A friend of mine posted ..
"I forgot to get a girlfriend for my Valentine's Card"
As a comment upon current commercialisation of practically everything - it tickled me...
Friday, 15 February 2013
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
13th February 2013 - Ash Wednesday
The intricacies of the Christian Church, or at least the western version which treats Easter as a moveable feast, have always left me a little confused. Today is Ash Wednesday and traditionally the start of Lent, that period of abstinence for 46 days up to Easter itself. This was always based upon 40 days of fasting by JC himself - which always led me to wonder why there was a choice of 46 days for the Lenten Period?? Which again brings me to numbers.. and Triskaidekaphobia as well !!!
And the start is of course ash Wednesday. Pre-dating the anti-smoking campaigners by many years, I see a distinct lack of people placing Ash on their foreheads, possibly due to greater numbers of centrally heated houses and equivalent reduction in fireplaces with smoked wood as a ready resource. Ash Wednesday is immediately preceded each year by Shrove Tuesday, a day of "shriving" or absolution, but so much better celebrated as the day we flip the pancakes. Another great religious festival stolen from our ancient and pagan histories.
It was only today, as I discussed this with my sister recently jet-lagged in from America that I finally understood the interconnection of its several parts.... She explained it this way..
"Oh yes!! that was the day that the people rolled the stone back from the mouth of the cave and the Easter Bunnie came out and looked at the Sun, and dependent upon whether it smiled or not, we would have rain on St Swithin's day...."
She may be right - but I still think of this as No Smoking Day....
And the start is of course ash Wednesday. Pre-dating the anti-smoking campaigners by many years, I see a distinct lack of people placing Ash on their foreheads, possibly due to greater numbers of centrally heated houses and equivalent reduction in fireplaces with smoked wood as a ready resource. Ash Wednesday is immediately preceded each year by Shrove Tuesday, a day of "shriving" or absolution, but so much better celebrated as the day we flip the pancakes. Another great religious festival stolen from our ancient and pagan histories.
It was only today, as I discussed this with my sister recently jet-lagged in from America that I finally understood the interconnection of its several parts.... She explained it this way..
"Oh yes!! that was the day that the people rolled the stone back from the mouth of the cave and the Easter Bunnie came out and looked at the Sun, and dependent upon whether it smiled or not, we would have rain on St Swithin's day...."
She may be right - but I still think of this as No Smoking Day....
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
12th February 2013 - Numbers of the beast
It was while lamenting the reportage of snow fall that I last had the opportunity to consider the role of imperial and decimal figures. Today, being pancake day, I had two Crepes with a spoon full of ice cream. The Ice cream was definitely a "scoop" which does not fall into the category of any of the references that always used to be on the back of my old school exercise books. I know as I go through all the books and papers in the basement that I will in the end find one of those famous books - with perches and rods, fathoms and links. When I do I am sure that I shall comment on asimilar missive.
But imagine my consternation as I read on my google "things that happened on February 12th...". that it was on this day back in 1973 that the State of Ohio (USA) went metric, becoming the first state in the US to post metric distance signs along interstate 71. The new signs showed the distances in both miles and kilometres!!
It was only when I read on that my confidence was revived when I saw that also on this day in 1912 China Adopted the Gregorian Calendar.
That somehow gives me some level of confidence thinking that a country the size of China, with its own script, language and letters adopted a set of numbers for counting days which has a familiarity to my poor brain....
Happy pancake day.
But imagine my consternation as I read on my google "things that happened on February 12th...". that it was on this day back in 1973 that the State of Ohio (USA) went metric, becoming the first state in the US to post metric distance signs along interstate 71. The new signs showed the distances in both miles and kilometres!!
It was only when I read on that my confidence was revived when I saw that also on this day in 1912 China Adopted the Gregorian Calendar.
That somehow gives me some level of confidence thinking that a country the size of China, with its own script, language and letters adopted a set of numbers for counting days which has a familiarity to my poor brain....
Happy pancake day.
Monday, 11 February 2013
11th February 2013 - Last few seconds of the day
At 11.59pm on Monday 11th February I manage to place my daily blog and keep the "daily" part of the process. It is a day where the Pope has decided to resign, where there is still a scandal over whether there should be horsemeat in our beef lasagne and burgers, and care for the elderly is reviewed in terms of the threshold for payment and inheritance tax is kept to about a million to pay for it....
