North by Northwest

Birthdays and the Battle of Cable Street

2006-10-05T19:05:00.000Z

It was J's birthday yesterday, i'd like to say that she is catching me up in the age stakes but until I develop a time machine it aint happening. Damn you all and the laws of physics.

Anyhows, J is bearing up under the ageing process and seems resigned to having to put up with me for the rest of life - apparently they were tears/sobs of joy. Her birthday celebration/present comes this weekend and will invlove a gallop anlong the beach.

What I hadn't realised was that J shared her birthday with the 70th anniversary of the
Battle of Cable Street. This is when a coalition of Jewish, Irish and Socialists battled the police to prevent a march of the British Union of Facists through the East End of London.

While this has always been one of the iconic moments within leftist and liberal groups it has made almost no impact within main stream society. This year seems a bit different. 70 apears to be when a contentious contemporary events become historical. As such they can be handled through the 'heritage' perspective. Main stream society can now review the events with most of the political sting removed.

I'm just hoping that i don't have to wait that long until J has the perspective about me not getting her a card for her birthday morning.

Children of Men

2006-10-01T08:50:00.000Z

When I hear good things about a film I'm always wary about going to see it. Too often I'm disappointed. With Children of Men its a different story. I'd like to sit here and rave about how great it was and to give you a blow by blow critic of the fim in a effort to make you go and see, but I can't.

Anything I wrote would not do this film justice. It was fantastic. Imagine somwhere between the beach scene in Private Ryan, the camera work of 28 Days Later and the most potent images from the News for the past 6 years. Condense that into 109 mins with a simple story line with very understated acting and you have Children of Men.

You should see this film.

This week I have mainly been listening to..

2006-09-24T08:20:00.000Z

This week I dug deep and went really retro. Plus I have a confession to make, I like(d) progressive rock. It's true under this facist exterior I'm just an unwashed hippy.

Genesis - Live Apparently a highly rated live album but I now find it niave and a bit schoolboyish. I much prefer Seconds Out as a live album. Still a great dose of stupidity and storytelling for the journey to work. I mean a song about how Gaint Hogweed is taking over the world, it can't get much better.

Led Zepplin - don't think it has a title but its number 4 and the one with the peasent on the front I never really got in to Led Zepplin as a kid but found it much later. The thing is that even though I never knowingly went out to here it when I finally did all the songs were familiar. How many times since has the When the Levee Breaks been sampled or just plain ripped off. Stairway to Heaven I can never make my mind up about this, classic rock or pompous parody?

Near where I live there is a town called Hebden Bridge. Its very hilly and wooded and in the 70's a lot of hippies moved there. This album always reminds me of it, and i'm guessing there is some one in Hebden Bridge still stuck on an acid trip and still in the 70's. But it does get you going in the morning.

New Model Army - History Ah the 80's, a decade that produced some real crap and some fantastic music. NMA come in the later catagory. Music with a political edge (so much so that America refused them entry to tour). This is a best of album and has some cracking songs on it. No Rest, a song that I had in an EP in the days of vinyl along with Herion (not on this CD) and I think I eventually wore it out. Plus the Green and The Grey. A band that, along with the levellers, plugged into a resurgent English Radiaclism of the 80's which is so lacking now.

JJ Cale - The Very Best Of J.J. Cale The man who taught me not to hate country music quite so much. A guitar player and favourite of Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton etc who was bought up where Counrty music and Blues are more than kissing cousins. I got into him through such tracks as Cocaine, Cajun Moon, Magnolia, After Midnight. I don't no why but it always makes me happy hearing his more blues side and I'm stunned by the fact that so few people have heard of him.

Diving at last

2006-09-24T07:19:00.000Z

Well I finaly got wet. After many weeks of badgering, missed chances and cancelled trips I finally got to do some training dives. I guess it comes as no suprise that diving in a dry suit in northern european waters is completly different to a wet suit in the Caribbean.

So I rather sensibly joined the local British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) and am currently undergoing training. I've already done the theory and the pool work. All that is left is the open water and it has been this which I've been trying to arrange for the past month or so. This weekend it finally happened.

Suit hired and picked up all I had to do was meet every one at a ridiculous, for me, time of the morning. I arrive at the appointed time but no one shows. I start to think that its all going the way of the pear again. I leave messages on the phone of the organiser telling where I am. 10 Minutes past the alloted time and just as start looking though my phone for people to ring and harass I get a call from unrecognised number. After a confusing discusion it becomes apparent that we have all been sat 50 yards apart seperated by a motorway for 20 minutes.

Ahem, anyway so we set of for Capernwray for my first experience of diving in a disused quarry and diving in a dry suit. Capernwray is basically a large flooded hole in the ground that by the looks of it is making money hand over fist. It was packed beyound belief, and I was told that wasn't busy. The facilities were actually good, now if only they put the same thought into their web site, but as it was a sunny day we (and every one else) changed in the carpark.

What this tells me about the state of British health is that we are a nation of fatties. Neoprene doesn't flatter or hide the bulges.

The Dives

My first dive did not go according to plan. The place was so cowded and I was struggling to get to grips with the dry suit that it all went wrong. The idea was to just spend 20-25 minuets going as far as possible and the only skill to worry about was buoyancy using the dry suit. Instead with people above me, below me and the bloody fish (3 foot long trout who took the piss out the novice divers like me) it was like swiming in soup. What with the bloom and everyone piling in the visibilty also dropped down to about 4 meters.

Stuggling to cope with all this my buoyancy was all over the show and as a result I was up and down like a yo yo. This eventually began to have an effect on my ears so I called a halt and abandoned the dive 15 minuets in.

The second dive went much better. I used the jacket for buoyancy instead of the suit and this worked so much better. This time we got as far as Lord Lucan and Shergar (two fair ground horses from blackpool that were sunk there) and the Dreamer (a boat sunk at teh far end of the training area).

The only down side was that becuase I was still worried about my ear I refused to do the mask clear (you have to let your mask fill with water and and then clear it followed by completly taking your mask off and putting it back on, and then clearing it). It was my first time wearing a hood as well so i wasn't that comftable with the whole mask thing.

URL's and all that comes with it...

2006-09-22T21:02:00.000Z

The sharped eyed amongst you may have noticed I have placed a link to Dan's All That Comes With It. An interesting blog of a man and his new family (and I say that as a man who would gladly be refused a license to keep a goldfish, let alone children).

One thing I did pick up from his blog was this snippet of information he found when he was searching for a URL for his blog. He looked at www.holmfirth.com. Something you need to know about Holmfirth is that it's a tourist village and home to a television show called the last of the summer wine. If you don't know it it is the sleepest, quaintest and less offensive television show you could imagine. Its aimed at the grave dodgers within our community and the village has the appropriate image.

What he found was the following web site www.holmfirth.com. As Dan explains here.

Do I really want to do this?

2006-09-22T20:50:00.000Z

I'm off diving tomorrow. Which is no problem but I have recently been reading the CDNN scuba diving news site. This site has started to worry me becuase all i keep reading is about diving accidents and deaths.

And then to top it all there is this news story;Shark 1, shark molesting scuba idiot 0. Put simply its about a diver, Dave Marcel, who attempted sexual relations with a shark and the shark wasn't keen.

Not sure about this any more.

This week I 'ave mainly been listening too...

2006-09-16T09:43:00.000Z

My journey to work takes about an hour. My journey home takes about an hour. Usually I listen to the news on the way in and the news on the way out. I started to think this may not be good for me. I arrived at work already in a rabbid mood willing to lay waste to the hordes of lying two faced b'stds who so obviously surrounded me - not a positive attitude for work (primarily because there are hordes of lying two faced b'stds who I have to work with). I'd also arrive home full of impotent rage and ready to lead the revolution against the sea of oppressors, which trust me doesn't contribute to a contented home life - how Mr and Mrs Lenin ever got on I'll never know.

What I also noticed was that of late I have spent less time listening to music. So this week I have tried to change my habits. I have raided my CD collection and reacquainted my self with some music to soothe the beast within. So this week I 'ave mainly been listening to...

Rodrigo y Gabriel If anything is going to put you in a good mood this will be it. Don't be put off by the web site. Listen first and judge second.
Tricky - Maxinquaye acquired this by accident's from a friend and it really does chill you before work, really must thank him one day. Cheers Mark. There you go my good deed done.
Gil Scott Heron - Ghetto Style Ok this is a damn good cool mix of blues, jazz and poetry with a political edge. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is one of the greatest songs ever written and is sooooo relevant today
The Clash - London Calling What can I say; London Calling, Spanish Bombs, The Guns of Brixton, Death or Glory and I'm Not Down

Has it made me any more relaxed, not really. This could, however, be more due to the fact that I have just sat in waiting for a builder to turn up to do some work on my roof. To do this I cancelled a diving trip and he hasn't turned up - relaxed? Not so you'd notice.

Muslims Outraged

2006-09-16T08:35:00.000Z

Not being a muslim I have noticed that in a 24 hour news world they seem to get upset rather alot by people talking bollocks. For a solution see my previous post on the pope. If in doubt apply it to any religion it seems to work.

Pope Talks Bollocks Shocker

2006-09-16T08:28:00.000Z

Being bought up a catholic I can testify to the fact that popes have a tendency to talk bollocks, its not news. The trick is to ignore it. If you don't it only encorages them.

Labour Party Commits Suicide

2006-09-07T21:28:00.000Z

There are moments in history where the fundamental coalitions underpining the political structure change. The founding of the Labour Party was one such time. Formed at the turn of the 20th century as the political arm of the Trade Union movement. It's purpose was to represent the workers in the political process. It was so sucessful that after world war one it replaced the Liberals as the party of radical reform. It has always been a party of the left and was always an uneasy alliance between socialists and social democrats.

For me growing up under Margret Thatcher it was my natural home. It opposed the blind self intrested money grabing and damn every one else capitalist approch that seemed to typifiy the Tories. On one day in May 1997 I remember that election day was like being libertated from 18 years of oppression, I was still up for Portillio and enjoyed every moment of it. Ever since then though i have been increasingly saddened to see the Labour Party that I was once proud to be an activist in move further and further right. Afraid of going back to those 18 years of tory rule the Parliamentry party was silent and compliant.

I want rid of Tony Blair but what the party are doing now is madness. Blair's arrogance in not seeing that people regard him as a liability combined with Brown's duplicity is an appaling spectical.

This can't go on. If Blair tries to stay it will rip the party apart. If a serious challenger to Brown isn't found it will rip the party apart. There are moments in history where the fundamental coalitions underpining the political structure change. I think this is such a time.

Labour Leadership Crisis

David Byrnes Journal

2006-09-07T20:14:00.000Z

Just added another blog on the left, well its sort of a blog come normal website. Its one that I have been reading a bit recently. I've often found that as you get older and you find out more about famous people you admired in your youth its a bit like finding out santa claus dosent really exist. You kind of expect people to have views that you think as just plain obvious. Or someone who was cool just turns out to be a prick with an ego. Its refreshing when it happens the other way around.

Talking Heads fantastic band, and Pyscho Killer is still a great song. David Byrne took my music experience into areas that I wouldn't have gone on my own so its really cool to discover he really is a cool bloke.

Journal David Byrne

The Strange Weariness of Insomnia

2006-09-03T12:24:00.000Z

For years I have suffered from the occasional bouts of insomnia. When I was a younger, and say when I was a student for example, it wasnt a problem but as the years start to drain my abilities to recovery and responsibility imposes a stricter time table its become a real bitch.

I have recently started a concerted effort to get fit. Going running twice a week, well I say running its more of chaotic shambling procession over a stated distance at a slightly faster pace than walking followed by much asthmatic wheezing. On top of this there is the all too infrequent riding (really must do more), diving (if the BSAC Club get there act into gear that is) and a few other things - Oh and i've probably eaten more veggies in the last year than in all my previous years on the planet. It's also coming up to 3 years of no smoking. Plus, recently I have cut sugar out from my diet and caffine has been cut down to one mug a day (thats one mug of coffee with caffine not one mug of pure caffine).

So by rights i should be healthier than ever and less prone to things like insomnia. So what the *&^%ing hell was going on last night. Got tired, went to bed......still awake so I got up. Browsed the net, went back to bed, got up read half a book on how to script CSS files, browsed the net, cursed the birds for waking up and finally went to bed.

End result, knackered. Sunday has been a wash out. At 3.30 am this morning I felt I had the energy to reorganise my entire life, open a business and put the world to rights. Today I have less energy than Enron.

Insomnia sucks bigger and more efficently than a dyson:(

Moonraking

2006-08-28T09:15:00.000Z

Slaithwaite Yorkshire 2005
Originally uploaded by Georgei Mabee.

Despite being busy recently one of the things I have been doing that has been a pleasure is reading about the village where I'm getting married. The idea being that because I have friends and relatives coming up from the south I wanted to gather some information about what happens and what there is to do in the area.

In doing so I have come across some 'interesting' festivals that take place either in Marsden or the Colne Valley. Possibly the most,...erm...shall we say 'interesting', is Moonraking. Before going of to find out about it I had heard of it but knew nothing of it. Talking to friends in the pub it was explained to me in one particular way, reading about it later showed in in another light. Both versions say a lot about the power of local rivals.

What you need to know is that Slaithwaite (I think pronounced Slou'wit) is a typical industrial Pennine valley village with the Huddersfield Narrow canal running through it. The story I was first told was that in the 19th century late at night someone walking along the banks of the canal came across a man slightly under the influence of a few beers using a garden rake on the canal. When asked what he was doing he said that the moon had fallen in the water and he was trying to use the rake to get it out. To an outsider this was simply further proof of the lack of any intelligent life in the Slaithwaite.

After doing some looking around on the web I discovered arkingback.org. This explains the story slightly differently. In this version of the story the man doing the raking was a smuggler who confronted by the local militia had the enough wits to act witless.

Which is the true story? I haven't a clue.

Two Men and Wheelchair

2006-08-24T17:50:00.000Z

Two Men and Wheelchair
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

I posted this photo back in November last year and for some strange reason it has bought a lot of people to my blog from around the world. For example, it often gets picked up in google image searches. But its recently been spotted by Glenn from Whitby (close by where the photo was taken) who blogs about every thing fishing realted in that part of the world.

I know nothing about fishing, prefer to go under the water if possible, but he likes my photo so thats as good a reason as any to add a link to him.

Whitby Sea Anglers

Way Too Busy

2006-08-20T18:43:00.000Z

I have been too busy to post here of late.

So far we have finally sent out our first wave of wedding invites, yes we know its early but we wanted to make sure that people were aware of the date as it clashes with a bank holiday and half term.

