I should use the plural of the word sausage, as there is a possibility it might be confused with a penis. I was brought up on 'Carry on ' films and so I find such pathetic jokes hysterical and it is of course what I intended. I don’t know whether she meant this as a genuine correction or if she was merely expressing her contempt that I should think it was funny. By the way in this part of Wales the plural of sausage is indeed sausage. They don’t ask for a pound of sausages but a pound of sausage.
Although each sausage is unquestionably a separate entity the apparently illogical unity imposed upon these spatially separate entities illustrates a different way of thinking about it/them. He who says sausage and not sausages thinks of the world differently just as he who ends his sentence with a verb has a subtley different world view. Thats why I wish I could speed up learning French as I am getting a bit bored with the present perspective.

Hay Festival starts today

I'm just going outside, and may be some time

Lie in at the Home Office

2,000 people wrongly labled as criminals

The Home office says it makes "no apology for erring on the side of caution"
Interesting statement. Gives the impression that these were not errors at all.
If what they say is true then there should be no cases of the third type ie convicted criminals who were missed by this process. I bet there are good few of these too and the "no apology for erring on the side of caution" line is just a bit of opportunism like John Reid's catching of the illegal immigrants on their 'first' visit to the Home Office.

Trade with China

Ive just had this idea for a novelty Christmas present suitable to give to a UK boss.
I don’t know anything about porcelain but maybe there is some thing minimalist and shiny white available in China that could form the elegant basis of my product.
The idea is for the buyer to compose a suitable insult which is then translated and hand painted onto the cup/mug/teapot in Chinese. If they cant think of anything suitable there would be a readymade list of insults from which to choose allowing them to combine the correct sentiment with the artistic expression thereof.
I am sure it would look extremely elegant – the boss would have a nice present and the employee would have the satisfaction of knowing that every time he raised the cup to his lips he would be announcing to the world ‘May this gweilo burn in eternal damnation.’ Or something better.

A few more Bits near the bottom

Galileo said that the earth moved around the sun instead of vice versa and ever afterwards we laugh at anybody who talks of the sun going round the earth.
But as I understand it we can use either description without being wrong its just that one explanation, the Galileo explanation is simpler. I doubt whether most of those who laugh at the sun round the earth model are up to the simpler mathematics necessary to describe the Galileon orbit never mind anything else. Neither the sun nor the earth are fixed in space and so to grant the sun real priority is as unjustified or as justified as regarding the Earth as the centre of the universe.


Ann’s Aunty Sunday 28th October 2005
‘Ive lost interest in that old Millionaire. They are playing for charity. I suppose they don’t care whether they win or not.’
And on another Sunday in 1992
‘They are both very poorly – him and her- you know they asked S where they could get a cooked chicken for Christmas’

Russian Proverb
You can feed the wolf but he still looks towards the forest.

I see I made a note of a Henry Blofeld commentary in August 1996 as a bouncer was delivered.
‘He backed away from that and it was so close it almost knocked the drip off the end of his nose’

Chess and the No Claims Bonus

Here is another idea for the psychologist to research.
If you play chess regularly you get a grade, a number, and this number accurately reflects your playing abilities – unfortunately.
I saw a TV program years ago about good driving. It was proposed that good drivers recognise changing patterns in the road as they drive – bad drivers dont. Seemed plausible to me.
Back to chess – a good chess player is one who above all else recognises changing patterns in the game. A good chess player contrary to popular notion is not primarily a good calculator.
Given those two pieces of information it occurs to me that a good chess player should be a better motor insurance risk than a bad chess player. The chess grading system puts a number to, quantifies, the players ability and if the idea holds the chess grade should correlate with the driving ability.
To test the theory would be simple and would cost hardly anything – comparing chess grades and claims records. It would also be a cheap piece of publicity for the insurance company doing the research as it is just the kind of thing the press love.

Table turning

Mon 8 May 2006 @ 13:45 Pivot Tables Mon amour Post #1

Douglas Mcleod I have just discovered that Pivot Tables are magic. I think I will go on and see if there is anything in these new fangled portable telephones.


Mon 8 May 2006 @ 15:50 Re: Pivot Tables Mon amour Post #2

alan johnston is that like a swivel chair, ma cherie?Alan Johnstonwww.morelandinsurance.co.uk

Waiting for Egg O

I have just been looking up some hotels on Trip advisor very good for the invaluable contributions of disgruntled guests getting their own back for having an almost full English going cold on their plate while they wait their turn to take delivery of a separately cooked fried egg. That’s always a problem though isn’t it? Not the fried egg – but have they remembered me?
I noticed a reference to a ‘turkey & tinsel weekend.’ My sister has been on a couple of these – surely one real Christmas is sufficient?
She was the youngest on this coach trip a mere 57 year old. I think it was early November, about 4 weeks after the shops first start hard selling Christmas proper.
They were taken to a hotel by coach and then over the next 4 days inside the hotel, it was Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and then even more anachronistically New Years Eve , while outside in the real world shop salesmen fretted about their targets and wondered whether a Christmas bonanza was ever going to take off.
What I thought was funny though was New Years Eve in the hotel.
Just like all the other days the owners strove for authenticity and New Years Eve in early November consisted of a New Years Eve party with the climax being the countdown to midnight. However due to the advanced age of most of the revellers it was requested that the hotel clock be put forward two hours so that they could all get to bed by 10.30 real time.

