Aaaaaahhhhhh.

Is it just me or have your cares, too, just drifted away with the exhaust?

It may one day be possible to travel at warp factor nine but what will be the point of living in a hermetically sealed recycled environment, within which the travellers have no sensation of going anywhere, for those who thrive on the stimulus of travel? If all one can see upon arrival is that which can be seen on a screen from an armchair why bother travelling at all? Why not spend the cost of travel on stimulating things that have been brought the other way? Steam engines are beautiful things and, like their brash, ASBO deserving, parvenu cousins the diesels, they talk to those of their masters with the sensitivity to hear. Electric traction may reduce the cost of hauling x units of weight y units of distance, leaving lineside crops unburnt and summer frocks unsmudged while sacrificing diabolical carbon smuts to the wind gods of a much higher altitude many miles away, and electric traction may reduce the cost of track maintenance and the time allowed to a very important area manager to compose and rehearse his excuse to his more important superior, him or more often these days her, self a subordinate of a much more subordinate important superior; it may require less maintenance and far less cleaning; it may be controllable from a control box in Mumbai, or Mumbo Jumbo or Mambo or Bombay or Bumboy or Bimbo or Bambi or whatever that place is known as, by an 'agent' eager to work for a chappatti and a chicken balti with rice per day and a chance to improve his, or more commonly these days her, limited English language skills, it cannot reproduce, notwithstanding the wonders of information communication technology, the unspoken conversation between the mechanical steel servant and her bonded human master.

Steam engines are beautiful things and they speak to me because I was taught to listen. As I learned to listen I heard the stoically muted moans and groans of those dying because they had no choice but to give themselves up to the demands of those who owned the steam engines, and every other source of power, and I came quickly to understand both the attraction of labour saving devices and to realise that electricity will be the god of the working classes until the god of capital manages to create another source of wealth and slavery, and electrical consumption will be the pious devotion of the working classes until the the capital manipulating classes manage to propitiate the god of capital by exploiting another novel source of power.

And that's why the working classes sell their souls to those who promise them labour saving devices and the middling classes (those who work without labouring) willingly turn out to labour on those days they need not work.

I love steam engines. I delight in the shape, sound and smell of them and I know why those who were masters of them, while serving them, described them in the feminine. As beautiful as they were they were bloody hard work and, as much fun as they are, everyone wants the rest from labour that allows the development of the mind rather than the muscles, and therein lies the rub.

Anyone who has ever shovelled anything for hours at a time from economic necessity, as I have, will agree that a job is much better done by an electric motor and a silicon chip, and you can stuff the environment, which is probably why most believers in the existence of the NWO fear eugenics.

Clan Line

I've always thought the rebuilt Bulleids marginally more attractive than the air smoothed versions and as a baby, a toddler and a schoolboy (not a 'student') who was born and lived not so very far from the Chatham mainline it's more than likely that I saw a few before steam locomotive traction was discontinued on the Southern Region of BR. There were no locomotives anywhere in the world as elegant as English locomotives, nor as powerful for a given output per ton against the load hauled.

Chortle

Well it made me chuckle, and I have the house to myself for the evening.

Here's The Onion on Obama and turkeys:

What A Beauty

I doubt there's a woman on the planet as beautiful as that A4. Why do men love machines more than women? Because machines do whatever is asked of them without needing constant reassurance, and regular maintenance with a few simple tools and a quick wipe with an oily rag is all they need to look their best. Perhaps that's why women hate machines almost as much as they hate men.

One Man's Pumpkin ...

... is another's Jack O' Lantern. Here's a picture of mine:

Pretty scary, huh?

On Being 'Creative'

Amongst the myriad words that have been corrupted over the past four or more decades is the adjective creative, which once described people with an ability to create something of worth or value. In those days creative people did not always trouble themselves to look like artists, or what they thought artists looked like or should look like or might look like. These days the word seems to describe anyone without any dress sense and a taste for the tastelessly eclectic, and usually without any ability to create anything of worth or value, which is my way of describing those who acquire and arrange the sort of tat that might cause one to blanch in shame were one compelled, by force of circumstance, to send to the church jumble sale.

