Walking, walking, walking

In an attempt to behave like a normal family and "do things" together, at least three of us, and the dog, today took a long walk in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

The half the excuse that we needed was the fact that Jodie is now well and truly signed up for a four week trek in South Africa in 18 months time and we realised last night that the furthest that she has ever treked in her 14 years on earth is...not very far at all.

So we went on a trek to the Bolton Abbey Strid Walk today.

Just as an aside I've also joined this web site which lists loads of walks in National Parks, didn't need their services today but we might do another one tomorrow over Embsay Crag which looks like it might need map reading and compass skills - that should be a laugh as my first question is "whats a compass ?" - I really should check all this stuff out first with our Ned who has walked around the world twice to date with the aid of a big map and a compass.

I've attached a Flickr slide show to the toolbar on the right with a group of piccies that I took today, it really was quite pleasant, a nice four and a half mile walk up one side of the River Wharfe, across an old victorian aquaduct and back down the other side, starting and finishing in the Cavendish Pavillion cafe which was full when we got back so I never got to stuff down the Mars Bar that I'd been craving for after the first mile - lesson number one learned on hike number one - take Mars Bars.

This next bit will probably bore those who prefer not to be reminded that they have sedentary lifestyles - listen to me, I sound like a proper greybeard with a knapsack on my back and a compass round my neck, striding off over someone's private moorland - the pictures ...

Heading up river, nice colours eh ? Yes the river is a little full at the moment, its the rain you know. Its also a really reddy brown at the moment with all the peat that is washed off the fells at this time of year, what ? No it doesn't look at all brown in the photo does it, it is though.

This is the start of The Strid, a 200 foot narrow gorge where the normally wide and docile river is sucked through at impressive speed, only 6 feet wide at its narrowest it presents an irresistable challenge to fools who want to die in an attempt to jump across the always wet and always slippery rocks - fall in The Strid and you don't come out because what you can't see from the surface is that its approx 20 feet deep at this point and those rocks that you see are undercut into huge caverns where the water simply swirls around and around without exiting, go under at this point and you genuinely don't appear at the other end for several weeks.

I've seen The Strid during a drought year when the water was only a few feet deep and the sight is truly awesome when you see just how far undercut those rocks are, its not hard to see why people disappear here and why its a favourite spot for suicides including a honeymoon couple some 15 or so years ago who disappeared at this spot the day after their wedding and were not found for several weeks, there is no safe way of searching those underground caverns, you simply wait for The Strid to spit the bodies back out when its finished with them.


So that made a nice way to pass an afternoon then, I really enjoyed our little hike, even though true backpackers will scoff in our feeble attempt to gain some kudos in their world of compass bearings and waypoints, bollocks to you all, we'll just follow the arrows on the paths until I learn which way up the map goes.

Jodie has 18 months to learn all of this stuff or get eaten by a lion, so that should be motivation enough.

PS - Poor Jake had a bleeding paw when we got back to the car, just checked it and he's scuffed the skin off two pads, bloody soft dog, thats him signed off for tomorrow then.

The most pointless piece of legislation...ever ?

My nomination for the most pointless piece of legislation...ever, is the news today that the minimum age at which to buy cigarettes in Britain is to be raised from 16 to 18. Full story

Like it will make a difference.

According to government statistics 450 British children start smoking every day, thats 164000 new childhood smokers every year, and those children have no problem whatsoever in purchasing, borrowing, scrounging or stealing cigarettes from parents, friends or shopkeepers.

The only control on the supply of cigarettes to children is on the few occasions during the year when the local Trading Standards Agency have nothing else to do with their time and can borrow a child from a nearby school to make test purchases at random shops - in other words there is virtually no control at all and you may as well make the minimum age 5 years or 80 years old if you can't police it effectively.

I've never been a smoker and so can't and won't comment on what it means to a smoker to take a long drag on a cigarette, its obviously something that is immensley enjoyable or they wouldn't do it or waste so much money on the habit/addiction, I have friends who have smoked and a few who still smoke, and they all enjoy it / have enjoyed it, to the point where the health warnings are known but irrelevant.

The puzzle is of course why children should take up smoking in the first place, I know from my childrens schoolwork that they have the anti-smoking message hammered into them in science lessons, but still they start in alarming numbers - maybe some of them are already addicted, have been addicted to nicotine since they were in the womb and have been brought up in smoking houses, its easy to see why those children should simply continue the habit as soon as their thumbs are strong enough to flick the trigger on a bic lighter.

But others join them, others like my eldest daughter who has been known to drag on a cigarette whilst out with her friends, despite my threats of disinheriting her and casting her out homeless into the street if I catch her - my threats of disinheritance are getting to be meaningless recently, there won't be much left to inherit soon.

I don't know why they do it, I can't understand the need, I don't pretend to have an answer, but I know that the answer is not more meaningless legislation.

She's missed my name off the list - again

I'm not on the New Years Honours list - again.

Surely the Queen can't be so remiss as to keep ignoring me all of these years ?

To those who are not subjects of Her Majesty, we have this little ritual twice a year where the Queen announces a list of her subjects who are to receive a medal from her, the New Years Eve list is one, and her birthday list (one of her birthdays anyway, she has two each year, its why she is so old) is the other.

There are various levels of awards that you can get and no-one is really sure what the hierachy is, its fairly certain though that an OBE (pictured) is the starter point of Her Maj's appreciation and a Knighthood (you get to call yourself "Sir") is the pinnacle, or maybe becoming a Lord is better, who knows ?

So twice a year we get the list announced and the press crawl all over it to pick out the best bits and the best bits are always show business celebrities and a handful of "ordinary people".

The whole idea of public honouring is of course that the person nominated has made some significant contribution to public service, preferably at some cost to themselves and no cost to the public, so for instance a person who has dedicated all of their spare time to running a local youth club for the last 30 years would be a suitable candidate for a medal, a token of appreciation from their community.

School crossing ladies are alwasy a favourite inthe press and without fail there is always one of them on there, a "lollipop lady gets a gong" is a headline that is dusted down every six months without fail.

But of course like all things royal the Queen has fekkall to do with the system, the nominees come from local and central government committees, which is fine for the lollipop ladies and scoutmasters who can be nominated by their local community, but like all things involving prestige and reward the process gets hijacked by those who wish to fawn and be seen being "cool" or scoring kudos amongst voters by nominating popular culture figures, and in no genre is this more visible than show business.

If you appear on TV at any point in yor life then you stand a good chance of getting a medal for "services to TV" despite the fact that you may be crap at your job, your TV series may have been dropped by the broadcasters with the last six episodes still unshown, it doesn't matter, you were on TV, you get an OBE, its the law.

So this year, like all other years we get the celebrity medals.

Rod Stewart for one.

Now I used to be a big Rod Stewart fan, but as stated previously, only until 1977 when he sold out and moved to Los Angeles to avoid the punk revolution in this country and immerse himself in LA Disco crap, he's lived there ever since, paid his income tax to the US Government ever since and produced shite music ever since, especially int he last five years.

So he gets a CBE for "services to music" - I'm a former fan, I listen to his music, don't make me fuckin laugh with "services to music", the only thing he's serviced for the last thirty years is his several wives.

The Queens grand daughter Zara Phillips also gets a medal, an MBE, for her sporting achievments, and Ian Woosnam, golfer, does too - both have been successful this year in their chosen sports but every year I ponder on the fact that they are substantially financially rewarded for doing something that they would do for free and the whole point of "doing sports" professionally is to win - its a sad indictment on British sports that our competitors always get an honour from the Queen on their first competition win, then we never hear from them again.

Another genre of prime candidates for the governments honours list (we won't call it the Queens honours list any more, she hasn't a fookin clue who these people are), are those who's jobs involve public service - civil servants have long been a staple of all honours lists, again, people who are adequately rewarded for just doing their job, then more than adequately rewarded with a final salary pension, then take the piss with an honour too - awarded to them by other civil servants who in turn expect theirs when they retire, its a self perpetuating system.

