Monday, January 17, 2011

Walking Backwards For Christmas.

visiting list ominously lessens. Presumably my posts have become increasingly boring. Plus I lay awake thinking 'Have I anything else to say.' An empty head, a blank page. Then, hey presto, the snow vanished overnight and the postman reappeared. Plus my new 'machine' arrived. All's well with the world.
Now I'm the world's most 'nontechnical' man. I have no Mobile phone (how on earth do they carry the miles of cable around) and I've only recently mastered the light switch. This technology thing creeps on us, surreptitious, like fog on moorland, and before you now it, you're surrounded, lost and ever crying out for help. Even silly old Grumpy cannot help but get involved.
My new cameras wonderful. A Canon S95, referred to in one revue as the best compact camera in the world. I'm determined to master it but oh boy, don't they assume that everyone in the world is a young wizzriting and 'rithmetic plus learning about the British Empire was my lot. So learning what C, M, AV, Tv, P and AUTO mean doesn't come easy. As for talking about, 'default settings' again WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT! kid, IQ of 140 who 'did computers etc' at school as a matter of course. Me, reading, '
The list goes on, you get the message. Then it arrived. My eko-mania paper log maker. Simplicity itself, 'it does what it says on the box.' and it took even me only five minutes to work out how to operate it. Soak newspaper, junk mail etc for a day or two, put it in the 'machine, use some 'elbow grease'. Dry the 'bricks'out, (can take days so best stock up in summer) and 'Bobs your uncle', briquettes for my wood burner, very cheap and environmentally sound I'm assured. Messy, wet, but extremely satisfying; and practice will make perfect. I remember making briquettes from coal and cement in the past, not unlike the way my newest toy works. Hence the title of this post. Briquettes partly made out of cement don't burn too well by the way. But briquette making with Grannie looking on whilst she knitted socks, dish clothes and the odd balaclava (always using grey wool) was a way of life fondly remembered. (I still have the Bakelite ball in which you put wool in my 'museum'.) Does anyone knit nowadays.) I do not yearn for the past but it definitely had its moments.
Do you have memories of 'chores or pastimes' that have long since gone. Have any stayed or perhaps returned. And are there any parts of the past that would enjoy a revival. 
 

Shortest Day

December 21st at last, and from now on daylight gets longer. I even dreamt about it last week.
Not a short dream either, definitely not short and sweet.
A short story for the 21st.
I was on short time, working for Short Books and I needed a holiday. I reckon I was sold short when the travel agent suggested a short break in Shortacombe in Devon. He said it was either that, or Shorthampton, my first choices Shorton and Shortlees being booked up. Now I know I've got short arms and long pockets but I won't be short changed. I ask you, not even suitable for a short arse! Nothing else on offer, They thought they'd got me by the short and curlies, but they got short shift from me. To cut a long story short, I told them the short answer was no. So I left, took a short cut and was home in next to no time. Put on my Bermuda shorts and a short sleeved top (bought on shortstuff.org.uk) and put the kettle on.
I made short work of three Starbuck style short size coffees and some shortbread, never run short and better than any short stay in Shortacombe. Only too much coffee at my age doesn't suit me. And the long and short of it was, woke up in the middle of the night and found my water bed had burst. Only I haven't got a water bed! How embarrassing to be took short at my age. Never mind, there's always a trip to town tomorrow. And I'll take a taxi, 'cos short men don't use buses, only minicabs!
Answer sheet A Christmas Quiz by Ken Stevens

1 Norway Spruce (Pice abres)
2 Hellebore
3 Ash
4 A holly tree
5 Mistletoe
6 Nine drummers drummimg
7 Prince Albert
8 a ‘Joey’
9 December 25th
10 Tom Smith (Victorian pastry cook)
11 Isiah 9 verse 6 and 7
12 Luke 2 verses 1 and 2
13 The playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir
14 And fit us for Heaven, to live with thee there.
15 Indian Ocean
16 Discovered Christmas Day
17 Workhouse
18 Christmas pudding
19 Christmas pudding again!
20 Mrs Beeton
21 4 shillings (twenty new pence)
22 Probably after alms boxes(the day after Christmas)
23 Good King Wenceslas
24 January 6th
25 Holiday Inn
26 Jimmy Boyd
27 Dora Bryan
28 Greg Lake
29 Bruce Springsteen
30 Irving Berlin
31 John Lennon
32 The Little Match Girl
33 Hans Christian Anderson
34 Louisa May Alcott
35 Little Women
36 The Wind in the Willows
37 Kenneth Grahame
38 Adrian Mole
39 Sue Towsend
40 Saint Nicholas’ faithful servant (Dutch)
41 Peter Paul Rubens (also painted Giorgione)
42 Saint Boniface (Germany)
43 Turkey farm (Bernard Mathews)
44 Samuel Pepys
45 York Minster
46 to 50 Any five from: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid,
Donner, Blitzen.

Cecil Beaton. Eat Your Heart Out.


