Monthly Archives: September 2017

The Week in Brief and the Bookshelf Principle

Just catching up on a few things from the

On Wednesday we visited Dave for a Quercus meeting. It was a cheerful time despite the sadness of winding everything down. Once we’d poured the tea, passed round the cake and discussed our health we watched the Tour of Britain on TV.

Nobody would mistake us for racing cyclists, but it was going round North Nottinghamshire and we were trying to spot places we knew. They had been sprouting yellow bikes and parking restriction notices for weeks so we knew where it was going. I had thought of going out to take photos but I fought off the temptation.

Although it was obviously sad for the participants it was also funny to see two cyclists disqualified for riding on the pavement.

The same could be said of the crash, as they came round a corner in Retford to find that a man with a Blue Badge had parked his car in the way. I am sorry for the rider who was injured, and the others who fell, both for the pain and the waste of all their preparation. However, I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t also funny to watch, even if there was something evil about my amusement.

It’s also an example of a disabled driver parking somewhere despite the danger. People seem to think that possession of a Blue Badge or the use of hazard warners mean they can park anywhere.

On Friday morning I saw a convoy of silver grey Rolls Royces in the mist, some with consecutive personalised number plates. There were ten of them, which tends to suggest that there is big money in the funeral business. It must have been a big family to need ten cars.

Later on Friday I found myself in Retford, thinking that it might be worth looking at the accident site to see if there was any broken glass left. I’m sure it would have sold on ebay. Unfortunately my mind works on the bookshelf principle and I didn’t hold on to the thought.

Do I need to title this “Bookshelf”

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the bookshelf principle, imagine a well-filled bookshelf with no ends. When you put another book on the shelf one falls off the end.

We used to use it (semi-jokingly) when coaching kids at the rugby club. Some of them had very short shelves and even a piece of litter blowing past could trigger sensory overload. As I’ve aged, I’ve begun to notice that my bookshelf has become shorter.

And that was how, when I saw someone I knew on the market, the ebay idea dropped off the end of the shelf.

Sometime this week I also published my 900th post, I think it was Friday but I sort of lost count. Or dropped another book…

The ebay Diaries (Day 6 – Part 4)

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I bought some tie pins/sweetheart brooches last Saturday using the Buy It Now button. They seemed very reasonable. This should have been the first warning.

They arrived yesterday, I looked at them and I left feedback. It was only when I looked at them in strong sunlight today (yes, we had some!) that I noticed all the faults. Two of the tiepins are twisted and one seems to be lacking any sort of silver mark. I really must remember my own rules about being careful when buying.

Later in the week I bought an enamel badge. It’s clearly a cheap modern copy. It cost me just over £3 so it’s not even worth the time to complain. The tiepins are slightly different, but it’s just as easy to straighten them as it is to send them back.

Royal Artillery tiepin

That, I know, plays into the hands of dishonest dealers but I can’t be bothered with the bickering that ensues. In truth they probably don’t know what they are doing. That’s the levelling influence of ebay – all you need to do is press buttons on a computer and repeat what is written on a badge. The bidders do the actual work. It’s a subject I may return to.

I may also return to the question of ethics.

Note to self –

Reasonably priced ebay lots on Buy It Now are rarely as good as you think

Reasonably priced ebay lots on Buy It Now are rarely as good as you think…

More Planters

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We managed to get one of the waste bins partially dismantled, which gives us the basis for a planter trough.

There were eight screws on the hinge and five came out easily. Two came out less easily. And the final one wouldn’t budge. I applied my jemmy. It still didn’t budge. Eventually I had to drill the head of the screw, which finally worked. Only two more to go, plus a bit of internal remodelling.

Wastebin – conversion to planter

Planter – first stage

I feel a bit retro using the term jemmy, it’s one of those words from the world of pea soupers and mysterious foreigners in Limehouse, along with rozzers, darbies and petermen. A lifetime of reading classic crime has certainly broadened my vocabulary.

It’s an on-going process, and we’re going to have a bit of work to do yet, but it seems a shame to throw them out.

Planters

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Julia’s group has finished painting the metal bins so they now have a fine selection of planters on the verandah. There’s a fig in one, a conifer in another and a strange combination of Echeveria Duchess of Nuremberg, thyme and chives in a third. Echeveria and thyme are fine but I have my reservation about the chives. Time will tell.

“Those slate chippings look familiar.” I said, vaguely remembering she’d mentioned them last week.

“They’ve been on the patio for years,” she replied,”you weren’t using them.”

