It was my sister-in-laws special birthday last weekend so we all decamped to Swindon for a bit of a 'do' It was a good craic and gave me a chance to catch up with my young nephew Matthew. he has recently started at a new school a good way from where he lives, and he went there knowing nobody from his junior school. Its a scenario I can relate to as it happened to me.
He is a pretty reasonable footie player and the school is a rugger and hockey place so he has fallen back on his natural running ability and has just qualified to represent Wiltshire in the U14 National cross country championships. Now for a 12 year old that's pretty good. He indicated the national championships might be held in Truro, at at that point I was aghast.
I had to point out to him that the average Cornish person had an extra leg, much like a Manxman and could, therefore, run quicker, they were partial to high sixes,not high fives, and the extra eye they had also gave them a sight advantage, and a real problem for the optician if they needed glasses. He laughed and suggested I was joking, but I assured him that being a man of Plymouth I knew a thing or two about those imbreds from across the Tamar valley.
Now SWMBO over heard this, and confirmed that I had always maintained that if we heard duelling banjo's as we swung over the Saltash road bridge, then we were in real trouble. She did feel though that my comments, albeit in jest could be construed as racist.
Image my delight yesterday then, when it was ruled in court that Cornish people were not an ethnic group and could not, therefore, be racially abused. They are not really a part of England anyway, being a Duchy rather than a county, and now it is legit to make fun of them as they press their noses against Dingles window, wishing they could afford to buy something.......ogi ogi ogi.......
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Its life Jim but not as we know it....
The director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor starts a Radio 4 series next week discussing the 100 items which in his opinion have helped shape civilisation. Now some of the list are known already. The Sutton Hoo helmet, the chronometer from HMS Beagle and the drawing by Durer of the first rhino to land in modern Europe where published in the Sunday Times preview article. The 100th and final item however, is yet to be decided and Neil wants your help. Will it be an i-phone, a recycling bin or something else which is a more recent influence? You can offer your nomination by e-mail to communications@britishmuseum.org.
I wonder what would have been to the fore front as far as my parents were concerned? Firstly the atomic bomb and the part it played in bringing the second world war to a close should be on the list. I remember we had a car and I was pushed round in a Silver Cross pram but they were probably luxury items of the time. The internal combustion engine though ought to be in the list. We also had a TV when they were introduced , and as with many items in the list it is questionable whether civilisation has improved for having been presented with it.
Of more practical use was the refrigerator which replaced the larder as the means of keeping food cool, and the bucket of water in which the milk used to stand, and at work my father used a biro instead of his fountain pen, and a slide rule pre-dated the pocket calculator.
An early item I remember was the introduction of central heating and the difference a radiator in the house made. It replaced coal fires and made the London smogs a thing of the past. It is ironic that its use these days is seen as contributing to global warming, and that the re-introduction of coal fired power stations may need to be accelerated.
So what about my 50 years of evolution? well, from a sporting point of view the gum shield and screw-in studs in football boots saved my teeth and feet from being wrecked.
The personal computer and afore mentioned mobile phone were must haves, and the introduction of credit cards and ATM banking facilities led to a step change in money management. The Freddie Laker Skytrain was an introduction to cheap air travel and helped make the world the smaller planet it is now. Skiing was introduced to the masses and ancient civilisations in South America became tourist destinations.
Space travel has unlocked many new and innovative scientific advances and what would we do without plastic, be it bottles, packaging or construction materials. Where does the first high rise tower block fit into the list, and was the Tardis real or imaginary?
Our first grandchild has indicated that young parents would put disposable nappies at the top of the list but where would DVD's fit in the hierarchy of music media pioneered by 78 and 45rpm vinyl recordings, the cassette tape, and Betamax video systems!!!
The camera never used to lie, but now with digital technology and PhotShop one can never be sure.
Many things I have mentioned, and other items on the list will, I suspect, question whether they have benefited our civilisation long term. Munitions, CCTV cameras, the cane and its abolition, the Human Rights Act and the aeroplane which flew into the World Trade Centre all come to mind. I wonder what the 100th item will turn out to be?
I wonder what would have been to the fore front as far as my parents were concerned? Firstly the atomic bomb and the part it played in bringing the second world war to a close should be on the list. I remember we had a car and I was pushed round in a Silver Cross pram but they were probably luxury items of the time. The internal combustion engine though ought to be in the list. We also had a TV when they were introduced , and as with many items in the list it is questionable whether civilisation has improved for having been presented with it.
