The post freezes

Post early for Christmas, the Royal Mail used to say.

Perhaps they also should have said: If you leave it a bit late, don’t expect any help from us.

This was the main post box by the post office in Dorchester (there is no longer one actually at the post office) at 3pm on the last Saturday before Christmas.

I wasn't trying to post any mail myself, but I think I would have been a little irritated if I had. At the busiest time of the year for post, can Royal Mail really not be bothered to keep the main box in the county town open?

Yes, there was lots of snow on Sat. But it hadn't closed the road between the post box and the sorting office (around quarter of a mile away).

So this is Christmas.. what HAVE you done?

Invaluable advice from Debretts has reached one today via Twitter, just in time to save one from making some unfortunate Christmas faux pas.

It can be found here: http://bit.ly/e3wQoK

I wonder what Debretts would make of this item I have just received:
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=2532346738879&source=jl999

Cecil Sharp: start revolving

Musing about musical genres, the thought occurs that while evolution in the last few decades has produced folk rock, country rock, jazz rock, jazz funk etc, there hasn’t been jazz folk.

At first sight, not a very promising concept, some would say. At first listen they would probably say much the same thing. Or worse.

But it’s got novelty. And it fills a gap. If you were a hammer dulcimer player with a penchant for extended improvisation, what outlet would exist for you at present?

Other sub-genres would be likely to evolve. Folk-funk, for instance. Imagine a grooving 45-minute interpretation of The Barnyards of Delgaty.

An enticing prospect.

Trucking on (with ten forward gears and a Georgia overdrive)

Making some progress with the UK firms who sound like country stars. Among the contributions on Facebook are Eddie Stobart (thanks Marco Rossi), Clancy Docwra (Anna Jenkins) plus Edwin Shirley and Eldridge Pope (Will Birch).

A few more and I’ll be able to allocate them the right tunes and start grouping them by sub-genre, viz (as they used to say): ‘White line fever’, Eddie Stobart; ‘Six days on the road’, Edwin Shirley.

Pulling over from the highway to whatever might be Dorset’s equivalent of the honky tonk (it would be in Weymouth, obviously), it’s Eldridge Pope with ‘Tonight the bottle let me down’.

Having a railroad background, Clancy Docwra would be well placed to deliver, say, ‘The wreck of the old 97’ or ‘Green light on the southern’.

Lowering the tone a bit, Will has suggested that Travis Perkins (something related to the building game is needed for him) might render 'Can I go down to the basement (if I fix your leaky roof)’.

I think we need to keep it country, not music hall. And getting no Google result whatsoever for ‘Basement’, I have to query whether it has any history at all. Surely Will wouldn’t have sullied his legacy to popular music by perpetrating this one himself? It would be nearly as bad as writing a song about a laughing gnome or something.

In terms of names, Travis Perkins is still just about top of my chart, but finding material for him isn't easy. Anyone got any country tunes which would fit with the supply of building materials?

Slim pickings

Passing Travis Perkins (builders' merchants) the other day, the thought occurred: I wonder how many other UK companies have names that sound as if they belong to country and western singers?

Probably loads, I thought, but so far I have only come up with Ward Goodman (a Dorset firm of accountants). Curtis Brown (a literary agency) initially appealed, but really he sounds more in the Chicago blues sort of line.

Anyone else got any contributions?

The day before tomorrow

Snow in November. In this part of the world we rarely get snow even in January and February, so the scenes we have been looking at lately are a bit of a novelty. The strangest thing, though, is autumn leaves scattered on fresh snow. Never seen that before.

A world of their own

Not knowing much about business, one had always assumed that a large part of commercial success derived from looking at what went on in the world and adapting the principles to your advantage.

The ‘business’ people on The Apprentice, though, seem to steer well clear of this sort of approach.

In last night’s show their assignment was to package and promote a cleaning product.

When it comes to packaging and marketing, a few minutes’ observation in a store will confirm that the right psychology for presenting cleaning products involves a large amount of white with some bright blue and green thrown in. A black package with a red label, on the other hand, conveys to the average human being that the contents are likely to be rat poison or cheap motor oil.