It really makes me want to move a step forward towards a little smallholding where we eat most of our own grown food, raised animals and where religion and politics are as alien as a closely tyled masonic lodge. Opened a home made cheese today and found it to be almost pure cheddar, less than a month old, but full of richness and with a fine consistency. It is always an adventure when we peel back the green wax and try the taste of the new batch. Each is different!! The last was sort of Caerphilly, being a little crumbly, but to be fair we have not had a bad batch yet !!.
So a day of gathering boxes from the supermarket. Spent a few hours looking through the sideboard - three drawers and three cupboards and two "blue" bags filled with old Christmas and birthday cards. The Blue Bag is the re-cycle bag here in the UK. And today they are full of memories - but the pleasure was mainly in reviewing one time and deciding to let go. There were the full set of 40 Birthday cards... and 50 Birthday Cards examined for the first time in tenor twenty years ... Many more photographs found that will no doubt find their way onto the on-line albums...
It s said that if you look at the life of the earth in terms of a clock - the human race arrived at 11.59pm and 30 seconds. If that is true then the timing of this post represents the entire history of the human race.. and is summed up by the decision to recycle previous anniversaries into a blue bag....
Hope that does not have greater meaning in the larger aspect of life in general......
It really makes me want to move a step forward towards a little smallholding where we eat most of our own grown food, raised animals and where religion and politics are as alien as a closely tyled masonic lodge. Opened a home made cheese today and found it to be almost pure cheddar, less than a month old, but full of richness and with a fine consistency. It is always an adventure when we peel back the green wax and try the taste of the new batch. Each is different!! The last was sort of Caerphilly, being a little crumbly, but to be fair we have not had a bad batch yet !!.
So a day of gathering boxes from the supermarket. Spent a few hours looking through the sideboard - three drawers and three cupboards and two "blue" bags filled with old Christmas and birthday cards. The Blue Bag is the re-cycle bag here in the UK. And today they are full of memories - but the pleasure was mainly in reviewing one time and deciding to let go. There were the full set of 40 Birthday cards... and 50 Birthday Cards examined for the first time in tenor twenty years ... Many more photographs found that will no doubt find their way onto the on-line albums...
It s said that if you look at the life of the earth in terms of a clock - the human race arrived at 11.59pm and 30 seconds. If that is true then the timing of this post represents the entire history of the human race.. and is summed up by the decision to recycle previous anniversaries into a blue bag....
Hope that does not have greater meaning in the larger aspect of life in general......
Sunday, 10 February 2013
10th February 2013 - More Boxes
Sunday. For any who have been looking at the blog over the last months, then it will be no secret that I have been converting random possessions of the last 45 years into banana boxes... Today it was the turn of a number of fine old vinyl records that were part of the collection of my father.
There is little real need for vinyl these days, most are already on digital, but there are those who think that the vinyl has some value greater than other media. Personally, they are part of history, there may be recordings that have not been transferred to new formats, or maybe there are special recordings - I do not know!!
I know that he was a music critic in his early years. Most of the records I packed away today have " Not for resale" stamped upon them and he spent many years writing about the music that he loved to listen to. He was also a TV critic. I know this as I was born back in February 1954 - when on the evening of my birth the first showing of "Quatermass" was showing upon the small screen. I was apparently a breach birth causing some complications, and was birthed in the upstairs bedroom - but he had to pop back and forwards to check on the progress of the show in case he missed something that was essential for the review....
I was heralded into this world by science fiction reviews... today I parcelled up another small section of my life. I also found out that my paternal grandfather who we always though was a bigamist having remarried while forgetting to divorce my grandmother, actually turns out to be a gentleman - we found that he married his life long partner and mother of his children a little time after the death of his legal wife. Maybe there is honour in our family yet...
Another box ...
There is little real need for vinyl these days, most are already on digital, but there are those who think that the vinyl has some value greater than other media. Personally, they are part of history, there may be recordings that have not been transferred to new formats, or maybe there are special recordings - I do not know!!
