107. 26.04.2012 Peacock

107. 26.04.2012 Peacocks

Ah....peacocks.  The day it was announced that Peacocks was closing, I cried and cried. After that I wept and wept. After that I behaved like a recently bereaved widow in the Middle East.  I walked about screeching and screaming,  beating my chest, breaking down in front of any camera that showed interest, gesturing to the heavens whilst  making that funny noise that sounds like a yodel  but not quite.   In hindsight, I must have looked like a right pillock, but at the time I really was genuinely and truly distressed to the core.  Not that I am a drama queen or anything.
The thought of not being able to drool over  nylon garments or rummage through  off the misshapen peg items of misshapen knitwear or marvel at the two for £10 winter jackets was, to be brutally frank, one of those low points in my life, one that I thought I would never get over.

 Peacock’s  had a lot more going for it apart from having a finger on the pulse of yesterday’s nasty fashions.  Due to the quantity of nylon goods on the racks, Peacocks actually used to produce enough static electricity to light their shops, power the tills and allow the staff to warm up  Pot Noodles in the microwave round the back.  In fact on some days the busier branches of Peacocks were actually feeding electricity back into the National grid. Under the right atmospheric conditions it was also possible to re-charge an i-phone simply by holding it next to the racks of sports wear, something I used to do on a regular basis in the Llandudno branch before receiving a nasty shock when I put my phone in my pocket. Apparently my testicles acted like electrical nodes and could quite easily have fused my manhood. Fused it to the nylon 5 pairs for £2 boxer shorts I was wearing at the time that is.

Anyhow, all was not lost and Peacocks has now been taken over by Edinburgh Woollen Mills, another  mecca of fashion items for the less concerned, short sighted, colour blind and/or clinically confused British public.

Mind you, it wasn’t the first time the demise of a peacock sent me over the edge. When poor Ashley Peacock was crushed to death on that awful December evening when  the tram hit Weatherfield I was the same.  That episode lasted for a week. Well the episode was actually only half an hour with “Tonight but Not with Trevor McDonald again”  in the middle of it.  Dreadful, and such a waste of a talented butcher with a funny voice. I say, such a waste.

Anyhow, this Peacock is one of several that live on the edge of Gwydyr forest. Not sure why they call them peacocks. They don’t actually look like peas. Neither do they look genitalia either. Well not the ones I’ve seen anyhow.

106. 25.04.2012 Springing trees

105. 24.04.2012 Where the forest meets the moors.

105. 24.04.2012 Where the forest meets the moors.

A special place, so special I’m in two minds as to keep on banging  on about it. Part of me wants people to know of it’s beauty, but the selfish part of me doesn’t want anybody to know about it. A bit like the long forgotten ancient stone circle in our woods.   other bit of me would prefer nobody else knew about it.

Gwydyr Forest, or Gwydir forest if you like, is what the guidebooks would call a magical place.

There are huge towering Douglas Firs and Norway Spruces some of them more than 180 year old. Shirley Bassey can remember when they were saplings. Apparently.  Swathes of the forest contain some of the most important areas of native Welsh oak woodlands.
If you know what you’re looking for you could see buzzards, peregrines, merlins goshawks and black grouse, but to be brutally frank  I’m no Iolo Williams - for one I don’t look that good in shorts and secondly  with the exception of the black grouse I wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other.  As the ten year old Tim once wrote on a project about them “ a bird of prey is like an owl that doesn’t look like an owl but has claws and a big beak”

 As well as the countless mountain streams, lakes and waterfalls, there are three major  rivers in the forest,  The Llugwy, Lledr and the Machno which all drain into the Conwy at some point or other before it reaches the flood plain near the sea.

Occasionally you’ll glimpse the mountains of the Glyderau, Carneddau and the peaks  of Snowdonia.

If you’re lucky, you might see a red squirrel, if you’re dead dead dead lucky you might see a pine marten as this is one of the few areas on this little island where they are still found, Scotland being the other bit. Nobody has actually seen one, but they’ve found their droppings and done DNA tests on them. I stood in something, but once again I’m no Iolo Williams and I’d left my pine marten DNA kit at home so who can say what it might’ve been. All I know is that John said it was nothing to do with him.

Today’s picture was taken on the very edge of the woods with the wild and empty moors rolling into the mountains in the distance.  Magical.

104. 23.04.2012 Come in no.15 your time is up

104. 23.04.2012 Come in no.15 your time is up

There are a lot of misconceptions in the world. Man United fans assume that fans of every other teams are stupid.  Members of the government think that everyone who didn’t vote for them is stupid (they know that everyone who did vote for them is stark raving baked potato stupid, but they tend to gloss over that little issue).  

Likewis,  dentists think that helpless people with prised open mouths are stupid because a) they pay him ridiculous amounts of money  for  the pleasure of exposing and aggravating  nerve endings  and b) they believe him when he says  ‘this isn’t going to hurt’

People also think that sheep are stupid.  In fact people think that sheep are so stupid that they spray paint on the mums and their babies so that they can find each other in the middle of a busy field.

It seems to work too. Mrs Ewe here being a prime example. Until she had the number 15 sprayed on her back,  she had an endless and thankless task on her cloven hooves  trying to find her little Dick and Dora in the middle of an enclosed, yet large field.  She would spend hours baaing and bleating but could she get Dick and Dora to listen?