It seems safe to assume that the sort of people selected as candidates for The Apprentice will have been avid watchers of it in the past, so it was surprising that none of those involved this time seemed to have learned anything from the previous series in which a bunch of goons packaged a breakfast cereal in a green box apparently designed to make it look like weedkiller.

The show seems to be peopled by characters who are so convinced that the right answer will always come straight off the top of their head that they don’t see any need to observe what happens in the real world. This leads them into one folly after another, until they get their come-uppance.

Pure panto, in other words. It ought to be on just after Christmas.

Gasping

Who would have thought, before the indoor smoking ban, that smokers were potentially such fresh air enthusiasts, ready to get outdoors at every opportunity, whatever the weather?

It occurs to one with regularity these days that smokers now get much more fresh air during the average working day than the rest of us.

I now realise that smoking has inflicted a double blow to my human rights. I have spent most of my working life in environments where it was difficult at times to see across the room (in fact I have done so much passive smoking that I can’t believe I’m not dead). And now, because I don’t smoke, I don’t get as much fresh air as those who do.

It's a funny old world. Makes me laugh anyhow.

That's entertainment

An online guide to organising a safe firework display prompted me to dredge, from my childhood memories, the very model of how not to do it safely.

It dates from a time when every kid used to spend six weeks or so before Bonfire Night spending all his/her pocket money (plus whatever cash could be accumulated from penny-for-the-guy activity) on fireworks, amassing them in a big cardboard carton. So it may be difficult to exactly replicate today. But here's how you do it:

1 Arrange Bonfire Night get-together of four or five families in one reasonable- size back garden;

2 Consolidate the various collections of fireworks in cardboard boxes in the garage (don’t worry too much about lids);

3 Light bonfire, while leaving garage door open to provide easy access for any children who might be running around with sparklers;

4 Call fire brigade to admire your colourful in-garage display.

My memory in general is pretty bad, and not many recollections from early childhood seem to have survived. One that has, however, is of the vivid spectacle provided by hundreds of catherine wheels, rockets, roman candles etc going off all at once in one confined space (fortunately one of asbestos construction).

Font's and apos's: who cares anyway?

I wish it didn't irritate me that people use the word font when they mean typeface (for which Microsoft is probably largely to blame). But it's as pointless as getting worked up about apostrophes.

(On a stall in Dorchester yesterday there were some flowers which it appeared had been reserved for Big Lily.)

(A current roadworks sign in Weymouth has LORRYS TURNING. Presume they mean LORRY'S.)

Some people think all the apostrophe stuff represents a recent slide in education. Back in the Sixties, though, I remember admiring the new signs on the premises of C CHAPLIN MOTOR’S in Southend.

C Chaplin Motor… a funny name for someone in the used car trade.

All over before it started

After that England-Montenegro game, there is time now for some sober reflection on the issues, the most pressing of which is:

The national anthems.

Montenegro's... a belter! It sounded like the soundtrack to a Hollywood thriller about espionage. A shame, of course that it couldn't have been played by Hugo Montenegro and his Orchestra. (That reference may not mean much to the younger reader, whoever he or she might be.)

And what did we have?  As usual, the dirge about God saving our gracious queen. What a bunch of crap. No wonder our gallant boys sometimes struggle a bit for inspiration.

Found in translation

I'm sure we all derive some interest from reading the tributes paid to people in the press after they've gone.

They do often need some interpretation. I think I might start compiling a guide to the terms used.

The phrase a free spirit, for instance, usually signals the passing of an individual without any sense of social or personal obligation, on whom no one could ever rely for anything.

Lived life to the full can often usefully be translated as rarely sober.

Thanks to John Medd (below) for identifying that close relation of the free spirit, the maverick. John's definition: someone who didn't give a flying f**k about anything or anybody.

And to Will Birch for he never married - the interpretation of which requires no great imaginative leap on the part of any reader.

Does anyone else have any contributions? It'll take me years to remember them all myself...

