Monthly Archives: June 2023

Inventions I Have Never Seen

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I’ve recently been thinking of Inventions I have Never Seen. It was going to be a series called Inventions we Never Had but I checked the first one up and it seems that we did have steam powered motorcycles. It’s a bit like the idea of the Mercian Independence Party. No matter how silly the idea seems, someone has always beaten me to it. It seems that the inventor of the steam motorcycle was also the first man to die in a motorcycle accident.

I thought that a steam powered motorcycle would be great from a number of perspectives (though safety, I admit, wasn’t one of them). It seems I could be wrong, as the Roper only had a range of seven miles. This is unlikely to be useful, though I suppose you could fit extra fuel capacity and carry a big bottle of water. Not sure that stopping to attend to the engine every seven miles is particularly practical, but it’s not the biggest problem with the design. Sitting on top of a boiler with 150 pounds of pressure it it is what I see as the major problem. The 1869 version of Roper’s machine works quite well from that point of view, but the later model seems to put the explosive bits between your knees.

This one, a modern version, has a range of 16 miles, at which point the water runs out. It runs on oil, which seems a bit out of step, as the idea of using steam is surely to get away from oil. Frankly, I’m a little disappointed that steam motorcycles are so limited in range as they seemed such a good idea. I suppose it is the fate of the visionary to be disappointed.

The picture features bicycles, the nearest thing to steam motorcycles I have ever photographed.

 

Rain

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We had thunderstorms today, but now we just have rain. We had thunderstorms yesterday and also the day before that. Or maybe two days ago. Anyway, we have had quite a lot of thunder and a lot of rain. Most of it, I imagine, will go to waste as we don’t have enough water storage.

Historically, we would have got round this by flooding a valley, preferably in Wales or Scotland. They have plenty of space there. In England we don’t have quite so much space. We also have public enquiries.

These, for those of you who aren’t familiar with them, are normally expensive and lengthy proceedings requiring us to pay vast sums to legal advisors in order to delay things. They may sometimes be good things, but mainly they just enable pressure groups to get publicity and lawyers to make additions to their property portfolios.

However, many reports point to problems by the middle of the century when our rainfall will fail to meet our water consumption, regardless of our ability to store it. Lower rainfall, high rates of water usage and increasing population all point to problems. By the middle of the century, if I’m still here, I probably won’t know what’s happening so it isn’t my problem. On the other hand, I would like to think that future generations have plenty to drink, so I’m going to start looking at more ways to save water. I have already reduced the the toilet flush and refuse to wash my car as a principle (rather than because I’m lazy). We also have water butts. and I’m planning our new garden with drought resistant species.

The current rain will also probably overpower out fragile sewerage systems and create more pollution of waterways. When we have a lot of water flowing companies are allowed to discharge the “overflow” directly into rivers and the sea.This can include raw sewage.

It’s a sad thing to see this happening at an increasing rate, and even sadder that we have yet to see the CEO of a water company flogged through the streets and given twenty years hard labour. I imagine you would only need to do one, and the rest would up their game.

Unfortunately judges are notoriously unlikely to jail the relatives of old school friends. We see this when they go soft on the killers of birds of prey and we see this when water companies are allowed to discharge sewage unpunished. There were over 300,000 discharges last year. There will probably be more this year as it is likely to be a wetter year.

The number of CEOs who suffer even minor judicial inconvenience? I’m guessing zero.

The view from Bowness – mainly rain

Fish, Chips and Thunderstorms

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We had fish and chips on Monday night. We needed some bottled water for Julia (we were going to freeze it overnight so it stayed cold all day) and the chip shop was the closest place that sells it now all the local shops have closed down.  Well, all the useful local shops. We still have a pawn shop, three hairdressers, a double glazing shop and two accountants, but actual useful shops are rare. We have two supermarkets within walking distance (for Julia) but it was a clammy night and the return journey is all uphill.

It seemed silly not to have fish and chips if she was going that way. It also seemed silly not to have mushy peas and a pickled egg, as fish and chips are a rare event these days. They aren’t cheap these days, and they are fried, which, in diet terms, puts them on a level of popularity shared by Covid, Beelzebub and Boris Johnson.