Neither Dick nor Dora are considered the brightest sparks of the field, preferring to spend their days bouncing up and down on the spot, tearing around  in ever increasing and sometimes decreasing  circles or chasing each other up and down the field before suddenly stopping  as opposed to receiving a  basic education from a good natured shepherd in a cosy little barn.

However an initiative by the Welsh Assembly, no doubt with vast amounts of  European funding, has been taking place over the last few years to educate lambs and their ignorant mothers. It seems to have paid off  and glowing exam results show that most sheep can now count up to 50 and simple arithmetic  and numerical problems are well within their grasp.

In fact the project has been such a success that the UK government (that’s the one that nobody actually voted for) is so impressed that it is about to roll out the project to Secondary schools across the country.  As David Clegg (or was it Nick Cameron? Or Nick Griffin?)  said “People think I don’t care about the normal people in society, but it’s a sorry state of affairs when a pleb  without a private education has less intelligence than a sheep. I intend to plough several pounds of money into correcting this inbalance. We are, after all,  all in this together”

Postscript: shortly after this picture was taken, Dora was unfortunately  killed  when the blackboard with the day’s algebra problems chalked on it toppled over and crushed her to death.

103. 22.04.2012 Windpower.

103. 22.04.2012 Windpower.

Mynydd Hiraethog, that’s the Denbigh Moors in English, is the upland region in Conwy and Denbighshire between the Conwy and the Clwyd. It’s highest point is Mwdwl-eithin, at 1,745 ft above sea level, making ...it higher than Exmoor. On its western edge, overlooking the Conwy Valley, lies the Moel Maelogan wind farm.
The Moel Maelogan came into being 10 years ago when the first 3 turbines were erected in 2002. The first electricity was generated in January 2003 and each turbine is capable of producing 1300kW, although to be brutally frank, I’ve no idea how much that is. A hairdryer, an electric radiator and a fridge freezer on the go at the same time.
At the time, the erection of the windmills marked the wind industry’s 1000th turbine and was initially welcomed, as it had been set up by 3 local farmers to boost their incomes, under the company name of Cwmni Gwynt Teg (Fair Wind). After commissioning, however, it was not without its opponents, not least because, although not located in the Snowdonia National Park itself, the turbines are visible from many parts of it. You can also see them when you come down Rhuallt Hill on the A55 (that’s the big steep hill just outside St Asaph)
Of the 3 turbines, 2 are owned and operated by the local farming co-operative, the third is owned and operated by Energiekontor. Energiekontor UK Ltd, a rather German sounding UK subsidiary of the German wind development company Energiekontor AG, who was instrumental in the finance and construction of the turbines
The electricity produced goes to the Llanrwst sub-station a few miles away and is sold to the Non-Fossil Purchasing Agency.
9 more turbines were built in 2008, but these were lower and as such it was claimed that you couldn’t see them from Snowdonia. But you can.
Whenever I post a picture of windmills I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Complaints come flooding in from bird lovers who come out with figures claiming that hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, or maybe even trillions (the UK trillions that is, not the US trillions) of birds are caught up in them each day. This has recently been proven as a load of my eye and Peggy Martin by...... well by the RSPCA actually.
It transpires that more birds actually die by flying into windows or mirrored skyscrapers. Prepare to be hearing from the bird brained protestors in green anoraks and bad hair who will now be out for a full ban on tall buildings, polished stainless steel cladding and wall to ceiling patio doors. It won’t be long before they will be calling for crosses of masking tape on all windows, just like we had in the war. The war with the Germans that is.

102. 21.04.2012 Deep in Gwydyr

102. 21.04.2012 Deep in Gwydyr

Gwydyr  forest is tucked away high above the level pastures of  the River Conwy and shelters under the mountains of the  Carneddau.  It isn’t just a forest though, there are vast swathes of moorland and bogs as well as wooded knolls, lakes and hidden pastures.

At one time it was a hive of industrial activity. The Romans discovered lead and zinc in them thar hills and the area is riddled with industrial remnants from ages past. Piles of brightly coloured rocks and spoil are the tell tale signs of the past and there are shafts of danger around every corner. In this day and age of unbridled promiscuity and despite the advances in medical sciences and antibiotics, shafts of danger should still be avoided at all costs.

Meanwhile, public health announcements aside, the industry in Gwydyr forest  was at its peak between 1850 and 1919. Nowadays its vastness and inaccessibility mean that on a day like today with dark skies, showers of nastiness followed by sunshine and scuttling clouds deter all but a handful of mud splattered mountain bikers give the place a wide berth. With just the sound of the wind in the trees, the trickle of water and the calls of preying birds, you could easily believe you are in the middle of a prehistoric wilderness, until you slip over in a pile of bright yellow dog shit that is. “All dogs must be kept under control and on a lead” says the sign on account of the sheep. But obviously that only applies to other people’s dogs and not yours. Irresponsible dog owners eh? Tut. Just who are they?

Dog shit, mountain bikers in leg wear that would set Rod Stewart a blush, unbridled sex, shafts of doom and the Romans aside this is one of my favourite parts of Wales and changes not only with the seasons but with every passing cloud.
I’ve no idea what the red plant is, I’ve never seen it before. The redness is the swelling of buds and not flowers.  Red and swollen buds.... a repeat dose of antibiotics me thinks. Where’s Dr Cotterill when you need him most?

