30 Jan 2012
Posted in Life, People, Travel at 12:21 pm by alby
We went on a little jaunt last weekend. The four of us in a car up into the Peaks to a place called Cressbrook.
The ominous weather didn’t stop us. Didn’t even cause us pause. We parked up near’t mill and got ourselves ready in a howling gale. The walk started well with a small hill and tarmac. Eventually we ended up near some old lead mining houses and passed onwards into a dark wood.
The main issue seemed to be that it was muddy. Then J started howling.
He was sat in a kiddie backpack thing behind me. Turns out I was passing under tree branches but he wasn’t managing to avoid the odd snagging. Poor thing got very upset.
Then we headed upwards to a ridge and exposure to the wind (which had been nicely minimal under the cover of the woods). The gusts nearly blew N off a ledge at one point and then J just kept howling every time a heavy gust came his way.
Would you believe that we picked now to have our lovingly prepared picnic? Well we did. Exposed to the wind and rain. Was great fun.
But should we return and carry on. Carrying on meant miles further in the exposed wind and rain. Returning meant getting J through the thorney trees. We went back in the end but it wasn’t without incident involving mud and loss of balance. But we all got back in one piece.
Might do it again on a better day.
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Posted in People at 12:12 pm by alby
See this: here
Ultra-nerds! And good for them.
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03 Dec 2011
Posted in Life, People at 11:38 am by alby
I’m in the middle of 2 weeks jury service. The first week saw me narrowly miss getting a case that was expected to last 3 weeks. Thankfully I cried “NHS clinic is full for the 3rd week and patients won’t get seen til January if I get that case” and they accepted that.
But then I’m picked for a week long case of assault.
I’m not going to go into any details but blimey it was so banal. Tedious male ego thing that should either have been ignored or dealt with by a handshake and a “that’s the end of it”. And it ended up in court. Actually the second court as they’ve already been through the civil courts with this. What a waste of money and now 2 people’s lives. Two previous decent folk now have criminal records. They weren’t underclass scum, just ordinary folk who over-reacted. Over-reacted quite badly it must be said but still.
So they’ve now blotted their copybooks to say the least. One of them was just about to start his adult life and this is now hanging over him. Just awful.
And how guilty do I feel sitting there and proclaiming them “guilty” knowing that the experience of being dragged through the courts would probably be enough to stop either of them doing anything even remotely dodgy again; and then making it worse for them? Just a hideous feeling. But then they did, quite nastily, beat a bloke up. Sentencing’s not til January though and they are generally decent folk so I’d be surprised if either of them get too long a stretch in choky. I think that’s the right outcome.
Urgh. Wonder what the second week will bring…
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03 Oct 2011
Posted in Fillums, People, Reviews, Travel at 10:25 am by alby
We watched “Of Gods and Men” the other night. Well what a lovelily made fillum. It’s a slow paced one though so if Transformers is your sort of thing then I wouldn’t bother.
It’s a case in what happens when the outside world intrudes into a cloistered life. We have a bunch of monks (I think that’s the correct collective noun) living in Algeria doing their helping the community stuff and living in complete harmony with the locals. The difference in religions mean little to either party and they all mingle happily. At one point the monks are invited to someone’s son’s party (sort of a religious coming of age thing) and are welcomed warmly and they, in turn, are happy to be there. In other words the monks are locals just like anyone else.
But then the civil war kicks off and foreigners are being killed and girls without veils are stabbed on buses etc. All very unpleasant.
The monks themselves are a mixed bunch and very well drawn characters. Some are old and fatalistic but happy with whatever happens, the youngest monk is terrified more than any. The trials of the group form the second half of the fillum. Tis lovely.
A wonderfully warm and poignant study of faith, brotherhood, neighbourliness and duty. I shan’t divulge the ending though.
Yesterday we went to a monkey place. We were expecting a bunch of different monkeys but instead there were lots of 1 particular type. In fact they were from North Africa, indeed the same place as the fillum was set. Barbary Macaques they were.
J wasn’t too impressed but everyone else was. Nice place.
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30 Sep 2011
Posted in Grammar!, Life, People, Rants, Self-indulgence, Work at 12:03 am by alby
There’s always the argument that people shouldn’t necessarily know the same stuff as each other and I subscribe to this. However I think we can agree that there are certain things that people should just be expected to know.
For instance that the Earth circles the sun and not vice versa. Things like knowing what vice versa means etc… And knowing what etc mean….
Two incidents have shaken this belief in me recently.
First was watching an episode of Millionaire. There was a bloke on it who was an English teacher. OK? An ENGLISH teacher. I emphasise for good reason.