Plus ça change ... , or not, since things have not stayed the same but declined considerably.

Something For Estranged Fathers to do with Their Sons

These are the sort of skills that fathers should be passing on to their stake in the future in these uncertain times.

Purely as an aside: Should batty Hattie, and those of her ilk, ever decide that they need a facelift, the method demonstrated above might be thought ideal.

Gruff thanks to Grumpy Old Twat for a link that provided a link to the video.

A Message To You Rudi

Late, I know, but better late than never:

Tower Crane Assembly with Climber

Aalborg Fantasy: CPU

The same tune with a more interesting video:

Another Happy Chappy

A Happy Chappy

That still is quite clearly made from recycled steel, and it's probably wood fired, making the fuel source naturally sustainable. The animals seem to be happy, which is an important consideration when planning an industrial activity. I give the fellow ten out of ten for environmental sensitivity and wildlife conservation.

As Good As It Gets?

There but for the grace of God is an odd thing for an atheist to think.

Alf Hagon On A Rudge

Hagon JAP Sprinter - Number 2

Brough Superior SS 100 Pendine Racer

Lip Service

Through the magic of BBC iPlayer I see that I can watch a series titled Lip Service. I'll readily concede that I may be providing final proof of a very low forehead but I couldn't resist an ironic chuckle at the programme blurb:

'Drama series following the interwoven love lives of three gay women in Glasgow ... '

Lip service indeed, and no pun intended, honestly.

It's All Right For Some

The Mrs Gruff has just told me of a woman with whom she is acquainted (it's probably for the best to describe her that way). She is a pensioner drawing a state pension yet she receives a full final salary pension worth possibly thirty thousand pounds per annum and is paid two hundred and fifty pounds per day, for five days per week, working, more or less permanently, in a freelance capacity for her former employer. I'm not questioning her right to her earnings but I do question her right to a full state retirement pension and all the benefits that go with it. The Mrs Gruff says she pays no council tax, which, if true, is grossly unjust, and extremely annoying, as her income, if at its assumed maximum, is approaching five times that of TMG.

Robotic Indian Call Centre Agents

I've just had yet another bloody annoying exchange with an Indian call centre agent. They all speak in that irritating, harshly metallic, robotic drone, and as usual the call ended abruptly because the robot attempted to take control of it by cutting in as I was speaking and then talking over me in the loud and insistent manner they adopt when they realise they aren't going to get their way.

Having refused to accept my payment and hung up on me he has at least given me the moral high ground and I can now wait until 'collections' write to me, which they will have to do at some point as I never give out any personal information on inbound calls and representatives of financial institutions cannot proceed with a call unless I do.

I could save myself a great deal of trouble by setting up a standing order but I never seem to remember to do so. I think I shall make it a priority as I'm no longer prepared to deal with Indians.

Charles Trenét

A Pedestrian Again

I've had to scrap my car, an almost embarrassingly unexciting Rover 214 that I bought three and a half years ago only because I needed a vehicle and it was available to me at a reduced price of three hundred quid and had eleven months' MOT. It cost me one hundred and twenty five pounds to get it through the next test and two hundred and thirty five for the one following. This year I had to fork out four hundred and forty to keep it legal and another eighty for a battery. It urgently needs a new tyre, and probably two more very soon; the radiator leaks; the water pump is wobbly, if it hasn't packed up altogether; the engine management system malfunctions when the engine is hot, due I think to a cooked sensor, caused by losing most of the coolant through a radiator leak; the alternator shows every indication of dying quite soon; the steering is distinctly quirky, caused, I'm sure, by whomever replaced the relevant bushes for the MOT in February, and, perhaps most importantly, I've never derived any satisfaction, of any kind, from owning or driving it, and the tax expires at the end of the month. In view of all that, and if the trend shown by the previous years' figures is continued, I can expect to have to pay about eight hundred next February. The car simply isn't worth it.