Crating an impression

Whole lot of crating going on these days on the TV and radio. One first noticed it in the run-up to the General Election, when Nick Clegg was talking about crating things. Now it’s Milliband.

If they mean creating, whey don’t they say creating? Is it a status thing, like pronouncing medicine medsun?

Too simple, I guess

Many things are a puzzle. Here are some of the small ones...

Why so some people say second guess when they just mean... guess?

Why do some people insist on describing things as simplistic when they mean simple?

Why do TV and radio arts pundits describe nearly everything they are reporting on as extraordinary?

Why do some people feel compelled to keep on blogging and twitterering their everyday niggles?

I only ask.

Wild sort of thing

Re 'I Can't Control Myself':

Perhaps someone should commend the idea to John Shuttleworth. I think it might work very well for him on the keyboard. After the ‘I can’t control myself’ bit, he could perhaps add a really wild sort of flourish – something like the Osmonds did on Crazy Horses.

And of course his audience (no ageism intended here; I hope he wouldn't be offended) would be more likely to know what slacks were. It's possible, now one thinks about it, that younger audiences might be confused.

Trouser it to me

Your slacks are low and your hips are showing….

The line comes from a Sixties smash by the Troggs, and it occurs to me (not for the first time) that there cannot be much time left for a revival. The title (I Can’t Control Myself) might attract negative comment in some quarters these days, but the resulting publicity would only help with promotion.

The vogue for low-slung comedy trousers has already lasted longer than anyone could have anticipated, and the window of opportunity must surely close soon.

Has no one in the world of popular music noticed this?

Where is Jonathan King when the world of pop needs him?

I can’t find Reg Presley on Twitter; if anyone knows where he is, please communicate the suggestion.

Let’s hope he remembers that the idea came from me and not from a UFO. He would be welcome to show his appreciation. Cash rarely offends.

A bit like Dodgeball

Another thing they used to do at Southend on Sea High School for Boys (the teachers, that is) was throw things at you . Blackboard rubbers, bits of chalk, things like that. That’s probably illegal now as well. Political correctness gone mad.

Detention without trial

I’m not sure what prompted this thought, but: what happened to school detention?

Does anyone know when it disappeared?

I mean proper end-of-the-day detention, rather than what my children, who naturally went to school more recently than me, seem to think represented detention (ie something that went on during school hours or at lunchtime).

I imagine it is illegal now for a teacher to imprison children after school.

At Southend on Sea High School for Boys one might find oneself in detention individually or collectively. For the sake of the younger reader (if there is one) here’s the sort of way in which the collective variety unfolded…

Teacher: “Will the boy or boys responsible for (insert crime here) kindly stand up?”

No movement.

“All right, you’re all in detention after school until half past five or until…” (until confessions forthcoming etc)

The idea, naturally, was that peer pressure (in the form of 25 to 30 oafs who were not specifically guilty and who would be resenting the fact that they were being held because of the one or two oafs that were guilty on this occasion) would produce a result. The strange thing is that I can’t remember whether it did, typically.

Looking at it from the viewpoint of the teacher (which I have never been prompted to do until now) it seems a high-risk strategy, paying off only if it worked fairly rapidly and otherwise involving either an increasing escalation of the collective penalty or the abandonment of it with resulting loss of face.

Loss of face can be pretty disastrous to a teacher, as we were able to witness even in those days.

Back then no one talked about stress, but they did talk about nervous breakdowns, and I’m fairly certain we saw a couple of those rapidly developing. How I wish I could undo whatever part I played in that.

All-too-easily-identified flying objects

Nearly got a UFO picture from the garden last night. These FOs were shaping up quite nicely, but then they went fluffy. Plus the camera was more or less in focus, which didn't help.

Always a nuisance

Lots of us who aren't football fans as such probably enjoy it as soap opera. The managerial circus can be more entertaining than what happens on the pitch.