We also became aware that the hotel was not going to have the additional 10 rooms we were hoping to have by the time of the wedding. Combined with the fact that we dicovered that many of the B&B's in the village were all closing. Seemed that they all decided to retire at the same time. This resulted in a stressful run around making sure that we had rooms for those who needed to be in the hotel rather than near by. It also meant diplomatically talking to some relatives inorder to manage expectations. We wanted to be able to squezze some friends into the hotel. We are still going to disappoint some as it is.

Fearing that accommodation might be scarce during the wedding there was also some terse conversations with immediate family to get them to make some decisions. As I stated during one converstation there will only be 2 prima donnas allowed at the wedding and thats J and I. I did afterwards realise that I was pushing a little too hard and will need to make it up to them later.

I also finished the web site for the wedding as well. So thats now up and running in time for the invites going out. We also had a chance to scout out accommodation in the area so at least we were able to put some information about what is going to be around. Doing this we did discover enough good quality accommodation in the area so we should be able to meet most peoples needs.

While doing this we have had torential rain sweep recently. As a result the roof in the back of the house leaked which also went into the boiler. Meaning that we are currently with out hot water until we can get it fixed.

Oh and my MP responded to my mail. Well to be honest he didn't as I found out he is on holiday in Miami. More of that later.

Oh and my diving trip this weekend didn't happen becuase someone wasn't able to communicate. So phoeeeeeeeeey, thats all I have to say.

Call me cynical

2006-08-10T18:24:00.000Z

But while there may be some truth in this plot (it is still an alledged plot despite the fact that the media and police are reporting it if we have had the investigation and trial already, or have we done away with due process, evidence and trials? Is this the freedoms we will apparently need to sacrifice according to John Reid only last night, hmmm) the timming seems judicous.

Governments on both sides of the Atlantic seem to have jumped on this like a drowning man coming close to a life belt.

All the news about Iraq, Lieberman's defeat, Lebanon seems to have been replaced with news on how we are all going to die. And all the armchair anti terrorist police have popped up saying well they knew this was a problem all along.

As I say i'm not saying that there is no plot, I'm damn sure there are people out there who want to kill me. I'm just saying something smells very very very funny.

Oh and to answer John Reid's questions about am I willing to give up any freedoms, NO. If i did then some one else other than me has won. Why would I give up what I want to defend?

One Way Discussion With My MP

2006-08-10T18:04:00.000Z

Barry Sheerman is the MP for Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and my local MP. I've never written to an MP before now. As I was rather annoyed that my government wasn't calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon I thought I would finally do something about it. Yeah the revolution starts with an email - that'll scare em.

So on the 22/7/2006 I sent the following email:

Dear Sir, as one of your constituents I would like to know if you agree with the government and believe a cease fire would do no good for the people of of South Lebanon?

On the 24/7/2006 I recieved the following reply:

Please provide your full postal address to enable Mr Sheerman to reply
to your email.

Kind regards,

Parliamentary Researcher to Barry Sheerman MP

--

Ok, so on the 22/7/2006 I sent the following:

--, on the whole i'm usually quite happy to comply, however, before I do
could you please explain why you need my postal address before my
consituency MP is willing to respond to a simple question?

To which I recived the following response on the 27/7/2006

Parliamentary protocol means that MPs can only follow up the concerns of
their own constituents. We therefore require your full postal address
so that we can establish whether you are a constituent.

Kind regards,

Alright, I'll accept that so I respond with my address on the 28/7/2006

[address, yeah like i'm going to put that on the web]

So by now I'm eagerly awaiting my response.

Still waiting, and waiting..............and waiting.

Got fed up and sent the following mail on the 2/8/2006

I'm very disappointed not to have received a response after providing you with my address. Given the passage of time could you please arrange for an answer to a slightly different question. Does Barry Sherman support the Prime Ministers stance on the Israeli/Lebanese war. Does he believe that Tony Blair is/was correct not to call for an immediate ceasefire?

I would appreciate it if you could arrange to have my questions answered promptly.

Thank You.

Guess what? I'm still waiting to hear from Mr Barry Sherman.

Sky, George.......no contest

2006-08-08T21:50:00.000Z

Don't usually like George. Like Micheal Moore he is often feckless in his allegencies and reckless with some of his statements. The kind of bloke who your never sure if you want him on your side in an argument. But when he is on fire he will rip a hole in an interviewer the size of Wales.

In this clip he does what we should all do. He doesnt just questions the assumptions of the news we are given he rips them apart, and then stamps on them for good measure.

Just a pity he is such a prat much of the rest of the time

My First Crop Circle (and probable last)

2006-08-02T11:07:00.000Z

The Uffington Crop Circle
Original Image from Cropcircleconnector.com.

Crop circles have been popping up all over now for a couple of years. For many in the alternative, tree hugging, crystal chewing community they have been a sign of the mystical power of the earth. What utter bollocks. They are testament to the power of cider and the lack of proper entertainment in English rural pubs.

Any way camping this weekend I encountered my first crop circle. While traipsing around the Iron Age site of White Horse Hill and Uffington Castle we also went off in search of the above crop circle. It was a choice between a) go looking for a pub or b) go looking for a crop circle, I lost.

Now there are several things to consider about crop circles. First they look large and spectacular from the air or in photos. When you're stood in one though you realise that they are quite small and desperately underwhelming. More importantly it just looks like a field of crushed corn (wheat, barley, oats or whatever you want I'm using corn in its generic sense). Second, from a distance and with out any reasonable explanation of how they were created they are a bit of a mystery. However, since as Wikipedia states on the subject,

In 1991, more than a decade after the phenomena began, two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, revealed that they had been making crop circles in England since 1978 using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools.

Its not really a mystery any more is it. So when you see some hippy dippy types communing with the spiritual other while sat in a crop circle you have to think, "what a plonker." It just shows that these people are deluding themselves through choice and really should be placed on some kind of mental health register. The field was full of them. Again if any one mention giant flying spaghetti monsters or any other spiritual being I will get really really really angry.

Any since my visit to the crop circle I can report that despite my negativity I have had no karmic comeback. The fact that my camera has stopped working is nothing to do with it and the fact that my car was broken into is shear coincidence. Better go find my crystal and realign my chakras just in case.

Happy Yorkshire Day

2006-08-01T17:53:00.000Z

Happy Yorkshire Day.......yup I have no idea what its all about either.

But i guess as i'm marrying a Yorkshire lass i'd better join in. Ey, by eck lad, and all that.

The King of Chav's and Inflatable Sheep

2006-07-31T18:07:00.000Z

King Chav
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

I thought I would add this as I've not blogged for a while, the nurse has been heavily medicating me after my last outburst. Also I speant the weekend socialising with real people and the subject of my blog arose so I guess I better put something on here.

I thought it appropriate to share the heart rending story of a Chav in denial.

It has now become a tradition amongst a group of friends (how many times do you have to do something before it becomes traditional?) to celebrate the 40th birthday of each person by getting together and going camping. For me its fast becoming a tradition to take twice as long to get there than it should, for god sake its only a small island.

This year the unwilling victim was C who you see in the photo dressed in his sunday best after being presented with his certificate of chavness.

It should be pointed out that this gentleman is by day a respected member of academia and alledgedly holds a position in one of Britains most prominent universities. By night around a camp fire though his true nature comes out. Only by going away to secret camps buried deep in the countryside where he can be himself amongst fellow devotes of all things chav can he keep himself sane.

Its a shame that society shuns people like him forcing him to hide his dirty little secret from his co-workers, his wife and child and other innocent decent members of society.

So ring Chavline today and ensure C is issued with a can of cider and an ASBO now.

Israel & Anti Semitism

2006-07-15T13:59:00.000Z

If any supporters of Israel happen to wander past and read this please take note. Personally I couldn't give a monkeys chuff if you are Jewish, Arab, African, French, pink, black, brown, yellow, polka dot, little green man from outer space or god forbid Scottish. I always endeavors to judge individuals by their actions. I can't help it its the way my mother bought me up and I'm not going to go against my mother for any one - you should see her, scary.

But at the moment I'm getting sick to death of every critisim of Israel being met with the same tired and pointless accusation of Anti-Semitism. Israel is a state, Judaism is a religion. I went to school, I can tell the difference.

The next person who accuses me of being anti Semitic will, I promise, get twated. In fact every time I hear the accusation a little part of me starts thinking, "well if your going to accuse me of it it I might as well be it."

He Works For Me.....I'm Doomed

2006-07-14T17:07:00.000Z

There is a great web site based in the UK called TheyWorkForYou.com. Its based on the idea that the MP's who we elect should be responsible to us and so we should know what they get up to. Great idea, I have an alert set up so that if my local MP, Barry Sherman, says anything in Parliament i'm emailed what he says.

So given that the great issues of the day are that Lord Levy the Prime Ministers personal friend, his personal envoy to the Middle East and Labour Party fund raiser is arrested. This is in connection with allegations for cash for honours. Also two other Cabinet Ministers have also been questioned on the subject.

The Middle East goes from "bad" to "worse" to "oh my god! we are all going to die."

So I get an email today alerting me to the fact that Barry Sherman has spoken twice. Given the huge and weighty world events that are happening I assume that my MP has some calming and wise words.

First in answers to Treasury Questions we have:

Barry Sherman

What steps he is taking to improve the regulation of the London-based operations of non-EU European banks?

Edward Balls (Economic Secretary, HM Treasury)

The Financial Services Authority regulates all non-EU banks operating in the UK under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. That includes the regulation of prudential standards, conduct of business, liquidity and financial crime. The Government and the FSA work closely together to ensure that the regulation of the banking sector is effective, well focused and up to date with current market practice.

Barry Sherman

Will my hon. Friend stop dodging and diving on this one? I have been trying to get some protection for constituents of mine, who believed that when they allowed assets to be managed by a Swiss bank that had opened a London office, they had the same protection as customers of other banks, and that European directives would apply. Pictet Asset Management does not conform to those rules. Is it not about time that Swiss banks were regulated properly in this country?

Edward Balls (Economic Secretary, HM Treasury)

The Financial Services Authority regulates all banks operating in the UK in relation to financial crime and all other matters, including Swiss subsidiaries and branches, under existing legislation. I would say to my hon. Friend that I have been in this job for eight weeks, and this is the first time that we have had a conversation on this subject. I am happy to look into it in detail, but as I said, this is the first time that we have had the opportunity to discuss it. If he would like to meet, I will be happy to do so and provide him with all the reassurance he needs that the FSA is doing a good job, including with Swiss banks and subsidiaries.

Second, during the business of the House we get the following wisdom:

Barry Sheerman:

May I remind my right hon. Friend that today- 13 July-is
the birth date of John Clare, one of our greatest English poets? Many
regard Clare as one of the greatest English poets of the countryside
and the environment. Would not it be appropriate to hold an early
debate after the recess about the Education and Skills Committee report
on the value of out-of-school education? We expect...

Well thats put the world to rights then............

Syd Barrett RIP

2006-07-11T21:28:00.000Z

Syd Barrett has died. I can't really add more than his obituary in the Guardian. He will go down in history as one of the main influences of psychedelic music and one of the first acid casualties.

To be honest though I prefered Pink Floyd after he left but every one seems to be of the view that his dna was very strong in everything they did. I have never understood, but always been fascinated by, people whose personality is just too large for themselves.

Huddersfield Carnival 2006

2006-07-08T18:14:00.000Z

Huddersfield Carnival 2006
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

What better way to spend a staturday afternoon than hanging around in the park enjoying the atmosphere of the West Indian Carnival; food was great, curried goat with rice and peas.

However we learnt that the local council are looking at reducing funding for this annual event which makes me rather peeved. The thing that makes an average place a good place to live is the things that happen in the community. A house is just a house until you have a house warming.

How can the local politicians talk about the community etc but then when there is a successful community event walk away from it.

How to Party
Originally uploaded by Mike Carter.

Any way as usual there are some photos that can be found here. Again I have focused on those from Carriacou, Pettie Martinque and Grenada. This is only for the reasons that Grenadians make a sizable group within the local West Indian community and just becuase it started raining after they had been on.

My photos are ok, but not great, while on the other hand Mike Carter who was also there took some much better photos than me. I would like to point out that he has a better camera than me, but to be honest I also think he has bit more talent.

That said it could be a good chance to make an argument that I need to upgrade my camera. I have been secretly suffering camera envy for some time now. I think i could look at Mikes pictures and convince my self that some how if i go and spend a shed load of money i'll be able to photos as good as that.....hmmm. Now all i have to do is convince J.

A Year Ago Today

2006-07-07T21:06:00.000Z

My grandmother died. Nothing to do with the London bombs. Which kind of makes it a weird day for me.

Conservative Blogger, New York Times and the Evil Terrorist Travel Guide

2006-07-03T21:48:00.000Z

Some conservative blogger obviously read the memo about what a nest of evil terrorists the New York Times was and then promptly took his brain out and opened his mouth. The fact that a photographer took some photos for an article about St. Michaels, Maryland. This had to be a cover because what the photographer, in cahoots with the evil NYT, was actually doing was showing a picture of Donald Rumsfeld's drive. This total breach of security allows the evil doers of the world to find Mr Rumsfeld with out having to go to the bother of doing any research, given that the location of this house is public knowledge.

So what does the little wannabe stasi officer do? He publishes the personal details of the photographer. Now why would he do that?
Read the full story here

Bugger....

2006-07-01T18:32:00.000Z

...now I'm no expert but that was a diabolical ref.

England expects and all that...

2006-07-01T09:40:00.000Z

Today is the day that England play Portugal. Now England have to actually play football. So far all that can be said of the England is that they are winning, but not convincingly. Portugal knocked Egland out of Euro 2004 at i think the same stage this is not a team thats going to allow us to play like a bunch of sunday league players going through on luck.

In general the feeling on the ground is muted. The jingoistic fever is still there its just not as fervent as it was at the start. If however England step up and play today, something of which they are more than capable, then the mood in the country will quickly rise to the occasion. All English teams no matter what sport for some reason improve against good teams and play better when we are the under dog. To paraphrase a letter in the Guardian the other day; England paralyised by injury, the press slating the perfomances, Beckham sick, FIFA critising us...at last we now have a chance.

If however we lose the mood will turn dark, hmmm.

I came across a photo stream on Flickr the other day that i think captures the enormity and scope of the world cup. Rene Berlin he is just a normal Flickr member who happens to live in Berlin, and so has the worlds greatest event on his door to capture - its strange though that many many of his pictures seem to contain attractive young ladies. It should be remembered that the photos are of the streets not the stadiums, not of the games themselves but of the fans from around the world gathered in the streets in Berlin. He has captured the festival spirit very well. I just hope that is the way it stays. Any way to see a slide show of his photos go here.

Wedding Plans, New Links and Stuff

2006-06-25T13:26:00.000Z

Well the wedding plans are going along reasonably smoothly. So far we have the guest list 99% sorted, the venue planed, the registrar booked, the notices read and the honeymoon planned. I'm also planning to set up a website. This might seem a bit ott but its mainly becuase many people, especially on my side, are traveling from the deepest south.