101 .20.04.2012 Red sky at night

101 .20.04.2012 Red sky at night

Quarter past eight on a Friday evening in April.

Drip drip drop is the sound  in the garden.  The old higgledy slates on the wood shed are shining and the drainpipes are gurgling with melted hale.  On the other side of the valley the farm windows are filled with golden sun. On our side the sun has taken a bow for the night. It makes a point of not overdoing it at this time of the year.   The bursting trees down below are bathing in a faux autumnal glow..  Above the  snow tipped  mountains the clouds are on fire.  And every bird  in Conwy county is singing in our garden. Or so it seems. Perhaps the red sky at night is filling them with delight.

An hour earlier  the weekend was heralded in by black clouds, stair rods and hale.  Toast and tea and earlier than normal jim jams and radio 4 and a roaring fire offered comfort.  Even the hale was appalled by the conditions outside and frantically tapped at the windows to be let in.  Some of it found a way in down the chimney but looking down realised that a sooty spitting death was beckoning.  Some managed to bounce out of the pyre but a black lingering death on the hearth was their fate.

And then all of a sudden everything outside was orange and bright and shining and glistening and new. But it’s the  birds... the birds were, to be brutally frank,  ecstatic.

TGIF  Have a good weekend!

100. 19.04.2012 Rainbow behind the dunes

100. 19.04.2012 Rainbow behind the dunes.

San Francisco is famous for quite a few things including fog, screaming queens, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and dreadful earthquakes that don’t seem to have put people off wanting to live on the constantly warping and bending streets. It’s also famed for the 1970s Quinn Martin production of the  gritty police series “The Streets of San Francisco” with its prologue, epilogue and predictable middle bit.  It  starred  Michael Douglas in the days before he  turned into a lecherous old man with a dribbling colostomy bag and an eye for ladies an eighth of his age.  The series was filmed in Technibeige, and went on to spawn The Police Squad starring Leslie Nielson

 It’s also famed for it’s rows of colourful – (that’s  colorful to all my US friends) -  Victorian and Edwardian houses, the most recognisable and famous  being just off Alamo Square known and collectively known  as the Painted Ladies.

Anyhow. San Francisco has her  painted ladies and over on this side of the pond we also have equally stunning architecture.
Pwllheli. Not quite the Painted Ladies, more your  Pastel  Slags. In 1890 Solomon Andrews, (no relation to the pinafore clad, mountain spinning,  hills are alive with the sound of music Julie by the way)    had a vision of the town with cartoon dollars in his eyes and developed the former dune ares  of the West End of the town with a promenade, large houses and a tramline to Llanbedrog just down the coast.  It didn’t make him a rich man though and 20 years after his death, the tramline was ripped up by a storm and that was the end of that. 

Anyhow, the Pastel Slags are still there, all brightly coloured and well maintained but oddly out on a limb and disjointed from the rest of the town.
One of my facebook friends lives further down the prom where she runs a highly successful spa and resthome for the aged and befuddled. If she’s reading this, I’m sure she would be more than delighted to share her brochure with us all. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on Facebook to be brutally frank.

Oh, and before the complaints come flooding in from Americans with supposedly Welsh origins with initials between their Christian and surnames, Solomon Andrews was a native  Welshman and not an Anglo Saxon and the houses aren’t really called the Pastel Slags. I made that up purely for comedy value. It’s called an attempt at a  sense of humour – sorry humor.  It’s also just a load of bullshit too.

99. 18.04.2012 Framed by a telegraph wire.

99. 18.04.2012 Framed by a telegraph wire.

On the north side of the Llyn there are a group of mountains  called Yr Eifl.  The English call them the Rivals because that what it sounds like but the literal translation is The Forks, maybe because they stick up like three prongs of a fork?  They fall steeply down to the sea which makes them look even more impressive. This view was taken on the road as it plunges down towards Llanaelhaearn. The mountain  in the background is one of  Snowdon’s many  ladies in waiting.

I have a confession to make. In 1981 I passed my geography O-level and in a way it was because I cheated.  There aren’t many people who can remember the questions on their O-level exams but I remember the one I got.  “Using the map, describe what you would see if you were travelling from Llanaelhaearn  along the B4417  to Llithfaen”.

Well, I knew this road well and was able to describe it perfectly, perhaps even down to the position of the telegraph poles and the steep junction at the bottom of the hill, although this has now been replaced  with a roundabout. Still, I passed with a B which was the highest grade I ever got which was only overshadowed by my cycling proficiency diploma and 10 meters freestyle swimming badge.

The roundabout was built  care of European Community  funding, as was  a long stretch of the road between Caernarfon down to Pwllheli. This allows  the summertime procession of  4by4-yacht pulling-double barrelled-cava swillings-botoxed wives  with flabby bellied husbands  Cheshire-jettsetters to rush down from wherever to Abersoch in a few hours. They all still have to contend with the winding streets of Pwllheli  where they all pile into the back of each other and sit cursing and loudly displaying their annoyance via the medium of horns and ear drum damaging faux not quite far back as the home-counties  Cheshire accents.

I’ve been trying to find out what the mountain in the background is called, but can’t remember what it said on the 1981 Ordnance Survey map.  Any ideas?

17.04.2012 Blossom at Penarth Mawr.

17.04.2012 Blossom at Penarth Mawr.

In 1973 we went to look at a medieval  hall in between Pwhelli and Criccieth on the Llŷn.