I know that he was a music critic in his early years. Most of the records I packed away today have " Not for resale" stamped upon them and he spent many years writing about the music that he loved to listen to. He was also a TV critic. I know this as I was born back in February 1954 - when on the evening of my birth the first showing of "Quatermass" was showing upon the small screen. I was apparently a breach birth causing some complications, and was birthed in the upstairs bedroom - but he had to pop back and forwards to check on the progress of the show in case he missed something that was essential for the review....
I was heralded into this world by science fiction reviews... today I parcelled up another small section of my life. I also found out that my paternal grandfather who we always though was a bigamist having remarried while forgetting to divorce my grandmother, actually turns out to be a gentleman - we found that he married his life long partner and mother of his children a little time after the death of his legal wife. Maybe there is honour in our family yet...
Another box ...
Saturday, 9 February 2013
9th February 2013 - Chilled by the loss of inches....
It is Saturday evening and Wales have apparently saved their reputation on the 6 nations rugby competition which I managed to miss by not switching the television on! The news channels are reporting large amounts of snow across America, something I should have warned my sister about when she decided to fly from the USA to Wales near to my birthday.. But she has a couple of days to let everything sort itself out. It is cool but wet here in Llanelli, but there are chances for more snow across parts of the United Kingdom in the next couple of days.
There is a lot of snow in the States... There will be large areas of Great Britain covered with white stuff over the next few days.. but how much ??? I really do not know !!
It is not that I have not been listening to the succession of weather reports. It is not that I have somehow not listened to radio reports. If I read newspapers, which I do not as they are a good example of that oxymoron (paper I will accept - but clearly devoid of anything that could be defined as news.!!) then it would not be because I had failed to assess the content of the text.. It is the loss of the common inch that confuses me. All the snow apparently has gone European and now not only falls in flakes that never duplicate, but also now falls in amounts that can only be understood by those in the Eurozone.
It is bad enough that they want to take over the pound and drive us into the common currency - a task in which I feel that they will fail. But after decimalisation and the loss of good old LSD (pounds shilling and pence not Lysergic acid diethylamide) the half crown and the florin, we have managed for the most part to resist many of the incursions into pints, pounds and ounces.
But snow??? Surely it is acceptable for snow to fall in Britain in inches!! If it is thick it certainly should be in feet!! Listening to CNN on my satellite television I do not hear that snow is falling in yards !!! but in Metres!!
My favourite weatherman here tells me that there may be 10 centimetres of snow ... How much is that ?? More or less than a banana?? It means nothing and does not inspire me to put my wellies on or get a snow plough out.
Snow is cold. I have noted the geographical penchant to vary Celsius and Fahrenheit, seemingly a national trait here in the UK to refer to cold by Celsius "it is 2 degrees today" but look at the hot weather only in Fahrenheit "It is going to be in the low seventies today"... I understand this!!. We have a climate that does not "do" extremes. Therefore it is quite acceptable that we would prefer the "hot" weather sound hotter, and the cold weather less extreme....
But snow falls by a certain volume and lies at a certain height when still. Damn it !! If it is British Snow it should damn well fall in British quantities. And that means in Inches not in centimetres.
I do not know what a centimetre is in real money. I know I have looked up the conversion rate many times but it is not something that will stick in my brain. 16 degrees Celsius is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I can remember this. But there are no conversion from the centi-lies to inches that are exact without using those other foul calculations - the decimal point!! No good telling me that there are 2.54 centimetres to an inch.. How can that help? I know children for the last thirty years have used calculators where we used slide rule, and now probably have an "app" for it on their phone but for a simple soul, I would like to know that there will be up to 3 inches of snow ( take wellies ) 6 inches of snow (will need a shovel to get the car out) or a foot of snow ( stay in and have a cup of tea and watch television).
So, I know it is unlike me to have a rant, but surely it cannot be too much for British television and the news media in general to revert to a sensible measure.... sorry - I suppose I have just answered my question !!
So here are a few shots of snow at Furnace Quarry, nr Llanelli. I can tell you there were three inches of snow.. I measured it with my thumb, which I learned at school was three inches from tip to base...
There is a lot of snow in the States... There will be large areas of Great Britain covered with white stuff over the next few days.. but how much ??? I really do not know !!
It is not that I have not been listening to the succession of weather reports. It is not that I have somehow not listened to radio reports. If I read newspapers, which I do not as they are a good example of that oxymoron (paper I will accept - but clearly devoid of anything that could be defined as news.!!) then it would not be because I had failed to assess the content of the text.. It is the loss of the common inch that confuses me. All the snow apparently has gone European and now not only falls in flakes that never duplicate, but also now falls in amounts that can only be understood by those in the Eurozone.