In the mean time i've decided to start putting some information on this blog. So I have added some links to places of interest in around Marsden. The first is to the Marsden Jazz Festival. It won't be on during the wedding but its still a good introduction to Marsden. For some background history on Marsden there is the Marsden Local History Group site or Bellastown. For any one who wants to see some a slide show of some good photos taken in around Marsden Flickr has a group for the village.

If any passing soul knows of anything to do in around the area that I can add please either add a comment or send me a mail.

Goats Cheese Cannelloni with Cherry Tomatoes

2006-06-25T10:46:00.000Z

J had to work all day at the stables yesterday so I decided to do the right thing and cook something nice for when she came home. Problem is that I love cooking and I especially love cooking meat. I am a full blown carnivore. J on the other hand is fully paid up member of the lentil eating sandle wearing vegetarian brigade. Actually I have to say she is far from the militant wing, more like CofE wing of the veggie world.

I do however strugle with what to cook, especially given that i'm hardly on speaking terms with most vegetables. So one of my fav cooks books comes to the rescue again, The Accidental Vegetarian. Simply a god send for a carnivore forced to cook veggie. It was written by Simon Rimmer who ended up buying a vegetarian reasturant called Greens in Manchester. Simon, who is not a chef and is a confirmed meat eater had to adapt quickly.

Last nights meal was so nice that I thought I would share it with the world, I'm nice like that. What i'm giving below is the bear bones of the meal as outlined in the book. However, this is great becuase it means its easy to make but also easy to experiment with. For examle along with the tomatoes you could add a variety of roasted meditarian vegetables. Add more tomatoes and a bit of basil.

Ingredients

This serves 4-6 with a salad. Otherwise adjust quantities as needed.

400g cherry tomatoes
Fresh thyme
Dash of balsamic vineger
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
200g Riccota Cheese
150g Goats Cheese
150g Parmesan Cheese
100g Baby Spinisch Leaves
12 sheets of pasta; 12.5cm * 10cm
Shaved Parmesan

What to do with the ingredients

In a roasting dish heat up some olive oil in the oven at Gas Mark 7/220c/425f. When the oil is hot throw in the tomatoes and roast for about 10 mins. Then add the Thyme, Balsamic Vinegar, Garlic and seasoning. Roast the lot for another 15 mins. At the end of this time turn the heat down to Gas Mark 4/180c/350f.

Meanwhile you need to make the filling for the canelloni. For this wash and drain the Spinach leaves. If your me you will then want to shred the leaves a bit. Then mix in a large bowl the Parmesan, Riccota and Goats cheese. Add the spinich and seasoning.

Make your cannelloni. I use fresh lasagna sheets cut to size but you could use either dried sheets or even canelloni tubes if you like. The main thing i suppose is to end up with a tube in which to put your filling. If you are going to use dried pasta of any type your going to have to cook it first as there is not enough liquid in this recipe to cook the pasta.

Place a dollop of the filling on one of the sheets and then roll it into a tube. There you have your canneloni.

When the suace has roasted for the approriate time pour enough of the juice to grease the bottom of an oven proof dish and place your filed tubes into the dish. Then pour over the rest of the suace.

Return to the oven for 5 mins to heat through and serve with what ever you fancy.

Treebeard

2006-06-24T21:17:00.000Z

Treebeard
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

In a vain attempt to get fit I'm going running at the moment. But to add insult to injury i then also went for a walk in the valley. The valley is probably only a couple of miles square but me and M still managed to get lost.

Its like some kind of rural tardis down in the valley. Every where you go there is another stream and and another little wooded glade. Its weird. Anyway this time we came across the tree in the picture. It was too early in the mroning for me to be drunk but thats a bloody face.

If i was in the habit of taking drugs this tree would have scared the hell out of me, instead its just creeped me out.

New Link

2006-06-21T19:47:00.000Z

Just put a new link to another blog, Iozzi. He said something nice about one of my photos and his blog seems worth a read. He has recipes, any site with recipes is good in my book. So it seems worth a link to me.

Nothing to say really...

2006-06-21T19:17:00.000Z

...I have been really lazy with this site recently. Mainly becuase on holiday I promised my self that I wouldn't get annoyed and pissed off with the things that happen in the world. I wanted to keep that pleasent relaxing calmness that you go on holiday to achive. I mean why spend all that money to get chilled out and then let the plonkers who seem to govern every aspect of life wipe it out for you?

Problem is that it seems to have killed my desire to babble on about the nothingness that happens. Oh well!

That said if any one wants to read anything they can try some of the other blogs linked here on the left.

Worst Pain in the World

2006-06-16T22:39:00.000Z

Toothache, bloody toothache. At this moment in time i know i would not survive tortue. You want to know anything at this second i'm your man. You want to know the current troop deployments of the whole British Army I havent a clue but if it were to stop the pain i would get them for you.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

meteor

2006-06-05T21:21:00.000Z

meteor
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

I only put this photo on flickr about 24 hours ago. During the day at work i checked out my photos (it was a quite day). I was gobsmacked that this photo had something like 4 comments and 20+ views. I dropped in every once in a while and was getting more and more views. The last time I looked 291 (sorry just looked again 296 now) people had viewed it within just over 24 hours, 6 people had marked it as a fav and 8 people had commented on it......erm wow.

Slide Show

2006-06-04T02:02:00.000Z

Something I have been looking at doing for a little while but couldnt for the life of me work out how. A slide show of a set of my photos on Flickr. This set is all those photos that others have been kind enough to mark as favorites. Some I can't explian why some one likes it others I hope speak for themselves.

Flash Slideshow

No Woman, No Cry

2006-06-03T16:39:00.000Z

Just going through my record collection to build up a play list for the wedding...I have no idea if any of these tracks will make it but its still a fun thing to do. Anyway, just played Bob Marley, "No Woman, No Cry." Man alive I'd forgotten how that song made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end.

Definitely up there as one of my all time top ten besty fav tracks.

Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain 1942

2006-06-03T14:15:00.000Z

I recently picked up a little book called, "Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain 1942". Not exactly great literature but a fascinating read non the less. Its written in an informative way so that the arriving US soldier could adjust and not upset the natives too much.

With such sections as "No Time To Fight Old Wars" and "British Women at War" its short tour de force of diplomatic niceties. I'm not sure if its the style or its intentional but its actually quite moving and funny in a dry sense of humour way. For example, when talking about the fact that the US service men would encounter women officers, and explaining that that the British found no shame in following orders from a woman, talks of the fact that these women were effectively at the front line. Talking of the fact that women officers were bravely fighting, and dying, along side the men at the home front it states,

"...when you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic - remember she didn't get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich..."

One part that struck me as very pertinent at the moment was entitled "Keep out of Arguments." Where it says,

In the pubs you will hear a lot of Britons openly criticizing their government and the conduct of the war. That isn't an occasion for you to put your two cents worth. Its their business, not yours. You sometimes criticize members of your own family - but just let an out sider start doing the same and you know how you feel.

It goes on to say, "its impolite to criticize your host; it is militarily stupid to criticize your allies." At this moment in time when America has just had its memorial day and it faces hard questions over Haditha I think its fair to remember that not so long back the US and the UK both suffered in a vital and just war. Now America is going to have to do a lot of soul searching if half of what is being said is true. I may disagree with the President of the US and the countries foreign policy, ours is not much different, but I have to have faith that for the majority within this country and the US that the following from the book is also true;

...there are important similarities - our common speech, our common law, and our ideals of religious freedom were all brought from Britain when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Our ideas about political liberties are also British and parts of our own Bill of Rights were borrowed from the great chapters of British liberty.

This may be idealistic bollocks, and I guess it was propaganda of a sort at the time, but I do think its time that we reexamine, and reclaim, the principles upon which the US was founded and the tradition of English freedoms and liberties that the revolutionaries thought they were fighting for. They are shared enlightenment traditions dating back to when England was regarded as a beacon of freedom across Europe. I think if we compare the way the US and UK are behaving at the moment in the light of the freedoms we claim to cherish we should question the validity of those governments. Its time those of us with a more positive view stopped swalling the politics of fear and we try and reclaim the politics of hope. I don't want to think what can my government protect me from, I want to think what my society can do.

6 Days until the worlds biggest sporting event

2006-06-03T08:39:00.000Z

It is only 6 days until the worlds biggest sporting event kicks off. The FIFA World Cup kicks of in Germany on the 9th of June. The draw for which teams will play in which groups in the tournament already drew an audience of 28 Million world wide in December 2003 and the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea had total viewing figures of 28.8 Billion.

During this coming month for many people issues such as Iraq, Terriorism and Global Warming will become just back ground music. Many people around the world would struggle to find a problem with with the late Bill Shankey when he said that,

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.”

In this country the the build up is starting to dominate. Houses and cars are festonded with the flag of St George. Much of England currently looks like a loyalist houseing estate in Belfast. The country seems to be gripped by the trials and tribulations of a 21 year old potato, Wayne Rooney, upon whose broken metatarsal the fate of this nation appears to rest.

I bring this up in order to say one thing. I DONT CARE!!!!!! I resent the fact that at the moment in this country if i happen to say to another man,

"I'm sorry I don't actually like football,"

I sware this is some how translated to,

"yes, at birth i decided to remove my testicles and puree my brain. My hobbies included eating children and placing babies on spikes. Oh and i want to introduce Islam by force."

I have seen conversations between two reasonably intelligent men derailed in a nano second by the phrase, "No I don't watch football."

It is not abnormal to get no pleasure watching 22 highly overpaid, overacting, moronic prima donnas who haven't even forgotten the meaning of the word sporting. They never knew it. Wanye Rooney, David Beckham etal are NOT fine examples of humanity. They are over grown self indulgent children in who in any other walk of life would be no hopers. But becuase of one percived talent they are venerated like little gods.

The worst of it is that I know that if England do well i will find my self, like i do every time, starting to take an interest and watching the games. But inside i will stand by every word i rant, "Go on my son, Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land....".

I turned 41 in a Rain Forest

2006-05-30T19:08:00.000Z

Grand Etang Rain Forest, Grenada
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

I didn't think about it at the time. My birthday was the day before we left, or so we thought (see rant below), and to be honest it was just another day on holiday. It was only after wards thinking about it that i realised it was quite a good birthday as things go.

We spent the day driving around Grenada and visiting the Grand Etang National Park. My first time in a rain forest. The first hurdle was driving through St George's the capitol of Grenada. The roads are narrow and the drivers are obviously jedi knights (i saw too many people driving with their eyes shut for no other explanation than they were using the force). On top of this I think Grenada has 4 sets of traffic lights and 1 one way system. This is all cramed in to tardis that is St George's. And unless you want to go the long way around you have to go through.

From that point on we drove through some spectatular countryside. So spectatular that J completely forgot to take any photos. I was driving so can avoid blame here. The houses and towns that scatter the 1000ft drops of the valleys as you ascend up in to the clouds defy logic and all sense of planning legislation.

The Little Car We Hired
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

It was at this point that i thought to check my fuel, i.e. when there is no sign of a petrol station or the mearest hope of one. Less than a quater of a tank and decreasing. In the blind stupidity that forged the British Empire and provided endless tales of explorers dying increadibly heoric but essentially pointless deaths i ploughed on. My logic was simple. I am going up hill therefore it looks like the car is using more fuel than it is and when i get to the top its all down hill any way so it will use less fuel on the way down.

Getting increasingly higher the towns became scarcer. Eventually the decreasing number of houses evaporate, the road improves and the trees change entirely. All of a sudden you are in the rain forest. The photos I took do it no justice.

It is a fantastic place, made more special by the fact that we seemed to be only visitors. There was a lot of, wow, and oh. Then the coach parties tunrned up. So we left.

Do you know what, i was right about the petrol situation. Any way we then continued up to Greenville, i say up it was all down hill to the petrol station.

Later that evening J treated me to a meal at a restaurant called the "Rhodes" which is owned by Gary Rhodes. To those who don't know him he is a famous TV chef in Britain, bit of a twat but a damn fine chef. Which was rather nice of the old bird really;) I think i'll keep her for a bit longer.

Diving Off the Twin Sisters

2006-05-29T19:53:00.000Z

Twin Sisters
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Carriacou is the diving. There are some fantastic dive sites all very easily accessible. One that I did and want to return to is the the Twin Sisters.

The Twin Sisters are two huge rocks sticking out of the sea south west of Hillsborough bay. The rocks sit on a reef that circle the rocks. On one side I believe it there is a wall going down 40 meters. The wall is suppose to be quite a dive, but reserved for the more advanced diver.

One of the challenges of this dive site is that it is situated out side of the bay and is subject to quite strong currents. I was lucky in that when we went to dive there was little current (still stronger than I had previously experienced so I was at the edge of my abilities). I have to stress the dive company I went with were extremely capable and made sure that I was safe at all times.

The objective was to drop down behind the larger rock follow the reef around until the gap and using the flow just slip through. It was fantastic to be at the base of these giant rocks 6-10 meters under the sea and to see the waves crashing against them.

I would like at this point to list all the sea flora and fauna that I saw but all can say is that I saw lots of coral (soft and hard) and some fish (big ones, little ones, blue ones, multicoloured ones and big man eating ones - alright that last one is made up). The problem is that I realised that once I got under the water that I can't tell one fish from another. But they sure were pretty.

Living the hard life

2006-05-28T15:58:00.000Z

Fish Barbeque
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

As said below I have just speant the past couple of weeks meeting up with my future sister and brother in law. They have the misfortune to live in an unspoilt part of the Caribbean on an island called Carriacou. Too small for the all inclusive resorts such as Sandles etc i have had a fantastic two weeks.

You are able to see the real Caribean here. From the rich men in their villas to poor families in their shacks. In other places around the Carribean as you walk along people will start talking to you inorder to sell you something. Here people say good morining etc to you out of courtesy.

As i was told with a population of only 6,000 you have to say hi just incase you are related to some one. It's also the kind of place where the Government Minister for Carriacou and Petite Martinique pops out for his own take away pizza and you can bump into the Grenadian Prime Minister by accident (and not even know who the hell he is).

My time was divided between meeting, eating and drinking with my new inlaws and diving the reefs around the isalnd. The diving there is fantastic.

As per usual photos a pleanty can be found here and i'm sure your local travel agent can find Grenada and Carriacou on a map.

Zen and the Art of Aircraft Maintenance, or the journey home

2006-05-28T13:07:00.000Z

They say the world is getting smaller, but at the moment i wouldnt want to travel it. Don't get me wrong if you have the luxury of spending two weeks in the Carribean then complaining about the trials and tribulations of getting there and back is churlish. That said i'm about to be churlsih.