It’s called Penarth Mawr and was built in the middle of the 15^th century .

I remember being impressed by the huge fireplace that you could stand up in and the massive  wooden beams holding the roof up and the fact that people , possibly knights actually lived in it in days of olde.

The days of olde were of course the days when knights were bold and toilets hadn’t been invented. The knights would drop their load beside the road and walk away contented.

There are of course historians who contest this fact. I was watching an interesting programme on the subject on The History Channel the other night and an unheard of historian with knowledge of these things claimed  that in actual fact in the days of olde (when the knights were bold) and toilets as we know them hadn’t been invented, they’d dig a pit and have a shit and walk away contented.

Interestingly enough I was watching another programme on the topic on Mind Numbingly Boring  History +1 (I always make a point of watching the +1 channels. It’s just one of my many quirks) another expert with a lisp explained that new evidence shed light on the issue and it was now thought that in the days of old when the knights were bold, toilet lights were dim. Often you would hear a crash, followed by a splash, suggesting that the knight had fallen in.

I suppose we will never actually know what it was like in the days of olde.

One thing I noticed was that since 1973 the hall had shrunk considerably. The fireplace was still massive, but you couldn’t stand up in it and the  ceiling was a lot lower. I suppose this must happen with old building all the time. If I go back in 2051 it will be the size of a kennel. Something really should be done to preserve these old buildings. It’s criminal.

Anyway, the pictures I took inside were fairly crap on account of whoever is looking after it using it as a place to sell dismal 1970s secondhand g-spot furniture, so I took a picture of the cherry tree in blossom outside which is today’s picture of the day.
A lovely blue tinged spring day.

By  the way, I possibly mean g-plan furniture. If you’re into that thing, I’m sure it hits the spot.

97. 16.04.2012 Tales from the Jetty. Part 3. Here Comes the mum

97. 16.04.2012 Tales from the Jetty. Part 3.  Here Comes the mum

So, after getting overwrought at the anti-climax of watching a man repeatedly casting  off  followed by a tantrum, a tanned bottom, an orange lolly cast a sunder in the sand and my bottom lip resting on my middle-aged paunch,  I sat on the bench watching the jetty.

It’s true to say that mother’s are getting younger and we  can all think of a local  council estate where you could quite easily imagine seeing a banner strung between two lampposts with the message “happy 35^th birthday Nanna”.  It would,  however, be wrong of me to  suggest that all people on council estates produce like rabbits as often and as young as possible. Some do. Most don’t.

Families, or so they tell us, are breaking down and the family units that were normal when I was young are an exception today.  The Pope (God bless the old fart) believes homosexuality is to blame, as do the God Squads of every other   backward thinking religion (which is basically all of them with the possible exception of The Quakers). Posh people think it’s due to poor diet and additives in turkey twizzlers and pot noodles whereas  people who  never   watch ITV claim it’s all Jeremy Kyle’s fault for glamourising lowlife, promiscuousness  and stupidity.  

I’d seen the girl in the picture skipping up and down the jetty and thought that she was just that, A girl. But then I realised that she was the mother of the two lads at the end of the pier and was dashing back and forth with jumpers and food.  I felt old.

Not that I’m suggesting that the girl on the jetty falls into this  category either. She might live on a council estate, she might have the full Sky package, but there again she might not. Not that that should be a bad thing.  There was love and affection, one of the boys ran to meet her and there was cuddling and laughing as she pulled the fleece over his head. And it was lovely to sit and watch. Dad fishing, the boys enjoying the experience and mum sitting in a foldaway chair making sure there was food and warmth.

Not quite sure what I want to say other than it was another moment of reflection when I faced up to the fact  of it not being  a question of mothers or soldiers or policemen or doctors and all the rest of them getting younger,  but me getting older.

Right, I’m off now to comfort eat. Turkey twizzlers rested on my paunch  in front of something on Sky with my big warm slipper for both feet. Perhaps with a bottle of Tizer.

96. 15.04.2012 Tales from the Jetty. Part 2.

96. 15.04.2012 Tales from the Jetty. Part 2.

The Tantrum.

After covertly watching a man casting off for half an hour – read in to that what you will – my ears were alerted to an incident taking place at the other end of the pier.

Mummy, the mummy’s mummy, (the correct  term is  grandmother if you wondered), sprog on a lead  and a mystery relative  decided a walk to the end of the jetty to stand and watch the man fishing would be an excellent way of spending two or three hours. The sprog on a lead was less keen though.  Perhaps it had experiencing the standing on the end of pier lark in the past. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.  

The sprog was only prepared to walk to the end of the pier if it didn’t have to hold another person’s hand. Mummy explained that the sign said that children can only go on the pier if they hold mummy’s hand (John overheard that bit) but the sprog was having none of that nonsense either.  And so the lead came out and the thrashing sprog  was leashed to a choke chain, the likes of which the RSPCA have since made illegal for dogs.  It didn’t help and despite a firm talking to, the sprog was determined that the best place to be was 50 yards in the other direction which also happened to be 50 yards closer to Cadwalader’s Ice Cream parlour

A full-on tantrum at the beach is highly embarrassing for those directly concerned, but outshines Punch & Judy for everyone else.  Whether we admit to it or not, we all enjoy watching what my mum used to call ‘a scene’.  Even though we don’t know the circumstances, we all secretly like to shake our heads and  comment under our breath.