So John Scarlett gets a Knighthood, he is now Sir John Scarlett.

Who is he ?

Good question, he is the head of MI6, the British secret service, personally I think its fantastic that we have a Captain Scarlett as head of MI6, its just like those Gerry Anderson puppet programmes all over again - prsumably now that everyone knows who he is and what he looks like he'll have to give up the secret service job, I bet he's kicking himself now for accepting the honour.

An 80 year old shoeshine boy for Virgin Atlantic gets an honour (what the fook) which seems strange until you understand that he works in the VIP lounge at Heathrow cleaning the shoes of some of those civil service VIP's who decide who get the honours on the hounors list - you're starting to see how it works now aren't you - "sorry old chap I haven't got any change to tip you with this morning, will an OBE do ?"

And finally Bernard Mathews, the portly Norfolk turkey farmer, who is already a CBE, becomes a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, which sounds like a made up award to me, for services to the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme for young people (who is the Duke of Edinburgh ? Its the Queen's husband of course, see how it works now ?) - all of which sounds fine until you remember that his work with the DofE award scheme is probably offset somewhat by his work in bringing the concept of the "turkey twistler" to childrens school meals. The idea that after you've slaughtered a turkey and sliced off all of the useable meat, you should then mince all the bad stuff thats left, including the brains, intestines, skin, everything, mince it all up into a mush and then mould it into shapes that will appeal to children, their parents probably won't buy the crap so sell it to local authorities for school meal use - services to young people my arse.

Yes, I'm bitter again, I've been overlooked again, bas'tads.

more nibbles vicar...

Housework reduces breast cancer full story here

So there you are ladies, stop complaining and just get on with it will you, we've got your best interest at heart when we leave our underpants lying around the bedroom floor.

My only suprise is that they found enough women who didn't do the housework to use as a test - what were their husbands thinking of ?


Alcohol blues again

Last night I had one pint can of John Smiths Smooth, just the one. I awoke at 4am with a cracking headache and couldn't get back to sleep, every time I turned over I felt dizzy, and I've got indigestion this morning - bloody alcohol intolorance has come back again and it looks like I'm back on the wagon for the foreseeable future, absolute bastard, just as I was starting to enjoy proper real ales at the pub again I've become an orange juice drinker.


Debt free at last ! full story here

No, not me, although I will be (hopefully) in a few weeks time - but the United Kingdom is due to pay the last two installments today on the money we borrowed to kick the shit out of Adolf Hitler sixty years ago.

Its good to know that WWII only cost us just under £5billion but rather alarming to learn that we haven't paid back any of the WWI loan yet, presumably because we hope that the lender has forgotten about it, or we've moved address and not told them, I fear that this will catch up with us soon and we'll find the interest and penalty charges will be horrendous for seventy years of avoidance.

I wonder which bank we've borrowed from to pay for Iraq ?


Public transport is dangerous full story here

We've got another thing to be proud of in Leeds this week - we had the most muggings on our public transport system than anywhere else in the country, so thats nice then.

One of Jodies friends was mugged whilst on a bus with two of his friends in November, the three youths who stole their phones and cash were armed with a knife and seemed keen to use it, the bus driver did fuck all about it and drove off and left the lads with no way of contacting home and no way of paying to get home, so thats fairly normal then.

Fortunately Jodies friends father is a police officer and whilst they didn't catch anyone on the night these sort of incidents usually have a list of usual suspects attached to them, i wouldn't like to be in their shoes when they do eventually get taken in for questioning at his police station, he's a dog handler and I have a sneaky feeling that the three scrotes just may have to be restrained by some of the dogs in a secluded place after they make "an escape bid"

Another musical education episode (I've lost count)

Emmylou Harris.
"Boulder to Birmingham"

Its a gorgeous song.

Its rumoured, nay its reknown to be written about Gram Parsons, the influencial ex-Byrds, ex-Flying Burritto Bros, legendary songwriter who inspired many artists and bands in the famous early 1970's "west coast" style of country rock, including The Eagles and The Rolling Stones with whom he had both written and performed albeit unacknowledged.

Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons were introduced to each other in 1971 and performed, wrote and toured together in his band "Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels" for the next two years during which time they were alleged to be "an item" despite Parsons being already married.

A former heroine addict, Parsons died on Sept 19th 1973 from an apparent overdose of morphine and alchohol. at the time he and his road manager Phil Kaufman were travelling in the Joshua Tree National Park in California, a place that they visited often for spiritual enlightenment and days of enlightenment by other things in the desert and Kaufman insists that for years Parsons had spoke of his wish to be cremated in Joshua Tree.

Parsons body was taken to Los Angeles airport for onward shipment to his parents home in Louisiana but on the evening of the flight Kaufman and a friend arrived at the airport in a rented hearse and convinced an airport worker that they had come to collect the body - they signed for it and took the coffin back to Joshua Tree where after a night of hard drinking Kaufman set fire to Parsons body out in the desert, for which he was eventually fined $700 for "burning a body" as it wasn't illegal to "steal a body".

It was a strange end to a founder member of the country rock genre and one which has passed into legend and Emmylou Harris was said to be distraught for a long time afterwards, eventually putting her feelings into song in 1975 with "Boulder to Birmingham", I recommend this to the house, particularly the recording of the late 1970's which exists on YouTube at this location. (still can't embed bloody videos in this blog)


Boulder to Birmingham
Music and lyrics by Emmylou Harris

I don't want to hear a love song
I got on this airplane just to fly
And I know there's life below
But all that it can show me
Is the prairie and the sky

And I don't want to hear a sad story
Full of heartbreak and desire
The last time I felt like this
It was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire
And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn
I watched it burn, I watched it burn.

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham
I would hold my life in his saving grace.
I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham
If I thought I could see, I could see your face.

Well you really got me this time
And the hardest part is knowing I'll survive.
I have come to listen for the sound
Of the trucks as they move down
Out on ninety five
And pretend that it's the ocean
coming down to wash me clean, to wash me clean
Baby do you know what I mean

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham
I would hold my life in his saving grace.
I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham
If I thought I could see, I could see your face.

John Prescott and me...

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott apparently spent Christmas Day in hospital - news link here.

So thats one thing I have in common with him, kidney stones.

That news link by the way is a load of bollacks, written (probably) by a prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate - talk of him recieving exceptionally fast emergency NHS treatment and being treated to christmas dinner while he was in hospital as if they made an exception for him is rubbish - they did exactly the same thing for me.

When I awoke with a pain to eclipse all other pains back in September we spoke to an NHS Direct operator immediately who correctly diagnosed that my condition was not life threatening but who dispatched an ambulance none the less - within an hour I was in said ambulance receiveing pain-killing treatment, if it had been life threatening then I would have seen them within seven minutes - thats standard treatment in the NHS and its no different if you're name is John Prescott MP.

I was treated in the same way as John Prescott seems to have been treated in that I was given enough pain killing drugs to kill the pain completely and ease the muscle spasms which are actually the cause of most of the pain - and afterwards, like Prescott, I was treated to a complimentary meal, and very nice it was too.

Like John Prescott I have nothing but praise for the NHS employees who attended to me, fortunately apart from a bit of soreness I have not had a repeat dose of the ailment and as no stone appeared on my x-ray I suspect that it was a condition that has a long complicated medical name but basically involves a build up of silt around the uretha causing a temporary blockage, muscle spasms and plenty of pain, pain like you've never felt before, but not life threatening, although when the NHS Direct operator explains that to you, you don't believe her as death would be an acceptable release from the pain if offered - pain killers and muscle relaxants ease the blockage and the silt is passed away with lots of water - end of problem (I hope).

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And while Prescot was writhing in agony in NHS facilities, his mate Tony Blair was travelling to Miami on the second leg of his blagged christmas holiday, when his British Airways 747 ran off the runway in Miami - full story.