I've always been interested in photography. In my 'museum' as write I can count fifteen cameras including a Box Ensign, a Rex, Brownie, a Duaflex 11, a Bilora and a Voightlander. Non have any real value. (Even the two bought in the last five years.) Some were mine, all were once someones pride and joy. Two or three are digital cameras though the majority are throwbacks to the age when we took the pictures, visited the chemist with roles of film and waited for several days with some expectancy and often not a little excitement. 'Those were the days, my friend'. Even at seventy plus it is essential to try and master modern technology. Recently I treated myself to a new camera. A 'point and shoot', a Canon S95 compact; not perfect but nevertheless described by some as the best of its type in the world. And crikey, is the technology mind bendingly twenty first century. But its not the camera that matters, its what's at the other end! So no more' efforts. On a non-technical note. The lamp post is reproduction, not Victorian. At least one grandchild thinks the beared figure is 'granddad'. Please enlighten me as to whom it represents. The 'wheel', slightly incomplete is, if I remember right, a 'corn/wheat cutter', made down the road from here (T Beeby?Loughborough) in the nineteenth century. It is one of my many curios and stands in my front garden. I sometimes get curious (not curious, odd, curious interested. You know what I mean!) elderly Indian gentlemen now living nearby who knock on my door to tell me they used one on the land in India. I know its presence puzzles them, which I confess amuses me, It is indeed a funny old world. excuses. No more envious glances at my readers superbly professional efforts. Hope you like my first tentative 'arty
 
 
 

Goodbye December, You Didn't Disappoint. Grumpy's Alternative News.

December seemed all snow and Wikileakes but was there anything else. Well, I personally liked the Japanese train that achieved 302mph on test. A long way from the little man who walked in front with a red flag. Or was that the motor car! Mind you, we in the UK have just completed some cracking trains, called Pendolinos; very chic, very modern. Only we are not going to use them, we are going to store them until 2012 over a franchise row. Who put the great in Great Britain!
I love it how those 'in charge' talk so far into the future. World Cup, 2022, 'is awarded to Qatar.' I don't care, I shall be eighty three and totally ga-ga if still around for goodness sake! India is working on 'space curry' for a manned trip to the moon in 2020. Mind you, its latest unmanned rocket crashed after take off, the fourth out of seven. Bang goes another £30 million; and 800 million Indians live on less than £1 a day.
Anthony Newley used to sing 'Stop the world, I want to get off.' The whole world seems to be going mad. A man who likes to dress up as the town sheriff gets 'carried away' and shoots four people dead in Olot in northeast Spain. Bangladesh comes up with the idea of interviewing their leading hangman on a television chat show (Evidently he learnt his trade whilst serving twenty one years in jail for murder). And a student in Leicester faked his kidnap and wired his parents in China for the ransom. Who did the parents contact, the UK police of course. (He was studying economics at Leicester University.) I see the lady in West Yorkshire got her engagement ring back, eventually, after a burglar swallowed it. She said she didn't care where it had been. Mind you, the council in Camden won't get their footpaths back. A gang posing as council workers cordoned off six paths and stole York stone slabs in broad daylight.
The compensation culture is still alive and well. I suppose the Russian tourists attacked by sharks in Egypt have a case considering the beaches in question were declared safe. But surely the man awarded damages for injuries in a Boy Scout game ten years ago was 'playing the system'. I too have a damaged shoulder due to flying large kites and throwing boomerangs. (honest!) Whom do I sue?
Finally a lady and a gentleman who will remember 2010 for different reasons. A businessman put 200,000 Taiwanese dollars through a shredder. The result, 4,000 pieces of paper. Enter Liu Hui-fen, a forensic scientist, who took one week to put all the notes back together. Contrast Mohammed Bellazrak, who dropped his wife off at Gatwick Airport and couldn't put his return route back together. A 120 mile round trip to Trowbridge became 2,000 miles, three nights in the car taking 66 hours. His journey included visiting Bracknell, Wokingham, Burnham and High Wycombe. The gentleman is 72 years of age, I am 71; I know the feeling!
So goodbye 2010. So here's ten somewhat irreverent memories of what sticks in the mind from last year. Sorry ladies if at times it seems sexist, I love you all, honest! (See the monthly posts of Grumpy's Alternative News 2010.)
Remember Jane Rawlinson, the Australian hurdler who had breast enhancements then found it affected her performance. (On the track!) So she had the enhancements reversed. See you in the Olympics in 2012, Jane; hope breaking the tape doesn't go to a photo finish!
Canada's History magazine, hope your name change from Beaver Magazine improved sales. At least now you'll no longer be displayed with the naughty magazines on the top shelf!
And I hope the lady allegedly 'groped' by Donald Duck in Disney World wins her case. Mind you, if the identity parade features twelve men in Donald Duck costumes I wouldn't fancy her chances.
I've no doubt the galia melon farmer in Wiltshire who used ladies bras (all volunteered) to support his crop had a good season. I now think of size double D-cups every time I buy a melon in the supermarket.
I trust the lady teacher in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales who starred in 'naughty movies' then stored them on the school computer found another job. The Erotica Fair in London reckoned bondage was a 'spanking' good business to be in!
Keith Richard's autobiography sold well. Probably helped by his references to Mick Jaggers 'manhood'. Jerry Hall reckons he's jealous and she seems to know. But somebodies not telling the truth!
Tweet of the year. Stephen Fry's silliness that 'The only reason women slept with men was that Sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship.' Not too enamoured with the ladies, is Stephen!
Most embarrassed lady of the year. The young woman who mysteriously overcharged a customer by £5 in a Jersey supermarket. Mysterious, that is, until it was realised her seat at the till was too low and her breasts were resting on the scales! Though why £5 overcharge, you tell me!
Plus 2010 was the year Martin Elliot died. His iconic, 'cheeky' photograph of that adorable young tennis player, aged eighteen at the time adorned the walls of many a young man in the 1980's.
Finally, I'm enjoying my padded briefs from Marks and Spencers. Called 'Bodymax Frontal Enhancement Pants', they give this old geriatric added confidence as he walks down the street. Mind you, I get some funny looks. I suppose I ought to be wearing trousers as well! Goodbye, 2010, another good year!