Of more practical use was the refrigerator which replaced the larder as the means of keeping food cool, and the bucket of water in which the milk used to stand, and at work my father used a biro instead of his fountain pen, and a slide rule pre-dated the pocket calculator.
An early item I remember was the introduction of central heating and the difference a radiator in the house made. It replaced coal fires and made the London smogs a thing of the past. It is ironic that its use these days is seen as contributing to global warming, and that the re-introduction of coal fired power stations may need to be accelerated.
So what about my 50 years of evolution? well, from a sporting point of view the gum shield and screw-in studs in football boots saved my teeth and feet from being wrecked.
The personal computer and afore mentioned mobile phone were must haves, and the introduction of credit cards and ATM banking facilities led to a step change in money management. The Freddie Laker Skytrain was an introduction to cheap air travel and helped make the world the smaller planet it is now. Skiing was introduced to the masses and ancient civilisations in South America became tourist destinations.
Space travel has unlocked many new and innovative scientific advances and what would we do without plastic, be it bottles, packaging or construction materials. Where does the first high rise tower block fit into the list, and was the Tardis real or imaginary?
Our first grandchild has indicated that young parents would put disposable nappies at the top of the list but where would DVD's fit in the hierarchy of music media pioneered by 78 and 45rpm vinyl recordings, the cassette tape, and Betamax video systems!!!
The camera never used to lie, but now with digital technology and PhotShop one can never be sure.
Many things I have mentioned, and other items on the list will, I suspect, question whether they have benefited our civilisation long term. Munitions, CCTV cameras, the cane and its abolition, the Human Rights Act and the aeroplane which flew into the World Trade Centre all come to mind. I wonder what the 100th item will turn out to be?
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Ooops, argh!
A belated happy New Year to all my readers, I will be back in the stirrups shortly.
My literary prowess has been somewhat diminished following an altercation with the road in Claughton Village as I went very quickly from the walking position to prone on backside. My left wrist took the full force and, at worse, I have cracked a bone, at best it is severely sprained.
Ouch!
My literary prowess has been somewhat diminished following an altercation with the road in Claughton Village as I went very quickly from the walking position to prone on backside. My left wrist took the full force and, at worse, I have cracked a bone, at best it is severely sprained.
Ouch!
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Fore! No surely more than that?
After a few pints in the pub I am fullof ideas for blog entries. A good sleep, however, and they have all vanished from my mind the next day. As this morning I am in the unusual position of remembering them, I though I should go to print sharpish. So here goes.
Tiger Woods is used to scoring a few birdies in his day to day working life, but the 9 and counting who have come out of the woodwork claiming to have had private lessons with the main man over the years is brewing up quite a storm , and Tiger probably feels at the moment that he has shot an albatross.
The ladies he has been philanderering with (good word that...ed) have all been well pubicised and will no doubt do kiss and tell for months to come.
What I want to know, though, is what part Tigers long term, and very loyal , caddy Steve Williams has played in all the goings on?
Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand the role of the caddy is to point out the projected target and indicate how far his man is away from it, he should then advise which club to use, and line his player up to the hole. He then cleans the club after the shot and puts the club back in the bag himself. He also keeps the score.
I think there is more to this than meets the eye.
Tiger Woods is used to scoring a few birdies in his day to day working life, but the 9 and counting who have come out of the woodwork claiming to have had private lessons with the main man over the years is brewing up quite a storm , and Tiger probably feels at the moment that he has shot an albatross.
The ladies he has been philanderering with (good word that...ed) have all been well pubicised and will no doubt do kiss and tell for months to come.
What I want to know, though, is what part Tigers long term, and very loyal , caddy Steve Williams has played in all the goings on?
Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand the role of the caddy is to point out the projected target and indicate how far his man is away from it, he should then advise which club to use, and line his player up to the hole. He then cleans the club after the shot and puts the club back in the bag himself. He also keeps the score.
I think there is more to this than meets the eye.
Simples
The power of TV advertising is a very strange and wonderful thing. Some of the best adverts will stay with you for ages. Guinness and Carlsberg, for example, have a real heritage for advertising campaigns going back decades. Other Companies use a particular style, and, dare I say it, IBM is one such with their blue banner wide screen format.
Catch phrases such as 'not just any mince pies....' or '....three weetabix' are instant hits and make their agencies a tidy profit.So too the awful adverts which none the less leave you with an indelible image of the product in your mind. You've been Tango'd, E-Sure and pot noodle all have that cringe factor build it, but boy, we remember the adverts.
The adverts which hit the bar are, if course, the wonderfully produced efforts which fail to burn the brand into our minds. We end up extolling the virtues of the 45 seconds of great TV but have no idea what its advertising. I would give an example, but I can't remember any!!