One question: “What is the latin for cast list?” OK I might not have answered straight away but on Millionaire they have multi-choice. I can’t actually remember the options but they were as obvious as these:
A: Vice versa, B: Cave canum, C: Modus operandi, D: Dramatis personae
He had to use a life-line! Unbelievable. And this was at only £1000, hardly high up the ladder.
This bloke knew nothing at all. Had only one question that required no life-line and that was question number 1. He eventually gave up on the 5th question which was about a Dickens character and which novel was he in. Now I actually didn’t know the answer as I’ve not particularly read any Dickens but I return you to the fact that he was an ENGLISH teacher. Surely some Dickens would have been on some syllabus somewhere in his past if not his own reading for pleasure. Honestly.
The second incident was at work the other day. It was a team meeting on a morning after I’d had a rotten night of no sleep so I was drowsy and narky to say to the least. I can’t really remember quite how we got there but I needed to know the name of the 1st president of the US (some obscure point about honesty I think) and my sleep-deprived mind couldn’t bring it forward so I asked the team.
“Oh you know the 1st American president, oh what’s his name oh you know…” etc.
And they didn’t answer. They couldn’t answer. Well one could, one who’d also done O-levels may I say. But the others looked at me and I couldn’t tell why. Nobody said anything. I became mildly agitated as I assumed they were just being pains and annoying me. Surely they knew such a simple piece of info as this. So I asked again.
“No come on what’s his name? You know chopped down the tree, can’t tell a lie father etc…”
At which point one of the brightest and most able team-members turned to me and asked:
“Alby. Why would we know American history?”
Gobsmacked I was. Reminded me of a time long ago when I used the word “posthumous” in the office and not a single person in this office (a large dept in a major bank) knew what it meant. I think it’s people’s lack of interest in knowing stuff that genuinely upsets me. Very disappointed.
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11 Jul 2011
Posted in News, People at 10:49 am by alby
I’ve been following the whole death of the News of the World thing with a little bit of interest. I’m not going to witter about why Murdoch is a hideous and malign influence on anything that is good or decent. Nor am I going to witter about why the death of that paper doesn’t mean the death of gutter journalism. Plenty of folk have done that to death.
However the aspect that surprised me was the massive support that Rupert is giving to his chief exec. There’s loads of shots of them off out to eat together; him saying that she’s his greatest priority at the moment etc.. But why can this be?
I can only think of 3 reasons. I think number 3 is most likely:
- She has embarrassing photos or information of him and his family.
- They have a “fruity” relationship where she manages to give him more than he’s had elsewhere.
- They are both David Icke’s shape shifting alien lizard people who are in charge of everything that happens anywhere in the world.
I can think of no other possibility.
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06 Jun 2011
Posted in Juggling, Life, People, Travel at 9:08 pm by alby
Ahh Camping.
We had 8 nights this May starting with the rest of the family’s first BBU.
The drive was a complete mare. Something like 5 hours with many stops involved. Once there though a few lovely people helped with baby-sitting and/or tent upping. We did only have one request along the lines of “How many days have you packed for?” as we dumped a house worth’s of stuff into the tent. Mildly surprised at that.
Bloomin’ cold it was at first. That first night was a bit of a nippy one. But we all survived that one well enough and the next 3 days were just relaxed and happy. Very nice people, lovely location and decent weather. Oh and the friendliest juggling convention took place around us too.
On the Monday we had to decamp, re-pack the car, drive north, unpack the car and re-camp. That was a long day.
The new site was just outside of Cromer. We’d packed up in 22 degree sunshine and were dressed for summer. As we got nearer Cromer the weather turned; we lost 8 degrees and gained rain and wind a plenty. It heaved it down with rain that night which gave us a rather rough view of Cromer as we went out for fish and chips. Not the best first impression.
After that though the weather was pretty darn nice and so was Cromer. At least it wasn’t bad for an English seaside town. Proper pier with theatre too.
We zoomed over to Hunstanton for a day with my folks and niece and nephews which was fun despite Hunstanton being a dump and losing 2 children at one point. The following day my folks came to Cromer for a rather lovely day of lazing and walking and beach sitting. And that was about it.
Things of note were that the businessmen of Norfolk seem to be untrustworthy dodgy types. There was a children’s fair thing on the seafront at Cromer where you had to buy tickets from a central place and signs up all around to insist that you don’t give cash to the staff! Nice way to treat your staff – “hi thanks for working for us, we don’t trust you.” In Hunstanton too the refrain “No refunds” was apparent on a goodly number of signs.
We went at one point to a crazy golf course only to find another “no refunds” sign, a price of a fiver each and another sign that said “No followers”. The group in front of us were debating this as they had a very young member of their family but the rather dodgy looking people in the hut were not shifting on their no follower rule. This kid was no way old enough to play the game so they were being total arses. We decided not to spend that much money when it involved giving it these shysters.