40 BLOODY HOURS IT TOOK TO GET BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! 40. If i hadnt have turned 41 while on holiday that would have been 1 hour for every year i'd been alive. I wouldnt mind but the island of Grenada is only 7 hours away by plane. 40 sodding heat sapping soul destroying hours.

The journey back started on Thursday morning. Arrived at the airport with plenty of time, i'm the guy who tuts a lot at the people who find it amusing to be the last person on the plane and think what a hoot when they delay 200 people so they can say £20.00 on a cartoon of fags that are going to kill them. I digress. We arrived at Port Saline International Airport at 10 am local time (3 uk time) on Thursday morning. My mood was not the best any way as i had to leave a great holiday and had failed to sleep the night before - Grenada great place, but lousy airconditioning.

The Excel (hence forth known as the bastards) desk was meant to open at 10.20. From 10.15 onwards several memebers of 'the bastards' staff popped their heads out of the doors to check to see what the queue was like. It is obvious that the 20 mile sweaty long queue wasn't quite long enough for them to bother becuase it wasnt until 11.30 that they came out to play. By the way there were no signs that they was where we were meant to queue we just had faith, and a lot of BO problems.

From then on passage through to the depature lounge was actually quite easy. This should have been a warning. Plane was due to leave at 12.55 local time. So we waited and purused all 3 shops in the depature lounge. 'Enjoyed' a sandwhich from a shop that had obviosuly purchased the old british rail stock of sandwhiches in the 1980's. And waited. Another sign, that i joked about at the time, was that the cabin crew (it was a swap over point) were playing 'eye spy'. A game only ever played in dire boredom situations or to appease small children.

Approaching 12.15 an announcment was made that the flight had been diverted to Tobago ( the next point of call - it goes London, Grenada, Tobago to London). A follow up announcment is promised in 10 mins. The cabin crew in conversation tell us that this is good becuase it means that we will fly straight to London. Ok I reset my bordom threshold back 2 hours - this my calculation of how long the turn around will take.

Mean while several things start happening that i am not aware of at the time. The cabin crew start moving to the 1st class lounge and the ground crew start ringing Hotels.

The 2 hours have now passed and the follow up announcment (the one promised for 10 mins) is made, it just repeats the first and promises a further anouncment in 45 mins. By now i'm getting irritated but still have enough carribean rum in me to take the edge off - this i am sure is the reason i am currently not rotting in a Grenadian jail for attempted murder.

The notice board is amended and our flight is now listed as leaving at 17.30 local time, hmmmm.

Another hour and another wander through the 3 shops, and guess what the stock hadnt changed in the preceding hours.

I eventually notice a gaggle of people around some one an so wander over. The person they are gathered around seems to know something. It seems that there is some problem with the plane - no really, good golly gosh - a little while later the same woman with a different gaggle ( i was gaggle watching by this point). She didnt so much say it but implied that the flight had been canceled. She was joined by a man who also seemed to know something. When i and another gentleman suggested that a general announcment should be made he said, in a way that demonstarted either great wisdom or a profound lack of customer care, "you will know everything eventually." Well thank you yoda. At that point given the choice between eternal wisdom and the knowledge as to if i was going to make my connecting flight i would have chosen the latter.

I eventually approched a memeber of the cabin crew and asked them to make a general announcment and what was the position if i failed to make my connecting flight. She was under the impression that an announcment had been made and she didnt have a clue about the connecting flights. So instead she went round and spoke to people in groups and gaggles.

Rant Time: Customer care 101, infact pre-101. If there is a situation keep the customer informed. If there are a lot of them (customers that is) gather them all together and tell them what the hell is going on. Then what the options are and what you are trying to do about it. Do not do it in dribs, drabs, groups and gaggles. One person in one group may ask a question that is relvant to others not in that group. All the customers feel informed and not feel that there is the posibility that they may be missing something. ROUMOURS WILL NOT START.

The roumours started; they were going to put us up in a hotel, they were not going to put us up in a hotel, the flight had be requested to land in tobago by immigration, there was a mechanical problem, it didnt have the proper documentation, Excel staff killed JFK.

3.30 First class and Premium Economy passangers were called to the checkout desk. Our names were read and we were asked to stand on one side. We were then told to go and collect our luggage and return any duty free - you will note that at this point no one had said,

"we do apologise but due to problems we are trying to resolve your flight has been canceled, we will of course put you in a hotel until this is resolved. Here is how you contact me if i can asnwer any more question please feel free. If i can not i will endevour to find out the answer. Thank you."

4.00 we arrive at a very nice hotel to be meet by the manager who tells us more in five mins that Excel have done to this day. Accomidation, food and soft drinks are free and we can have one 3 min phone call to the uk. He will notify us as soon as he knows when the flight is to depart.

J & I unpack essentials, shower and try and catch up on some sleep - as i said above through no fault of Excel i hadnt sleep the night before. We also had to make a phone call to BA to try and rearrange the connecting flight from London to Manchester. So we eat, sleep and waoner arround the very nice hotel not knowing if we need to relax or gett up at 3-4 in the morning to fly out etc.

And the roumours keep coming. The strongst is that the flight lacked some paper work for some work done and needed an engineer to sign it off. He was in tobago and they were going to fly him to grenada. Then they coudnt so diverted the flight to Tobago. In the mean time a Virgin 747 landed and Grenada, apparently, can only handle one big plane at a time. It then materlised, in the world of roumours, that the flight had to return to London empty to be signed off and would then come back - but they couldnt say if it was tomorrow or the day after.

Approx 10:00 pm local time a note was slid under our door saying that the flight had been re booked for 1.45 pm local time so we needed to check out of the hotel by 11.00 am the following day.

So the following day we returned to the airport, still unable to re book the connecting flight. J sister had got us the number of BA from the net. But until we knew when it was due to land we couldnt book. Eventually we worked out that it was coming from tobago so was going directly to Gatwick (landing 03.00 am (london time) which meant we could get the 6.40 am London to Manchester flight.

Trying to do this over mobile phones proved impossible. At this point I remenbered a conversation J and I had had 2 nights before about N (my Best man) I had said that he was the kind of bloke you could call on if you were in trouble anywhere in the world and he would help, and vis versa (just after he moved to london he went out and got drunk and couldnt remember what bus he needed to get back home so knowing that i had grown up in london drunk logic had him ring me to find out what bus he needed - at 2.00 in the morning i struggled to explain to a man in the clutches of alcohol induced idiocy that i hadn't lived there for 20 years and had left when i was 13). Any way N came to the rescue and despite being at work he spent an hour trying to book us tickets - most flights were booked as there was a England vs Celebrity football match being held in Manchester on saturday and it is a bank holiday, only to be eventually told that you can't book third party tickets less than 3 days in advanced. So he eventually worked out that he could reserve us seats, and did.

I have never seen a crowd of people so eager to see a plane actually land at an airport before. It was as if until they saw it they would not belive it.

Once on the plane (which left on time suprisingly) it was then a long (16 hours) and arduos journey to London and I thought nothing else could go wrong although when they requested if there was a doctor on the plane half way across the atlantic i was taking private bets with my self that we were going to be diverted - we weren't. In a final twist depature from the plane was delayed as the police came aboard, obviously looking for some rascal. Then a plane to Manchester and then a train to Huddersfield and then a taxi to my front door - that taxi driver got one big tip.

So if you think this blog is long you should try a 40 hour journey.

"...Do know when I will be back again", how wrong can you be?

2006-05-27T10:11:00.000Z

After setting off to the airport, Thursday 3.00pm (uk time), in order to return home I have finally walked through my front door Saturday 9.45am (uk time). Only 24 hours later than expected. So me and the future Mrs G are a wee bit frazzled.

To add to the fried nerves of endless travel a helpful friend has just kindly texted me to point out that i only have one year exactly left as a single man....

I'm leaving on a jet plane.:)........do know when i'll be back again:(

2006-05-09T19:31:00.000Z

Right, despite having to pop into work tommorow morning i'm off to chill out in the sun. I'm guessing many many many photos to follow.

In the mean time the world can go to hell in a handcart for all i care:)

A general rant about the poor standard of riding teachers

2006-05-07T18:33:00.000Z

Riding is an increasingly popular past time in this country. I should also point out its not only restricted to toffs and spoilt little girls (although both types do exist). What worries me though is the standard of teaching these riders, and me, get. The majority of the better and popular schools all seem to teach according to the British Horse Society (BHS) way. The rest just seem to make it up as the go along.

I have just come back from a frustrating lesson where the 'teacher' (and I use the term loosely) spent most of the lesson chatting to her friend. There is often no attempt to explain what is required its just barked at you. Riding instructors seem to be of the same school as those who believe that when on holiday and forced to talk to foreigners who never bothered to learn English that speaking louder and slower will make them understand.

I have in the past taught. I know that the basic thing to do is ascertain the level of the pupil and what they want/need to achieve. Explain to them what your going to teach them. Explain and if possible demonstrate something and then get the pupil to try. If the pupil doesn't get it show them where you think they went wrong and ask them to do it again. Feed back to the student as to how well, or not if thats the case, they are doing in moving towards their goals. Discuss the goals with the student, make suggestions.

Using phrases that you know the meaning of doesn't mean that the student will pick it up via telepathy. Nor does shouting them over and over again. Don't expect that if some one sits on a horse and does rising trot around and around until either they or the poor horse drops dead they going to become a rider. I know people who have ridden for years. Some of them are shit riders, its just that they are now experienced shit riders.

I know i'm doing things wrong that are not being picked up on. I know there are basic things i could improve on. I know that i'm paying some one to apparently not tell me. This time i had some one video me and we are both going through the video at home in order to teach my self.

The problem is the dominance of the BHS style and the kind of person who does the teaching. There are, i'm sure, many good riding instructors out there. Its just the number of young girls who love horse but have no ability or interest in teaching. I am positive that there must be hundreds of people out there who have started learning to ride who have been put off by this amature approach. I'm also sure that there are many riders out there who could get so much more out of riding than they currently do.

Brown in Unity Call

2006-05-07T11:11:00.000Z

Gordon Brown has called for unity after it has become apparent that the plotters within the labor party against Blair (that would be most of the party these days - strange after these sort of events how every one was always on the victorious side) have broken cover, see BBC story.

Now if the person who is going to benefit the most from regime change is calling for unity you know the days are numbered. A letter has been sent to the parties NEC calling for a time table for Blairs exit. I think two things are likely to happen. Tony Blair will fight to hang on. He will fail. The mood in the party has now changed and all the MP's who have been muttering in the dark are starting to talk in public. The 50 signitaries to the letter are not the usual suspects. They are not the usual left wing complainers from the Campaign group. It is the traditional Blairites who are increasingly afraid of their jobs.

The sad thing is in the 80's I was in the party and was on the side of reform. Now I'm just plain angry that I no longer recognise the party and that even getting rid of Blair will not bring it back.

The problem is the arrogance of the party these days, the attack on the civil liberties, the lies about the war, the putting at risk the lives of British Soldiers for a lie, the abuse of power in a managerial style. I wouldn't even mind if they were competent but when Charles Clarke loses 1000+ prisoners you have to doubt their ability. For too long the party has used the bogey man of, "well you wouldn't want the Tories back now would you?"

For christ sake where is the party I joined? The party that was on the side of the working people, the party that was on the side of social justices, the party that wanted to heal the divisions of a nation in debt up to its eyeballs and addicted to greed. When the hell did a Labour Prime Minister start beliveving that greed was good?

Yes the basics, the economy etc I'm happy with. But I refuse to support a leader who stood up in parliament and effectivly leid to the house of commons, the nation and too me in order to get us to go to war. The 45 minute claim was either incompetence or a lie and he should have gone then.

The core voters are feed up with him and at last the MP's are getting the message. I know in my heart of hearts he is going to fight to stay, but for god sake do the decent thing and don't go down in history as yet another Prime Minister who out stayed his welcome and didn't get the message.

The Carriacou Connection

2006-05-07T10:43:00.000Z

Huddersfield West Indian Carnival
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

As I said below I'm off on holiday shortly to the Caribbean island of Carriacou, apparently pronounced carry-a-ko. I say holiday but it's more another step in the never ending wedding plans. J's (The future Mrs G) sister(K) and brother-in-law(S) live there and we are going to visit them.

The thing that I don't get though is that Carriacou is over 4,000 miles away in the Caribbean sea. It has a population of about 5000 and is by all accounts a wonderful place. Why do loads of people from there want to live here, I don't just mean Britain I mean West Yorkshire. I know we have a large West Indian community that came over in the 50's but I keep bumping into people from Carriacou.

A friend of mine has a neighbour from there. I was speaking to the man who owns the dive shop I go to and he was telling me that his barber is from there. A mechanic from the garage opposite him is from there. He has customers who live there but shop with him. In the West Indian carnival that is held every year in Huddersfield one of the biggest groups is from there.

I don't get it? Why would you move from a tropical island to a slightly run down Northern English former mill town? Huddersfield and Halifax are both former rich towns, in the days when the UK could afford to make things many of these things were made in the industrial north. It was the home to the Dark Satantic mills and Charles Dickens Hard Times describe their history perfectly.

Now I agree that many of the Northern mill towns are going through a regeneration but if I were leaving a tropical island I would at least head for London or New York.

I would love to know why West Yorkshire? I'm guessing that individuals will tend to go where they have reliatives or other friends from their own community but what started the connection between Huddersfield, Halifax and Carriacou?

Escape

2006-05-05T22:52:00.000Z

In a couple of days I will be diving and sunning my self in paradise. And yes just in case your wondering I am gloating;) For 2 weeks I get to forget about work (Don't get me started), forget about the reality of bills etc, and definately forget the fact that the electorate of this country can't tell their arse from their elbows.

On the down side I'll still have to pay for it when I get back.

John Reid

2006-05-05T22:47:00.000Z

John Reid as Home Secretary, now that some scary shit. Blunkett was unbearable, Clarke was incompetent but Reid????? Time to check my Passport and consider buying property abroad.

Nazi Scum

2006-05-05T22:27:00.000Z

The problem with giving people the vote is that they use it. In several areas of the country the so called wise people of the towns have voted for the BNP, see BBC coverage. Not in large numbers but in troubling numbers. In Barking and Dagenham they are now the official opposition party on the council. In Kirklees they gained two seats and came second in a troubling number of wards.

I understand that as the Labour party has chased the Middle England floating voter so beloved of Tony Blair the traditional working class have been left behind. Like a bitter jilted lover they are turning to the thugs in suits. The people who tell them that all the problems with the world are caused by foreigners and asylum seekers. The Tories destroyed their jobs and the Labour party got elected and just ignored them. When the BNP start making true progress the guilt will be the two big parties who have decided to leave a large section of this country out in the cold.