“everybody’s looking at you thinking ‘look at that baby’”  (it’s a two year  old)  “you’re spoiling it for everyone”  (two year old’s don’t, as a rule of thumb really care about that though) “don’t make me have to shout at you”  “I’m going to count to three”  “well when we all go into the ice-cream shop and get an ice-cream you can sit and watch us eating ours”  “right if this carries on I’m taking you  to the adoption agency and getting another  child”

After I’d watched the episode unfold for half an hour, during which time the sprog had been thrown over the side of the water several times and coiled back in on the extendable child  lead, John came back from the newsagent on the corner with an orange ice lolly.  So, I had a tantrum.

I asked for a red one. Not an orange one. I wanted a red one. He was eating a red one. I wanted the red one not the orange one.   I was aware that the sprog on the end of the pier was watching me, shaking it’s head at me.  It’s been a good few years since I’ve been marched back to the car and told to stay there.  It’s also been a good few years since I’ve had my bottom tanned in public.  John seemed to have no shame though.

PS, have you noticed how big the little boy on the left is? Talk about a cuckoo in the nest.  Either that or his flying saucer is parked on  the front.

95. 14.04.2012 Tales from the Jetty. The trilogy. Episode 1

95. 14.04.2012 Tales from the Jetty. The trilogy.

Episode 1.

Catch of the Day?

A drive down to The Llŷn  on a sunny but chilly spring Saturday with no destination in mind.  First a  stop off at Brynkir, for a coffee between the palms, a hot cross bun and the lightest cherry cake that John has ever eaten in his entire life (FACT) followed by  an examination of a turtle’s head that was poking above the waterline. Not the Jim Royle type of turtle’s head you understand, heaven forbid if I was to be so crass, but one that was attached to a real one swimming about in a tank.  It’s amazing what can be found in Brynkir and given the fact that there’s a letter in Brynkir that doesn’t exist in Welsh  it’s amazing the place exists at all. 
Contrary to popular what monoglot Anglo-Saxon’s  believe, the Welsh don’t actually favour  consonants over vowels and actually ignore some of them. The letter K is one, the letters  V, Q, X and Z are others. J used to be ignored but presumably all the Mr and Mrs Jones up and down the country signed some sort of petition or chained themselves to railings  and it’s now included in some alphabets, but not when I was at college.  Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about all the people called Vaughn.  It must be awful having part of your name missing. Truly awful

Anyway, sleeplessness aside we ended up at  Criccieth, aka The pearl of Wales on the shores of Snowdonia. Or so the guide books of old say. But to be brutally frank, it is.
Criccieth could be straight out of an Oliver Postgate stop-frame cardboard and cotton wool animated film featuring a steam engine in the top left hand corner of Wales. There’s a hill at the edge of the sea with a castle on it, and there’s a railway goes around it with little green trains on it. The sea is blue and the beaches are clean.

The jetty at Criccieth brings back childhood memories of horror and hell. Actually if I’m brutally frank, most jetties do. Whenever my dad spotted a person with a rod in hand stood on one, it usually signalled a couple of hours  standing watching the aforementioned person, and sometimes, much to our embarrassment, conversing with them. Not that they were ever real conversations, more a one-way commentary actually.   Fishing, in itself, is, to put it mildly, not one of the most exciting things in the world, but  to stand and watch someone fishing.... words fail me. I can fear tears welling at the thought of it.

Anyway, for the first time in 30 odd years, I actually sat and watched someone fishing.  I wasn’t even bribed by the promise of an ice lolly either. And  it has to be said that the two lads  really were interested in watching their dad reel in, cast off, knit one, pearl  one,  drop one  [repeat ad lib and ad nauseum to fade]  or whatever  fishermen do.

Invaded Space

86. 05.04.2012

Invaded space

The town hall in Manchester is currently getting a face lift and is covered up in all sorts of bits of plastic and that green stuff.  After the riots no expense was spared and the building was draped in five storey tall  ‘I heart Manchester’ to lift the spirits of the displaced civil servants who are currently camping out in atrocious conditions in the shiny Number One Central  as well as the Mancunians who don’t feel disadvantaged because they don’t have the latest smart phones, trainers or  glass strewn low rise pedal pushers or smoke damaged ra-ra skirts  from Miss Etam.
Miss Etam by the way is still closed eight months after the riots. Where women with taste and an eye for  fashion are buying their clothes at the moment  is anybody’s guess and now that Peacock’s has closed down, things in Manchester have gone from bad to worse.

This is the latest adornment on the town hall. Space invaders made from street furniture, cones and barriers. Rather clever and eye catching. In fact it was so eye catching I stood catching it in my eye for   10 minutes or more and in all that time there was no sign of activity, not a fat white  belly hanging out of a hi-visability jacket to be spyed,  not a builder’s bum, a digger’s split or a tarmacer’s crack in sight in fact just like roadworks up and down the country  no sign of activity to be seen. I racked   and racked and racked my brain I couldn’t for the life of me remember the number of  John Major’s cone line number.  I shall write a letter to the papers instead signed ‘perturbed from Penrhyn Bay’
 

92. 09.04.2012 Bank Holiday catch up

92. 09.04.2012 Bank Holiday catch up.

Not having a TV and having a mother-in-law to be stop  over on the longest bank holiday of the year doesn’t always have to end in tears. In fact it was rather enjoyable.