As a counter to all the high-level shenanigans that you get to read about, here's a snapshot from life at Weymouth FC (who recently descended from the Something Or Other League to the Zamaretto Premier Division):

"Cameron was going to start but he got stuck in traffic." (Cameron's Comeback, Dorset Echo 9.8.10)

Mistled

Ever heard of a missile thrush? No, neither have I.

But in America they call a missile a mistle , which makes the idea of a mistle thrush sound a bit more worrying than just, say, a dive-bombing seagull. So I wondered: as they pronounce missile as mistle, do they render mistle as missile, just to avoid confusion?

And if a missile is a mistle, what is mistletoe? Maybe something you get when you drop a warhead on your foot.

Shape of things to come

A quick note for motoring enthusiasts: it has been suggested to me that the man who designed the 105E Anglia using only fruit cake and icing (picture above; see blog of 21.12.2009), was probably also responsible for a later Ford design classic: the original ‘jelly mould’ Sierra of the early 1980s.

Instinct tells one that this has a ring of authenticity about it, but sadly in this case I have been unable to source any pictures of the master at work.

Little bastards

In the garden on Sunday - warm and sunny - it struck me how few butterflies there are to be seen now. There was a time (a long time ago, admittedly) when one sometimes saw dozens of them at a time.

On Sunday our garden had attracted just three cabbage whites. A red admiral appeared, though, and settled by the edge of the lawn. Things are looking up, I thought. Then one of our cats (the one pictured further down here) jumped on it and ate it.

What a crappy end to the morning. What is there to be said for cats?

Talking of sport... do you have to?

Talking of sport... athletics, as we all know, can be quite exciting to watch. So it's ironic that when it comes to discussion it appears to be the dreariest area in the world.

Ever listened to Radio 5 coverage of international athletics? If you think ex-footballers talking about football is sometimes less than compelling, try listening to ex-athetes on athletics. Well don't. Watch some paint dry.

You don't hear paint drying discussed much on the radio, which is a shame, because watching paint dry is quite interesting really. (Emulsion paint in particular, because gloss, in the main, is much more uniform.) Emulsion paint on a wall will dry at different rates in different areas - reflecting, obviously, to some extent, the varying thickness with which it will inevitably have been applied, but also the characteristics of the wall underneath and the relative absorbency of its surface in different areas, which itself, in the case of an old wall, may hint at its history, allowing us to deduce the alterations and repairs which may have taken pace over the years.

It would make an interesting discussion on radio, I think. When I say interesting, I do mean relatively, of course. Relative to some I have heard. Dear BBC: do give us more of your Radio 4 arts programmes, in particular those Saturday evening ones.

And they call that sport

One of the symptoms of mid-life crisis, it has been said, is the acquisition of a 'sports' car. (I use quotes because... well, what has ownership of a daft car that you would struggle to get your holiday bags into, let alone any significant amount of sports equipment, got to do with sport?)

Anyway, if it is an indicator of mid-life crisis, my observations on the roads of Dorset indicate that more women than men are afflicted these days. It has long been suggested that women, in general, have more common sense than men. Obviously not.

Not nice

If you were small wildlife intent on minding your own business, here’s the sort of sight you wouldn’t want to see. They're horrible really, cats.

Another wildlife encounter

Out on the bike yesterday near Sydling when a weasel (I think) ran out from the fields with a baby rabbit in its mouth.

Seeing me coming along, it dropped the dead rabbit in the middle of the road and dashed into the hedge on the other side. I stopped about 30 yards down the road to see if it would go back and pick up the rabbit, and a couple of minutes later it did…

Not sure how fascinating anyone else may find this, but it was interesting to me.

Expecting to fly

We were eating at the Saxon Arms in Stratton when what seemed to be a young house martin on one of its very first flights flopped on to the windowsill.


Worth a picture, I thought. (Actually Stephanie did. Left to myself, I probably wouldn’t have got round to getting the camera out of the car before the thing had flown away. Which it did manage to, after a while….)

Nice.

Rocking on

Still rocking... on Portland this time. Here is some Portland stone waiting to be turned into part of something monumental.