That said any one who actually votes for the scum doesn't deserve the vote. Repeal the 1832 reform act now that's what I say.

Constitutional Duty

2006-05-04T17:45:00.000Z

Right, that's my constitutionally duty done, box ticked. I had the wonderful choice of the lying bastards who took us to war on a lie, the fascist wolves in wolves clothing, the wannabe fascist economy wreckers in sheep's clothing, the wishy washy sit on the fence 'oh we're so nice vote for us' and the hippy lentil sandal weaving 'how's my karma' lot.

And to think my ancestors risked life and limb for this!

Still I voted, despite the fact its only for the local government who over the past two decade have been stripped of all power and authority so its the equivalent of voting in the biggest non entity competition (local rounds).

Ah bollocks to this I'm off on holiday soon any way.

Potential Alternatives to Democracy I

2006-05-01T23:13:00.000Z

I was thinking, as you do, to what you could replace democracy with. One alternative I came up with is to use a political stock market. The idea is quite simple, and I think has some potential benefits. Any one wanting to stand for political office would submit them selves to the political equivalent of a stock exchange. Analysts would then assess the individual and give them a market value. On 'election day' the seats in any parliament would go to those individuals with the highest stock value (e.g. 100 seats to the 100 highest).

As some one, oh say Tony Blair or Charles Clarke, falls out of favour there stock price would plumit as 'ethical' investors ditched the stock. The smarter investors, however, would read the rune's and take a judgment call on the surviability of a candidate. If they were to judge that some one had some current difficulty but was likely to survive politicaly they would buy the cheaper stock and make a killing. If on the other hand the enough of the 'ethicals' drove the market downwards becuase say the candidate took us in to wars based on lies eventually they would have to be replaced.

It would also encourage new aspirent candidates to actually do something to gain political clout before getting elected. They would have to be able to impress the analysts to get a higher value. This means that we weren't electing candidates just on their promises but also on their track record. Also, to encourage a higher stock price their pay would be linked to the value of their stock.

Note to self though, insider trading should be punishable by death.

Further Congratulations

2006-04-30T17:48:00.000Z

...This time to M & E (aka Mr & Ms Viking). To their news that in several months a bloody large stork will be landing on their roof (well thats how my parents explained it).

Babies, Camping and Lurkers

2006-04-26T21:40:00.000Z

IMGP1963
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

To those of you from the days of F***** C**** and N***** A****** who have stumbled on to these pages in a drunken haze, welcome. Looking forward to seeing you soon, even if it does involve sleeping in a field.

Congrats as well to G for the birth of her 2nd daughter.

Hopefully every one is fine and healthy.

St Georges Day

2006-04-23T16:07:00.002Z

Its St Georges day. The day to celebrate the patron saint of England...who was Turkish and died in Palestine....oh and he was a Roman soldier. No dragon then?

So any way it means I should go out and be very English.......nope no idea. So what is it to be English?

According to the Rough Guide England is a nation of "overweight, alcopop-swilling, sex-and-celebrity obsessed television addicts." Not a very appetizing picture of my nation and not one I'd like to celebrate. Also not entirely accurate. I think if push come to shove we would drink anything really. Don't think it has to be alcopops.

On the plus side they do say we are a nation of "animal loving, tea-drinking charity donors who thrive on irony and Radio 4".

This must be a very confusing image for any foreigners. They surely have an image of a fat couple sitting in front of a TV watching some z list celebs doing, oh I don't know doing ballroom dancing, getting slowly drunk on sugared alcohol while drinking tea from dainty little cups having donated all there life savings to a donkey sanctuary. In the advert break this fat couple will obviously be talking about the latest Radio 4 documentary or garderners question time - but in an ironic way you understand.

Lets face it to be English is to have not the faintest clue as to who you are. We are a mix of Celts, Picts, Romans, Anglo Saxons, Danes, Norsemen and Normans (who were just French Norsemen with silly accents). Sprinkled over the top we have some Irish, German, French, Dutch, Too many African Tribes/Nations to mentions, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Afro-Caribbean, Australians, Kiwis, Canadians. For most of the life of this nation the majority of the people spent all there time trying to get off the island to go around the world and rule others.

We have had great military victories as well as lying and cheating our way around the world. We have done great things and many that perhaps we shouldn't mention. Our national dish is Chicken Tikka Massala. I can't actually think of any nation on the planet we haven't been at war with at some time.

We have a screwed up national identity, we don't know what to do with our future, we don't know if we are barbarians or high culture, we have too many problems for a nation of our size, we don't know if we are Europeans, we don't know if we really should be Americans.

strangely enough though I kinda like the place. Its like a knackered house that has so much potential that you don't know where to start.

Gang shooting doesn't make the news???

2006-04-22T13:49:00.000Z

Police cordon in the centre of town
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

Wandering around town to do some last second shopping before my holidays I discovered that the centre of town was shut down by the police. It seemed to be a large area of the centre but the police were unwilling to say what had happened.

They had shut off the crossroads infront of the Kingsgate shopping centre and large sections of road in either direction.

The fact that the police wouldn't say what had happened made me more interested (when in reality Mr plod was just following standard procedure). I rang a friend to see if there was anything on the net about it - as you would imagine that in this day and age closing the centre of any town would be of interest to the news media.......nothing.

Asked the staff in one of the shops. The security guard was there and they were very cagey about the whole thing. The only thing they were willing to say was that it was a major incident. Rang a journalist friend....still nothing.

CSI Huddersfield
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

Carried on shopping and asked the nice young lady behind the counter in Next who informed me that last night there had been a shooting either along the street or in one of the bars. It had involved a gang and that the police had 8 people in custody. The cordon was so that the scene of crime boys and girls could gather evidence.

So it seems a shooting incident involving a large number of people in the centre of a market town, not a city just a town, doesn't rate a mention in the local paper even? For godsakes its not like its a common event.

Weirdest thing is that it isn't normal for Huddersfield, trust me the natives arn't angels far from it but gun play is rare. As my hairdresser so sweetly put it, "a man in the centre of town with a gun? well it aint normal is it?" I wanted to question her further to see if she thought a man with a gun out side of town was normal but i think she would have thought i was taking the piss, and never take the piss out of some one with sharp implements.

It was also strange how accepting and non worried people were about it. Most people walked up to the cordon, politly asked the poice what was going on, were politely told, "can't tell you," and then wandered off. I'm still trying to work out if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

More photos as usual can be found on my Flickr pages, plus some additional from fellow Flickrite Blueme.

EDIT: Alright its made the BBC Local News I just couldn't find it and thought it would be a bigger story somehow.

Upcoming Elections

2006-04-22T08:36:00.000Z

In many parts of the country there are local elections in May. No really there are elctions coming up. So far though i have only seen one elction leaflet (Liberal Democrats), two elction posters (one Labour and one Conservative) and one Party Political Broadcast (Labour).

I'm rare in that i take an interest in politics, most do not. I can happily predict that the turn out for this elcetion is going to be abysmal as no one seems to want to take part. Also these are local elections and so far i havent seen anything about local politics. The only Party Broadcast that i have seen has very high production values etc but is a straightforward negative attack on the new Tory leader - meanwhile i still have too many bins, local council workers have the pensions threatened, and local taxes are increasing.

The major stories in the headlines at the moment are some woman called Elizibeth makes it to 80 (not suprising given that she has had the most pampered life possible) and that the wife of the Prime Minister has invoiced the Labour Party £7,500 for hairdressing during the last national election. So much for the Labour Party being the party of the trade unions and working people. (The Tory party released the information that Sandra Howard the wife of the then Tory leader invoiced her party for £65).

Many people are on the TV claiming that she is damned if she doesnt do her hair becuase the press will rip her appart for looking rough and damned if she does becuase that is a symptom of style over content. What a load of bollocks. Yes it is unfortunate that the press will focus on her image so she needs to have a hairdresser. However, just as many activists give up their time and slog around streets all year round knocking on doors out of conviction not becuase they are paid she should pay for her own bloody hair.

Despite the fact that i would have left the Labour party at least 100 times since T. Blair came to power this is another time in which i wish io was still a member so that i could rip up my card and send it back.

This vacum and drift in British politics is only going to have bad effects. Many will/have stopped voting and many people who still vote are incresingly looking at the more extreme parties. Britian is sleepwalking into its own Wiemar Republic period.

So let me get this right

2006-04-20T19:18:00.000Z

Charles Clarke (our ever so wise Home Secretary) wants to abolish any compensation given to those who have been wrongly imprisoned by the state. He also wants to raise the barrier at which evidence is acceptable to overturn a conviction making it harder to appeal against the conviction in the first place.

Now surely only a paranoid person would think that was anything worrying about this?

Plus in a little know change to practice the police now routinely take a DNA sample of anyone who "helps them with their enquires." Note this isn't every one who is charged but everyone who they question. Ok you might think I guess that when the individual is cleared they will destroy the sample, no. They currently have 4-5 million samples on a permant database.

So surely only some one who has something to hide would think this is a problem?

In a spirit of compromise the government backdown when the House of Lords objected to their plans for a national identity card and database(containing BioMetric data). The government claimed it was voluntary but compulsory when applying for a passport - oh and the card costs the user 100 of their English Pounds. The Lords said that wasn't voluntary. The government said, ok we will collect the data and add it to the database but not issue a card. The Lords said, oh ok then.

Now only the churlish would think that the objection should be to the database not the card?

Now I don't think i'm either paranoid, have anything to hide or churlish. But I do think my government is taking the piss.

Stuart: A Life Backwards

2006-04-17T17:33:00.000Z

There are books you read and then put on the books shelf, occasional there are books you want to shout about and make people read. Alexander Masters "Stuart: A Life Backwards" most definitely falls in to the last category. If you see it read it.

The book tells the real life story of Stuart Shorter, a homeless addict, as well as Alexanders mission to understand how Stuart came to the life. It actually achieves something many writers search for in that out of the chaos of Stuarts life you begin to understand a real person. The kind of person you would normally cross the road to avoid. The kind of person you would, probably not unfairly, judge, pigeon hole and define - before possibly giving them some spare change.

The book describes Stuart as "Thief, hostage-taker, psycho, and street raconteur." It is brutally honest about Stuarts life; The child abuse, the rapes, the drugs and Stuarts eventual death. Despite this and the fact that it ends on his funeral it is a very human uplifting story.

Becuase of the way it describes and unpicks the life of a chaotic homless person its also a very funny book. In a past job I worked with addicts and recognised the personalities. The brutal bland honesty of they have about their world combined with secrecy and suspicion. The fractured reasoning and wildly unrealistic ambitions. If i were honest i would say that this book actually made me laugh and cry at the same time. But i'm not so i'm not going to.

You really should read this book, no really you should read this book. It won't change your life but it might make you think.

Parent & Parent II

2006-04-15T11:43:00.000Z

Well the Parent meeting thing went ok. Every one seem to get on with every one else. J's mum has started referring to me as son, which is just weird. It turned into a bit of a wander down nostalgia lane. Although to be fair my mother is spending so much time down there at the moment I think she has moved in.

Photos albums were swapped. I have come to the decision that any photos of me in the 70's should be burnt. I think poor J's mum was very confused by the end. Given that we used to move every two years it was very disjointed tour of my early years.

Then we got on to family histories. The strange thing is that on my mothers side the family is Irish (well by the time you get to my mum 3rd generation Irish I think). Now I didn't know this until last year. Although to be fair I should have spotted something was sus when my mother used to talk about being in the London Irish Marching Band (she used to be the drummer and had one of those large round drums) and had Irish dancing lessons.

What I did know was that my, now let me get this right, my great great grandfather was a master rigger for tall ships - apparently quite a job in them days. He was the master rigger for Scotts ship the discovery according to family lore and was by all accounts a bit of a bastard. Given his job his death was ironic in that he died after falling down the stairs the night before his wedding (a few drams too many me thinks). I should add before anyone questions my parentage it was his second wedding.

This unfortunate incident did however keep his wealth in the family which would be great if I was now wealthy too, but I'm not. The family lost the money due that Hitler fella. I knew there was a reason the Germans annoyed me. According to my mother while he wasn't rich he had wealth. But this was primarily in a lot of nice things - the kind of ostentatious wealth that is oh so useful - not. Any way some now long lost relative lived in London at the time of the blitz and kept getting bombed. Personally I would have moved after the first time but she was made of sterner stuff. The problem was that the wealth, for what it was worth, wasn't so durable.

My dad's side is a bit of a mystery. He keeps it very quite. From what I can piece together somewhere in there I think are either some travelers, or possibly some romanies. But definitely a house made from Huntley and Palmers biscuit tins....don't ask because I have never really got down to the bottom of it.

Families are strange. You grow up surrounded by them so much so that you don't notice the ways they have shaped you. Listening to my mother go back in time I couldn't help think that my family was an British version of something that William Faulkner would have written about, and I liked that.

Swans Blood and Cuddly Chickens

2006-04-08T10:04:00.000Z

So its offical Bird Flu has landed. It has arrived on the shores of the British Isle in the form of a dead swan. The swan was found bobbing around dead in a Scottish habour. The boffins, becuase scientist at the centre of any potential apocolyptic event is by definition a boffin, took it away prodded and poked it. They then took some samples and took the weekend off. On coming back from a nice weekend they read their results and shouted cripes!

It was announced on the news the day after a story about a nationwide simmulation of an out break, which made it very confusing - was this real or was it more simmulation? Any way the media have turned into very conflicted beasts. They are almost screaming the headline, "Don't Panic!!!!" Which is very good advice.

Lets be honest for Bird Flu to be a problem it has to enter a human and then mutate into human transferable virus. Otherwise the only way to get it is to be fairly friendly with a sick bird. In the words of John Humphreys on the Today programme when speaking to a boffin, "So the advice is don't cuddle chickens or drink swans blood?" Advice to live by if you ask me.

But at the risk of sounding like a doom monger lets be honest. It, or something simmilar, will eventually mutate and kick us right in the knackers. Problem is there is not much to be done about it so i'm still not going to panic......or cuddle chickens.

Parent meet Partents

2006-04-04T19:04:00.000Z

This weekend J's Mum will meet my parents for the first time......hmmm. Now for most people this would simply involve a meal or a night out. Unfortunately for me its going to involve every one staying over at my folks for the weekend.

Oh great. No scope for anything to go wrong there then is there? Not that its worrying me you understand......its just...........i'm sure it will be fine.

I mean Mum, bless her, even rang the other day to see if we wanted to go for Sunday lunch instead of a meal on the Saturday. No problem for me. I checked with the development team if it was okay with them. They agreed it made a change from the usual agenda items such as discussing software deployment strategies and what kind of chocolate biscuits to have at the next meeting.

Mum has agreed not to call me at work again unless another member of the family is involved in a life threatening situation with small rodents and the emergency services are on strike.