Luckily there’s catch up on ITV player. BBC do a catch up service too, but to be brutally frank if you’re from Leyland those programmes, with the possible exception of The One Show and Midweek Lottery Live are a bit too high brow.

I am now up to date with the goings on in Emmerdale and Coronation Street.  The last time I saw Emmerdale there was still a farm and the crux of the storylines revolved around Amos Brearly  exclaiming “Mishter Wilksh! put that away and adjust your  slacks”, Seth Armstrong ordering a pint in the Woolpack, or Annie Sugden doing an impression of Bugs Bunny whilst  bent over backwards over her Yorkshire range balancing a homemade casserole on one bosom and a nicely cooked leg of lamb on the other with the Reverend Hinton popping in for a serious chat about the  condition of his cassocks. For drama there were harrowing scenes of Pat Merrick narrowly escaping death from a smouldering caravan when the corner of a duvet got too close to a convection heater.   These days it’s a hotbed of sleeze and sex and there has been an influx of actors from all over the country. A sort of den of Equity.  Yorkshire accents are few and far between and everyone speaks in a generically bland northern accent, the type that minor characters and common people in black and white British films spoke in.

There  are even psychotic homosexuals amongst  the cow sheds and silage pits. Not the sort of thing that’s good for beef production to be brutally frank.

Over in Ambridge, it’s the same. The Archers have interbred with newcomers to such an extent that they all have either Estuary accents or are so far back that not even the Queen knows what the hell they are talking about. Tom Archer, that’s the organic sausage king for those of you who don’t know, talks like he’s got a couple jammed in the back of his throat with a couple of hot potatoes there for good measure.  Being a sensible and mature 40 something year old, I don’t snigger every time he mentions his sausage. Honestly, I don’t.

Meanwhile down at the Rovers, Stella Beale, -that’s Ian Beale’s ex wife from the other side - has resurfaced with an another generically Northern accent sounding far too “ey-up cock  there’ll be ‘t trouble ‘t mill ‘for day’s out chuck or ma nurme’s not Cindy Beale  petal” than is feasibly possible even in a thrice or four times weekly Northern soap.

Anyhow, for the last few days our resident ghost, Mrs Backside, who died in 1918 (fact)  and manifests herself along with her black cat in the dining room and on the bend in the staircase,  has had company and caught up on all the soaps with the exception of EastEnders.

Mrs Beswick doesn’t watch EastEnders as her hearing aid can’t cope with all  the frantic whispering. By all accounts it sounds like  someone rustling an empty bag of Quavers with a boiling  kettle whistling in the  background. Which to be brutally frank is preferable to the dire storylines  and the Estuary English that we are told we will all be speaking in 50 years time. But that’s my  brutally brutally  frank opinion on the topic.

91. 08.04.2012 Nice one Cyril. Window that is.

Today’s picture was taken through one of the chancel windows overlooking the Menai Straits  in Penmon Priory aka Penmon Abbey aka Penmon Monastery aka Penmon Church depending on which guide book or pamphlet you believe or which ranting expert in their field you believe.

Just off the bottom right hand corner of  Anglesey at Penmon Abbey/Monastery/Church there are remains of religious buildings spanning more than 1,000 years. It was the site of a monastery dating back to the time of St. Seiriol, who lived in the 6th century had his own well  which is now Holy. In the early 13th century the Celtic community was reorganized under the Augustinian Rule, and at this time the priory/church was enlarged and still serves as the parish church today.

The priory survived the Edwardian conquest and expanded slightly, but was dissolved in 1538 by Henry the Whatever..  If you’ve ever wondered how they actually dissolved the monasteries, and if you have an enquiring mind you probably have, Henry the Whatever went around the country with buckets of strong acid pouring it hither and thither but mainly on very nice buildings where there were men in dowdy dressing gowns with bald patches brewing their own ale.

Oddly enough it wasn’t until the 1970s that men in dowdy dressing gowns with bald patches took to brewing their own ale again, mainly in frothy covered buckets in airing cupboards. Not that the contents were fit for much else than dissolving buildings and in our case living room furniture including the wooden arms on the settee, the coffee table, the hall carpet  and successive pairs of dentures.  The rows went on for days.

The buildings passed into the hands of the Bulkeleys of Beaumaris, who like all the thieving gentry and well to do of their time, legally turfed off the people eeking a living from the land and ‘enclosed’ much of the area as a private deer park and built the dovecote where the fat man with the radio tuned in to the football stands taking £2.50 to go to the end of the bay.

Anyhow, a nice stained glass window Cyril, I say a nice stained glass window Cyril. Ever thought of PVC double glazing though? Buy one you get one free.. I say buy one you get one free.

90. 07.04.2012 There is a Green Hill far Away

With the exception on the occasion of an odd funeral, I don’t sing hymns  anymore.

But  occasionally when Songs of Praise or Sunday Half Hour on Radio 2  have accidentally been left on,  I find myself humming away and the locked away words just come back, along with the  memories of assemblies. The cacophony of  fidgeting first years, shuffling, whispering, sniggering, and the turning of pages in the little dog eared blue hymn books and getting in the last cough.  Then the melange of smells;  dusty curtains, yesterday’s hot pot and today’s meat pie,  floor polish,  second year trumps,  fourth year farts, and that stuff they scatter about when somebody’s been sick.