Recently I bumped into Geoff Smith of Stone Firms Ltd - one of the two remaining Portland stone suppliers. He it was, of course, who was dubbed the Limestone Cowboy by the papers, when all sorts of stuff hit the fan after the stone used for the much-heralded South Portico job at the British Museum (intended to match the Portland stone of the original building) turned out to have come from somewhere in France, not Portland.

Not sure how that misunderstanding (or not, depending on whose account you are listening to) got settled in the end (if it did). Can't see that it even matters hugely, because newly-cut stone is never, surely, going to exactly tone in with stone that has been weathering in London for a couple of hundred years or so.

Anyway, he seemed like a nice chap to me.

Stones

Another holiday snap from Rhodes.

These stones, obviously, have rolled for even longer than the English 'musical' group and are certainly much more interesting.

Seaside rock

Another holiday snap from Kalathos Beach at Rhodes.

Metamorphic rock... changed by heat and pressure, Mr Alves said at Southend on Sea High School for Boys. The website I just looked at says says heat, pressure and chemical process.

Too big and heavy to bring home, though I really wish now I had tried.

The rubbish roadshow

Given the amount of rubbish that lies alongside the roads these days, it's good to see someone doing something about it.

This scene on the A35 near Poole, though, seemed a good indication of why it doesn't happen very often. The bill for getting two guys to pick up some litter must be quite impressive.

The scene, involving a near-stationary convoy of five vehicles unfolded like this:

Van 1, with lane-closed warning on the back...

Van 2, with lane-closed warning on the back...

Van 3, with lane-closed warning on the back...
(these are three separate vehicles - blow the pictures up and check the registrations)

Vehicle 4: Truck with lane-closed warning on the back and heavy-duty bumper...

And finally... the action: the guys picking up litter, accompanied by vehicle 5.

So the picking up of roadside litter by a couple of people seems to require five vehicles and five drivers.

Might there just be a slightly more cost-effective way of enabling a two-person litter pick?

I have one suggestion – which is not facetious, but I am sure would stand no chance at all of being taken up: conduct the operation entirely on the verge, with two people picking up litter and another using a quad bike and trailer to take it away.

Country Rhodes

Here's a holiday snap from a week spent on Rhodes.

The day we got to our luxury coastal hotel (Atrium Palace at Kalathos - very nice: lots of pools, lots of marble) it had a perfectly tidy sign at the entrance. The following evening, out for a look around, we discovered it had been modified in the manner shown above.

Greeks always seem to have been very enthusiastic drivers.

For the benefit of anyone thinking of going to Rhodes, here is my considered opinion:

Overall, there are more attractive Greek islands. However... in terms of history it's fantastic. On what other island would you be able to see something like the acropolis at Lindos and the medieval fortified town of Rhodes itself?

As a footnote, 36 hours or so after getting back, I am still wondering: the idea of a holiday as something from which you return refreshed... where did that come from?

Presumably it pre-dates air travel, and certainly charter flights that get in at three or four in the morning.

As a second footnote: if you have been to Greece before, but not for a few years, forget the idea of Greece as a cheap holiday destination when it comes to food, drink and all the rest. It isn't any more.

Let's twist again

Another historic picture from the archives.

This photograph taken in Devon, seemingly in the 1980s, is believed to show not traditional badger strangling – which involved a slightly shorter pole, and is thought to have gone entirely underground by this time – but the training of dancing badgers.

The trainer (his identity is concealed here because the activity was, strictly speaking, illegal) still tended to be known as the ‘strangler’. The occupation of strangler was a hazardous but lucrative one, because dancing badgers were still a popular sideshow at country fairs. Styles were slow to change – so much so that in the Eighties the animals were still predominantly doing the Twist, though break dancing had started to make an appearance.

Footnote: the noose which can be seen attached to the pole came into play only rarely – typically when it was necessary to make an example of one rogue animal to encourage the others.

It's all going black

Anyone know what film pundits (eg Kermode) would do if they couldn't use the word dark for a week or two?

I know you don't have to listen to them anyway. That's not the point.