As I said what can possibly go wrong....Gulp!

Hosepipes, Gordale Scar and a Broken Camera

2006-04-03T18:29:00.000Z

Gordale Scar
Originally uploaded by SmithersJones.

Several Water Companies in the south east of England today declared a hosepipe ban. Laugh, I nearly drowned. Living up north for the past couple of days i've been searching the internet for the plans to Noahs Ark.

Saturday out riding it rained, sleeted and peppershot us with hail, even the horses didnt want to be out. It takes talent to go down a hill on a horse walking backwards.

Sunday was even worse.....so we went walking......up a waterfall. Well once your wet your wet. We planned to go to Malham and walk along Janets Foss and then Gordale Scar finally crossing to Malham Cove.

Janets Foss is named after the queen of the Faries who is suppoed to live in a cave behind the fall. Foss its self is old norse word for force applied to a water fall. The last time we were here M was able to clamber up it and go into the cave, not something he was willing to do this time.

Gordale Scar its self is a massive gorge cut out of the limestone simply by the force of water. Its like a yorkshire version of the Grand Canyon. The waterfall is usually climable and that was our plan.

It was, i'm pleased to say, a time when age and wisdom over come youth and stupidity - i knew that age would come in useful sometime. We retreated half a mile and climed over the hill to the top of the gorge by a more sensible route. I'd loved to say that it was a drier route but by this time the rain was turning biblical.

I'd love to show you the photos but at this point my camera came up for the third and final time. So after some 4500 photos my trusty Pentax drowned. The really annoying thing is that 3 of us went walking and one, who shall remain nameless, came with out any waterproofs. I was done up like a condom. He was like SpongeBob SquarePants. His camera was still working at the end.

So do i have any sympathy for the fact that a hosepipe ban has been declared down south? Do i chuff.

P.S. My camera has had a Lazarus resuserection and is working again. Bugger, I was aiming to pursued J that i needed to get a Nikon D50.

As per usual the photos of the day can be found here on my stream on Flickr.

Condi in the 'Pool

2006-04-01T16:17:00.000Z

DSCN6461
Originally uploaded by bliarwatch.

Dr. Condoleezza Rice is currently visiting Liverpool and Blackburn as a guest of the British Foriegn Secretary Jack Straw (a man who makes Donald Rumsford and George Bush sound comprehensible and intelligent). Needless to say she has not had the warmest of welcomes from the anti war movement.

Blairwatch was in attendance at the demo in Liverpool and took a selection of photos. AsI wasnt I thought I would share these with you. Its important that every chance is taken by those who object to the direction this world is currently going take to show that objection. If you want to see more pictures of the demo just click on the photo and that will take you through to Blairwatch's photo stream.

If you want to see more of Blairwatch then click on the link on the left. I don't agree with him 100% of the time but I do agree with a lot of what he says. It's also good to see some opposition to this shambles of a government that we have. It makes very interesting reading, which is also important.

30 Years of Punk

2006-03-30T21:14:00.000Z

It's 30 years since the Sex Pistols first played. It's 30 years since one of the most influential musical movements since Elvis' hips. It's 30 years since the last real youth rebellion spat in the face of authority.

And I'm ranting about wheelie bins....fight the power man...now where did I put my coco?

Attack of the Green Bins

2006-03-30T19:03:00.000Z

Recently local public service workers went on strike in order to protest against the threat to some of their pension rights. Because of this my bins weren't emptied last Tuesday. I have absolutely no problem with this as I agree with the strike. Local Government workers tend to be paid less than in the private sector, do shit jobs and only get their rewards when they are to old to enjoy them.

Now before I go off on one, because I'm going to, I know some people who work in local government and they're great. If they worked in the private sector they'd double their wage overnight. One in particular has greater ability and commitment to work than almost anyone else I've ever met. In other words there are some very good people there.

Lets be honest though your average local Government worker is never going to win a Nobel prize for.....well anything. As a collective they would have made Darwin think twice. I could be wrong though and they could be working on a level of intelligence that I just don't get.

My evidence? I mean how hard is it for an averagely intelligent person to make sure that someone has the right number of bins for their rubbish collection? I am supposed to have two, at the moment I have five. That's five bins for a terraced house with only two people in it. That's a bin for each working day. The reason I have five is that one went missing so I rang the council and asked them for a replacement BLACK bin (the one for the normal rubbish).

The council delivered a Green one (for recycling). I rang the council up and explained they had delivered the wrong one. The girl on the phone was obviously a temp because she displayed intelligence when she remarked that that was typical. So they delivered another Green one, and didn't take the original one.

By this time the original one that went missing turned up (it had obviously gone on holiday or something). Rang the council up and patiently explained.......came home from work to discover another Green one (nothing removed). Rang the council up and patiently explained again.......came home from work today to discover YET another Green one (and STILL nothing removed).

So either my council tax increase is going on some inspired weird guerilla campaign to encourage recycling or to pay for the pensions of colour blind idiots. Either way I surrender. I'm going to recycle more and thank god that the government is finding useful work for the intellectually challenged.

George Bush

2006-03-27T18:41:00.000Z

It really pisses me off when he says something sensible, mind you its not often.

How not to Jump

2006-03-26T16:02:00.000Z

How not to Jump
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

You see as I said in my previous post the idea of having a riding lesson the day after the night before is not a good idea.

As this photo shows when you are trying to keep the contents of your stomach in your stomach all pretence of style, sophistication and ability is blown away.

I did manage to give a slightly better account of my self for the rest of the lesson. The evidence can be seen here. It wasn't the best lesson for me, the whole day wasnt good for me, and I'm guessing any one with any knowledge would be able to point out where I was going wrong - I will say I wasn't the one who saddled Harriot (the horse) so I can't be blamed for the fact that it was too far forward. The rest however is all my own mistakes.

Note to Self

2006-03-26T12:37:00.000Z

Its well known that there are a few things in life which in hindsight should be considered a bad idea. A childrens birthday party hosted by Micheal Jackson would be one. Another would be invading Iraq when the detailed plan only goes as far as the pages covering the actual invasion, "hell lets just make the rest of it up as we go along, I mean how hard can it be?"

I can can now add another: A Saturday night bender of stomach churning proportions with a 2 hour riding lesson chaser on Sunday.

Thats just a whole world of pain.

Familys

2006-03-21T21:22:00.000Z

Familys are wonderful things, with out them we wouldn't get through the day some times. Christmas wouldnt be the same. You would have no one to turn to when things go wrong and less people to remember some of the stupid things you did as a kid, and then tell all you nice new friends who don't know what a pillock you used to be.

However, some times they are a bunch of insensitive, ignorant tossers.

The Further Adventures of Giffy

2006-03-18T15:47:00.000Z

Went for a ride today, in preparation for starting my jumping lessons next week. I think I have said before that the stables are on top of a hill. Now at the moment as any one in this country knows despite the fact its spring there is a very chill wind blowing in from Narnia. At the stables there is still snow on the ground and the wind is coming in straight from Siberia with the only thing in its way being the North Sea. Not what you could describe as warm. The stables are close to Bronte country and as we set off in a full blown Wuthering Heights style tempest I had to question my sanity. First as I say I'm sat on a horse with the coldest of winds coming straight at me at unnatural speeds. It was howling, I swear you could hear the banshee's coming home from St Patricks night. The right side of my face was numb in the -god knows what ever windchill.

But the second reason is I'm sat on Giffy. Giffy is the only horse to have ever thrown me. She is what might you call a wee bit of a spirited mare and she doesn't like going too slow. Today was the first time I rode her since she had the nerve to dismount me. It was fantastic. She hasn't calmed down any and on the canter its a race to the finish as far as she is concerned. The only problem being that the finish in her head is 50 meters further on than every one else's.

J was up front on Herbie, who as an arab is no mean slouch. I was struggling to stay tucked in behind Herbie and J as much as possible fearful that if Giffy saw the open path she would go for it. The first canter was a small one up hill. Herbie set off fine and Giffy, always one for setting off at speed was very close behind.

In fact by this point Giffy realised that Herbie was not going to go as fast as she wanted so instead she decided to buck mid canter. Oh joy, 1st change of underwear required. On the second canter Herbie decided he wasn't going to be shown up and set off like a cartoon animal, all legs and mud. That's all that Giffy needed. For me that's what ridding about; hell for leather along a muddy track with trees and branches whacking in to you, mud flying up from the horse in front and the feeling that death (or his close relative painful injury) is close by. Its like being on a motor bike and opening up the throttle - the only difference being on a bike you have a break. On a horse you have to trust that when it comes to it your horse is going to listen...this time.

She didn't! J shouted that she was slowing down as we neared the end of the canter, although from where I was I saw no break lights on Herbie. Giffy slowed down a tad. As we got to the end, where Herbie did stop, Giffy decide this was fun and carried straight on. This was not helped by the horses in the field next to us who wanted to join in the fun.

I let Giffy go on for a bit more to get past the nutters in the field and then slowed her to a very lively "I want to gallop" trot. J caught up and eventually got back in front as I was doing everything in the book to calm Giffy down. Sitting upright (not leaning forward and grabbing hold of her neck as wanted to do), keeping my hands down low, and trying to relax myself.

That was the heard part because to be honest I was with Giffy that was fantastic. When you are going fast on a horse there is nothing on this earth like it. Now if only I can do that and develop control then I'll call my self a rider.

Dave by candlelight

2006-03-17T21:14:00.000Z

Dave by candlelight
Originally uploaded by fast eddie 42.

So far on this blog I have tended to draw attention to my own photos. I think its about time that I actually highlighted some great photos. These are the ones I have marked as my favourites as I meandered though Flickr.

So today I would like to present "Dave by Candelight" fast eddie 42. It is seeing photos like this that encourages me to continue taking pictures. Although to be fair I think he was bloody lucky to bump into some kind of dickensian santa claus in a pub in Wakefield...now if only the pen had been a quill.

Any way I think your drawn in from the start. From the way that Dave is looking directly in to the camera he holds your gaze. The colours are just sumptious and the the whole thing just looks timeless. Infact if wasn't for the pen you would wonder if this was staged.

A Colour Bar in the Bar

2006-03-14T19:03:00.001Z

I'm not sure if its my age, the wedding plans or the weather but I have of late been thinking a lot about the places where I used to live. On reflection I think nostalgia runs in the family. For the last 3 years Christmas has been punctuated by a continuing row over where we went on holiday in 1976. With, if I have the facts of this Byzantine row correct, the pro Isle of Wight camp claiming the evidence of what was number one, the weather and an Apollo mission all to no avail. The jury is not so much out as fast approaching senility.

I digress, my own nostalgic meanderings was encouraging me to think about visiting all of my old homes. I have no earthly or logical reason why I would want to do this I just thought I might. I should add that I have lived in many places starting in the East End of London via various London locations, Oxford, Norfolk and a few places in America before washing up in the North.

The ironic thing is that the only place I have revisited in any meaningful way is no longer there. In about 1974, my brother would be able to give you the exact dates plus who was number 1 at the time and what the weather was - I on the other hand have a sex life - we lived for a brief period in a Pub called the Railway Tavern in Mile End. This was a fantastic old Victorian pub. At the time to my eyes it was huge. It was the kind of pub that had character, the kind that chains now attempt to create with MDF. Only they don't seem to understand that real character isn't clean and doesn't come in flat pack.

I think we were only there for a summer but the memories of that place are some of the most potent I have. At the time Mile End was the kind of place that any self respecting person was trying to move away from. The East End was still the East End, the docks were still a viable industry and on the whole most people were trying to move out of cities.

One of the most powerful memories I have of the place is the informal colour bar that operated. For those not familiar with the traditional British pub they had two bars. The Public bar where the working men drank and the Lounge where the ladies and alleged better types drank. You could tell the difference because the Lounge had carpet, and in some cases charged a bit more - for the same drinks. In the Railway Tavern the Afro-Carribeans all seemed to drink in the Public bar and the white folks so to speak in the lounge. I say it was strange because this wasn't as far as I recall standard practice in the country at the time and people went from one bar to the other quite regular. It could be the rosy glasses of youth but every one I checked with has confirmed it there was no animosity. People used to have friends across the racial divide and would some times drink in the other bar and no one had any problem with it. But for most of the time everyone would stick to there own bars.

As I say every one got on with every one else black and white. We were only there for a summer and I don't think I saw any trouble. To my eyes it seems they were all friends buying each other drinks across the two bars rather than socialising in the same one.

Which only makes it stranger that when I visited a friend from university who comes from Bristol that I discovered he had moved into the same street where the pub was.

The Railway Tavern is no longer there, like many useful buildings it has been converted to flats for people looking for character. Only they now cost more than a whole street would have in the days when the place still had character. I was surprised that as I stood outside looking up at this now strangely small Victorian building lost in the music of Suzi Quatro and long hot summers that I wasn't arrested. One of the residents did came out to 'politely' enquire what the bloody hell was I doing and was I alright. I equally politely babbled something about having lived here many years ago and shuffled off, she didn't seem the kind to be interested in local history.

That said I have to console my self with that although I miss the place the fact that people don't see the need to separate themselves any more is a good thing. Its just that the loss of a community and character seems a high price to pay. As a kid I loved it and I think if I had stayed there I would have loved London. As it is my family moved and despite coming from London it now holds very little attraction for me. Yet ironically the desire of so many people from out side London to want to live there is feeding this monster of change.

Johns Background Switcher

2006-03-13T21:45:00.000Z

Look Up, Mr. Cameron
Originally uploaded by Fack to Bront.

Every once in while you stumble across an application that changes the way you work or see the world. This might seem like a big boast for a little app. Especially when all it does is changes the photos on your desktop but when its combined with Flikr it can bring your desk top alive.

Johns Background Switcher is a fantastic little gadget. You can set it up to swap your desktop photos between every hour, every month or when every you want.

You can have it selecting photos from a folder on your machine or, and this is the bit that I really like, from Flikr.

You can select an individuals photo stream, or a set or like me your own favorites. Ever since being on Flikr i have been marking photos as fav's but hardly ever seeing them again. Now every once in a while this chap apears on my desktop.

One second I have a fantastic landscape the next this mans face with soooooo many expriences. As I say a great little gadget.

The Barefoot Trimmer in Action

2006-03-05T09:47:00.000Z

Mike the Barefoot Trimmer
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

For some time now J has been quite evangelical concerning the advantages of going Barefoot. Originally I thought she was going all hippy and free love on me. I was expecting the house to be filled with the smell of insence and groovy chicks. No such luck.

Instead what J was talking about is removing Phoenix's shoes. The idea as I understand it is that shoeing horses makes their hoofs grow unaturally. This then has an impact on the way the horse walks and can give it back problems. I always thought having a fat lump like me sitting on its back would have been cause enough.