Last night the engine died after only about three miles. I let it cool for three quarters of an hour or so and then managed to restart it, resigned to being carless for a while.

Form Needn't Always Follow Function

This is nice:

I like the way in which the wave form runs up and over. One could form a nice book lined passageway by continuing the shelves down to the floor in the same way. I'm sure that's been done already since it isn't often that anyone has a genuinely novel idea and I'm unlikely to be the first to have thought of doing so.

The picture reminds me of the bedroom in Berwick, which I painted Morris Green, from Fired Earth, a colour long since discontinued. Everything was Morris Green: walls, ceiling, doors, door frames, architrave, skirting, the pipes and radiators and the box sash frames, which had been stained a rather harsh reddish orange brown. I found, as I painted the room, that the woodstain was transformed into a very pleasant shade that went well with the dark green so I left the sashes and the battens that retained them.

I like dark, earthy colours and they work well when rooms are painted throughout in a monotonous monochrome scheme.

Gruff thanks to Design Milk for the photograph.

Arthur Brown

Burt Blanca

An unlikely name for a rock 'n' roll superstar but he was Belgian and it isn't difficult to be big in Belgium.

A New Spike

The Mrs Gruff has called to tell me that her colleagues have bought her a new hamster for her birthday. We have a new Spike

Lewis Lymon

RIP Prudence

Prudence was put to sleep shortly before 17:00 today.

Money, That's What I Want

I want money, that's what I want.

An Interesting Tractor.

Memories

I haven't heard this track for more than thirty five years. I do recall two of a cousin's sons, aged between six and nine, perhaps, staring goggle eyed at the sleeve upon discovering it as they riffled, uninvited, through my album collection, sometime in the early seventies.

Hank Williams

Cherokee Boogie

Bayou Pom Pom One Step

Allons a Lafayette

Amédé Ardoin

Les Veuves de la Coulee

Valse de Balfa

Too Much Excitement for One Day

Living, as I do, quite close to a civil aerodrome belonging to a 'major player' in the 'defence industry' and just a very few miles from [what is only just] an international airport, I've had to overcome my inner schoolboy and no longer dash outside every time an aircraft flies overhead (at my age): almost always the source of excitement is a Typhoon or a budget airline Boeing and one can only see so many before complacency sets in. This afternoon, therefore, I ignored the roar of a low flying piston engined aeroplane until I realised, as it disappeared into the distance that it was powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin. Happily it has made several passes overhead since the early afternoon and I've had an opportunity to see a Hawker Hurricane, a sight I've seen only once, or at most twice, before. High above the Hurricane were the vapour trails of jet airliners criss-crossing the sky, a reminder that the eight gun fighter was originally conceived and developed as the only effective means of intercepting and destroying the heavy bombers of the day, according to John Terraine, in his book The Right of The Line.

There's never a dull moment in Lytham.

I like this sort of thing:

Pat Condell (Again)

Oh Happy Day

As I sit here with the window open I can hear the sounds of machine gun fire accompanied by sharp bangs (it's aboslutely true). Is it too much to hope that the long awaited revolution has started? Should I gather as many bottles as I can and start syphoning the petrol from my neighbours' cars (only a fool would use his own at current prices). Perhaps not. The sound of gunfire has died away and a desultory cheer has just gone up. It looks as though the revolution is over. Bugger, I've missed out again.

Typing was interrupted by the telephone. A foreign voice claiming to represent a 'research' company said it wished to ask me some questions. This time it was about the 'technology' I use in my home. 'Can I ask you some questions?' the foreign voice asked. 'No' the English voice replied and 'click' went the 'phone. That's the third time in a fortnight that I've been bothered by such people.

Stop press: The machine gunning must have been part of some sort of opening display for Lytham Proms, which is being presented as I type. Lesley Garrett has been performing and someone is singing the Liverpool FC anthem, which has brought a smile to the face of The Mrs Gruff (a Scouser).