In search of the super-extra... evolving the language

What would TV and radio pundits (especially arts and politics) do without the word extraordinary?

So many extraordinary things seem to go on now that there doesn't seem to be much that isn't.

Obviously we need a new word to occupy the place previously held by extraordinary. Extra-extraordinary? But what comes after that?

PS... talking of TV news, here's a tip: in our house we discovered, after being driven to desperation on election night, that there was a way to avoid having to watch Dimbleby and his chums: switch to ITV!

It turns out that the same strategy frees one, on a daily basis, from having to hear from Orange Huw, Fiona Bruce, Robinson, Peston etc. It's well worth putting up with the adverts.

PS: Do you know where the word pundit comes from? India. You would guess that though, I suppose....

Lost in France

The man, the bike, the road… the misery.

If you’ve never followed continental cycling this picture probably won’t have much appeal. If you have, in a way it’s got nearly everything – including the classic Peugeot jersey as worn, of course, by Tom Simpson a couple of decades before.

Long-time cycling photographer Graham Watson recently re-posted this picture of Sean Yates taken in 1983. Yates did have lots of better times, casual readers will be pleased to know; here’s one of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYJydVy_wM

In the video you will note that crash hats are still optional. Happy days…

PS: Graham Watson is at http://www.grahamwatson.com/

In the money

An inspiring piece of literature through the door this morning.

Nothing to do with the election, just a generous offer of a loan, if I have difficulty getting one from the bank!

Provident Personal Credit are prepared to deliver a wad of cash money to my door! And the loan is a breeze to pay back because a friendly local agent will call every week to collect the repayments!

I can get the money I need! There’s nothing stopping me!

And the rate is so attractive that it’s not even in small print. It’s in quite large print, on the front of the flyer: 272.2% APR....

How cheering that such a helpful organisation should exist, ready to assist the poor and the desperate at every opportunity. Makes you feel so much better about human nature.

Who are you looking at...

"It's a good job we had this one stuffed. Mark my words, there'll come a time when these things will be rarer than a Gary Glitter record on the radio."

Caravan season

Here comes summer! The other day the sound of the first strimmer was heard around here, and it won’t be long before three lanes of caravans will regularly be seen on routes to the westcountry. (Are they really allowed in the outside lane?)

Thinking of caravans prompts the question: is there any better example (even including politics) of the attempt, by choice of name, to attribute to something characteristics which it simply does not possess?

This is what makes being a caravan spotter fun. It’s good to look out for the most ludicrous name. They’re called things like Viscount, Eagle and Invader.

In a world without marketing – ie a world where things had names which reflected their characteristics or function – they would probably have names like Retarder or Shed.

The sort of name native Americans might assign to the caravan (assuming I've got the hang of it from the cowboy films) would be White Box That Weaves In Potentially Disastrous Manner.

PS: Do you know what Pavarotti used to go on his holidays in? A Nissan Dormobile.

We're Speedophiles, in your town for the weekend...

Unfortunately I have never been a huge car enthusiast. I say unfortunately because I would like to start a car club called Speedophiles.

Imagine the fun the social secretary would have booking the accommodation for our weekends away etc. "We're Speedophiles, coming to Hastings/Brighton/Bournemouth for the weekend. How many rooms do you have?" It would break the ice, I think. Imagine the potential for merriment.

It would also be a good name for a swimming club. In fact, I can't imagine why no one has done it.

???

This is the picture for a caption contest, I think.

Origin: Westcountry, believed to be 1970s

Anyone looking for me, I'll be at the Recidivist...

Pub names… mystery surrounds their origin, to coin a cliché.

Well it doesn’t really, generally. But the thought is prompted by a pub called the Smugglers.

Why would it be called that? Presumably because smugglers spent their time chilling out there (well, warming up, obviously, in their case).

But that would be unlikely to have been its original name. If your inn was a favourite place for smugglers to hang out, it would seem unhelpful to call it the Smugglers. Because when Revenue Men (and who knows where they spent their time – they never seemed to get a pub named after them) were in that neck of the woods they would just have to head for… the Smugglers.