British TV news reports made the most of the "drama" but in fact all that happened was that the pilot drove off the edge of the runway while taxi-ing to its parking position and had to be hoisted back onto the tarmac so that it could park under its own power, embarrassing for the pilot but its likely that no-one else noticed.

What is more interesting is the fact that the Blairs have made an art out of blagging free holidays in the years that they have been in power. Barbados is their regular christmas destination where they stay at a villa owned by Cliff Richards who presumably doesn't need it during December, but this year the Blairs not only blagged Barbados but managed to tag on a few days in Miami staying at Bee Gee Robin Gibbs apartment - nice perks if you can get them Tony.

I used to manage a few days at my mother in law's house in Whitley Bay from time to time at christmas.

Boxing Day calm...

Ah, Boxing Day...

Day of relaxation, day of doing nothing after Christmas Day, day of sport, day of hunting foxes, day of sales in the stores...

What do you mean, Boxing Day ?

Boxing Day in the British Isles is the day after Christmas Day and is taken as a public holiday, it has it roots in serfdom and the middle ages when all of us peasants would take boxes to our lords and masters place of residence for the placing of favors therein - our lord and master would give us his cast-offs and a few coins as a "christmas box", yes that really is the origin of the name.

Nowadays its traditionally the day when sporting fixtures take place and in my sport of choice, rugby league, it was always a competitive game against one of our local rivals, and Headingley was always packed to the rafters.

Rugby League is played in the summer now though and so the Boxing Day fixture is a "friendly" game, or its as friendly as rugby can be played, unfortunately the non-competitive nature of todays fixture means that with only seven more weeks to go to the start of the season few of the first team players will be risked and the crowd who pay full price for the fixture will be treated to a second string teamsheet playing without effort or cause - that crowd won't include me.

I actually did go last year with the intention of paying to go into the ground, met up with some friends in a bar outside but when kickoff time came around we'd just got another round in, seemed like a shame to waste the beer so we decided to go in at half time, half time came and we'd just got another round in, so we missed the game but had a good time in a bar outside - I can't be arsed doing that again today - I want to paint today.

The two paintings that I did for christmas presents for friends were received well and today I am inspired to do another, a coastal scene, need to build up some stock to put on the gallery web site where my page needs desperately updating before they chuck me off for not using it regularly enough.

A long, lazy day beckons ...

Does this make me "churchy" now ?

Last night I went to church.

For the first time in 50 years I voluntarily went to a church service that didn't involve someone getting christened, married or dying.

I can't say that there has been any particularly enlightened episode, blinding lights, voices speaking from the clouds that sort of stuff, its just that, well, there was nothing else to do and a friend (who apparently goes regularly although I never knew) promised me he'd take a hip flask of whisky to ease the boredom, I was hooked.

Suzanne and Jodie had been to the afternoon christmas eve crib service and were going back for the midnight mass so I stayed awake long enough to join them

It was wierd, religion is a wierd thing.

If you started your own religion today and invited people to your house to sing songs out of tune using unintelligible lyrics and chant strange soothsaying things to something that no-one else can see or hear then you'd be labelled as a buffoon and referred to a psychiatrist.

And yet that is what happens to millions of people all around the world every day, and last night a hundred or so mainly, it has to be said, old people stood in a darkened church holding a candle each and sang six christmas carols while the vicar at the front instructed them to stand up, sit down, chant some things, wave some smelly stuff around and then have a sup of wine and a bit of bread - I didn't join in that bit as I'd already eaten thank you.

It was strange, neither positive or negative, and I'm as sat on the fence this morning about religion as I was yesterday morning.

I just don't "get" it ???

Tonights the night...

Santa's coming, santa's coming, he's on his way, he's got your presents loaded on board and he's on his way tonight, what do you hope he brings for you ?

When they were younger my two daughters would grow sick and tired of me reminding them all through the day on christmas eve that Santa was on his way tonight, I was the one in the house that was excited while they'd sit there with a bored expression on their faces and sigh "We know dad" every time I mentioned it.

But then one year I discovered this web site, the Norad Santa Tracker.

I explained to them how official it was, how NORAD were the North American Air Defence Command, proper official people, Army and Air Force people who normally watched the skies for nasty missiles and alien attacks, but once a year tuned their radar's into Santa's sleigh and published a live radar image for children all over the world to follow.

They swallowed it, hook, line and sinker - and so did I.

One year in particular when they were very young we spent all evening running up and down the stairs to the one computer in the house to check on Santa every ten minutes and the excitement as he travelled across europe towards us grew and grew until we realised that it was way, way past their bedtimes as we'd ignored the clock all night waiting for the tracker to move - it was only when he was in France shortly before midnight and just a hop, skip and a jump across La Manche that we finally convinced them that they needed to quickly get in bed and go to sleep or he wouldn't come to our house.

I don't need to explain to parents what christmas morning is like with small children in the house, but to those who still have small children in the house at the moment I do need to say - savour every moment, relish every second, for it all fades away year on year until you end up with teenagers for whom christmas day is just another day of MTV and sitting amongst presents that they bought for themselves with your money, and have been wearing for several weeks now.

Gone are the days when they would both have a bath and dress in new jimmy-jams and dressing gowns then come downstairs to get a platefull of mince pies and carrots ready to leave out on the fireplace for Santa and Rudolph, gone are the tiptoe'd trips upstairs to see if they are asleep yet two hours after you put them to bed, then the ever so quiet getting out of the ladder and silently sneaking up into the loft to gather down the bags and bags of christmas presents that you'd hidden from prying eyes, and gone are those precious few seconds on christmas morning where they walk into the living room and stand and simply stare at the huge pile of presents awaiting them under the tree, not knowing where to start, absolutely captivated by the magic of Santa.

But we still have the videos.

And we sit and watch them now and they tell us that they can't believe how gullible they were to have believed everything we told them, and I tell them it was all true, Santa's magic is still real, they've just lost sight of it, and they look at me and call me a stupid old fool - I've raised them to be as cynical as me.

The only remnant of those christmas's past are the two handmade bears that they still get from me every year, they open them and give me a look that says "not another bear dad" but they will get one every year until I'm not here any more whether they like it or not, so bugger to them.

Merry Christmas everyone, and remember, early to bed tonight and keep an eye on the Santa tracker, its all true you know.

A false start

With most companies closed down now for the christmas break we go into standby mode in the office where we sit and wait for callouts - we rarely get any during this ten day period.

The slowdown started on Thursday, the phones hardly rang at all and Ned and Jon had caught up on the outstanding jobs before Wednesday so Thursday was a morning of sitting around watching TV - I told Jon not to come in on Friday unless we rang him, so yesterday morning Ned and I waited in the office until noon and took one call for an order that could be posted after xmas.

Just before noon and with me in the middle of checking my credit rating with Experian Ned waved goodbye and left for the holidays, just seconds after he'd left the office our most important customer, the one who provides us with 40% of our turnover rang with a breakdown in their Bishop Auckland store that they had actually rung in on Thursday - it was then that I realised that we'd sat there all morning and not checked the answerphone messages - there were eight of them.

The hiearchy of the office dictates that Jon gets all the bum jobs, then Ned, and I am there only as a last resort being as I'm supposed to do sales and not service - couldn't get Jon on his mobile, tried Ned within two minutes of him leaving the office and his mobile was switched off too - bas'tads the pair of them.

I had to go.

Its 50 miles each way to Bishop Auckland and the A1 on a holiday getaway day is not the friendliest of motorways, especially in the fog like yesterday - some of the driving that I saw yesterday defies belief and as usual the cliche of it being compulsory to be an arsehole if you drive a BMW lived up to its reality.