Not My Thing But ...

I thought the references to Scunthorpe Town were particularly amusing.

Roy Orbison

Here's One for Shorty.

I can never hear this without laughing to the point of splitting my sides.



Poor old Shorty; he seemed not to understand that there is more to being 'big' than being tall and talking tough. I wonder what he's doing now.

Believe It or Not.

According to this web-site, and others presumably, the mainland length of the British coastline, including every 'squiggly bit', at the mean high water mark is 11,073 miles.

Solar Homesteading and Alice's Restaurant: You Can Get Anything You Want

Triumph Hurricane

I've only ever seen one, and that was in the early seventies, when my wallet stretched to fifty quid for a ratty Royal Enfield and bikes such as the Hurricane were firmly in the realms of fantasy. The machine I saw must have been quite new and I did not know what it was until later. It's a beautiful machine and I'd love one, even though I think it 'sits' too high and is orange and yellow and has at least one too many silencers, and forks that are far too long. I have always disliked the stretched-leg, tip-toe seat height of modern motorcycles. A lower version, with a seat height more nearly that of the Lycett Saddle of a vintage motorcycle would enhance the impresion of length suggested by the smooth flowing contours of the seat and tank moulding and add considerably to the Hurrican'e visual appeal.

A Royal Enfield 'Should Have Been'

This is nice:



This is what its builder has done with it:



Here it is with pipes and silencers:



Very nice, and it sounds right too. I'm a fan of Enfields, having once owned one, and I hope this is put into production but I can't see myself having the cash to buy one should it be. I'd love one.

Kenny Everett and David Essex

Peter Gunn

Real Wild Child

Fictionality TV

Finely observed; the characterisations are absolutely spot on, as anyone who has ever worked with a Vince Flannigan will know.

Another Wasted Day

I had intended going for a walk along the Lancaster Canal but it's been raining all bloody day and I have no wet weather gear, and the car, which is not dead after all, although it may not be terribly healthy, has not yet proved itself reliable enough to take me off the beaten track.

The car's a problem. Do I splash out on a new radiator, three new tyres, a new alternator, a service and wheel alignment and balancing or simply run it until it really does die on me and scrap it? It's a Rover 214 and has never held a high place in my affections, though it's been reliable and run well over the past three years. Mrs Gruff calls it George because it's boring but like Georges everywhere it has been dependable and I haven't the money to replace it.

The Best A Man Can Get

This is something to aspire to:



The bedroom is obviously aimed at 'the little lady' (of lamentably poor taste) but then most cars are sold to women, even if the man pays, as he usually does. A 'kegerator'* and an indoor barbecue make excellent additions. The dedicated bachelor slob's ideal accommodation, as described by John O'Farrel, is within the reach of most working single men.

* One of these:

Cumbria 'The Police': Earning Their Pay No Doubt.

My car died in Kendal on Friday evening. I managed to drive it to a car park and from there found a 'phone box and summoned assistance. Sometime after the assistance that could not assist me had come and gone, and while The Mrs Gruff and I awaited a tow home, and in between the arrival and departure of the local car borne chavs, a police car turned up. My first thought was not 'oh thank God' but 'Oh God, what the fuck do they want?' I was not glad to see them. In a difficult situation I thought them just a nuisance to be got rid of, so I smiled and nodded and said no thank you, in a manner the late Mother Gruff would have approved of, and made myself agreeable and held my breath and, in a difficult situation, breathed a sigh of relief that the police drove off and left us alone, knowing that they weren't there to protect me or anyone or any thing I value.

We got home and I'm grateful to 'The Police' for helping us by driving off and leaving us. I'm not being sarcastic: When I saw the police car my first thought was that we were in trouble and when one is in difficulties trouble from 'The Police' is the last thing one wants as a law abiding tax payer.

With a Little Help

Shakin' All Over

Vince Taylor

Smokers

The Crowley Two Step

J'etais au Bal

Tout Les Deux Pour La Meme

The Lacassine Special

One of my most liked Cajun songs.