Nigel Tokely in my sock drawer another mystery solved

Me to them

Dear Sirs,
I wonder if you can help me .
While cleaning out my sock drawer I found a small circular buttonlike object with Nigel Tokely Broadstone G.C inscribed on it. Any ideas what it is and how I may have come by it?
Only idle curiosity on my part.
thanks

Them to me
Dear Mr McLeod
Nigel was the Head Professional from 1984 until last week. Nigel often had ball markers made, such as you suggest.

Kind regards

Still there

Just received the following disapointing email from the Pledge Bank

We are sorry to have to inform you that the pledge to which you
signed up did not meet its target in the required time. It
required 100000 other people, but achieved only 150.

The pledge, created by Tim Ireland, read: 'I will pledge £10 to
a cash prize fund to be awarded to the person who proves Tony
Blair is a liar and prompts that PM's removal or resignation as
a result, but only if 100,000 other people will too.'

Play this

Humiliation

I am an expert jay walker. I worked in the Strand for a number of years and in the City before that..
I could squeeze through the narrowest of quickly closing gaps, my spatial awareness bordering on the miraculous. I could have been a bull fighter of the most artistic kind but I didn’t like the idea of killing, or the idea of flying to Spain come to that.
Today in this hick town of Llandrindod I was humiliated in the most dreadful manner. The road is an ordinary two way road of moderate traffic density. I looked right – one car in the distance. I looked left – a stream of cars moving at less than 30 mph but an easy gap between the leading taxi and the next car. I walked into the centre of the road and waited for the taxi to pass me when I would quickly move in behind it cross the remaining six feet and the car behind the taxi would not even have to slow up.
Elementary jaywalking well within my city developed abilities. But the bastard taxi driver stopped and waved me across with his index finger like I was some old pensioner!
Still I suppose from a driver’s point of view it is an excellent stroke to pull and I was reminded of that book/film about Lifemanship written by Stephen somebody or other and starring Alister Sims, Terry Thomas and Ian Carmichael.

Experiment with Church Hall

Don't bother to play this unless youve got broadband and are exceptionally bored.
This is just an experiment by me to see if I could get it on to the blog.
The Boughrood & Llyswen new Church Hall opened today.

Upanill

A picture today of Llyswen again – I forgot about this viewpoint.

Change it's name to Snickers

I instinctively dislike the London Marathon. The whole thing is ludicrous. What have wheelchairs to do with Marathons ? Whats so elite about an elite runner that merits a separate start from the rest of the field; the only thing that might induce me to watch would be the possibility of some kid working his way up through this bunch of professional miseries and winning the race on Tower Bridge by running the last few yards backwards waving an open can of lager tauntingly in the face of the pursuing elite.
Even though Paula Radcliff wasn’t there this year I was still unable to bear the awful voices of Brendan Foster & Steve Cram for more than 10 minutes. At one point Cram piously said ‘at what other sporting event in world could complete novices compete against sporting giants’ at which point the camera cut from the sparsely populated elite race well under its early started pampered way to a great mass of ordinaries strolling and squeezing its way through the lovely gates of Greenwich Park completely despoiled by huge advertisements for some kind of politically correct margarine.. My heroic little yob runner would have to be very good indeed to overcome all this and beat these sporting giants.

More Money for the NHS

So £250,000 pa GPs.
Dr Del to Dr Rodney, "This time in 4 years we'll be millionaires ".
Missing millions

Another Fishy Business

Years ago in Post Magazine - an insurance paper taken by me mainly for the jobs, I read the story of a trawler called the 'Girl Pat'. I could never thereafter find any reference to it, the internet not being invented. I have just found the following BBC link.
Girl Pat With some research and a script this could be a good film.
Now I must see if I can find a copy of the book by the mutinous captain George Orsborne.

Gravitarse

Have just read the following first bit of a conversation on the Chess website I play on.
‘Johnnyjohnson(50): I have a theory its my own theory that in some cases gravity can go sideways, that explains chairs moving across the room in poltergiest behavoiur. I don’t know why gravity goes sideways but I think in some cases it does its my own idea but noone seems interested.’