It is bad enough that they want to take over the pound and drive us into the common currency - a task in which I feel that they will fail. But after decimalisation and the loss of good old LSD (pounds shilling and pence not Lysergic acid diethylamide) the half crown and the florin, we have managed for the most part to resist many of the incursions into pints, pounds and ounces.
But snow??? Surely it is acceptable for snow to fall in Britain in inches!! If it is thick it certainly should be in feet!! Listening to CNN on my satellite television I do not hear that snow is falling in yards !!! but in Metres!!
My favourite weatherman here tells me that there may be 10 centimetres of snow ... How much is that ?? More or less than a banana?? It means nothing and does not inspire me to put my wellies on or get a snow plough out.
Snow is cold. I have noted the geographical penchant to vary Celsius and Fahrenheit, seemingly a national trait here in the UK to refer to cold by Celsius "it is 2 degrees today" but look at the hot weather only in Fahrenheit "It is going to be in the low seventies today"... I understand this!!. We have a climate that does not "do" extremes. Therefore it is quite acceptable that we would prefer the "hot" weather sound hotter, and the cold weather less extreme....
But snow falls by a certain volume and lies at a certain height when still. Damn it !! If it is British Snow it should damn well fall in British quantities. And that means in Inches not in centimetres.
I do not know what a centimetre is in real money. I know I have looked up the conversion rate many times but it is not something that will stick in my brain. 16 degrees Celsius is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I can remember this. But there are no conversion from the centi-lies to inches that are exact without using those other foul calculations - the decimal point!! No good telling me that there are 2.54 centimetres to an inch.. How can that help? I know children for the last thirty years have used calculators where we used slide rule, and now probably have an "app" for it on their phone but for a simple soul, I would like to know that there will be up to 3 inches of snow ( take wellies ) 6 inches of snow (will need a shovel to get the car out) or a foot of snow ( stay in and have a cup of tea and watch television).
So, I know it is unlike me to have a rant, but surely it cannot be too much for British television and the news media in general to revert to a sensible measure.... sorry - I suppose I have just answered my question !!
So here are a few shots of snow at Furnace Quarry, nr Llanelli. I can tell you there were three inches of snow.. I measured it with my thumb, which I learned at school was three inches from tip to base...
Thursday, 7 February 2013
7th February 2013 - Ham and Eggs
Now the eggs are hatched and running around in the run - the chicks that is - not the eggs of course, and Rusty has adopted them and cranes his neck into the box to ensure that they are safe and well, I was able to turn my mind back to the other main task in hand. Boxing the house up. This will probably be a recurring theme for a number of weeks, months or years, as there is a lot of house to box. The chicks are safely in the spare bedroom - it being far to cold to put them out at this time of year, and they currently huddle under the special heat lamp that deceptively puts out no light at all but just spins the electric meter wheel, and the video cases are all stacked in their boxes and placed in the top room. The staircase beckoned and the decision to allow the DVD's to follow the plight of their VHS counterparts beckoned. They would be watched sometime in the future but for the moment they could happily stay with Mr Geest the banana home.
As the last cases were stacked, one cover fell to the floor. A home made DVD from 2004, taken at one of our Live Action Role Play events called Renewal. For those unacquainted with Live Action Role Play or LARP as it is affectionately known, I would direct them to my many videos on the subject on the Vollsanger Youtube Channel. Sometimes called "Cross Country Pantomime", sometimes ridiculed and oft laughed at, it is a game system that allows the playing of a different character, dress up with your friends, eat drink and be merry. It is a sort of re-enactment with commitment - playing up to 24 hours of the day while at event and not just in front of the public for a couple of hours. Interest and commitment to costume is often equal, commitment to plot and storyline is far greater, and it allows imagination to run riot.
And so it is that at Renewal, the main Fest of the year for Curious Pastimes Role Play group, where magic and conspiracy take equal part with battle and heroism, that the Ritual Circle, a sort of stage Stone Henge saw the passing of a group of Vikings called the Storm Wolves. And from the technical box overlooking the circle, the FX crew had set a video camera, unknown to anyone in the circle.