Amede Two Step

Jolie Blonde

The Midland Two Step

The Cajun Waltz

I've always loved Cajun music and have some albums with the rest of my compost heap.

Slim Harpo

Jimmy Inman & the Impollos

Non Existent Ledge Camping

Doesn't that look like fun?

Ronald Wycherley

That's the trouble with travelin' first class, and the reason I only ever go steerage: One never knows what rock 'n' roll singin' riff-raff one will have to put up with.

Randy and The Rainbows

The Del-Chords

The Del Vikings

Mickey and Sylvia

Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers

Who Can Explain sounds familiar.

Lincoln Fig and The Dates

No I'm not joking, and yes, he sang 'she kicked the bucket'.

Some Early Music and Folk Dancing

This remembers me, as my daughter said once when she was about the same age as her daughter is now, of a tape, bought almost twenty five years ago, that conjured images of wintry landscapes and short hard lives.



I'd quite forgotten that I have a twelve inch long playing record of the Lays of Guillaume de Machaut. There's all sorts of stuff mouldering in Berwick, and my books too, few of them fiction, which I rarely read, not that I read much at all these days.

A man needs to live alone. If only I could make some money.

This is not mediaeval but it entranced me in 1969, or thereabouts and did form some part of the long train of thoughts and fantasies that led me to undertake post graduate study at the wrong university. Had I stayed at Sheffield and taken up the very generous offer that was made to me I might now be a happier and slightly richer man, fool that I be I went to York and have regretted doing so ever since, though I enjoyed studying under Martin Carver:



I'm sure we have a tape, somewhere, of the Mediaeval Baebes:



About fifteen years ago, in Sheffield, there was a minor controversy surrounding a 'trendy rev' who used lights, smoke and music to spread his message. The usual accusations were made that he was trying to establish a 'cult' but his approach was nothing new: The early church used light (stained glass and candles) incense and music and chant to entrance its audience, and entranced they were.

I include this merely because my thoughts are on the Pre-Raphaelites and I knew a fellow, not so very long ago, who claimed that Millais painted the picture in a stream at the bottom of his great (or great great etc) grandfather's garden, somewhere in north eastern Surrey, if I recall correctly. Who knows, it may be true:






I have a version of this:







This may not be what academics consider 'authentic' but I'm certain the mediaeval commoner would have appreciated it:





In about 1994 or 5 I saw a husband and wife duo, he French and she French Canadian, I think, at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. They played Breton folk music (if I recall aright) on bagpipes and hurdy gurdy, two of my favourite instruments, although I've always hated the noise made by the Scotch pipes.



I have a more robust version of this:



This too:



This rots too:



Here's a Pavane (I'd forgotten the word):



Now my evening will be compleat if I can just find a bransle.



And:



Here's Mike Smith again:



Back to bransles:



I stopped looking for early music on YouTube years ago but things have clearly changed since.

I was a member of Handsworth Traditional Sword Dancers for four years, from 1992 until I moved, mistakenly, to York in 1996. I've done this dance many times in practice but never actually danced out, as they say (never mind the applause, the dance isn't finished until the 'lock' is formed and held aloft:



For eighteen months, in 1991 and 1992, I was a member of The Seven Champions Molly Dancers and did dance out with them several times (I moved to Sheffield in 1992 and could no longer attend the practices). I could have danced at Sidmouth in 1992 and had just enough to go but I owed my accountant almost the same sum so paid him instead. I missed a chance that I shan't be given again but I did the right thing, unlike those bastards who refused to pay me.

Here are The Seven Champions performing a dance I remember well:



I've done this one as well:



The boots, I still have mine (1954 WD ammo boots), are hobnailed (I removed the hobnails one evening at a Handsworth practice) and tend to slip on hard pavement. The toe cap of the right boot still has a gouge caused contact with a stud on another dancer's boot.