Then there is the merchandise spin-off aspect, which is what this blog is all about really. The Esso tiger in the tank campaign in the seventies had half the nation driving round with tigers tails dangling from the rear view mirror, self raising flower men from Homepride were found in every kitchen in the land, and, the classic, of course, the Robertson's gollywogs were a class act.
Many special items are issued attached to boxes of tea, and t-shirts can be obtained for a nominal sum and a few box tops, but the latest and greatest merchandise promotion surrounds Alekandr Meerkat, the main man in the comparethemarkets.com advertising campaign.
Harrods have the sole contract for providing the dolls based on Alekandr, they have a limited edition of 5000 and were selling them at £19.95. As is the case with many such limited offers though, demand from around the world has been huge. So the owner of Harrods, in another attempt to get UK citizenship, has decided to withdraw them from sale and present them to a number of childrens charities including Great Ormond Street and the Shooting Stars Hospice. A noble gesture, and one I hope will not generate a black market on e-bay. In the meantime I will have to look for another collectible for my son, this Christmas.
All this talk of adverts reminds me of the way a cruise ship singer gauged the age of her audience. She threw out a few punch lines like bum bum bum bum.... and....you'll wonder where the yellow went.....and waited for the strength of response. Very clever, but simples.....
Monday, 7 December 2009
Strewth
I have until Friday this week to decide whether to take the offer from my Company of early retirement. They have had an early retirement window open for two weeks now and the option to leave on 5th February has been offered to me.
The changes being proposed are well documented in the public domain, and as far as I am concerned I would have needed to work until I was 62 to reap the benefits of retirement which I am being offered now. A no brainer you would think?
And so did I until an update was issued last week. Now I have had some knocks on this blogger with regard to punctuation and proof reading, but if ever an e-mail needed another e-mail to explain the first one, then this update did. It clearly was not thought through or tested out on a peer group so now the whole Company are charging round saying, do you know what this means? Do you think this applies? and getting several different answers.
As far as I am concerned it gives me a lifeline, in as much as it looks like I can work through to 60 now to get the pension I had previously budgeted for, or, in the interim, leave when I want to on terms I have time to think through. Well, at least, that's what I think it says.
It is endemic at the moment though that employers are wielding the axe wherever there is opportunity to cut costs. Vauxhall Motors up here in Ellesmere Port are still to be absolutely black and white when laying out their employment/redundancy plans. The 8000 Corus employees who have just learnt they are to be laid off had expected a better and longer stay of execution when the firm was sold a few years ago.
Then at the other end of the scale, the City bankers, many of whom would not be in a job but for the government bailing them out, are now bleating about the threat to their bonus schemes. A draconian tax on banking bonuses would be a brave move , but there are many people in the non-high street banking sector who would suffer unjustly. On many fronts, watch this space.
The changes being proposed are well documented in the public domain, and as far as I am concerned I would have needed to work until I was 62 to reap the benefits of retirement which I am being offered now. A no brainer you would think?
And so did I until an update was issued last week. Now I have had some knocks on this blogger with regard to punctuation and proof reading, but if ever an e-mail needed another e-mail to explain the first one, then this update did. It clearly was not thought through or tested out on a peer group so now the whole Company are charging round saying, do you know what this means? Do you think this applies? and getting several different answers.
As far as I am concerned it gives me a lifeline, in as much as it looks like I can work through to 60 now to get the pension I had previously budgeted for, or, in the interim, leave when I want to on terms I have time to think through. Well, at least, that's what I think it says.
It is endemic at the moment though that employers are wielding the axe wherever there is opportunity to cut costs. Vauxhall Motors up here in Ellesmere Port are still to be absolutely black and white when laying out their employment/redundancy plans. The 8000 Corus employees who have just learnt they are to be laid off had expected a better and longer stay of execution when the firm was sold a few years ago.
Then at the other end of the scale, the City bankers, many of whom would not be in a job but for the government bailing them out, are now bleating about the threat to their bonus schemes. A draconian tax on banking bonuses would be a brave move , but there are many people in the non-high street banking sector who would suffer unjustly. On many fronts, watch this space.
Monday, 30 November 2009
Bill Badger strikes again
Hasn't it been raining recently? My poor old mum in Plymouth has been battered, the Argyle game at the weekend being abandoned midway through the second half . The residents of Cockermouth in Cumbria, and Workington, up the way, have had their communities devastated by flooding. Bridges lie on the river beds they once traversed, and property and businesses have been wrecked beyond salvation. The people of Bradcaster in Cornwall will be looking up Country with every sympathy.