Oh the town should be renamed “Hunstanto’n” as no-one there seems able to use apostrophes correctly.
After Cromer we packed up and headed to Manchester as R had rather sweetly bought us tickets to see The Fall live in their home town that Friday. Hellish journey! Getting northwest from Cromer isn’t easy. In the end it took us 6 hours of slow and tedious roads. The show was fun whilst it lasted but it didn’t last very long at all so a long day’s drive for about 60 minutes of entertainment (including support poet “a low rent John Cooper Clarke” and band). Officious bouncer helped to annoy many, R couldn’t see anything and it was awfy hot. Luckily R’s sister is lovely and looked after the young folk for us (with the excellent help of her daughter) whilst we were out. And finally home on the Saturday.
All in all a lovely week. I think we need less stuff and a wilder trip next time. Maybe Glen Brittle?
Have fun.
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27 Mar 2011
Posted in Life, People at 8:24 am by alby
We went to Conkers on Sunday. (Worth buying tickets on the net tho as it’s 20% cheaper)
Friends of N’s were going and it was a last minute thing for us to join them. I’d been before a few years ago and thought it had potential as a good place to visit if only the stuff around would grow a bit.
Getting there was odd. The route was confusing, the sat nav picked a weird way. I’m sure there should be a quicker way but even googlemaps picked the same odd way.
But we got there in the end. We met up with friends and wandered around for a bit taking pics of geese and swans. There was one swan that seemed to be bullying a goose, but bless the goose it kept on trying its luck. The swan was guarding another swan, I’m guessing this was Mrs Swan. So the goose would go into the pond and the swan would come and chase it out onto the grass. Then it would turn round and head back to the Mrs. The goose would then re-enter the pond and the whole thing just kept on repeating. I watched for about 5 minutes and other bods there said it had been ongoing since well before I arrived. Never did see how it ended.
Conkers is quite a nice place. There’s an assault course (well worth tackling if you’re that way inclined), kids stuff to do, trees and lakes and that. There were falls and tears and laughing and chasing and tickling and more. Twas rather a good day.
Later in the day they had games! We’d arrived on “BST day”. So they put on some games for the young folk. Me and John (father of E and r) joined up for the 3 legged race. As the only all-adult team we had to run twice as far as the others. And we damn near won.
After the games the rest of the party got onto the “Conkachoo” (train) to go to the other bit of Conkers but J’s buggy wouldn’t fit on the train. So I zoomed off on the walk round. Once in the main building (to get to the exit) who did I bump into but P&C&d. Quite a coincidence. They joined us for a play down at the other bit and it was rather fun.
And that was it. Conkers is definitely worth a trip. Lots of stuff to do, loads outdoors and a good wodge of indoor things as well.
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27 Jan 2011
Posted in Life, People, Rants at 10:25 pm by alby
It’s not often that I get annoyed by scams. Most are easy to see and ignore. However one from yesterday has really hacked me off.
N came home from school looking terribly excited. Apparently they did a poetry competition at school some time ago (first we’d heard of it mind). She waved us a serstificate wot said that she’d won and her poem was going to be in an anthology of the best poems in the competition. Hurrah! Very well done little girl.
Very pleased for her. She was beaming and proper excited. A published poet! At 5!
Then we get the bumph. The book is apparently a proper book and will be in the British Library! Well ooo. Doesn’t every book published in the UK get put in the BL? I thought so.
And then we get to the price. £16.99 per copy!
For a kid’s book? Forget that for a lark. We just bought a hardback, illustrated Alice in Wonderland for a quid. Is this anthology of children’s poems really worth 17 copies of Alice?
Cue some harumphing.
Well this morning it turns out that pretty much everyone at the school who submitted anything is also “a winner” and has got their own poem published in this book. Some were calling it a scam, others were upset as they’d already paid for it. Who wouldn’t want to see their child’s work published?
I don’t really blame the school for this, mind you they could have checked the internet say as there are loads of complaints about these scams. But aren’t the people responsible for this scam just scum? Horrible thing to do. The children are so excited and who could refuse buying their published work?
Well us for a start. I expect a strongly worded complaint to the school to be forthcoming soon.
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26 Oct 2010
Posted in People at 10:40 am by alby
There was a discussion on Radio 4 this morning which started on the premise of “How come we’ve not heard of these women in “Made In Dagenham”?”
They’d invited some professor of history to discuss this.
Host – “So why don’t we hear of these stories about strong women?”
Prof – “Well the media always prefers stories of celebrities and spectacular stories not stories about ordinary women like you or I.”
Erm. You, love, are an Oxford academic. You’re talking to a Radio 4 presenter. Neither of you can possibly count as “ordinary women” like the women from “Made in Dagenham”.
I mean really.
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