Some 6 months ago J removed the shoes but this has meant having to have his feet manicured, sorry trimmed, every 6 weeks or so until his hoofs return to their natural shape.

Enter Mike the Barefoot Trimmer. To describe it as trimming is I think wrong, its more like a major nail filing than triming. The only thing missing was the application of varnish at the end.

I suppose when you think about it horses in the wild don't drop by for a quick shoeing. I would also tend to support the notion that 10,000 years of evolution probably outweighs a good idea by mankind. Shoes were I gather only used becuase working animals were damaging there feet by continual use on hard surfaces. Not a problem for the majority of most domestic horses today and yet we still put shoes on becuase we always did. What I can say is that it seems to work. He is more confident when walking. Slips less and his hoofs are in better condition than when she started.

I guess this just supports the notion that every once in awhile you need to revisit what you are doing to see if it still makes sense, and if not ditch it.

As per usual loads of photos of it can be found here and here are some links to other sites about the subject.

Hoof Rehabilitation Specialist
Barefoot Horse Uk

Blair, God and Alice in Wonderland

2006-03-03T22:54:00.000Z

Let me first say this so that there is no confusion. I think Tony Blair has put British Troops and by extension British Civilians at risk by going to war in the way that he did. I also think that the idea of an all powerful god creator be they Jewish, Christian or Islamic is laughable. I think that the Labour government of Tony Blair has betrayed the people of this country who voted for him and is over seeing the wholesale destruction of civil liberties. On the whole I think its fair to say I am no defender of his Tonyness.

Today I have just seen the headlines about his interview with Parkinson where the Prime Minister says that, 'God is my Judge'. The ITV News would have you believe that his statement was contraversial. That God had told him to invade Iraq. That this is proof that he is fruit cake of biblical proportions and that he is going to offend the entire middle east.

Given what I said above can I be the first to say what a load of bollocks.

We know that Tony Blair is a committed Christian so it would be strange if he didn't say something along the lines of:

"In the end, there is a judgment that, I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgment is made by other people... And if you believe in God, it's made by God as well.

When you're faced with a decision like that, some of those decisions have been very, very difficult, most of all because you know these are people's lives and, in some case, their deaths.

The only way you can take a decision like that is to do the right thing according to your conscience."

I'm not a man of faith, but if I am correct then what i think he is saying is: he is a man of faith and when making difficult decisions eventually he has to have faith that the decision in his heart is his gods as well.

Not exactly earth shattering given his a commited christain is it?

Personally, I've had to make a couple of tough decisions in life where the answer was not crystal clear - nothing like sending people to fight a war based on dodgey dossiers mind you. Some times it comes to a gut decision as to what's the right thing to do. In those situations you have to have faith that your gut decision is correct (be it devine inspiration or years of getting burnt making you lean away from stupid decision).

Now I have always felt that Tony thinks he is doing the right thing and has effectively lied to us "for our own good." This doesn't make him right, but it doesn't make him barking mad either. Tony Blair is 100% responsible for the decisions of Tony Blair, even those he thinks are Gods.

If the Prime Ministers beliefs offends any one then the chances are they are as deluded as he is. If you are a Muslim pissed of with the west (rightly or wrongly) i'm guessing having a buch of represive governments electrocuting you into thinking the right way supported by the west or having a load of tanks on your lawn is possibly going to be a bit more upsetting. As for this twaddle put around that the Crusades are a scar on the muslim psyche. If I recall both sides went at it in equal measure and the Muslims won. And if you think there is only one true god and all unbelivers must die then to be honest your probably going to be offended by everything.

What the whole charade does do is show up the Alice in Wonderland nature of British Politics. We have a State Religion of which the Monarch is the head. America has the separation of Church and State. In Britain elected politicians 'don't do god.' Sure mention your strange fetish having sex by yourself in a bin liner with an orange in your mouth but do not mention god. In America the elected politicians can't shut up about the guy upstairs. Religion plays a central role in politics. In Britain opening a church fete is deemed risky.

Just for the record I prefer the British way, with the exception of the orange and the bin liner.

This whole thing is a bit like the fact that we are meant to be a democracy but individually you have a greater chance of winning the lottery than your vote making a difference. We have an elected dictatorship directed by a small pool of some 800,000 swing voters in a small number of consituencies.

Its like the fact that we are a monarchy, yet they are powerless. All their power and privileges reside with the prime minister acting as the crown in parliament.

Its like the fact that the government is held accountable by a legislature of which it controls the majority.

Its like the fact that the only part of the legislature that is attempting to hold the government to account is the undemocratic unelected House of Lords.

Its like the fact that the British Parliament legislates for Britain. Except for those areas that are covered by the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly so is really an English Parliament...but not.

The thing is I can't quite make my mind up. Is this the start of the closing chorus by Mr Blair or more worryingly a distraction from everything else thats going on? What ever it is it isn't the news story every one thinks its going to be.

When the spotlight is centre stage look to the wings.

The Busy British Army

2006-03-03T21:40:00.000Z

Sparked by the thought in the previous post i was fascinated by the idea that i didn't know all the conflicts that British troops had been involved in since WWII. So trusting in the fact that Google is my friend and Wikipedia is the pool of all wisdom (give or take a few fibs here or there) i went off to find out.

• World War II (1939–1945)
• Anglo-Iraqi War (1941)
• Greek Civil War (1941–1949)
• Malayan Emergency (1948–1960)
• Korean War (1950–1953)
• Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960)
• Cyprus Emergency (1955–1959)
• Suez Crisis (1956)
• Brunei Uprising (1962)
• Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation (1962–1966)
• Aden Emergency (1963–1967)
• Northern Ireland Troubles (1969-mid 1990s)
• Falklands War (1982)
• The First Gulf War (1990–1991)
• The Bosnian War (1995–1996)
• The Kosovo War (1999)
• Sierra Leone Civil War (2000)
• The Afghanistan War (2001–2002)
• Iraq War (2003)
• Iraqi insurgency (2003–Present)

Now apart from the Anglo-Iraqi conflict of 1941 which I swear I'd never heard of I think I knew of all of these. But its shocking to see the list. If my caculations are correct good god there are only 5 odd years where the British army were not actually doing there job.

Thats just 5 years give or take where the British Army have not been fighting some one or other. Some of these i would strongly agree with and others i wouldnt, thats not the point. As far as most British people are concerned the last war of note was WWII and the Falklands was a last hurrah against fascists in funny uniforms. So to actually see the list was quite sobering.

Whaa!! Snow at last!

2006-03-03T19:14:00.000Z

Snow on the road
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

Finally some proper snow for winter. Ok so its not exactly 'Day After tomorrow', and I'm not expecting polar bears to start strolling down my street yet but its a start. Probably all we are likely to get as well so I'm making the most of it.

luckily I was 'working' from home so it didn't cause me any grief. Everyone else on the other hand seems to have been caught out by it. J Took 2 hours to get back from work. Texting me every time she managed to move 200 yards.

Some bloke was sounding off in a disgusted of Hebden Bridge sort of way about the atrocious weather forecast on the Guardian talk web site.

Not sure who he wants to blame, maybe the government should resign ;). Oh the irony, Tony Blair and crew resign over a bit of snow in the hills rather than an illegal war, some decidedly dodgey dealings with Belisconi and the largest curtailment of civil rights in this country since the war (Just realised that I need to qualify this as WWII not GW II, GW I, Falklands, Malay, Aden and so many more that I can't quite recall them all).

Thing is it wasn't that bad. It seems people just don't know how to drive in the snow in this country.

Any way all I had to do was ring J make sure she was ok every once in a while, grab my camera and wonder off down the lane. Could have got some cracking photos if I'd driven some where but what? Do you think I'm stupid? Hell no.

Any way the photos I did get weren't great but can be found in the Snow Day set on Flickr.

...and they're off....

2006-02-26T17:44:00.000Z

Gulp

The wedding starts here

2006-02-25T10:25:00.000Z

Hey Green Hotel
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

Tomorrow we go to Hey Green to make the two major decision's on which everything else hinges, venue and date. All of a sudden this wedding is starting to become real. Soon it will have a date and a place. My mother will be able to buy her hat. The best man can start plotting god knows what. The bride can start planning the dress and I can start seeing my future disappear along with my bank balance.

What I would say about Hey Green is their web site does them no justice at all. Its almost as if they don't want to sell the place. Its in 14 acres of grounds up in the Peninnes which mean that its very rural. They seem to have absolutely no photos of the grounds or the lake or even the nicest rooms.

We have been there 3 time so far and every time I have been impressed with the professionalism of the staff but most importantly their openness and friendliness. They haven't hassled us and when I was booking the visit on Sunday they seemed genuinely happy that we were choosing them.

Wedding Venues

2006-02-24T19:29:00.000Z

In planning a wedding these days the venue is obviously a big factor. In the old days you used to just get married in the local church of your chosen brand and then had a few vol-auvents in the local pub.

Now, especially if you aren't religious, its a whole package, with 10% added on to the price because its a wedding. Hopefully its going to be the only time in your life when you get married and its not something that you can rewind and do again. So it has to be right. The venue has to be good enough for the ceremony, the wedding breakfast and the evenings frivolity. Lets be honest its easier to find someone to spend the rest of your life with than to find a place that can provide the dream package at a reasonable price - it hard to find a place with the nightmare package at a reasonable price.

that's why I seem to have spent the last year scouring the net and looking at every possible wedding venue north of Derby and south of Hadrians wall.

You can have a check list as long as your arm but the chances are its going to come down to a gut feeling and the small things that you can't plan for.

The Falcon Manor Hotel Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

For example, as said the quest has been going on for the past year and it came down to 3 venues. So its decision time. The plan was to spend the weekend at the Falcon Manor in Settle, a very nice Hotel. We had visited once before but never stayed. Now the hotel is a charming hotel, friendly staff....but unfortunately missing that special something. Can't put my finger on what was missing. If your looking for a nice hotel on the edge of the dales, then yeah. Settle is unspoiled in comparison to some of the twee villages in the dales. Speaking of which....

We then drove across the dales to Burnsall to see the next possible venue, The Red Lion.

Burnsall is a wonderful little village that is quintessential English. You could almost expect to see Miss Marple cycling towards another murder. Only problem the whole place is just too clean. There were so many Range Rovers and BMW's without a spot of dirt on them.

It was more country park than countryside. Call me old fashioned but for me the place should be a community not some accountants wet dream.

The Red Lion
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

This brings me on to the Red Lion. Advertised as originally a 16th century Ferryman's inn its no longer that. A wedding in this country (just for the venue, ceremony, and wedding breakfast etc) costs somewhere in the region of 5-6,000 .That's for a nice not over the top kind of place. For me therefore I have to feel right in the place.

In order to judge this we popped in for a drink. It looks like a pub, smells like a pub but it ain't a pub. It is a Hotel, with no decenable bar area and arestaurantt. End resultIi was made to feel uncomftable for just wanting a drink. You can sit on a bench against the back wall of a corridor or by the back door. The staff while not being rude did not give me the impression that they cared. I had to ask for ice in a coke that I ordered, something which in virtually every pubI'vee been in since the early 80s was either automatically put in or offered. WhenIi asked for the ice the barman looked at the rather full drink, looked at me, looked back at the rather full drink then said, "well, do you want to take a drink first?" Now I don't, because its not my drink. He looks at me but before I get to answer he sees the answer in my eyes I guess so he tips some out.

As I say its not rude and I can't say that what he did was wrong but some thing intangible gave me the feeling that I was a burden rather than a customer. If I'm going to spend 5-6,000 in place, and invite my friends and family to spend probably another 2,000 for the most important day of my life then I want to feel that the person spending 5.90 is as important as the person as the person spending 5-6,000.

Don't get me wrong if thats what you are looking for I'm sure the Red Lion is a wonderful place, but not for me. Also if you want your countryside sanitized and pristine then this is the place for you, but not for me.

I do have to say that the straw that broke the well groomed camels back was the ponced up hotel/reasurant, that will remain nameless but if you know the village you will know the one I'm on about, down the road that didn't even have one veggie option on its menu. Lots of attempted modern style and lots of staff doing not a lot but no sense that they were in the 21st century.

Which only leaves what we now think is the winner. And the winner is....Hey Green.

The Daddle

2006-02-22T19:09:00.000Z

Some ideas are just so wrong that they are good. This is something that I can imagine sitting in a pub and coming up with but to actually do it? No, its just wrong. I never want one, I repeat I never want one.

I give you the Daddle.

I have no connection to this company and don't care if you buy one or not. I can't help thinking though that some one os going to buy one and put it on a dog.......with a child.......good god can you imagine.

Any way as far as i'm concerned this is a good reason NOT to have children. I do like the pads that come with it, or as they are described in the advert 'Horse Shoes for Dad'

8 billion pages and you had to walk in to mine

2006-02-21T18:47:00.000Z

There are, according to google, 8 billion web pages and yet most people probably only explore narrow channels. Unless you have a high traffic blog dealing with cutting edge topics you feel like your talking to your self. That the web is yours alone, and the people you interact with are Turing fantasies. Occasionally though something happens that brings you crashing back to reality, a bit like being caught out singing along to the radio when your home alone.

If you have a presence on the web you need to be prepared for the email dropping in your inbox saying, "What are the chances of someone who searches Google to see what train line Huddersfield station is on, coming across the blog of an old and dear acquaintance???"

Ahhhhh the past catches up with you. The thoughts that go through your mind in this situation. Is it that bloke you borrowed money off just before you got caught out having friendly relations with his girlfriend. Is it that scary ex who never quite understood what closure means..........

Glad to say that is neither of these people (and yes every one in this situation including me are entirely a figment of an over active mind, but you all know who you are).

It is instead some one I lost touch with many years ago and I'm relieved to say that it was some one I was happy to make contact with again, including the chain of other people in touch with that person. But it makes you think...

All the love

2006-02-12T20:12:00.000Z

All the love
Originally uploaded by genewolf.

I've had a shitty week. At work I've snatched defeat from jaws of victory. The up coming weeks are likely to be stressful beyond belief.

For the first time since getting what I thought was a great job I have been having second thoughts about my sanity.

I'm fed up with trying to rally a bunch of socially dysfunctional IT freaks. I'm losing the only member of my team who has a work ethic AND communication skills.

I was earlier today going to post something about the disgusting behaviour of British Soldiers in Iraq. I was going to post something about the danish cartoons. I was going to post something about the lack of hope in British politics at the moment. But they only depressed me.

So when some one goes and does something like this........It makes you smile a bit.

Oh and it reminds me that's it's Valentines day and I haven't sorted anything out yet and my partner is going to string me up by my short and curly's, bugger.

Freedom Of Speach

2006-02-01T15:39:00.000Z

Freedom of speach is sacred to me, but today I am speachless.