The opportunity to wear the kit and strut around being important, and the inclusion of a certain amount of alcoholic beverage on occasion to keep the chill out of the bones, the fear out of the soul, and the embarrassment out of the behaviour all help to bring en event to its own life.
The steaming central altar and the lights glowing from the trees subtly changing the atmosphere and the disembodied voice of the Ritual Circle itself all cause a certain amount of trepidation - after all - characters die in the ritual circle if not careful. The Stone Triptique Arch can open and anything can come out !!!
But not on this occasion - this is for the passing of the Viking Troop who died that day in battle with weapons in their hands, qualifying them to rise and dwell in Valhalla with the All-Father Odin. And rather than monsters, out from the gates come the Valkyrie to collect the bodies and souls of the departed.
But as the Valkyrie indeed came out into the circle, and gathered the glorious fallen, this was another occasion where I remembered why I had taken up this crazy hobby late in life. After all, an ageing policeman rarely gets the opportunity of being surrounded by so many beautiful young ladies who took such efforts to dress up. I sometimes regret that I was not born in the time of the corset and bodice, but here, in my hobby, I can have some innocent enjoyment of times gone by.
They say that you must break eggs to get omelettes, or to start a flock of chickens, but the DVD that fell from the shelf reminded me of the time that I stood in the Ritual Circle to say farewell to those gallant colleagues... and a review and re-edit of the film shows the level of Ham involved.
16 minutes of Ham... you could boil a lot of eggs in that time !!!
Full set of photos on FLICKR
As the last cases were stacked, one cover fell to the floor. A home made DVD from 2004, taken at one of our Live Action Role Play events called Renewal. For those unacquainted with Live Action Role Play or LARP as it is affectionately known, I would direct them to my many videos on the subject on the Vollsanger Youtube Channel. Sometimes called "Cross Country Pantomime", sometimes ridiculed and oft laughed at, it is a game system that allows the playing of a different character, dress up with your friends, eat drink and be merry. It is a sort of re-enactment with commitment - playing up to 24 hours of the day while at event and not just in front of the public for a couple of hours. Interest and commitment to costume is often equal, commitment to plot and storyline is far greater, and it allows imagination to run riot.
And so it is that at Renewal, the main Fest of the year for Curious Pastimes Role Play group, where magic and conspiracy take equal part with battle and heroism, that the Ritual Circle, a sort of stage Stone Henge saw the passing of a group of Vikings called the Storm Wolves. And from the technical box overlooking the circle, the FX crew had set a video camera, unknown to anyone in the circle.
I am not saying that the acting would have been any better had we known. Probably not! We were not acting really - this was role playing and there is a subtle difference. Really!
The opportunity to wear the kit and strut around being important, and the inclusion of a certain amount of alcoholic beverage on occasion to keep the chill out of the bones, the fear out of the soul, and the embarrassment out of the behaviour all help to bring en event to its own life.
The steaming central altar and the lights glowing from the trees subtly changing the atmosphere and the disembodied voice of the Ritual Circle itself all cause a certain amount of trepidation - after all - characters die in the ritual circle if not careful. The Stone Triptique Arch can open and anything can come out !!!
It is a type of theatre - but it is not scripted. The outcome in unknown for each player in the circle. The appearance of the Valkyrie was welcome and hoped for but not guaranteed. At any stage, a mistake in authenticity or enthusiasm could lead the "powers that be" to be as fickle as the gods they represented. Indeed, my own character was refused passage to a safe haven for the heinous crime of having married - but that is another story.
But as the Valkyrie indeed came out into the circle, and gathered the glorious fallen, this was another occasion where I remembered why I had taken up this crazy hobby late in life. After all, an ageing policeman rarely gets the opportunity of being surrounded by so many beautiful young ladies who took such efforts to dress up. I sometimes regret that I was not born in the time of the corset and bodice, but here, in my hobby, I can have some innocent enjoyment of times gone by.
They say that you must break eggs to get omelettes, or to start a flock of chickens, but the DVD that fell from the shelf reminded me of the time that I stood in the Ritual Circle to say farewell to those gallant colleagues... and a review and re-edit of the film shows the level of Ham involved.
The Full Video -
16 minutes of Ham... you could boil a lot of eggs in that time !!!
Full set of photos on FLICKR
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