Most of my favourite hymns are carols. But there are other favourites including We plough the fields and scatter – which conjures up images of  mushroom baskets filled with out of date tins of custard, Co-op baked beans and a loaf of bread that looked like a sheaf of wheat.

Onward Christian Soldiers – that’s the one where you can shout the words very loudly and get away with it. There’s another one that’s also the  German national anthem but not without reference to the Fatherland (Farterland in German).  Abide with me.  Lord of the dance – that’s the one where it goes  “and I am the lord of the dance, said he” and the five year old Tim was convinced that he was singing about a dance settee, a sofa that you could jump up and down on and not get told off for.   and  then my favourite. There is a green hill far away.

There is a family recording of us all sat around our new hi-fi music centre on  Easter Sunday 1975. Granny is talking about Church and Gertie Wrigg,  the wonton woman next door who has holes in her towels.  Pop (granddad) is talking about looking forward to getting out on the bowling green again and ruminating on this summer’s greenfly on his roses, Louie (grandmother) is talking about a recent bad leg. She had three of them. Mum sings a song that my sister interrupts followed by the immortal “she spoiled that for me didn’t she?” that she was never allowed to forget. And then right at the end we all rouse together and sing There is a Green Hill Far Away.

If ever there was a green hill far away in my mind, it was this one a couple of miles outside the walls of Conwy. The perfect setting.

There is a green hill far away,
Outside a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.


O dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him, too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.

88. 07.04.2012 Peace at Easter

Far away from the madding crowd and even further away from the maddening "we're doing Wales at Easter in our 4x4 with three spoiled whining brats and talking very loudly in very far back voices” crowd, at the right end tip of Anglesey is the beach of Penmon.

Banks of chalk dusted  pebbles, deep green rock pools made for little boys, Puffin Island  like a round bosom  looking closer than it is,  the whispering blue-green sea and further out the vortex of a white crested tide eternally  at odds with itself.

Twice a minute the lighthouse bell tolls a solitary note to warn  whoever it may concern  that it's still there. It hasn't heard of GPS navigation, but nobody seems to have had the heart to tell it yet.

The fall and rise of the gulls, Penmaenmawr over the water doing a stunning impersonation of  Table Top Mountain with a blanket of cotton wool.  There's a couple of white sails beyond the ebbing and flooding battle and the pleasure boat is doing its umpteenth voyage today.
It’s moments like these that make life so special.

On board the pleasure boat, the people who loudly hogged the window table in The Bulkley Arms,   Mr Fforbes-Tosserton, in his made to measure casual wear and  his horse faced wife Tarka,  who is determined not to enjoy herself, on account of all her friends from the pony, horse,  spa and health club having  gone skiing. She knows that at this very moment in time  they will be  apres-skiing it in Flange in Switzerland. It's not quite Cloisters, but still very expensive and upper-class and any where is better than Wales. To be brutally frank she doesn’t understand why William and Kate actually want to live here.  But thank god there’s a Waitrose on the island.

 Little Andre-Louis, Clamidia-Slyme and Rosemary-Trollope Fforbes-Tosserton  (Trollope rhymes with Penelope by the way, and Slyme rhymes with fee as in extortionate  private school fees) are all misbehaving and spoiling it for everyone else on board. Mr Fforbes-Tosserton doesn't seem to hear it. In fact he's engrossed in text messages of an adult nature with his P.A. Tarka doesn't care about the noise and just zones out. Dr Cotteril told her that all three had AD-HD but she refused to believe him. She was after all double barrelled and far too posh to have offspring with that. Only the offspring of the common and working class had that. As far as she’s concerned they are just loud, rude, don’t concentrate, can’t sit still and are a bit boisterous. No different to any of the kids in her social group really.

But that’s a long way away from the beach. These painted stones were scattered on the beach, there were hundreds of them. some with names of loved ones, some with messages, some with pictures but more than anything hearts. Hundreds of them.  Truly uplifting.

Peace at Easter. Even to Mr and Mrs Fforbes-Tosserton.

87 06.04.2012 Good on a Friday.

Just your run of the mill Good Friday. It’s a bank holiday so the weather is not at its  best but not as bad as it was during the week. No ship wrecks today,  just slow traffic winding over Penmaenrhos  and through Colwyn Bay just like the Good Fridays of  my short trousered days of childhood.

Good Fridays were invented by  The National Trust. And all over the country,  people will be perusing through zoo, castle and stately home  gift shops admiring the must-have  tat and crap. The first ice-creams of the season will be consumed by people wrapped up warmly because that’s what you do at Easter.  Granddads and Grandmas will be taken for the day out and the children will be reminded not to comment on the smell of wee-wee in the car.

People who don’t live near the sea come and look at it for the first time this year.  If you’ve wondered what the people who live near the sea do on Good Friday, well we go and look at the places where the people who’ve come to look at the sea live.  Actually I made that bit up. The brutally frank truth is that we go to Marks & Spencer to look at Per-Una garments waiting outside t changing rooms listening to the sound of ripping fabric, snapping elastic shrieks and gasps and watching the procession of ladies of a certain age going in and out with armfuls of sensible looking items.