But it wasn't just the motorway that was busy, I drove around the store's car park for nearly 30 minutes before nabbed a parking space, did the job quickly, shopped for some cheap wine and beer and eventualy got home at 4.30pm, four hours after I had intended to knock off - I rang Ned to bollack him but he thought it was hilarious, however I will be taking Wednesday off now in compensation - and I haven't told him.
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Took a call on the mobile while I was doing the callout, it was my contact at NatWest Mortgages telling me that he had lodged an apeal with the underwriters to see why they had rejected my application to move my existing debt from the house to the new one that we intend to buy.

Bottom line is that I switched to this current mortgage just twelve months ago when NatWest had a very good fixed rate on offer (4.5%) and I still have 12 months to go on that fixed rate, which is now an even better offer with their NatWest standard rate at 7.1%.

We are moving down to cut costs and so do not need to borrow as much money and at the same time will be paying off a couple of personal and business loans and a credit card, in other words we will start int he new house completely debt free and with a much smaller mortgage -a financial planners dream situation.

When I spoke to the NatWest mortgage advisor he pointed out that if I took out a smaller loan with them then I would have a redemption penalty of approx £1300 to pay, but if I simply switched the whole of the mortgage to the new house then there would be no fees to pay and no redemption - and I'd complete the deal with a shitload of spare cash (about £30,000) which could be used to pay off a lot of the mortgage when the fixed rate deal finished in twelve months time.

Sounds like a great idea, so we went for it.

The NatWest underwriters have declined the application stating "poor credit score".

Experian are the people who handle credit scoring in the UK so I paid my £5 fee and got a 23 page report on my credit status, it lists every credit entry that I have made or obtained for at least fifteen years and summarises with a score out of a possible maximum 1000 - I score 979 and am rated as "Excellent" with the comment that 80% of the population of the Uk score less than me and that someone with such a credit score "should have no problem in obtaining extra credit or in repaying additional loans" - which is nice.

So basically my credit score seems to state that I am an idela candidate to borrow even more money than I already owe - I am asking NatWest to lend me less and the fuckwits will not do that, they seem to be suggesting that they want me to stay at the level of debt that I am at.

It gasp at their fuckwittery.

My NatWest advisor, who I genuinely believe is trying his best for me will ring me on Wednesday, if they still refuse then I have a mortgage deal standing by with the Nationwide - and a "fuck you" letter standing by for NatWest Mortgages together with a "fuck all of your services" series of letters for NatWest Bank, NatWest Insurance and NatWest Pensions - and a letter waiting for the banking ombudsman.

NatWest = Wankers, not Bankers.

This story will run and run, stay tuned.

Random ramblings under a headache...

I have a headache this morning, a hangover.

Last night we went to an 18th birthday party, one of my eldests friends 18th birthday party, at a local wine bar.

I sat and drank alchohol free lager all night, Kaliber to be precise.

Friends - do not do that, do not drink the foul chemical, its given me a hangover and it doesn't contain alchohol, I dread to think what it does contain but I can't describe the inside of our toilet bowl this morning.
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NatWest bank are fucking me about again, they've denied our application for a mortgage but won't explain why.

I checked my credit rating last week, its good, an 88 point score (out of 100).

Our business account has been with NatWest since 1978, my personal account has been with NatWest since I was 18 ( a long long time ago), I have two pension schemes with NatWest, I have three life insurance policies with NatWest, my children have accounts with Nat West - they know everything about me and my business and therein lies the problem I believe.

I have an alternative mortgage application standing in the wings and will be making one final phone call to NatWest mortgages this morning, if they give me the wrong answer then in the New Year all of our banking business will be moved elsewhere and the twats who work in the NatWest bank 20 yards in front of my office building will be in severe danger of being run over each time they walk across the car park on a smoke break, at the very least they will suffer extreme abuse by me.

Fucking twatting bank.
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Didn't go to White Rose yesterday, went to Wallmart Asda at Pudsey instead, Asda's biggest store.

What a pain in the arse that was, couldn't park within quarter of a mile of the place, luckily their car park is quarter of a mile long so we did eventually find a space.

Suzanne wanted to buy two new hair dryers for the girls as we have finally tired of the constant arguments in the morning as to who has the one remaining, working, hairdryer - hairdryers don't trouble me.

Picked up two cheap hairdryers for twelve quid each and Suzanne stuffed four items of make-up into the basket, mascara pencils that sort of womens tat - got to the checkout, bill was £54. So thats £24 for the hairdryers and, erm, £30 for the makeup stuff.

I asked the checkout girl to do it all again - but it was right.

£30 for four makeup items.

Why haven't women objected to this rip-off before ?

I told Suzanne she could borrow some of my watercolour paint

I won't tell you what her reply was.
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Apart from the christmas bears for the two girls I haven't bought so much as a christmas card yet, not even a piece of tinsel.
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Happy Birthday to...

Happy Birthday to my blog !!!

Just one year ago I was sitting in the office 'midst the christmas work lull and wondering what the hell this new software was that had appeared on my desktop.

317 posts later (why thats nearly one a day, you nerd) and what has changed ?

Well, that first ever post spoke of the pre-christmas theft of a baby penguin from a zoo on the Isle of Wight, a story which grabbed the heartstrings of the nation as a massive police hunt for the culprit was launched - the baby penguin was eventually found dead in a harbour, and this blog started going downhill at that point.

I also spoke of my glued in tooth, I'd forgotten that I spent last christmas not daring to bite on my left upper incisor for fear of losing it again, there followed a month or so of dental treatment and a bill of nearly £800 to get the tooth reinserted and I'm pleased to say that its still there, safe and sound - I still won't bite on it though.

And then came the third post, the one that got some attention from across the atlantic - the first gay marriage which was performed right here in Leeds. The thing that got me thinking about the anniversary of this blog was the gay marriage issue because the two blokes who were married at 8am on 21st Dec 2005 were interviewed again on Radio Leeds this morning, apparently they've spent all year arguing and bickering with each other - proof if proof were needed that gay marriages are as normal as everyone else's.

Twelve months on we've sold our house but the house that we were going to buy has been withdrawn fromt he market so we're hunting again - saw a house last night that would be suitable, all I have to do now is knock £15,000 off the asking price - my wife drives a hard bargain - and then we'll be looking forward to a new start in 2007.

Not only a house move but a shift in the business too, haven't mentioned it so far but we've now agreed terms on the sale of a majority share in our business - what sounds like a negative is actually a positive for me and Ned (my brother) and we're looking forward to new investment and a new lease of work life for 2007 - more about the nitty-gritty and whys and wherefores when all the paperwork is signed and sealed in January - suffice to say that HM Government and NatWest Bank will be the target of much shit flinging from me.

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On a nicer note, GMTV have this week featured a different junior school choir each morning - nothing brings a lump to the throat more than a group of five year olds singing childrens christmas carols, like a fool I was always too busy wth work to take an hour out to watch my children in their nativity performances, what a fooking idiot I was.

This mornings choir sang "Away in a Manger", 15 or so kids with no front teeth and santa claus hats covering their eyes, singing slightly off key but with bags of enthusiasm - and the lump in the throat moment - they were signing the song as well for deaf children, I could hardly see my cornflakes for the watery film in front of my eyes - perhaps its just as well that I never got to see my own kids doing that.

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Christmas shopping this afternoon at the White Rose Centre, how appaling is that going to be ?

Who are you ?

Someone at HM Governments press office has dragged the centuries old issue of ID cards from the back burner to the front of the hob again this morning, its at times like this that we cynics ignore the issue that they want us to see and look for the news that they are trying to hide - maybe a 50% hike in income tax or the abolishment of the NHS next week ?

Anyway, Home Secretary John Reid has apparently scrapped the idea of a super-computer (whatever one of those is, do PC World stock them, do they have good games graphics ?) to control the proposed UK ID Card system and will instead use three seperate databases which already exist somewhere inside HM Governments IT infrastructure.

So thats alright then.

Apart from the £35 million spent on IT consultancy since 2004 on reaching the decision, still, that just loose change, and its public money so who cares ?