Wives don’t understand the concept of keeping things in case they come in useful later.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

They aren’t just a garden task, they have provided a useful art and design project too.

She has been given some wooden bins too. The school has made some into trough planters and that’s Julia’s plan too. All we need to do is get the screws out of the hinges. Eight screws. Eight tight screws. Then we need to shorten them and dismantle the doors to re-use them as ends.

It sounds so simple…

The ebay Diaries – Day 4 (but only Part 3)

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Don’t look for Day 3, there isn’t one. Day 3 was a bit quiet and there wasn’t much to see so I spared you the tedium. that’s why Day 4 is only Part 3.

There’s an interesting Naval silver sweetheart brooch for sale in the shape of a torpedo, hallmarked for 1917 and engraved to HMS Patia. She was an armed merchant cruiser taken from her normal peacetime trade of carrying bananas and used to enforce the blockade against Germany. In her time on patrol she boarded or met 595 ships to ensure they were not carrying goods to Germany.

She was torpedoed by UC 49 on 13th June 1918 in the Bristol Channel.

Details from the ship’s log are available on this site. It includes this interesting snippet:

Cautioned Lt Charles Jacobson, Temp Eng Sub-Lieut RNR, for conduct unbecoming an officer in that on the night of 4^th November 1917, in company with Mids Thomas A Onions RNR he introduced clandestinely two females into the ship.

Cautioned Midshipman Thomas A Onions, Royal Naval Reserve, for disobedience of orders and conduct unbecoming an officer, whereas on the night of 4^th November 1917, he returned on board after 11 pm, contrary to orders, and introduced clandestinely two females into the ship.

There’s a lot to be learned, even from the details on a brooch.

I bought a naval sweetheart yesterday, so I’ll pass on this one, interesting as it is, It’s also rare, as the Patia only had a small crew. Interesting to speculate as to whether Jacobson or Onions ever gave a brooch to one of their clandestine females.

As for the rest of the day, I was underbidder on a number of lots and way adrift on a couple of rare ones – I just didn’t appreciate how rare until I saw the prices.

Pictures of Peacocks

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According to Laurie Graves, commenting on my last post, she likes pictures of Peacock butterflies as they don’t see them in Maine. I don’t feel too sorry for her though, she does have Hummingbirds in summer.

Anyway, as I have plenty of photographs of Peacocks I thought it might be in order to put a few up.

Peacock Butterfly on Buddleia

The featured image is a Peacock on crocuses, taken in February a few years ago. It’s the earliest butterfly I’ve ever photographed, though they can, according to reports, be seen on every day of the year.

Peacock at Mencap gardens

I’ve always liked Peacocks. My first memory of butterflies dates from around 1960-61 but I only recall them as either white or reddish brown. We were living outside York at that time, and went on to Blackburn, Clitheroe and Lincolnshire before noticing them again in 1967. At that point we moved to a house near Peterborough. It had a sheltered paved area with a buddleia and one day in our first summer there I noticed that the bush was hosting a Peacock convention. It’s tempting to say it was covered with them, but this would be an exaggeration. However, there were more butterflies in one spot than I remember seeing before or since.

Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshell at the Ecocentre

And not just butterflies, but big, bright, velvety butterflies.

From that day on, I was confirmed as a butterfly enthusiast.

The Morning so Far

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It is grey, I can see parents taking children to school, but at least it isn’t raining.

I had a strange dream last night, involving stone-built houses, planning permission and failure. The first two came, I think, because I had fallen asleep in front of the TV during an episode of Grand Designs. The feeling of failure, on the other hand, seems to have been creeping more and more into my thoughts recently.

It’s strange how negative thoughts are the ones that seem to persist. Yesterday I thought about plans for earning a living, new sweets for Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts and, by association, growing liquorice. I then thought of other exotic crops, how James Wong has always disappointed me and gave serious thought to a seed bombing campaign.

I have no personal animosity towards James Wong, in case you are wondering, it’s just that when I’ve tried to grow his alternative crops they have never seemed worth the trouble.

I bought, for instance, two kiwi berry vines when we started Quercus Community. They are hardy, prolific and vigorous to the point of being invasive. Not mine. Mine are like a couple of stroppy teenagers, sulking and refusing to cooperate. When we did get fruit, which was not often, we didn’t get much and my dreams of selling bags of unusual fruit to boost our funds all came to nothing.