The Fastest Gun Alive - Idea for research

Yesterday I watched ‘The Fastest Gun Alive’ with Glen Ford. There was a very good , if out of place, dance sequence with Russ Tamblyn.
Perhaps now would be a good time to record my own contribution to the knowledge banks of Psychology. So to start could you imagine that you are Wyatt Earp about to draw your gun in Dodge city. Draw your gun fast and shoot and then hold it there. Now look at your gun and remember what you see.
Now imagine that you are flying a Lockheed Lightening jet around the room – off you go. Now freeze , remember the position. – and as Harry Hill would say , “and relax”.
Playing cowboys and Indians and flying a Lockheed Lightening dates my childhood terribly I know.
Think of the gun – had you extended the first one or two fingers like the barrel of a gun ? Or when you looked at your hand was your index finger curled around the trigger of an otherwise invisible gun, as mine always was.?
Think of the plane were your arms swepped back like the wings of a Lightening jet or was your aircraft, as mine was, totally invisible with your hands clasping an imaginary joystick.
I think there is a significant difference between the two modes of imagining.
Pointed, gun like fingers and swepped back wing like arms are signals to the world outside of the personal imagination whereas my way of doing it seems much more a ‘private world’. I wonder if there are two groups distinct groups in the populace displaying these characteristics.

Theology

It occurs to me that God like an anxious parent leaves us at the school gates of life and is reluctant to intervene until it is time to go home; but I think I may have suffered from too much Readers Digest.




Advertising ‘The rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket’ – George Orwell

Philosophy of Art

Did this course at the OU.
Lionel Blair style lecturer on how to take the exam.
"Now you are all students of aesthetics so when you come to your desks I want you put a beautiful bowl of flowers (gesturing) there - not there , but there"
Ann has just come back from the village art exhibition. Quote "Its a £100 but its got a beautiful frame mind".

GP's again

Picked up a pensioners pills yesterday from the surgery and they included this warning.Id love to be a fly on the wall during one of these meetings to 'discuss their behaviour'. Personally I think the behaviour of some GP's needs a bit of explaining too.

Kingsclere murders

I bought an old Daily Herald dated November 11 1944 , cost 1d.
On the back page down the bottom was this curious story, and I dont mean the 'Double dried egg allocation'. 9 US soldiers jailed for life for murder most foul.
How come it occupied such a small paragraph on the back page? Even in these days of depravity it would make banner headlines.
I looked it up on the internet and found that in fact it was only the Daily Herald that reported it , the whole story had been hushed up.
Details of the event can be found here

Planes

During the first year of an OU degree course I was on there was also a BA pilot.
He assured us that a fellow pilot had got the sack from BA because while in the air he tied two balls of string to his seat in the cockpit and then, walking backwards gradually unwinding the string and keeping it taught backed out of the cabin into the passenger area and approached, backwards the first passenger , a lady. He asked her if she would mind just holding the two pieces of string carefully just to keep the plane steady while he quickly visited the bathroom.
While on the subject of aircraft I used to work at Lloyds of London and a friend of mine who was an aviation broker showed me a claim he was trying to get settled.
I think it involved an Indian airliner. The airline was new and while it’s own pilots were training the principal pilots on the planes were Australian with Indian Co –Pilots. The plane had been held up on the runway for a long while and when it finally got the go ahead, as it sped past the control tower, the Australian pilot gave the tower the V sign to express his annoyance. The Indian co-pilot took this as a signal to raise the undercarriage and the whole thing sunk down into the tar mac. Nobody hurt but it cost a lot.

à la mode

Terribly excited - just heard my new machine washable , tumble dry, boil in the bag suit has arrived from Marks & Spenser's.
I do hope it is up to my usual sartorial standards.

Tilt

I hear that it is Spring in Hong Kong just as it is Spring here.
Something puzzles me about seasons.
They are as I understand caused by the tilt of the earth towards the sun.
If it is the turn of the northern half of the globe to tilt towards the sun its summer in the north and winter at the bottom. As the earth goes round the sun in an ellipse the tilt relatively changes so that the bottom bit gets it’s turn in the sun and the top half takes its turn with the snow etc.
There is a big difference between winter and summer temperatures at least at our latitudes.
Life survives within a very narrow temperature range.
The Earth is 93 million miles from the sun.
It seems tremendously fortunate that we should be at just the right distance from the sun to evolve and it is the seasons that seem to underline that point to me. 93 million miles from the source and yet a ‘tilt’ on the axis of the Earth which accounts for big temperature ranges so far as life is concerned only brings the Summer Pole of the Earth closer to the sun by 3000 miles or so.
But then there is something called the anthropic principle which rather screws up this feeling of being specially selected.
I think this says that the only reason that there is this extraordinary set of circumstances is that there is somebody here to observe them. There might be a billion other ‘suitable’ planets where no observers have evolved.
Hold on though doesn’t that make life here even more improbable?
I am off to www.anthropic-principle.com see if I can make some sense of it all.

"I had that Bertram Russell in the back of my cab one day and I said 'Lord Russell, you're a philosopher. What's it all about then Guv?' - and do you know, he couldn't tell me"
from Sir Isaiah Berlin Memorial lecture