The Most Interesting Rocks at Kinder Downfall

2006-01-28T17:56:00.000Z

Rocks at Kinder Downfall
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

I now have two images on the interestingness page...oh the headiness. Although when i discovered that Rocks at Kinder Downfall had made it on to the list it had already droped 82 places from 123.

One of these days I will figure out what is actually involved in this interestingness business but for the moment i will not worry about my rankings.......well not a lot anyway.

So while I am not worrying about I will crow a bit. So thats two images in the interestiness pages Grimescar Brook and the Kinder Downfal pictures.

Busking Devil

2006-01-28T16:52:00.000Z

Busking Devil
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

I have always envied those who do 'street' photography. There are several great exponents of it on Flickr such as Stoneth. I on the other hand have always been to cowardly to do it. But today I plucked up the courage to take some photos of the busker in town. His dancing devil made me smile.

The best shot i think is this one. I was lucky in that the little devil turned just at the right time.

What i really wanted to do was get right down in fron and get both the devil and busker together, and with the devil in focus and the busker out of focus.....but i didnt have the balls. Ho hum, may be next time.

I have Interestingness

2006-01-17T20:36:00.000Z

Grimescar Brook
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

I have mentioned before that Flikr has a thingy called Intrestingness. For certain photos that score highly on the intrestingness stakes get elevated to the Explore page. This is supposed to be the best (or most interesting if you like) photos. The rules on how Flickr selects them is a mystery to most i think. It seems to boil down to a relationship between the number of people looking at the image, time between views,number of groups its in and the number of tags. Oh and a little bit of voodo black magic.

My photo of Grimescar Brook is the first of mine to make it there. I think it is rated at number 244 of those uploaded on the 19th of November. From what i can gather it got rated becuase i added to the 1-2-3 group and it subsequently got a lot of interest in a short amout of time - hence it was considered interetsing.

Ok so I know that at number 244 on one day we are not talking preimer league here but personally for me its enough to make me chuffed, for now.

If you want to see the other photos on the explore page for that day you can click here. To see my other photos click on any of the photos on this page.

Match Point

2006-01-14T18:34:00.000Z

Last night I went to see Match Point, the latest offering from Woody Allen. What can I say? Every one knows Woody Allen can be hit and miss. If you see one great Woody Allen film its a sign that you should possibly skip the next one. Match Point on the other hand manages this in one film.

Before the obvious trigger point in the story this was a film I could have happily walked out off. The first, what felt like 4 hours, was the most boring, banal, irritating and stilted film that you could imagine. There are no characters in this film who you would not want to kill in real life. The exposition of the main characters tells you nothing about them. They all have veneer thin motives. No that's a lie they have no motives.

As a display of the English upper class I would hope that this would make most people run to the barricades and start the revolution yesterday.

The incidental conversation was laughable, so badly written and badly acted that I wanted to ask for my money back. People have banal and inconsequential conversations daily, I assume that is what was it was trying to represent, but a 14 year old could have written this.

Then i went to the toilet. When i came back i swear this was a different film. All of a sudden there was tension, there was drama, things happened.

Take my advice go see this film, but skip the first hour. All you need to know is social climbing twat has no morals. Gets involved with rich family of tossers. Then has to make a choice.....then there is a film.

The Abysmal State of British Politics

2006-01-07T21:45:00.000Z

I have been an observer of politics since I was knee high to medium sized midget. I remember the day the that Mrs Thatcher entered number ten I was 14 at the time and I knew from that moment that I hated the women. For 18 years I was on the side that argued, rioted, protested and partied to get rid of them.

We thought at the time that they were an aberration and that all we needed was to evict them. I'm older and wiser now and I realise that if you want rid of some thing you need something to replace it with.

We now have in this country a Labour party whose leadership has taken us into what many think is an illegal war in pursuit of the American Business Interest. This same government seems intent on chipping away at our civil liberties on a daily basis.

The Conservatives have been a spent force in this country since being chucked out. Led by non-entity after non-entity. They behaved like an abusive partner who didn't get it. They didn't understand why they were thought of as the nasty party.

The liberal party, were for those left of center, one last hope to return the government of this country to principles that were worth fighting for. If you had asked me two years ago if any party was going to implode I would have said the conservatives

But even with an unpopular war, a conservative party out for the count and increasing threat to civil liberties the liberals managed a small rally. No more no less. There was no killer blow from them against the conservatives and so the status quo remains.

And now?

2 Days ago after months of back bench rumbling's, after several times where the leader was incapacitated and after the backbenchers made the displeasure clear Charles Kennedy the leader of the liberals goes on national TV to say that he has 'had' a drink problem but its alright now. He then offered the party a leadership election.

None of the serious candidates wanted to stand against him, they wanted him to resign - he refused.

After 2 days of denying the reality of what was required by his party he final went. He was a very very talented leader but the manner of his going has fatally wounded the Liberals. The fact that the MP's could not dispose of him earlier shows them to be lacking what is required in leaders. By refusing to go he has publicly humiliated any future leaders.

This leaves many with no natural party to vote for. When people have no one to vote for the nutters, racists, Stalinist and general despots come out to play. They promise everything and deliver nothing. I have increasing thought that democracy is ill in this country and today has only made me fear the worse.

New Years Eve and New Years Day

2006-01-01T14:54:00.000Z

Went to a friends house for a party, took camera, made sure that I had spare battery, much fun was had by all.........Forgot to take a memory card for camera. Bugger!

Enough is enough

2005-12-30T17:52:00.000Z

I had intened that this site would mainly be based around the Photography on Flickr, with the occasional side step into politics. The point is that there are other sites that do the politics better than me.

However, as with the Memo there are things that are beyond the pale. More people need to stand up and say enough is enough. I campaigned and argued for 18 years to get rid of the slime ball Tory government that trampled over the have not's to help the haves have more. When Labour were elected you could have powered a small city with my grin.

Increasingly this same Labour government has moved further from the principles that I could support. But this has not been enough. If I am anything it is a democrat. If the Labour government simple did not represent my views that would be annoying but I would have to live with it. If that same government supports a war that I disagree with then I still have to bow to the democratic government. When that government starts to clamp down on protests and make it a crime to read out a list of those who have died that's not democracy.

The latest however is stomach turning. Don't get me wrong I am not stupid enough to not think that governments of all stripes don't break the law. I'm also aware that the security services are no angels. But, and its a bloody big but, if a democratic government is caught out being complicit in torture then that government has no legitimacy. It should resign.

If you want to know whats pissing me off read here or here at Blairwatch or more importantly at the source Craig Murry's own weblog.

Kinder Downfall 2

2005-12-30T14:07:00.000Z

Kinder Downfall 2
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

The very first walk I did around here was Kinder Scout. One day I was bored and fed up so I jumped in my car and went for a drive. Eventually arriving outside the Snake Pass inn in Derbyshire I parked the car and set off walking. The route, I later found out, was up Fairbrook.

At the time I hadn't been walking since a school trip to the lake district. So the first time I walked this route I was doing so in t-shirt and trainers (it was summer though). Ever since then I have always liked to go back and do it again. As a note to any one who cares if I disappear in a huff it might be worth looking for me some where along this route.

When ever I do it I am reminded why I live where I live. Kinder Scout is only 40 min's away from my house going south. The Lake district is 2 hours north west. While Snowdonia is 2 hours west. The moors of North Yorkshire are 2ish hours north east and the Yorkshire Dales are under 2 hours north.

We think of Britain as a 21st century metropolitan country, and it is. But the majority of the land (80% I think) is agricultural and it also contains some of the most accessible and stunning country side you can find.

The majority of the people however never get to see this. I'm guessing that the majority of them have no desire to see this. I on the other hand couldn't live with out it.

If you do wnat to see more then i have a selection of photos taken on the walk that can be found in the Kinder Scout set on Flickr.

What scares me however is that as house prices rocket the pressure to build on this land increases by the day. But more importantly the over paid twats who decide to buy a nice little cottage in countryside, just for weekends don't you know. If only the Country side alliance were fighting on issues like this and the appaling transport links to the British country side. All of which create a hidden pool of rural poverty. These are the real country side issues not ye olde right to gallop around butchering wildlife.

Before any one says anything I grew up in the country side and I ride so I am not one of those city folk who know nothing of rural affairs.

Christmas Presents

2005-12-28T18:06:00.000Z

I have been thinking about the kind of Christmas pressies I have been given, and by whom. For example, my beloved got me a watch. That's good, no problem there. She also got me a couple of books, "Talk to the Hand", by Lynn Truss and "The World According to Clarkson" by Jeremy Clarkson.

If you don't know about these books one, "Talk to the Hand" is about the utter bloody rudeness of modern life and Jeremy Clarkson is well renowed right wing, whinging, petrol head. So what is she saying here? What does she really think of me? Hmmm, I think I might not dwell too long on that. Not when you consider my present to her was effectively Wellington boots. In my defence, they were expensive and very high tech Wellington boots. More importantly she had asked for them. But at the end of the day they are Wellington boots.

Another book that I got was the autobiography by John Peel, "Margrave of the Marshes". Again for those who do not know John Peel he was quite probably the most influential DJ of the past 30-40 years. He was a man that I think many men of my generation would have loved to have been. He was a fanatic about music and unlike many DJ's of his generation he didn't get stuck in one decade or one type. He maintained his thirst for new music and because he was genuine he kept his connection to people of all ages.

This came from my brother and because of the conversation we had had before Christmas I think it had more meaning. I had been complaining about the fact that the family had resorted to asking each other what they wanted for Christmas. This takes away the surprise and I was saying that the best present was the one where you opened it, were surprised, and then realised that it was something that you didn't know you wanted. And this was.

More telling was that some one bought the same book for him.

Snow in Grimescar

2005-12-27T12:32:00.000Z

IMGP3962
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

At last is snows. Not much but enough to get me out the house. I'm not sure why we in England are so fascinated by the arrival of snow, especially at Christmas but it is enough to turn every grown man in to a five year old child.

I suppose its that thing that because it is uncommon and as children a heavy snow meant the suspension of normalcy. If it was a school day there was always the chance that it would be heavy enough to close the school.

For me these days its an excuse to pick up my camera and run. Ok, its another excuse for me to pick up my camera and run. If I was any good then I would use the snow to get shots that used the highly contrasting black and white. I would aim to get the texture of the tree contrasting with the softness and ephemral nature of the snow. Instead the five year old in me makes me rush around as if driven by a sugar high, snapping this and that oh and that....

When I got back did slow down. I did modify the photos I took to see if I could get some kinda funky effects, but who knows. Any way the finished products can be found in the Snow Day on Flickr as usual.

Well that was Christmas

2005-12-26T17:05:00.000Z

IMGP3905
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

I never want to see another turkey.

Christmas was around a friends house that was full of good company, good food and more booze than was strictly necessary. A good time was had by all from what I can recall. I had set out with the intention of recording the day as it went by but that didn't happen. I kept getting distracted by having a good time. Some did get taken and some did come out ok, I especially like the snowmen photos from the cake I made. Having never made a Christmas cake I was a bit worried about it. I actually made the cake its self 2 months ago and have been slowly soaking it in brandy ever since. Aware that I had yet to ice the cake I plucked up the courage and did it two days before xmas.

It was then I realised that I had no decoractions, but did have some icing left over. Started off with one snowman(he had no arms though) but he just looked sad all on his own. Had to make him a friend. Eventually I realised where I had seen them before.

Its Christmas

2005-12-24T13:31:00.000Z

Christmas is a strange time of year. I have come to realise that it means a lot of different things to people. It is essentially seems to be a time of mass hysteria, but with the hysteria manifesting its self differently in each individual. We in this country, the UK, are haunted by the ghost of Christmas past in the form of the dickensian ideal of Christmas with its rich fruit cakes, snow and redemption.

The ghost of Christmas present would have more in tune with the pre-reformed scrooge as parents, partners and uncles willing dive further into debt in an attempt to buy the perfect Christmas. The smarter cookies in this world are able to recognise the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

So the ghost of Christmas future, what does it all mean to me? I'm not a practicing Christian so the true meaning of Christmas is obviously not for me about the birth of some man to a single mother to an absent father, which seemed to have some obviously deep psychological impact. That said I think the foolish rubbish that pervades in some circles in the American elites, and some in this country, about not celebrating Christmas but some 'generic' holiday season is farcical. If your Jewish celebrate Hanukkah, if your a pagan celebrate Beltane, if your a muslim celebrate Eid. If your none of the above call it what you want and have a party. So from a leftist non Christian let me wish a happy Christmas to all Christians, just as I would show respect to all religions.

I do believe Christmas to be a made up ritual, but a useful one. It should be one of those times where your tribe gathers, be they friends, family or some strange man you met down the pub. To me it is a ritual that helps build the bonds between people, creating a sense of shared experience. Something that seems to have gone missing amidst the luxuries and comforts of the 1st world.

This will be only the second Christmas I have spent away from my family. So this year my tribe will be my friends - just as important as family. I'm look forward to sitting down sharing a meal and time with them. But this year I will also find a quite spot to raise a private toast to some of those who are no longer with us, to those who have no tribe to gather with and to those involved in conflicts of whatever kind. I will raise a glass to all of them.

The point being I don't need to believe in an imaginary all powerful superbeing to do this but I can respect those who do and accept the comfort it brings them. To misquote Voltaire, I don't like your imaginary friends but i will defend your right to have them - so long as you do likewise. I do not want to subscribe to the same facism that some of your co-religonists seem intent on.

I will over the Christmas period come back and edit this with other thoughts.

The Christmas Ride

2005-12-18T15:23:00.000Z

IMGP3806
Originally uploaded by Stuart Davies.

Every Christmas the stables go for a fancy dress ride in to town. Either Halifax, Brighouse or Bradford. This year the the snowman and company were heading into Bradford.

Personally, I'm happy that I wasn't going. It was bloody freezing.

It should have been a good chance for some good photos but with 20 odd horses of various shapes and sizes combined with assorted riders it just produced chaos. I ended up sharing a stable with Phoenix who wasn't going, he is going barefoot and the long ride would have been too much. Phoenix and I just stood there looking out over the stable door. It must have confused the poor horses as well. Some of these animals are usually scared of horse eating plastic bags but didn't seem to bat an eyelid about the tinsel, snowmen and santas.

Eventually I joined the proud mums and dads at the main gate all waiting patiently to take a video or photo of their pride and joy. Every one demonstrating how much they were entering in to the spirit of the event. In reality we all stood there freezing and just wishing the whole bloody thing was over. The stables are on top of a hill and the wind was coming directly off the North Sea. Having traveled so far it saw no reason to bother going around any one so it just went straight through.

As the cavalry of the absurd trotted off to Bradford and I having done my fiance duties I was able to retreat to my car and head for home.

I did get some photos, nothing to write home about, but if you do want to see them you can find them here.

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