For those not holding a British citizen status - and incidently that means all of us for we are not citizens with rights and things in the UK, we are subjects of Her Majesty hence the lack of a Bill of Rights in this country - for those abroad who may not understand the fuss about ID Cards, we do not have them in the UK.

Yes thats right, we have no means of identifying who we are if requested, the nearest thing we come to an ID card is a driving licence and if you need to be identified in any way, like for instance when opening a bank account or applying for credit, then the most common form of identifying that you are who you say you are is by production of two utility bills.

So I'm applying for a £10,000 loan and I don't want it to be in my name or my address - what do I do ? Pick an address at random and search through their bins until you find a gas or electricity bill, or even better, get a job at the waste handling site and you'll get thousands of bills every day. Use the bills to apply at the Post Office for the mail to be redirected to your own home for a month (they need proof of ID to do that, yes, the utility bills), then apply for your loan using, yes, the utility bills as proof of ID.

Sounds far fetched ?

It happens all the time, identity fraud is massive in the UK simply because we have no means of identifying ourselves.

So the idea of a biometric ID Card sounds like a good one doesn't it ?

It does until you read that HM Government have decided that a "super computer" couldn't cope with the amount of data required (or more likely they couldn't deliver such a system in the first place), and so they'll use existing non-super computers to do the job instead - that bit of news is so full of holes and self doubt that you have to just stop right there, put a quizical look on your face , hold one finger to the corner of your mouth and say out loud, "hang on a minute..."

And it does until you read John Read's pronouncement that the new ID Card "would help tackle illegal immigration, identity fraud, fight organised crime and terrorism, help protect vulnerable children by allowing better background checks and improve public services. They would not stop people having a fake identity, but would prevent people having multiple identities, which he said were most often used by crooks, terrorists and fraudsters".

Lets take a long pause and read that statement again.

"would help tackle illegal immigration, identity fraud, fight organised crime and terrorism, help protect vulnerable children by allowing better background checks and improve public services. They would not stop people having a fake identity, but would prevent people having multiple identities, which he said were most often used by crooks, terrorists and fraudsters".

Its a classic 180 degree about turn in two sentences.

We are going to prevent illegal immigration and identity fraud by not stopping people from having fake ID Cards ?

And just how does HM Government think that an ID Card will prevent multiple indentities ?

Maybe by not allowing ID Cards to be sent to 20 people at the same address ?

Maybe crooks, terrorists and fraudsters will apply in different names from different addresses ?

After all, how would you prove who you are when you apply for the card ?

Two recent utility bills from an address ?

Which may or may not be yours ?

£20 billion will be spent on the ID Card system when fully introduced.

It sounds like they are inventing the systems and proposals on the back of a beer coaster in the pub of a friday night.

A deliberate policy not to supply

Sgt Steven Roberts from Shipley, West Yorkshire, was the first British soldier to die in Iraq after a "friendly fire" incident at a check point in Iraq - link to story.

Its been a well stated fact since then that Sgt Roberts was not wearing his standard issue British Army body armour and that had he been doing so then he would have survived the single shot that killed him.

He was not wearing his regulation British Army body armour because it had been taken away from him by the British Army to be issued to front line combat troops who were complaining of shortages, in fact the British Army were light to the tune of 2000 pieces of personal body armour when they went into combat in Iraq.

Since that time there has of course been question after question as to how this could happen, how could the Ministry of Defence cock up so badly that they sent troops into conflict without the correct equipment and as we have come to expect from a government department there has been lots of smokescreens, finger pointing, bluff and bullshit.

Yesterday a coroner confirmed the fact that Sgt Roberts would have survived the shot that killed him had he been allowed to keep his own body armour and again he mentioned failures in the supply and aquisition chain at the MOD, in other words it was a clerical error, no-one to blame, lets close the case and put it down to red tape and civil service ineptitude - again.

But that is not quite the case.

In the article that I linked to Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox is critical in that polite reporting style that only the BBC use, but in an interview on our local radio station this morning Liam Fox is far more damning.

He alledges that the shortages of equipment (and it wasn't just body armour) in the British Army at the time that they went into Iraq early in 2003 was nothing to do with a civil service cock-up, nor was it anythign to do with a lack of funds, in fact he emphasises that the MOD had plaenty of money available, and were willing to order lots and lots of body armour.

Liam Fox alledges that the reason that the shortages existed at that time was because a political decision had been taken at the highest level of government (ie Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon, Seceratary of State for Defence) in the autumn of 2002 not to be seen to be equiping for an invasion whilst they were supposed to be still exploring a diplomatic resolution - their deliberate delay made purely for political gain resulted in the death of Sgt Roberts six months later.

Liam Fox was far more insistant as to where the blame lies than he is in the polite BBC interview, he is not calling for resignations though, simply an acknowledgment that the men at the top of the tree made the wrong decision for their own political purposes and he is suggested that Tony Blair may like to spend his christmas day thinking of his culpability in Sgt Roberts death.

I wouldn't hold your breath for a result Liam.

Christmas shopping

After friday nights knees-up in the north east we headed back down the A1 with me still hyper-active and headachey after the massive infusion of vitamin c and assorted chemicals from the several pints of what is described as "fresh orange" behind the bar at The Terrace.

Suzanne decided it would be a great idea to call in on Harrogate, seeing as we were passing, in order to do some (more) christmas shopping, she's panicing now as we haven't yet bought anything to eat on christmas day, no turkey, nothing, personally i couldn't care less, a few slices of reprocessed wafer thin turkey sandwich meat on a slice of brown bread would do for me, for her it would be then end of civilisation if we didn't cook a bird the size of a small horse then throw most of it in the bin two days later

So we stopped off in Harrogate, the posh peoples idea of what a county town should look like, we all have an impression of the typical "Harrogate Lady", the sort of lady who lunches with friends rather than working, a lady who has actually never worked as her stockbroker / banker / lawyer husband leaches enough money from the rest of society to keep them in their five bedroomed four bathroomed detached new-build with a double garage with electric doors and a nice conifer in the front garden.

But its not actually like that at all.

Harrogate is not very posh, its a bit like Leeds with only 5% of the shops but 100% of the chavs.

I found myself accidently in TK Max at one point - now I thought TK Max was a cheap shop, apparently it sells end of line stuff that the posh shops don't want anymore, it specialises in selling designer names at discount prices (I lifted that phrase straight out of their shop window), for which you need to read "last years fashions that didn't sell at silly prices".

In fact its still not cheap, £35 for a Pierre Cardin plain white shirt is still expensive.

OK, for those of you who buy the labels its probably cheap, but the label on a plain white shirt is inside the collar and unless you are the sort of twat who introduces yourself then turns around and gets people to read the name inside your shirt collar, then £35 is a lot of dosh to pay for a fekkin plain white shirt, especially as you have to fight your way through TK Max's unique product presentation methods to find it.

To get a job at TK Max you first have to demonstrate your complete lack of any spatial awareness, presentation skills, or desire to sell anything. Your job as a sales assistant at TK Max will consist of yoru supervisor giving you shitloads of shirts, trousers or jackets and telling you to "put them out there". If you can accomplish the task within 20 seconds and return to the stockroom for another shitload of stuff to "put out there" then you get the job.

TK Max believe in maximising their sales floorspace by cramming as many racks of stuff into the area as possible, and then cramming as much stuff onto those racks as possible - sorting by size, colour, or clothing type is an alien concept to them - pile it in there and get the punters to sort it for you seems to be the motto.

Having fought our way through crowds of tracksuit clad Harrogateans most of whom were chomping on pastries and pies (the pigeons in Harrogate are the fattest I've ever seen) we finally made it home to find the first of my christmas presents to myself waiting on the doorstep - a collection of all 19 films made in the 1930/40's by the great British comedian Will Hay, I watched on of them "Wheres the Fire ?" on Saturday night - bloody good present if I say so myself, I'm going to enjoy those over christmas.