Similarly, you can’t imagine your average highwayman drinking in a place called the Highwayman. And pirates, reckless as they were, would surely have been sensible enough not to chance their arm (or another remaining limb) by congregating at the Pirate.

Obviously these insitutions must have been renamed long after the customer profile had changed, and the passage of time had made their activities seem colourful rather than nefarious.

And the rogues celebrated in pub signs have to be country or coastal types, it seems. Where are their urban equivalents? Why is there no Crooked Accountant or Bent Copper?

How long before the Banker makes an appearance? Quite a long time, one suspects.

I say...

This is surely one of the most intriguing press pictures of all time.

Some people’s first reaction to it might be ‘caption contest’ but one wonders if the predictably crude attempts at humour would sully its fundamental mystery. Our speculations about what exactly might have resulted in this scene are probably best left unexpressed.

Origin: south coast of England, early 21st century

Thinking outside the groove

Those who think of stereo sound as a modern invention may be interested in this photograph of an early 20th century jazz enthusiast.

With radio in its infancy, and its signal incapable of conveying the vitality of modern music, this fan is attempting, from the garden of his home near The Lizard (the UK’s most southerly point) to 'get the vibe' from the music scene in New York, the other side of the Atlantic.

Sadly, some hearing loss was apparently subsequently sustained as a result of a sudden violent hail shower on November 14, 1923, when the decibel count within the device reached levels previously regarded as hypothetical. There is no record of further development after that date.

The message is a mystery

Believed to date from the 1980s, this appears to be a promotional picture of some kind, but the exact message has been lost.

We look for clues, but perhaps, at this distance in time, we look in vain. What hint can we take from the fact that the smaller Toblerone bar is proffered not as an entire item, as we might expect, but in a less than pristine state, as if the contents have already been partially consumed?

The secret is locked in time, and may even now have receded from living memory.
 
The past is another country, it has been said - not very cogently, because you can travel to another country, but not to the past.

Every picture tells a story

“He was here a moment ago. Look – there’s his gloves…”

Though largely undocumented and even unrecognised, the surrealist school of provincial press photography flourished in the second half of the 20th century.

This example, originating in Devon and appearing to date from the Seventies or Eighties, has only recently been rediscovered.

A picture is worth a thousand words, it has been said. Not always, of course.

Irritating... so what?

Call me a pedant, but I find myself increasingly irritated by BBC people saying If this was the case.

We all know language evolves, but as most BBC staff have had expensive educations I just find it irksome.

Another mildly irritating thing, currently, is Word nagging me about things it thinks I should have done - by capitalizing a letter, for instance, or substituting the letter z when I actually typed an s – which it has just done to me, you will notice, earlier in this sentence.

I would like to be able to speak a bit impolitely to Word and say: if I wanted to write capitalized, I would have written capitalized.

It’s a bit like being a child again and having your mother pointing out the perceived shortcomings in your behavior.

I realise (rather than realize - thanks) that this irritation is a pretty minor consideration when placed against the huge number of embarrassing little gaffes Word saves you from. So I suppose I’m not complaining. I’m just wasting my time (and yours, if you’re reading this).

Long night of the sole

Is it all over for leather-soled shoes?

I’m starting to think so. It’s raining as usual in Dorset, there is water everywhere, and because for some reason I like leather-soled shoes, my feet are cold and damp yet again. I'm fed up with it now.

Perhaps I need some nice stick-on rubber soles. They've got them at Wellworths…

It has just occurred to me that this must be why galoshes (I think that's what they were called) were invented. Anyone know if you can still source those anywhere?

Is this a joke, sonny?

WTF? LOL!

That’s what the lucky winner here is saying to the nice young man from marketing, who possibly should have devoted a bit more time to the question of how the lucky winner was supposed to get the vouchers into his jacket pocket for the bus trip to Boots.

Another of the fascinating images from my forthcoming volume The 20th Century Remembered In Some Old Pictures I Have Just Found.


More to follow....