I've heard this before. Beowulf is a poem I knew well: I had to translate one third of it, that is about one thousand lines, into good idiomatic modern English as part of my degree. In this unread and insignificant blog it is perhaps excusable to record that I attended only one seminar and disregarded the set text and translated and learned by heart the thousand lines and achieved firsts in four translation tests, with a single pencilled emendation of a word that was correct but, as I knew when I wrote it, I had used two lines earlier. There was an alternative, as my tutor pointed out, and he wanted me to use it, as I knew well enough. At the time I was disgusted that I had only been given two seventy fives and two eighties, and blamed myself. These days I don't care.

HWAET! We Gardena in gear dagum theo cyninga thrym gefrunon, or something like that. My Klaeber, the pages of its glossary grimy with the sweat of a few weeks intense work, is in Berwick with Swan (Swann?) the spine of the latter broken as a sacrifice to pragmatism. It took me two and a half days to learn the first slug of three hundred lines by heart but I learned the fourth slug of two hundred and fifty in less than six hours. I can remember very little now. I do recall that Scyld Scething does not mean King Scyld but Scyld the son (or follower or kinsman) of Sceth (Sc makes sh sound, as in scip and scit - which Bosworth and Toller translate, in the phrase scit wurde as 'foul language', if my memory serves me aright)



This isn't appealing ...



but it does remind me of this (the which film this accompanies being amongst my most liked and the catalyst for a row in the cinema that used to be housed in the riverside park surrounding the abbey ruins behind the King's Manor in York, wherein I was once a very cynical post graduate student, between myself and The Mrs Gruff, although I am not sure we were then married):

Back to something like what I heard in Sheffield:



This is the only track from The Piano that I really like:

A Chanter M'er

My things rot still in Berwick but I look forward to hearing my music again, soon.

Early Music: Greek Lyre

Blind Willie McTell

This Evening's Dinner

This evening I cooked a risotto of onions, celery and fresh peas, and followed that with what The Mrs Gruff calls a fruit compote and I term stewed fruit: dried figs, prunes, apricots and some very old sultanas stewed in red wine, some very dark sugar and some mulling syrup that is more than two years past its sell by date. I served that with some of her orange ice cream and a curious biscuit like thing formed into a long thin tube.

Dion and The Belmonts

The Crests

Johnny Maestro, of The Crests, has died.



I've always liked Doo-Wop, even as a child, and before Delta Blues, Cool Jazz, R&B and Rockabilly (the 'early Rockabilly' as some would have it). I've always understood Doo-Wop to follow two distinct paths, black and white, and I've always preferred white as it has a rougher, less 'honeyed' feel which seems to convey more of it's urban working class origins. The Crests combined the nuances of black and white nicely and there is not one of their songs that I dislike, at least not of those I've heard.

Simon's Cat

See more here.

Japanese Costume

Have a look at the costumes shown here.

The English Electric Lightning

For my generation (b 1956) this was the jet fighter. Every schoolboy knew what it was because even had we not seen photographs of it, the Airfix kit* was available in model shops, newsagents and sub post offices every where. It looked like death abroad and we knew that those who flew them could handle them. Taken to the Biggin Hill airshow sometime in the early / mid sixties I still recall its awe inspiring power. Bored with the chatter of adults in the refreshment tent I noticed that the cups and spoons were rattling very gently in the saucers. This went on for what seemed like an age while the adults, oblivious, chattered on. Eventually someone noticed and drew attention to the phenomenon. We all trooped outside and scanned the skies, and the chatterers were reduced to gibbering incoherence as a Lightning flew up and over 'The Bump' at little more than tree-top height, tearing the sky apart with its searing exhaust. Some seconds after it disappeared from view it was seen climbing vertically into the clouds, and then it was gone.

I don't think anyone had any doubt that our airspace and our sovereignty were secure.

*


(Taken from here)

Addendum: A Series 2 kit cost 2/6 when I was a boy.

For Br*tish Substitute English: The Fairey FD2

Fairy Aviation was an English company.

