Kung Fu Panda

The panda's were not the only reason we were in Edinburgh, but it would have been churlish to miss the opportunity to go and see them. It has been about 17 years since panda's were last in a British zoo, although they were a major attraction at London Zoo in the seventies. Chi Chi and An An were a star attaction although their discussions about Uganda came to nothing which was a disappointment for the zoo. Chi Chi is now stuffed and displayed in the national History Museum in London.

Anyway, back to Edinburgh and Tian Tian and Yang Guang. The zoo sell tickets to see the panda's in 15 minute slots throughout the day. It's included in the zoo entry fee which is a reasonable way to go about it. Unfortunately Yang Guang, the male, has got colic at the moment so he is resting up and is out of sight in his panda den.

Tian Tian, however, was happy as Larry as she chewed away on her bamboo and allowed us to snap away to her hearts content. Tian Tian has already given birth to twin panda's in a previous life, and Yang Guang himself has fathered a child panda, so the staff at Edinburgh are confident that they will be presented with a baby sometime during the ten years they are in residence.

If that's the case, Edinburgh zoo will not know whats happened  to them as visitor numbers will go through the roof. So if you find yourself in Edinburgh do go and see them, but do bear in mind there is not a lot else to see in the zoo, although the penguins are always good value.

Sydney Carton

Yesterday I travelled into Canary Wharf  courtesy of the Docklands Light Railway. It is now a tried and tested part of the London transport infrastructure and it links the East End to South London using a series of disused and rebuilt railway tracks as well as some complex interchanges which have been built especially for the job.

It is a very effective way of getting around, the trains are driverless and the system is cashless as it utilises the Oyster card payment system. It links with the Croydon tram system which runs from Wimbledon to New Addington as well as the underground system at Bank, and the overground at Shadwell among other interchanges.

Compare that then with the efforts of Edinburgh to build and operate a tram line through their great city. SWMBO and I went up there this weekend to see the giant panda as well as have a couple of days break. Given it is two years since we were last there, we expected to see the trams buzzing up and down Princes Street crushed with people hanging on the sides like they do in San Francisco.

Lo, not a tram did we see. The engineering work started in 2008 so you would have thought that the route would be finished by now. The project, however, has been blighted by bad management, bad planning and constructor disputes which have several times put the whole project at risk.

For those not familiar with the topology of Edinburgh, the plan was to initially  run from Gogar in the West to Leith in the East. A single line would run through Haymarket, Princes Street and St Andrews Square  before joining Leith Street on its journey to the Forth and the Royal Yacht Britannia.

Why it did not start at the airport which is only a short hop from Gogar, I have no idea. It had no fans amongst the taxi drivers of the city, and as time went on, amongst the population either.

To save money, the line was modified to go from Gogar to St Andrews Square, where it could link with the mainline station and the bus depot, but now it has been reined back to stop at Haymarket, a projected eleven stops before St Andrews Square, and frankly, in the middle of nowhere.

The lines remain in place along the route, and this weekend the trams were tested at the Gogar marshaling yards. When they will start taking fee paying passengers remains to be seen. The project has over spent by an enormous amount. I just wonder if Scotland are to be trusted with their independence if this is the sort of project they would have control over.

Bayko to Lego

The book of maps which I was given for Christmas represents a smartly bound volume  of extracts relating to Lorne Road.. It commences with the Landranger series from 2011 before moving through a range of  National grid series maps. In this case it shows 1982, 1954, 1938, 1913, 1899 and 1882.

I know from other sources that the house was built during the early 1870's and it is interesting how there was little or no development across the road from the house until 1900. There was then a steady increase in development in the 1960's and 1970's as the Birkenhead conurbation moved towards the newly constructed M53. The M53 now acts as a development barrier and the land to the West of it still remains predominantly green belt.

One thing that did surprise me was the lack of war damage shown on the maps, although there may not have been specific cartography during 1938 and 1954. It is also iinteresting that trams ran past the house from early in 1900 to the late 1950's.

I am now researching The Architect journal which was published between 1869 and 1926 to see if there is any reference to the Shrewsbury Estate development in Oxton, on which we sit. A few days in Collindale at the National newspaper library should sort that out.

British standard handful

People have been searching for the ultimate question ever since Douglas Adams, in the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy,  indicated that the ultimate answer was 42. In the minds of dads and lads, however, there has been a search for the answer to a much more fundamental question,'just what is a British standard handful'?


At last we are able to reach a conclusion, and it is all as a result of the unfortunate news that breast implants from the French company PIP have been manufactured with non-medical grade silicone, and many thousands of women will need to have them removed, or replaced..


Clearly displayed on the implant exterior, during all the press coverage they have been getting,  is the volume indicator 400cc. So now we all know.

Toby jugs

And here it is courtesy of Ms Strobes at Private Eye:

Its from issue 643 and is in the Business News section.

 

Ugandan Discussions

I have finally found time to sort and assess my Christmas presents. Its not a hard task, it just needs a few quiet moments.

I get quite a few golf related presents, balls and clothing mainly, and they are always appreciated. It is a bit bizarre, though, to think that the balls will be in somebody else's pocket by the end of the year, or in a lake or deep in the deepest wood!

I got shirts, and jumpers, most of which were self selected, so they were a good gift. I also got a pair of shoe spikes to save me falling over too much on the ice and snow should it recur, and a pilates mat for my stretching classes!!!

My other gifts were literary in nature. My main gift was a Kindle and I will be experimenting with that shortly. I also got a book of maps relating to the house we live in at the moment. I think that deserves a blog entry of its own. Lastly I got the 50th anniversary book of Private Eye to go with the ten year and 25 year histories I already have.