Painted Lady on Red Valerian

Peacock at Mencap gardens

Small Tortoiseshell

I keep telling myself that seed bombing is not the way forwards for my dream to make Nottingham the Butterfly Capital of the world, as it will invariably involve a lot of buddleia and make the locality look like a bomb site. Somehow I always come back to the idea though…

So there you are – my morning has consisted of blogging about yesterday.

Fortunately it is only ten o’clock so I still have time to pull things round. Has it really taken an hour to write this?

I must learn to type faster.

Loose Ends and New Beginnings

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I’m tying up a few loose ends today – you may have noticed a new, more accurate, subtitle (“Life after the Care Farm”) and I’ve added the latest news to the About Us page.

I’ve also added an update to the Ecocentre page.

They aren’t worth reading (being dry and, possibly, a little bitter) but if I add links it supposedly makes the blog more visible on the internet. It’s what they call Search Engine Optimisation. Like much of modern life I find it easy to ignore, but occasionally I like to give it a try.

It’s funny how the internet, whilst being ephemeral in nature, also preserves things.

Julia is taking the group from Mencap to see the Flintham Show. We’re just hoping the weather improves. It has generally been a good day out and the group is looking forward to it. At least some good has come from our time at the farm.

They are advertising an education tent at the show – we have been replaced so easily. What hasn’t been replaced is the write-up that Julia prepared for the education tent several years ago. That is still up on the site, and is promising a number of things they won’t be able to deliver, including Connie the Cow, who is now living at a local school.

Ploughing at Flintham Show (2016)

Julia has just joined the Women’s Farm and Garden Association. It seems quite a go-ahead group of people, despite being formed in 1899, though the marketing could do with some work: we didn’t even know it existed until I saw one of its badges for sale on ebay.

Perhaps ebay is a force for good after all.

Book Review – Eggs or Anarchy

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Eggs or Anarchy by William Sitwell

Paperback: 368 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK (9 Feb. 2017)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1471151077

ISBN-13: 978-1471151071

Between the wars the government took the view that we should produce what we were good at and import the rest. This meant we were importing about 60% of our food, as we had been doing in 1914. The problem was that the Germans had more efficient aircraft and submarines in 1939.

Fter a successful retail career, Lord Woolton took on the job of sourcing the millions of uniforms needed to equip a new army. He was surprised to find that having ordered the trousers he had to order the fly buttons via another government department.

He managed to sort it all out, and then took on the task of organising food supplies, including issuing millions of ration books and developing a system that was fair to all.

He didn’t just have U-Boats to worry about, he had Churchill and his attempts to use shipping for moving troops. Then he had to organise storage for food in places where it wouldn’t be bombed, make sure our suppliers didn’t overcharge us and iron out inefficiencies in distribution at home. The title refers to the fears that order and morale would break down if he was unable to get the rations out.

One of my favourite moments was when he told visiting American politicians that he would prefer their ships to their good wishes. He was not a conventional politician, having come to it late in life.

As for the famous Woolton Pie… Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out his thoughts on that.

It’s an interesting subject, though the writing doesn’t always reflect this, and poses a few questions about food security, which we are going to have to answer in the coming years.

A Favourite Quote and a Question of Manners

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I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral last night. It shares some of the features that make me like the Blandings books (almost eternal summer, romance) but with more depth and considerably more swearing.

One of my favourite film scenes is Gareth’s funeral. Not the famous poem, but the speech.

“I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him: ‘Fat’ seems to have been a word people most connected with him. ‘Terribly rude’ also rang a lot of bells.”

This rings a lot of bells with me too. Despite recent efforts to diet, fat is still the first impression people have of me. I suppose it’s because my shirt buttons tend to enter a room a foot before I do.

Same goes for rude. I have a tendency to say what I think at the time I think it. That’s not always what people want to hear. It’s fashionable to refer to a lack of “internal censor”.

That this should be considered rude is just a comment on modern society.

I also have a tendency to treat people all the same. This sounds like a good thing but doesn’t always go down well either, as some people seem to think they should be treated better than others. Recruit an idiot, call him a manager and all of a sudden he’s demanding “respect”.

Respect used to be something you earned, now it’s something people seem to expect.

Even worse, I’ve noticed that Julia is starting to use me as a yardstick. The words “nearly as rude as you” seem to be slipping into her conversation more and more these days.

I’m sure that Messrs Volta, Newton and Faraday (plus others I can’t call to mind) would all be happy at the idea of having things named after them. I’m not so sure I want my name to go down in history as the man who gave his name to the International System unit of rudeness.

Ah well!