Cooking With Dog

Seasick Steve

*



*With Gruff apologies for the wanker known as Jools Holland.

Seasick Steve

Baidarkas

Moving has had an effect on me similar to that which the reduction in the use of weed killers and pesticides had on the Kent countryside about twenty years ago. I've woken up and long dormant seeds are germinating, and old tunes are being played again. I've long admired the baidarka, and had an unpublished post on the subject waiting here for some time, though I deleted it, and it is delightful to see that kinngusaqattaarneq has posted again.

I'd trust elegance and obvious fitness for function over 'style' always, without eschewing appropriate adornment.

This picture of a strip baidarka was taken from kinngusaqattaarneq:



as was this:



The latter image shows the product of George Dyson's brain. Look him up, he's an interesting fellow.

Deja Vu

Believe it or not, I sketched something very similar to the Suzuki Biplane about twenty five to thirty years ago, although my concept used hub-centre steering at the front and a combination wheel mounting / drive / suspension mounted directly to the gearbox at the rear, doing away with shafts, belts or chains and stays.

I cannot recall which of my disastrous career choices was the worst.

Not A New Idea

A nice looking machine though, and one that appeals to the designer in me.

A Nice Day

I spent the day in the garden and my cuttings pile is halfway towards worth hiring a chipper. I've hacked down quite a bit of foliage and associated woody stuff. A black mark for B & Q, whose representative broke the promise explicitly given on a sticky label attached to one of their products guaranteeing a full refund were I not completely satisfied, which, given that the product broke less than twenty four hours after purchase, I was not, but a satisfying day none the less. I tidied up here and there, clipped the Wisteria wandering in from next-door, refixed the telephone line outside the house, refilled the compost bin, etc. etc. etc. and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The day was made even more enjoyable by the crew of the RAF VC10 that flew low level circuits from lunch until teatime. What a beautiful aeroplane.

I'll be even happier when I've replanted my aquarium and sorted out some stylish lighting for The Mrs Gruff's nano aquarium.

Lunch was a smoked ham sandwich with a pear and watercress salad and dinner was fish and chips eaten off my lap, outside and as the sun went down.

I once saw a sticker in the rear window of a car saying 'it's a nice day, watch some bastard spoil it'. The bastard at B & Q, who was actually a rat faced little bitch, tried but failed.

Johnny Angel

And:

Frankie Lymon

The Vickers VC10

The Mrs Gruff and I have very recently moved to a new address, which is close to Warton Aerodrome and lies almost under its flight path. All sorts of things fly in and out of there and as I type an RAF VC10 is making low level circuits. It's distinctive (and 'distinguished'), relatively quiet and extremely elegant; in every way a very English aeroplane. The sight and sound of it evoke memories of seeing the BOAC Cunard VC10s on the apron at Heathrow in the mid sixties and every pass raises goose pimples and sends a shiver down my spine, even my hair stands on end. A schoolboy thrill I'm not at all embarrassed to admit to.

I have several memories of London airport from that decade, the first of which is of watching the BOAC Bristol Britannia carrying my father back from Trinidad land, in about 1960/1, before the Queen Elizabeth terminal was built. Only a line of portable barriers separated the public from the runway but in those days nothing else was necessary. At about that period he took me with him to collect an item from the cargo sheds on the far side of the airport. It was night-time, although probably not late, and I can still clearly recall seeing a brightly lit, strangely curving green house seemingly perched in the air somewhere ahead and above me. At that time I had not seen a Boeing Stratofreighter and the sight was very much a wonder.

With friends and relatives in various parts of the world, my father was often at London Airport and I always looked forward to going there. A sign over the entrance to the road tunnel under the apron announced 'Welcome To Britain' and in those days one could be proud to welcome people to a land that was still of some account in the world, was a decent place in which to live and had not been made into a doss house for the scum of the Earth in which no crime is so awful that one might be asked to leave.