I have one more present to arrive yet - the complete 142 episodes of Bilko on dvd, with a bit of luck it will arrive before the weekend and then the family can go amuse themselves over the holiday as I sit glued to the tv.


And finally - I put the wheelie bin out last night ready for its regular Monday morning collection, we've got a backlog of rubbish with the wheelie bin full and two more sacksfull of trash to go out there too.

The bin was uncollected this morning.

Then I noticed that no-one else int he street had put theirs out - the collection was on sunday morning as the binmen try and get ahead of themselves in readyness for the christmas weekend - bas'tads - so now I've got a full wheelie bin and two more sacks of rubbish to take to the tip in my car. Bugger.

Its a different world

Friday afternoon found us heading up the A1 to a small ex-mining village just north of Newcastle-u-Tyne, 100 miles north of Leeds but a journey that always takes us 70 years back in time.

Seaton Delaval was once a small village, built to house the workers at its own coal mine, owned in its entirety by the pit owner - but why should I relate the history of the place when someone has already done a good enough job, with pictures, right here.

Its where my wifes family are from, its where most of the wider family still are although her numerous brothers and sisters have all moved away now, but her relations still number in the hundreds and her family tree is virtually impossible to draw as within five minutes the lines between the generations start to cross each other with annoying regularity, uncles become cousins, grandparents become uncles and the whole diagram ends up looking like something that a primary school kid has scribbled on his first go with a crayon and paper.

In the last forty years the village has expanded its boundaries, new housing estates have grown and in theory a new generation of young people should have flushed out the old pit village folk, villages like Delaval should by now have morphed into homogeneous commuter residential belts with only the crossroads at the centre showing any vestige of the past.

But Delaval is not like that, despite the village now being several times its original size it still retains its mining village community and identity, and nowhere is the demonstrated better than in the Seaton Terrace Working Mens Club, "The Terrace".

When I moved to Delaval in 1981 The Terrace was still the most important building in the village, along with the Co-op store in the centre ("The Store"), it was the one place where you could always guarantee that you'd meet any single person at least once a day if you were prepared to wait there long enough for them, being a member of The Terrace was simply a requirement if you wanted to exist in Delaval as a bone-fide resident.

And so of course I joined, and being attached to my wifes family, everyone knew me - Suzannes father was one of the committeemen at the Terrace and was a well known figure in the community and so by default and with my connection to their family, everyone knew me too - I knew no-one and spent most of my time talking to people who knew everything about me whilst I couldn't even recall their name.

I never went into The Terrace without it being almost full of the same faces, Friday and Saturday nights were the busiest and on a Saturday if you weren't in the place early (pre-7pm) then you simply wouldn't get in.

Its not like that now.

The consensus of opinion on Friday night amongst those who have known The Terrace all of their lives was "this place is dying" and whilst I don't know the financial details of the place its easy to see how they can draw that conclusion.

We were at one my wifes remaining aunts 70th birthday party which, as tradition dictates, was held in the upstairs concert room with a DJ to provide the predictable blend of records and a buffet meal consisting of sandwiches and home made pies.

Sadly the upstairs concert room, which at a guess could hold three to four hundred souls (and did every saturday night), is now only used for private functions such as the one on Friday, no club-organised saturday night entertainment is held there now, in common with many other working mens clubs the cost of providing a "turn" (or even two) grew prohibitively expensive in the 1990's and now the members use the downstairs lounge simply to buy cheap beer and talk.

The one room in the place which is still well populated is "The Bar".

The Bar is the haven for the menfolk, until legislation prevented its enforcement it was a condition of joining the club that women were not allowed in The Bar and whilst its not now legally possible to prevent them, few women venture in there and the ones who do are liable to verbal abuse or ignorance of their presence, its still a mens domain in there.

And therein lies the only remaining lifeblood of The Terrace, if it wasn't for the influx of young village youth into The Bar in preference for the local pubs of the area then The Terrace would have died on its arse years ago, but the tradition still stands where a man of the village will take his son to The Terrace and "join him" as a member on his 18th birthday and from that date onwards the young man will use The Bar as an extension to his own home.

On Friday evening I sat in isolation with my pint of orange (yes I was the driver) and just observed from the back of the conert room.

On Friday night there were 150 or so souls in there, I recognised many of the faces, I am related by marriage to many of the faces in there but at least half of the faces that I recognised were not the same people that I knew, they are the offspring of those people.

The older folk that I used to drunkenly bump into every weekend are now either dead or locked up in a home somewhere but their spirit lives on in their sons and daughters who have exactly the same routine as their parents had, shop at the Co-op, booze at The Terrace, its un-nerving to see the next generation continuing in exactly the same mode as their parents when all over the country other offspring are eager to break away from their parental influences, its like a living museum, you couldn't control it any better if it was The Truman Show.

And there lies the secret of a real community village - continuity.

Its why New Towns never quite manage to build a real feeling of "being", its why the residents of new housing estates often speak of them as "soul less", its because you could build a whole new replica Seaton Delaval just up the road but if you populated it with new people drafted in from outside then none of them would bring their history with them, non of the younger generation would go the the village club simply because its what their father and grandfather did and its where their father brought them to play snooker or fly pigeons when they were young .

You cannot build tradition, you cannot construct a soul, there is no price that you can pay to create a new settlement that people will instantly feel a connection to even if they are not aware of or do not understand what that connection is, pit villages like Delaval have that commodity, sometimes its the only thing they have, but its priceless none the less.

The best christmas song ...ever

Heard this christmas's first rendition of "Fairytale of New York" on the radio yesterday, wonderful, sheer wonderfullness.

By coincidence the song is also the subject of an article in this months Uncut magazine (perhaps the best music magazine in the world...ever), in which Shane MacGowan describes the long process of writing a christmas masterpiece - two years from conception to completion and a replacement female vocal along the way.

It started off as a challenge from Elvis Costello to MacGowan for him to write a male/female duet sing and he and the band worked on several ideas before coming up with the idea of a pair of drunken brawling Irish immigrants who find themselves in New York int he 1930's, cash in pocket and drink to spend it on, the original title of "Christmas Eve in the Drunk Tank" describing the whole basis of the song.

It was christmas eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, wont see another one
And then he sang a song
The rare old mountain dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
Ive got a feeling
This years for me and you
So happy christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

Theyve got cars big as bars
Theyve got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
Its no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold christmas eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of new york city
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging,
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the nypd choir
Were singing galway bay
And the bells were ringing out
For christmas day

Youre a bum
Youre a punk
Youre an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy christmas your arse
I pray God its our last

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Cant make it all alone
Ive built my dreams around you

The original duet partner Cait O'Riordan buggered off and married Elvis Costello but two years later record producer Steve Lillywhite was working with The Pogues and suggested that his wife Kirsty MacColl would do a good job of the vocals - it wouldn't be the same without her now.

And christmas wouldn't be the same if I didn't hear this song, and Lennons "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" at least once on the radio, long may they reign.

YouTube link right here good people featuring Matt Dillon as the police officer

And another one (which loads slowly)

School trips

While my youngest daughter gets all enthusiastic about going on a school trip to South Africa in 18 months time I sit here and reminisce on the school trips that I partook of in junior school in the 1960's.

The 1967 pompous headmaster trip to the dales was probably the most memorable. Ten years old we all were, 60 of us piled onto two coaches and off to the Yorkshire Dales which was right on the doorstep of our North Leeds primary school, sandwiches and pop packed in a tupperware bowl and a packet of sticky sweets in your (short) trouser pocket, with two shillings to spend if the opportunity arose - hot summers day brewing, and only a few more days until the end of term and the start of the summer holidays - no wonder we were in party mood.