Imagine, then, my trepidation as I invited six rugby colleagues up to Southport of the fourth annual Dom Pedro golf tournament. November up North in the wettest November on record, not a good idea! The event is usually held mid-October in Portugal, and the name of the tournament is associated with the hotel we all stay in. I managed to win the individual and the team contest last year and had high hopes of retaining the trophies.
Things did not start off well though. Our hotel, The Prince of Wales, had booked us into double rooms as they had five coach loads of the 'grey pound' posse staying there for 'turkey and tinsel'. Z-beds were provided with the promise of room changes the next day.
We then arrived at Formby golf links as the heavens opened and dumped the aforementioned precipitation on us. On went the waterproofs, jumpers, thermal gloves and beanie hats and off we trudged.
My partner for the week, Adam, and I were playing Gareth and Bill Badger in our first round tussle. Now Bill Badger has been around the rugby club for years, he has played for most of the senior teams and has won kicking cups, golf trophies and man of the match awards consistently throughout his time there. He must be a great all rounder you may think, but no, not really.
In the same way that Scottish football teams might field A. Trialist, or B. Trialist in games to protect those players anonymity, so Bill Badger is a nom d'plume for people who go on tour and don't want to be recognised, or is a trophy winner filler in the years a pot is not played for. And so it came to be that as we were only seven on tour Bill became our eighth man.
On the first day he was represented by my father-in law, Marty, who I invited along as an early 70th birthday present. He showed his gratitude by sinking a thirty foot putt on the 17th to win 2 and 1, humf! The fact the rain cleared after three holes and we played in glorious Winter sunshine was small consolation to me.
On the second day at Formby Ladies, Bill was represented by a Liverpool acquaintance called Stu, who helped Gareth to a comfortable win, and took the day prize himself with 39 points. Saturday was again set fair and for part of the round we were playing in polo shirts it was so mild.
A night out in Liverpool in Alma d'Cuba until 3am did not sit well with the final match of the tour, played on the greens of the Hesketh club. Gareth did hang on to win again, so emulated my feat of last year winning the team and individual titles, on another rain free day.
It was great the lads travelled up to play and that they has a good time, we did agree however, that it would be back to The Algarve next year. Whether Bill is with us may well be influenced by the governments stance on bovine TB in the countryside.
Imagine, then, my trepidation as I invited six rugby colleagues up to Southport of the fourth annual Dom Pedro golf tournament. November up North in the wettest November on record, not a good idea! The event is usually held mid-October in Portugal, and the name of the tournament is associated with the hotel we all stay in. I managed to win the individual and the team contest last year and had high hopes of retaining the trophies.
Things did not start off well though. Our hotel, The Prince of Wales, had booked us into double rooms as they had five coach loads of the 'grey pound' posse staying there for 'turkey and tinsel'. Z-beds were provided with the promise of room changes the next day.
We then arrived at Formby golf links as the heavens opened and dumped the aforementioned precipitation on us. On went the waterproofs, jumpers, thermal gloves and beanie hats and off we trudged.
My partner for the week, Adam, and I were playing Gareth and Bill Badger in our first round tussle. Now Bill Badger has been around the rugby club for years, he has played for most of the senior teams and has won kicking cups, golf trophies and man of the match awards consistently throughout his time there. He must be a great all rounder you may think, but no, not really.
In the same way that Scottish football teams might field A. Trialist, or B. Trialist in games to protect those players anonymity, so Bill Badger is a nom d'plume for people who go on tour and don't want to be recognised, or is a trophy winner filler in the years a pot is not played for. And so it came to be that as we were only seven on tour Bill became our eighth man.
On the first day he was represented by my father-in law, Marty, who I invited along as an early 70th birthday present. He showed his gratitude by sinking a thirty foot putt on the 17th to win 2 and 1, humf! The fact the rain cleared after three holes and we played in glorious Winter sunshine was small consolation to me.
On the second day at Formby Ladies, Bill was represented by a Liverpool acquaintance called Stu, who helped Gareth to a comfortable win, and took the day prize himself with 39 points. Saturday was again set fair and for part of the round we were playing in polo shirts it was so mild.
A night out in Liverpool in Alma d'Cuba until 3am did not sit well with the final match of the tour, played on the greens of the Hesketh club. Gareth did hang on to win again, so emulated my feat of last year winning the team and individual titles, on another rain free day.
It was great the lads travelled up to play and that they has a good time, we did agree however, that it would be back to The Algarve next year. Whether Bill is with us may well be influenced by the governments stance on bovine TB in the countryside.
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