It's delightful to see an aircraft almost as old as myself still giving good service, unlike myself, but I cannot help thinking that like myself and the Britain I was once proud to live in, it is very much a thing of the past.

There's a link to a web-site devoted to the TSR2 in my blogroll. Somewhere in the tangle of faulty memory, heresay, sloppy journalism, misinformation, corrupted accounts, spiteful diaries, shredded documents, secrecy rules, outright lies, misleading autobiographies, dust, worms, concealed truths and unheard voices lies an illuminating doctoral thesis on the decline of the 'British' aircraft industry. Someone, someday, will write it.

Interlude

The next posting delayed due to a 'technical hitch' here's a television advertisement:

Link Wray

Hank Burnette

Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole.

Chew Tobacco Rag

Another favourite from my misspent youth.

Dennis Herrold

I had this as a track on one of the Imperial Rockabilly albums, released about thirty five years ago. Whether it was vol I or II the plastic disappeared long ago but I've never forgotten the song, which has always been one of my most liked.

Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll

Despite the title it's a rockabilly classic.

Billy Lee Riley

Johnny Cash

Blue Velvet

Definitely a favourite. In the film Goodfellas Karen Hill says that Bobby Vinton once bought Henry and her a bottle of champagne. I hope it's true.

Prudence

Prudence is better and out, just now, for the first time in eight days, and I was delighted to see her, though she was obviously far from well. She staggered about, one eye open, one shut, but took a sugar snap pea and two pieces of carrot, and spent some time chewing the stuff up in her food store.

I cannot help thinking that another trip to Shap Abbey is 'in the offing'.

Mrs Gruff Laughed Too

Gruff thanks to The Policeman's Blog for the link to the video.

Prudence is Ill

She has pneumonia. Thankfully the Mrs Gruff has the wherewithal to save her but the healing process is too distressing for me. She may only be a rodent but I derive much pleasure from her occasional forays into the the daylight world and I would miss her were she to die, which she may well do.

Get well soon prudence (is that the optative or the subjunctive? I think the former, although my memory misgives me and I'm probably mistaken).

Virginia Astley

I'm sure I have, somewhere, a CD copy of the album on which this track can be heard:

The Mahavishnu Orchestra

Though it seems unlikely now, I was once an art student, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra was amongst my preferred bands. Here's a clip:

Not Big, Not Clever

Witty none the less.

Is It Coz I's Tick?

Here's an interesting story but I'm puzzled by this paragraph:

One Earth day is about 24 hours long. Over the course of a year, the length of a day normally changes gradually by one millisecond. It increases in the winter, when the Earth rotates more slowly, and decreases in the summer, Gross has said in the past.

I'm sure the answer's simple but I cannot see it. Perhaps some kind soul would enlighten me.

Etcetera

About Alice

I don't recall hearing this, or something like it, since 1969, or thereabouts.

Willie Nelson: The City of New Orleans

Poor Posture and Barbershop

Not Such A Happy New Year

My mother died sometime between 06:30 and 06:45 on Sunday, 3rd inst, after a long illness. Had she lived for just another eighteen hours we could have celebrated her eightieth birthday, an occasion she looked forward to.

Mother Gruff knew far more than I how to be disagreeably disagreeable but it was still something of a surprise to hear an answerphone message from her on my mobile on Monday: 'This is your mother ... ', as she approached her end, was nothing less than true to type.

She believed in discipline and dedication, and harsh punishment for defaulters, and I was never less than a disappointment. We had no contact for many years but I'm glad that we were reconciled before she died. If only I'd switched on my phone.

She served with the WAAF, in Singapore, during the Communist insurgency in Malaya. Typically, her retailed memories of that time were mostly stories of the trouble repeatedly caused by Scotch soldiers from the barracks adjacent who were allowed to use the NAAFI on the RAF base. They seem to have been nothing but trouble and unnecessary expense.

I've just taken a call from a friend on The Mrs Gruff's mobile phone in which one of my very few friends told me something I should have heard sooner had I left the bloody thing switched on.