Unusually Mr Holmes the pompous headmaster had joined the two other teachers on this school trip and he was determined to involve education in this day of frivolity, even if we weren't fookin interested in what he had to say, he was determined to show off his knowledge on the geology and customs of the Yorkshire Dales, we hated him.

It didn't start very well for him - half an hour into the journey and we were on the narrow roads near Bolton Abbey when he suddenly stood up in the aisle of the bus and commanded the driver to "stop right here, I need to show the children something", the bus braked to a halt and we could see the driver in his rear view mirror, mouthing something that we kids shouldn't have heard, both buses pulled off the narrow road onto a grass verge, ploughing up the grass and plants therein, forming a new layby thats probably still not grown back to this day.

We all piled off the bus and stood byt he side of the busy but narrow road where motorists and delivery vans struggled to get past both of the huge buses to much tooting of horns and shouting of obscenities - Mr Holmes was oblivious to all of this, he had education to partake on us.

When all 60 of us were gathered around him, playing "slap" or just flicking the back of the ears of the person in front, he pointed out to us the formation of the two hills beyond the field in front of us and how they were linked by a high ridge, he knew all of the fancy names for this sort of glacially formed geology but frankly none of us gave even a small toss for it and our disinterest could not have been greater if we'd tried, small fights started to break out at the back of the crowd.

Holmes was having none of it, a clip around the ear'ole of two miscreants and we all paid attention again and then to our suprise he climbed over the stone wall in front of us and started striding over the field full of sheep that stood between us and the hills.

"come on everyone, follow me" he bellowed
"but Mr Holmes, the sheep" cried one of the other teachers
"nonsense" he called, his voice growing faint as he put distance between us, "come on, we'll climb those hills"

And despite the misgivings of the other two teachers and their warnings that we were in fact trespassing on a farmers field, we all clambered over the wall, knocking some of it down in the process, and ran up the hilly field to join Holmesy.

We'd only got halfway across the field, three adults and sixty kids, when a Land Rover trundled down the hill towards us, stopped a few yards in front of our leading group and out popped the most angry farmer that I have ever seen, his head seemed to be much bigger than his body and it was a bright purple colour.

The farmer expained to Mr Holmes in very colourfull terms that we shouldn't be on his land, we were trespassing, we'd knocked down his stone wall, and most of the sheep in his field were escaping onto the main road and where the fuck did we think we were going anyway.

Holmesy tried to explain the benefits of education but the farmer was having none of it, in even more colourful language involving a liberal use of the word "fuck" he asked us to leave his field. Holmesy tried to ignore him but the farmer was a big bugger and we were unceremoniously marched back down the hill and onto the road again where we could see the farmers sheep disappearing around a corner on the main road, the bus drivers both thought this was hilarious and when we were all seated again our driver asked Holmesy if he'd like him to find a different field while this farmer tried to round his sheep up again.

We eventually found ourselves in Burnsall, a small village which has a proper car park and a proper picnic area by the river so no more trespassing and threats of the police being called then. We all sat and had our picnic by the river Wharfe which flows quite wide and a little deep in the middle and in the carefree way fo the 1960's the three adults in charge of us considered their risk assesments and all health and safety issues, and gave us all permission to remove our shoes and socks and go for a paddle, all 60 of us, while they sunbathed further up the field.

Small fish were collected and placed in pop bottles to take home, small children slipped and fell in, if you went more than three yards out into the river you were up to your waist and in danger of being dragged away to re-appear somewhere in the Humber 50 miles away - but it was great fun and the sun blazed down on our lazy afternoon by the river while our teachers snoozed fifty yards away.

And then Peter Norwood decided to go for a swim.

Not many of us could swim at 10 years old, swimming was not on the curriculum and our school had only just started to take us to swimming lessons once a week, so to have a friend who could already swim was unusual - we dared him to show us how to get across to the other side of the river, and he accepted.

And he made it, fully clothed he reached the opposite bank and climbed up the bank into the farmers field there. Realising that he was soaking wet he took off his t-shirt and shorts and danced around in the field for a while in his underpants to dry off. It was while he was doing this that he attracted the attention of a rather large horse in the field who came across to see if he had anything worth eating, to our amusement and Peter Norwoods consternation.

Finding nothing edible the horse instead took a liking to Peter Norwoods shorts and removed them from the barbed wire fence where they were drying then ran off across the field with them, Peter Norwood in pursuit, us howling with laughter on the opposite bank. The commotion eventually woke Mr Holmes up and he appeared behind us demanding to know what one of his pupils was doing on the opposite side of the river, almost naked, chasing a horse around which had a pair of shorts in its mouth.

There was nothig more to add, he had summed up the situation perfectly, the only unanswered question was how much of a bollocking would Holmesy give Peter Norwood when he eventually got his shorts back and rejoined us, and how much of a bollacking would Holmesy get from the school governors if they found out that one of his pupils had swum unobserved across the raging river Wharfe to have his shorts stolen by a wierd horse.

Peter Norwood never did get his shorts back, the horse ran away and was not seen again, with the shorts in tow. He had to swim back across the river to us and then go sit on the bus in his underpants for the rest of the day while we all had a guilt ridden geography lesson from Holmesy before returning home in disgrace where a pair of shorts was quickly found in the lost property box and Peter Norwood had to swear never to tell his mother where his original shorts had disappeared to or under what circumstances - I'd have loved to have been in his kitchen as his mother asked why he was wearing a different pair of shorts to the ones he had left home in.

School trips were never like this

Last night turned out to be one of those nights where you think "oh god do I have to go" and then afterwards you're really glad you did.

It was a filthy night and I was glad to get indoors after work only to find that Jodie had a meeting to go to at school about a proposed school trip, she seemed to have forgotten about it so we decided not to remind her and find out about it tomorrow from someone who had been.

About half an hour before it started she got a bloody text message from a friend asking if she was going, I was nominated to take her.

After the disaster of my last visit to school I wasn't looking forward to it but got changed again and out into the wind and rain we ventured.

The school trip is being planned for the summer of 2008 - and they are taking the kids to South Africa.

And it cost £3000.

Each.

We entered the school hall to find a lot of other parents reading the brochure and silently mouthing the words "fuck me" when they reached the bit that said "£3000" but we all staye din the hall anyway (the headmaster was blocking the exit) and sat and watched the presentation from a nice man from a group called "World Challenge"

It was an eye opener, one of those moments when you're glad you made the effort.

The reason that they are planning this now is because the kids who agree to go will commit themselves to eighteen months of studying and fund raising to get there and the brilliant news is that as parents we aren't expected to fund the trip - the kids are.

Yes ok, we'll guarantee the money, and we'll pay in a roundabout way with having the car washed every day for £50, but it will be eighteen months of hilarity watching Jodie trying to think of more inventive ways to screw money out of me.

When they finally leave to go on the trip they will have four weeks of treking and community work in Kwazulu Natal and Swaziland and the organisers promise that they won't lose any kids, will do a head count every few days or so, and will challenge our kids to heights that they've never dreamed of - it sounds fekkin fantastic - especially when the leader explained that the trekking has no itinery and that the kids will organise and research each activity themselves, the leaders are there to follow and make sure they aren't in any danger from lions and stuff - the guy last night explained how one year he had followed a band of 16 year olds on a trek to a mountain range, three days they had walked in exactly the oposite direction to that which they should have been walking but he didn't correct them, when they realised their mistake they just did some different activity in the place that they had found themselves - sounds like my kind of easy come easy go expedition does that.

Jodie thinks so too, she's got five days to think it through and commit herself to eighteen months of hard work and study but I personally hope she does it, Suzanne has lots of mothers doubts, but we'll just over-ride her in the family vote.


Its a far cry from my school trips in the 1960's, and there we will leave the subject until tomorrow...

Unlucky people, Part 1

Following on from yesterdays post about the lucky people of the Cafe of Friendship who avoided a massive lottery win by virtue of the fact that they put a feckless woman in charge of buying their tickets, I have been giving some thought to unlucky people that I have known, and today's nominee is...