As she thought of going out the sky turned grey, a cold wind whistled in and one of the “scattered thunderstorms”  that had been forecast settled over our house and lashed it down for fifteen minutes. We weren’t the only ones. Next morning on the way to work there was still a lot of standing water by the roadside.

It’s lucky she didn’t leave five minutes earlier or she’s have been caught in it. It’s also ironic that we had been discussing heat and thirst only moments before a deluge. We have quite a few words for rain when you think about it. Deluge, as used a few words back, cloudburst, downpour, storm, squall, shower being just a few of them. At one time I would have said that this shows how much the British suffer from rain. However, as English is also spoken in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada, which are not noted for their propensity for precipitation, this probably won’t hold up to scrutiny when comparing us to the Innuit and their snow vocabulary.

Sorry, that was a digression sparked off by use of the word deluge.

The pictures are fish and chips with mushy peas and a pickled egg. To describe me as a foodie would be inaccurate.

Fish, chips, mushy peas (a bit too dark for my liking) and a pickled egg.

A Hill Full of Grief

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Those aren’t my words in the title, they are the words of one of the churchmen involved in the Nottingham University vigil. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which one. It’s been the big news in Nottingham this week – two students (both 19) stabbed to death, a school caretaker (65), stabbed and his van stolen, with it eventually used to run three people down, one of whom is in critical condition.

It’s a familiar fear for those of us with kids, and one of my main feelings, apart from sympathy for the families, is relief that mine manged to get through their youth without serious violence. The family of the caretaker have asked to be left alone. The deaths of the other two have been marked by vigils and flowers. I’m sure the death of the caretaker will be marked more as the days pass. The problem is that no matter how private you want to keep things, there are other people involved, and they need some sort of way to process their grief.

There is a tendency for too many people to get involved these days. It isn’t for me to say what is useful or acceptable in this case. If the parents and students draw strength from a vigil that is their affair. I’m sure that the school will, eventually, have its own vigil to help the kids work through their grief at the loss of a man who appears to have been a well-loved member of staff.

Unfortunately, as usual, people are trying to take a share of the proceedings. The head of the City Council keeps telling us, amongst other things, that Nottingham is a strong and diverse city. Yes, it is, but this is about the deaths of three innocent people, not about the City, and not about the message the leader of the council is trying to promote. Nor is it a tragedy for the city. It’s a shock, but it’s not a tragedy for most of us. The same goes for the message that it’s a safe city despite the murders.  That’s not really in question. Murder happens. It’s always a tragedy for someone, but we are generally a safe City and a safe country.

That’s about it. I felt it needed to be mentioned, as it’s a local event, but I don’t want to dwell on it. The families have my sympathy and the city is a safe place despite these events. To say much more would be to hijack the story of others, and there is already plenty of that going on.

RNLI

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Beaumaris Lifeboat

Beaumaris Pier

Beaumaris Lifeboat

Did you know there are between 80 and 100 independent rescue services operating on the coast and inland waters of the UK and Ireland? I didn’t until I was looked up Mundesley in Norfolk for details of the Minesweeping Memorial and found out they had a private lifeboat. This shows the educational value of Wikipedia, though it does also question the value of education. I am more knowledgeable as a result of knowing this, but I am not more employable or of more use to society.

The RNLI is our best known rescue service, having been formed in 1824 as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. It became “Royal” some time later and the name was changed to the current one in 1854. The founder was Sir William Hillary, who took part in  a number of rescues, including one in 1830, when he was 60 years old. He initially sent a proposal to the Admiralty for the setting up of a life saving service but eventually raised the money to start the service by soliciting donations.

That is one of the reasons that the RNLI operates in Ireland. Although government  services such as the Coastguard were withdrawn in 1922 with the formation of the Irish Free State, the RNLI continued operating as it was a charitable organisation. One RNLI Station, Portrush, actually operates in three countries (Northern Ireland, Ireland and Scotland).  Lough Erne is the site of a station that serves an inland waterway in two countries. It’s curious that the RNLI can solve questions of cross-border working where the combined governments of the UK and EU can’t.

 

Beaumaris Lifeboat

Photos are from July 2019 when we spent a few days in Wales.

 

 

Is Sitting an Activity?

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Obviously I’m talking about a structured system of sitting with many active aspects . . .