It did, however, amaze the family when I indicated to them that I had been a contributor to the famous organ sometime in 1987. I also recall receiving a cheque for about £120 for the article.

My contribution all stemmed from plans which Thames Water and a company called Themeworld had for the rugby pitches which were used at the time by Twickenham rugby club. Themeworld were fronted by Rod Hull and Emu and the plan was to develop a theme park much like Alton Towers, on the site of the pitches.

Well there was uproar at the time as the park would have been developed in a fairly residential area of West Middlesex. We, therefore, started a publicity and opposition campaign which embraced the local MP of the time, Toby Jessel. I thought I would be somewhat satirical and using Rod Hull as a taxidermist, I wrote an article which Private Eye considered of sufficient humour and interest to publish in their news section at the rear of the organ.

I really must try to find the original piece as I am sure the kids don't believe me!!

Singing in the Rain

SWMBO and I spent New Year away this year, combining my middle god daughters 21st birthday with a chance to escape home life. We had eighteen for Christmas dinner and then 40 odd on Boxing Day as well as Emma's 30th on 23rd Dec. Two big do's back to back will not be repeated.

Anyway, we spent six hours on various parts of the English motorway system, stopping only for petrol and a coffee, trying to get to the 21st birthday. We left Scouseland at 10:00 expecting to be there for lunch, but arrived so late that that was all finished. The motorways in England are a bit like EasyJet, great when they work but the worst of the worst when there is even the slightest problem. The invitation did, however, motivate me to book a New Year's break. The challenge was where to go, as we had never done this sort of thing before.

The first thoughts take one back to tried and trusted locations. The Manor House on Dartmoor , now called Bovey Hall, has a wonderful golf course, and as well as laying on cookery demonstrations, there was ferret racing, organised walks and cream tea's. The price for two nights over New Year was over £2500 so I gave that one a miss. Moving closer to the party location, the New Forest had a certain appeal, so I tried the Lyndhurst Park hotel which I used to use when I was running education classes for IBM in the late 70's and early 80's. The girl on the switchboard was a bit slow and did not really do a good job of selling their gala dinner to me, so it was down to random hits on the internet.

The Christchurch Harbour Hotel won the vote, so tired and hungry we arrived in Mudeford to enjoy four days of unbridled pampering.
The first day we went to Highcliffe to blow away the cobwebs, then hit a Thai restaurant in the local pub. It was quiz night, but no drag queens in sight on this occasion. Next day we went to Burley and surprised ourselves by buying a walking guide and yomping through the New Forest for most of the day. This will shock our walking friends, although they will be reassured by the fact SWMBO had on a full length camel coat and I was in my pea coat!! You can't beat spontaneity

Joy of joys on the way back as we stumbled upon a Fuller's pub not too far from the hotel so a couple of pints of Pride were consumed in no time!

Our final outing was to Poole harbour and Sandbanks. Poole harbour has a most interesting and concentrated array of pub's as well as being home to the SunSeeker motor cruiser industry. Sandbanks is one of the most expensive areas of real estate in the Country. Not sure why exactly as very few properties have much land, and there must be equally impressive sea views elsewhere.

New Year's Eve was very pleasant. 140 people sat down for a black tie event which was relaxed and entertaining all at the same time. We may well do it again.

2011 and all that

So we enter a new year, and the blog stats are telling me I must do better. I only posted 29 times during 2011 compared with a peak of 88 during 2007, a year which was only 8 months long in blog land. My posts have steadily declined year on year, so one New Year resolution is to post more blogs! I also plan to launch 'The Philanderer, the first four years' as a mobi file, but more of that later in the month.

2011 has been a year of ups and downs for us. Its memory will be dominated by the untimely death of SWMBO's brother Martin in Boston, USA. He was in his forties and having suffered a heart attack and he was unable to be resuscitated in time by the crash team. The family flew to Boston and waited by his bed for good news, but sadly none came.

Similar sad news surrounds my good friend Dave 'Cellnet' Jones who was sectioned earlier in the year and subsequently diagnosed with dementia. He is younger than me and one does wonder whether his extensive work with mobile phones was a contributing factor to his illness. His neighbour Graham Jones lost his wife Judy, after a long battle with cancer. So not a year to be keeping up with the Joneses.

There were good family events though. The wedding of Rebecca and Jon was great and it was foll0wed soon after by the engagement of Kieran and Hannah . The year was topped and tailed by the arrival of more baby girls. My cousin Mike has three girls, and his oldest now also has three girls, so quite how you get a boy to pop out is something I will have to ask my mate Dick about, as he has three of them!!!

Work on the house continued, not always as planned, and while the redesign of the bathrooms ran over estimate, it was the roof expense which was an unfortunate addition to the maintenance budget. Anyway, hopefully we are all done now for a while. The basement is the final area to be subject to a face lift and that can wait a bit longer.

We managed a few trips, most notably to Mauritius, but also to the Lake District twice and Ireland. Golf took me to Portugal twice, and we spent a few days in Christchurch, Dorset over New Year.

So what of 2012, the year of the Diamond Jubilee of QEII and the olympic games?

I have already indicated I will be blogging more (than 2011 at least), I will be taking SWMBO away more and be trying to get back into my running regime. That though will depend on my knees holding out.

I would love to get to a golf championship final, with Turnberry being one such target, however, I am still in the Daily Telegraph knock-out with my 4th round match on the horizon, and a couple more events to come up.

Other than that I will continue to work hard and play as hard as I can manage these days, so hope to have plenty to report on in the coming months.

A Happy New Year to all my readers