Then it’s down to the M&S food hall to  stock up on essential oddments  from the food hall  that when all totted up  cost more than the weekly shop itself.
Essential oddments include double cream, out of season strawberries and M&S hot cross buns. They’re not just hot cross buns they’re M&.... well you can guess what they are.
Home now in front of the fire with hot cross buns that aren’t just hot cross buns, with dripping butter,  Classic FM, and Mrs Beswick senior who as I type is reading and quoting from her favourite book and pointing pontificating   fingers at all and sundry. The fact that she doesn’t understand a word of Welsh makes it all the more remarkable really.
Perhaps another hot cross bun might give us a bit of peace and a moment to gather our thoughts...

Vrolijk paasdagen, pasg hapus and happy easter!

86. 05.04.2012 Bad Moon Rising

I know that Easter changes every year because of something to do with the moon but not sure what.  Tonight in Wales it’s a full one. It probably is where you are too come to think of it.

I used to think it was the Pope who decided when it was to be Easter weekend so that he could fit in his urbi et orbi bollocks to the world in his busy calendar of kissing runways,  denying sexual abuse, preaching backward religious bigotry, the condemning of condoms and his hatred of  homosexuals, Jews, muslims and women and everyone else who is going to hell.

We have sinned, we have sinned, we have sinned, but drop some money, all your money,  in the offertory as it comes round and you might not go to hell after all.

Yesterday was Spy Wednesday as a reference to Judas as betraying Jesus(fact) and today  is Maundy Thursday  also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great and Holy Thursday, Sheer Thursday and Thursday of Mysteries and commemorates  the Maundy  (the foot washing) and the last supper.  (some more facts there).

In olden days the monarch used to wash the feet of beggars but these days they hand out money to the poor. Today the Queen was in York where she handed out the symbolic dosh. I wasn’t there to see her, and even if I was after last time’s fracas I wouldn’t reveal the fact on facebook. 

The first maundy coin was Scottish. It was a 4d from James IV. It’s thought that the recipient  bought a battered Mars bar and fish supper and squandered  the rest on Irn Bru, a new sporran and a stretch tartan sofa cover(fact I made up)
a 4d from James1Vfrom James1V

These days though the day before Good Friday is just an extra day to go out and get pissed because there’s no work tomorrow.

This is the moon as it rose above our house about an hour ago.

Whatever Easter  means to you, hope you have a good one and that the Easter bunny leaves lots of Easter Eggs on the sideboard on Sunday. 

Vrolijk paasdagen, pasg hapus, and  Happy Easter wherever you are

Tim (and John) x

85. 04.04.2012 Horrors of Wednesdays remembered

85. 04.04.2012 35 years ago  Wednesday afternoons were always like today’s Wednesday afternoon. Bloody cold, wet, windy with the bitterness of Siberia thrown into the mix. They  used to fill me with dread and horror. It was the worst time of the week and even now the thought of it makes me shiver with horror. Outside PE.

We had two PEs each week, one was inside in the assembly hall with a strict dress code of blue knickers, shorts,  white vests and  pumps – not trainers, but pumps.  Trainers hadn’t been invented for children back then.  Green rubber mats that smelled of fish,  wee-wee,  or damp caravans  depending on which one you got,  were dragged out of the sports cupboard, benches were turned upside down and balancing techniques were practised. Shins were skinned on  the horse, crotches were burned sliding down the ropes and shimmying up and down ropes and bean bags were thrown into rings. And each other.  The best bit was when Mr Haddock was in a good mood and let us play pirates.  These days such danger filled potentially lethal games are a thing of the past on account of health and safety bollocks.

There was also another thing called mime and movement. The fishy mats were dragged out again and the big speaker with a radio in it was plugged in and a woman encouraged us to pretend we were trees in the winter, or dying swans  or a dripping tap or a leaking colostomy bag and my all time favourite, an electric current.

However it was the outside PE on a Wednesday afternoon that I still regularly discuss with my psychologist. It was called PE but it basically meant football practise on the muddiest side of the pitch with corner flags for goals. What exactly we were practising for bugger only knows and if anything the only practise we ever  came close to was as a target  as  Mr Haddock  viciously kicked balls at chapped and red thighs, or deliberately pushed you over in a pool of mud.

Even in the middle of summer, there would still be puddles of water with ice on them. The school playing field was a micro-climate and even in the hottest summer ever recorded in 1976, the last year before I went to the big school shards of ice stuck up like glass in concrete on the wall behind the corner shop.   Ice that was so sharp it could at worst amputate a leg (fact) and at best circumcise your willy regardless of creed or religion (fear)

I hated it with a passion and spent most of my time as far away from the ball as possible whilst Mr Haddock shouted at me for being a pansy. There was no way out of it.  Forgetting your shorts was something you did only once, the dreaded spare kit box was never far away and just like the crash mats the contents smelled of fish, wee-wee, or damp caravans with stains to suggest far worse.

I am left handed and also left footed. Mr Haddock, the monster with a beard, insisted I kick the ball with my right foot. I couldn’t. So whenever the ball did manage to find me, instinctively my left foot would shoot out but then fear of a clip around the ear hole from Mr Haddock would have my right foot moving forward as well as my  gangling arms hung down by knees.  Years before Michael Flatley invented the Riverdance, I was doing it on Wednesday afternoons. I was well into my thirties before I discovered that I could actually kick a ball with my left foot and it would vaguely go in the direction I wanted it to.

Anyhow, I took this picture last night as I popped out to the shop for an emergency Turkish Delight. And bear  in mind how bitter it was last night  and how ships were being thrown on to rocks and sleet and snow was falling. And they actually do this for their pleasure!