Even I know the difference between that and loafing. Well, aimless loafing. I have no problem with creative loafing. I am, to the untrained eye, just sitting about dotting words on the an ethereal page, but I know it’s part of a long-running blog. I also know that I’ve been checking up egg recipes for breakfast and stoking up a case of incandescent rage by reading what passes as an agony aunt column. There are a lot of people who write questions which look like they have been suspiciously tailored to let their journalist mates rant on about various hot topics.

These are both things I need to do on a regular basis. Everybody needs breakfast. I think you can see this from an earlier post. I also need to remind myself that journalists are lazy and untrustworthy. They get paid loads of money just to sit down and write. It’s not hard. I’m doing it now. Apart from the being paid bit. They have huge resources and a dedicated web of sneaks and snitches, and they are being taken to the cleaners by Prince Harry at the moment.

In any decent society he wouldn’t be allowed near a court of law with his whining, self-serving, look-at-me sob story. If our journalists were any good they would have nailed him years ago and he’d be living as a recluse in a cold and draughty country on something resembling the average wage, not a $16,000,000 mansion in California with the American media feeding his vanity and raining cash on him.

It would be just him, his creepy Uncle Andy, and a ring of steel to keep them away from decent people. And probably a couple of those ankle bracelets. They would have to cook for themselves, run their own baths and ruminate on how it could all have been so different. They were both acclaimed as war heroes and they both married women who were well-liked for a time. What would have happened if Andrew had been allowed to marry Koo Stark, for instance, or if Harry hadn’t decided on a tell-all memoir to cash in? You’d have thought the Royal family would have learnt a lesson from the Peter Townsend fiasco.

All of which brings me to the uncomfortable conclusion that they are victims of their birth, and my views might be a trifle uncharitable. However, it is undisputable that in the old days peter Townsend was a proper hero and Princess Margaret had a sense of duty that some of the younger royals would do well to study.

Yes, sitting. It is definitely an activity if done properly.

Haddock Special at the Fishpan, Scarborough

The pictures have nothing to do with the subjects. Sorry about that.

 

Every Dog has its Day

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I have 57 posts in Drafts. Last night I had  96. They just seemed to grow and so I decided some pruning was in order. If they didn’t have titles I decided they weren’t worth keeping. Same for the ones with time sensitive titles. That still left me with a lot to open and check, though I may just wipe them without checking as it’s so much quicker. It’s just that I can’t escape the feeling I may be deleting a gem. Unlikely, but a worry all the same.

And that was how I came to find and use this post. It seemed good enough to complete, and it saved time. Maybe it’s good to look through old drafts.

Take the one labelled A Month of Months. It’s about all the different months we now have. We used to have 12 when I was a lad, including ones named after Roman Emperors. They seemed to have worked for a couple of thousand years, but we needed more, so we got Pizza Month, Black Cat Awareness Month, Mental Health Month, Family History Month, Dyslexia Awareness Month, Computer Learning Month, Fair Trade Month, Emotional Intelligence Awareness Month and Cyber Security Awareness Month.

Some of them are serious things, and I’m sure the promotion is worthwhile. Others I’m not so sure about. These days you have to have a day, a week or a month to get your message across as, without one, your message will be lost. The trouble is that they start to lose their meaning when there are too many of them. And some just seem absurd.

Have a look at National Breakfast Week. I just plucked it out of thin air, but was amazed at what turned up. We have National School Breakfast Week, National Farmhouse Breakfast Week, National Breakfast Week, National Breakfast Day, National Big Breakfast Day, National Better Breakfast Day, English Breakfast Day . . .

Olympic Breakfast

I could go on, but I’m feeling ill. The picture that accompanies English Breakfast Day is not an English Breakfast. That “sausage” is a travesty for one thing.

After that, scroll down to see how many things share that day – twelve organisations share that day.

A final note – despite my comments on Roman Emperors, it seems they didn’t exist. I know this for a fact because someone on Tik Tok says so. Now I know why the average intelligence of the nation is going down the drain.

Would You Like to be King?

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Well, would you? There are, as with so many things, pros and cons.

The positives are that you don’t have to worry about your pension arrangements, get to live in a castle and have people to run your bath for you. The negatives – you have to marry a woman chosen by your parents, everybody has an opinion about your personal life, and you have to behave politely while Welsh people shout at you.