Stuart Ackroyd.

When I was very young (7) we moved to Cookridge and Stuart Ackroyd became my first new friend and quickly established himself as "unlucky bas'tad" when the igloo that we were building during a snowy night in the first week of our friendship fell in on top of him and I had to run and get his dad to dig him out.

It was but a mere early indicator.

Shortly afterwards (still aged 7) he fell out of a tree and broke his collarbone and while it was still in a sling recovering he fell out of another tree and broke it again, thats just bad luck.

His problem was that he was not one to sit back and let others do the dares, if you mentioned a dare to him he'd do it, so of course when we, as a gang, were bored we'd dare him to do stupid dangerous things and watch and usually laugh as he hurt himself again.

He broke his weak collarbone with amazing regularity and was eventually banned from playing rugby when we went onto high school after the West Yorkshire Ambulance Service had to made a regular weekly booking during our games lessons.

Denied the pleasures of rugby he took up cricket and became a very good player in the local leagues, but a carefree life fielding on the boundary was not for Stuart Ackroyd, oh no, he took up the wicket keeper gloves and remember - this was in the day when helmets were for motorbike riders and not cricketers.

His junior cricket club banned him from diving for catches that should really have been taken in the slips after he broke his collarbone in one particularly spectacular catch but this still didn't prevent him from stopping many fours and byes with his face, which became flatter by the year.

But the funiest dares involved our hobby of collecting birds eggs (did I just admit to that, jail awaits me) and living in the countryside around the north of Leeds gave us many opportunities to put Stuart Ackroyd into dangerous positions in pursuit of rarer and rarer eggs.

Like the time that we spotted a magpies nest in an orchard right outside the High Farm in Cookridge (now a pub), we spent nearly half an hour sneaking into the orchard which was less than 20 yards away from the front door of the farmhouse, then devised an ingenious plan where Stuart Ackroyd would climb up to the top of the knarled old apple tree and throw down any eggs that he found where we, on the ground, would hold out his anorak and safely catch said magpies eggs, the deal as always was that he could pick the best one when he returned safely to terra firma.

As a plan it worked well, shouting in whispers so as not to disturb the farmer, he managed to chuck down four eggs before he slipped and fell out of the tree, landing in the anorak and brekaing all the eggs, and his collarbone again.

A few months later during our school summer holidays we noticed that the Grey Lag Geese had returned from their arctic homes to spend the summer in Leeds again, and had nested on a local lake that was owned by a fishing club. as we walked around the lake (which was man-made and reputed to be hundreds of feet deep) we noticed in one corner a huge swath of rubbish, stagnant water, dead leaves, slime, and dead fish - irrisistable to a gang of 10 year olds.

Prodding the dead fish with sticks filled in five minutes of entertaining fun, flicking the slime at each other was alright for a few more minutes, but then someone suggested that we fish one of the dead perch out of the gunge and cook it for dinner, it sounded like a fine idea to Stuart Ackroyd and as the surface of the lake was four foot below the wall on which we stood he lay down and asked that we hold onto his jumper as he reached out, further and further for the biggest dead fish.

Of course we let go just as he almost touched the biggest one, and down he went into the stagnant slime and gunge and dead perch, he was under the water for what seemed like a long time and eventually came up covered in black mud with, I swear, a dead fish on his head - we ran away and left him to walk home on his own.

The following week we were back at the lake still in pursuit of geese eggs, Stuart Ackroyd had noticed that the geese were nesting on a small island in the middle of the lake and had concocted an ingenious plan to get across there - he'd knicked the inflatable lilo out of his dads shed and was convinced that he'd be able to scoot across there and bring back mountains of rare eggs, and stake a claim to being the only person ever to set foot on the island.

His plan worked - almost.

He managed to get nearly halfway across to the island before the stopper came out of the lilo and the last we saw of him before we ran away and left him again he was desperately trying to turn the unstable floating plastic platform around to come back, paddling desperately with windmill arms whilst at the same time trying to find the stopper - the craft went down and so did he, oh how we laughed again.

Those were halcyon days in the sun, on summer holidays with your gang and an accident prone kid who couldn't resist a dare...

ooops....

This here little news story is one of the reasons why, on the occasions that I am tempted to buy a lottery ticket, I always choose the automated random choice of numbers.

There must be nothing worse than picking the same six numbers, your house number, your birthday, your dogs birthday, etc etc, week in, week out, for years and years and then the one week when you tick the wrong box the bloody numbers are drawn.

Thats what happened to a small syndicate in Belgium playing the European Lottery which has some humongous prizes, every week a group of 30 locals check out their entry in the Cafe La Fraternelle (ironically the Flemish word for "friendship") and every week their static numbers were not chosen - except for last week when they suddenly realised that they had the only winning entry in a 27 million Euro prize draw.

Their joy was of course unbounded, coffee and pastries were probably flung in the air as the syndicate spilled out onto the street dancing in celebration, skipping across the street to the owner of the bookshop opposite the cafe where the syndicate organiser ran her small business.

Maybe the bookshop was smashed up, maybe the owner was lynched, but you can only just begin to imagine the level of disappointment whent he bookshop owner admitted that she'd gone for a random draw that week rather than stick to the same old faithfull numbers that they'd always chosen - the same old faithfull numbers that should have ensured that they were richer by almost a million euros each - but weren't.

It would be a nice end to the story to think that they all shrugged their shoulders and muttered "Aw fook" and then went home, but it seems that the bookshop owner is destined for a fairly miserable existence from now on after Christiane Farvacque, owner of the Cafe of Friendship and seemingly spokesperson of the bitterly disappointed group bitterly told a reporter, "We were all bitterly disappointed,you think you are the only winners in Europe, but you end up with nothing." and she made it clear where her new hatred of bookshop owners lay, "Even in 20 years' time, my hair will stand up on end whenever I see her,"


The village is Mouscron, near Brussels, if you are ever passing you really should pop into the bookshop opposite the Cafe of Friendship and ask if they sell euro lottery tickets there.

What a spiffing way to settle disputes

Sunday Morning, 8am

Its worth getting up early on a Sunday morning to watch the Sky Travel channel's re-runs of Whickers World and particularly the current series of Whicker In India from 1970.

The current programme sees Whicker visiting a tea plantation owned by the sort of englishman that you only find in PG Wodehouse or Agatha Christie novels, the old Etonian who's family own a plantation the size of Wales in some remote area of the empire and who's answer to all and every problem is to get the Purdey down from above the fireplace and give the blighters both barrels.

I've just got a stich from laughing (and woken up everyone else in the house, I think we have a guest in the eldest's bedroom again but I'm not going to look, he's left his shoes on the doormat at least) at the description of an old established Indian method of negotiating labour disputes with your boss.

Apparently, and they have a name for it which I missed through my tears of mirth, its acceptable practice for disputing workers to surround their boss-man to harrangue him without violence for as long as it takes to get him to acquiesce to their demands, in some cases this quaint form of negotiation has taken days to resolve, and always without violence, because its tradition and you don't break tradition by murdering your boss, its just not the British way.

Henry Twistleton-Smythe the old Etonian plantation owner who is the subject of the programme, clad in regulation beige safari suit with pipe clenched between pursed lips, accent cutting glass even more precisely than Whickers, explained how he had once been surrounded by his aggrieved workers whilst out driving the estate in his Land Rover, when Whicker asked him what he had done with no other white man within five hours drive, he replied that he had "wound up the windows, lit a pipe and read The Times for four hours until the blighters gave up on their dispute"

You see, you just don't get stoicism like that amongst Englishmen these days, its little wonder that we no longer have an empire when good solid British stock like Twistleton-Smythe have been allowed to disappear into remote parts of the red-painted atlas where good British breeding females are so thin on the ground, if only we'd kept at least one breeding pair in captivity back in blighty then we wouldn't be in quite the state that we are now.