In the old days he wouldn’t have had to do that, he’d just have locked them in a dungeon. I wouldn’t have minded being King in those days.

The Royal Family have quite a good collection. They have a collection of castles and palaces, for one thing, a famous Stamp Collection and at least one Peace Medal which I covet – a Lancaster 1919 Peace Medal struck in gold. Everyone else got one in aluminium. It’s the third one down on this page.

It might be a problem that I’m not keen on horses and am a poor shot. People expect Kings to look good on a horse and slaughter a wide variety of livestock. You’d think they would just send the butler out to the butchers, wouldn’t you? But no, they have to spend all day sneaking round after a stag on a hillside or having defenceless gamebirds driven towards them.

Then there’s the family. My kids aren’t likely to sell me out to Oprah Winfrey and I can at least look at them without wondering if they are both mine. This has been a bit of a mixed blessing over the years, but I’m now resigned to having to take the blame for their faults.

This is a draft which I started on 31st December and finished today as part of my clearing out process.

It’s Dull and it Features Soup

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Don’t say you weren’t warned . . .

As part of my new start I have reorganised my folders to make my writing more efficient. It nearly as useless as reorganising my sock drawer but it’s all about small changes at the moment. I’m hoping that a few small changes will be enough to give me a start.

There are two soups simmering on the hob. It will be mushroom tonight and spicy carrot and parsnip for several lunches. From this you can probably work out which vegetables are in plentiful supply. It looks like vegetable stew tomorrow too.

I’ve returned to my roots today (literally, in the case of the soup) and am looking at “ordinary” poems today. There are too many rules to writing haiku and the like and I’m feeling more relaxed now. I think I’ve covered this subject before. So many rules, so much “guidance”, so many editors laying down the law. In the end you think more about the rules than the words.

It’s just  a temporary thing until I adjust my thinking. I’ve allowed myself to get lost in a maze of other people’s making. It’s a funny thing, but the editors who have the most to say about what a haibun should be, are ones for whom I have little respect as poets. They are the ones that cause me the problems. The other dozen I deal with are all excellent individuals who are always ready to help.

It’s just human nature that I have become hung up on the others.

Even after a break of just a few days I’m already starting to plan a return to haibun. However, with well over 100 published Japanese style poems published, I don’t have to worry about publication. I can worry about writing well. (Note that I will still be worrying whatever happens). The problem came when I was worrying about quality and about being published. It would be nice to do both, but more relaxing just to write for enjoyment.

It’s a bit like my WP experience. It would be nice to write a popular blog which led on to fame and fortune, but it’s quite nice just to be able to write one and exchange comments with a loyal band of readers who don’t mind multiple blog posts about soup and my dislike of modern life. Success is not about fame and fortune, it’s about learning that Maine is the best State (or so Laurie tells me) and that a flying bird of the day is an essential part of the day.

Carrot & Ginger Soup

Carrot & Ginger Soup

A Quiet Night Out

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We had a committee meeting of the Numismatic Society last night. It was difficult to tell it apart from a group of elderly men having a meal. The average age must have been 65, the average hair was white and the eldest member joined the society before the rest of us were born.

It is the 75th Anniversary of the society this year and the conversation was mainly about ex-members, including a fair number who have stopped collecting and joined the choir invisible. Against that background, one of the younger members tried to start a conversation about recruitment of younger people and the future of the society. Most of the members were too deaf to hear him so a potential moment of tactlessness soon passed.

And that is about all that happened at the meeting. It only meets once a year and is not the most active committee I have ever been on, I must admit. At one time I would have had a go at livening things up but I can’t really be bothered.

I did, however, have a very nice Steak and Ruddles Pie with gravy, a small portion of chips and a tiny blob of mushy peas. It was an adequate portion, but, as you may detect, one that fell slightly short. The pie was excellent, and large, so I wonder why they feel the need to make themselves look mean by skimping on the cheap bits.

Ruddles, for those of you who don’t know, was once a great British beer formerly brewed in the county of Rutland. It’s a bit annoying that the Greene King pub chain has taken Ruddles over, plundered and pilfered its good name, altered the recipe and is now using it to add luster to its steak pie.

They call it marketing, I call it another reason I hate the 21st Century.

British West Africa 1/10th of a Penny