7 June 2011 (Tuesday) - More Stuff

Having lain awake for what seemed like hours, I gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs and put on a South Park DVD. I selected “Play All”, and woke up with a stiff neck two hours later. If only I could sleep where and when I’m supposed to sleep.

To Asda to buy lunch. Having spent a small fortune on my Kindle, I was somewhat dismayed to see that they were selling Binatone e-book readers at a third of the price of a Kindle.

I contented myself with the fact that I knew the Binatone brand. I can remember that as a child the Binatone brand was (in my experience) synonymous with cheap and nasty. And then I realised that my experience was of thirty-odd years ago. If Binatone are still going after all these years, they can’t be all bad. And so I sulked for an hour or so.

My sulking wasn’t improved by the news on the radio. The government has announced its latest anti-terrorism measures. They are going to stop funding extremists. Wow!! I wonder how many think-tanks it took to come up with that stroke of genius?

And then there was an article about the latest proposed changes to the NHS. I’ve maintained for a long time that the NHS doesn’t need change; it needs years of stability to actually get on with the business of health care, rather than struggling with the business of coping with endless political reorganisations.

Interestingly the pundit on the radio agreed with me. He explained that no reform of the NHS has ever been planned or evaluated. He claimed that all the NHS reforms had been instigated and abandoned at the whim of the prevailing political climate at the time, and likened the reasoning used as being akin to Sooty waving a magic wand.

That cheered me up.

And so home, where I loaded the car up with all the camping gear. I say “all” – I mean enough to be getting on with for today. I’ve got all the tents, chairs and tables loaded up. The more important stuff (like the beer) will be packed tomorrow.

I’ve just realised I’ve forgotten to pack the dingy….

6 June 2011 (Monday) - Stuff

Last night we saw the last (for the time being) episode of Doctor Who. It was quite good, but like all of the more recent episodes, it lacked a certain something. I wish I knew exactly what I expect from Doctor Who episodes, because whatever it is, it is lacking at the moment.

I suspect that I don’t like the attempt at having bits of an ongoing story interspersed in various episodes. They should either have a story in several episodes, or have the stories utterly separate from each other. Having silly little disjointed fragments here, there and thither is not keeping my attention – it’s just annoying.

Doctor Who is now on hold over the summer and returns in September. While I’m keen for its return I’m hoping for the best whilst expecting the worst.

This morning I had an email from Aleksandra; a Russian lady of (presumably) dubious morals. Her email was entitled “Amorous message #17375756”. I must admit I wasn’t impressed at being her 17375756^th choice.

But as well as asking for my hand in marriage, she assured me that she’s never married (a) lady with hazel eyes and brown hair. I’m not sure if that is good or bad.

Here’s an interesting tale. Canadian parents David Stocker and Kathy Witterick have had a baby. That’s nothing unusual – parents have babies all over the world. Baby boys and baby girls. However this baby is neither. Yet. The parents have decided not to tell the world what gender the child is (biologically): the idea being that “they want (the child) to discover him/herself by shielding the child from cultural influences that would otherwise influence gender identity”. An admirable sentiment in a perfect world.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. My first thought was that in this imperfect world all these silly parents are doing is ensuring that the child will receive a serious dose of bullying and victimisation at school should the boy like playing with dolls, or the girl like football.

But then I thought again. If a boy of twenty years ago liked playing with dolls, of a girl of twenty years ago liked football then there might have been problems.Nowadays does it really matter?

I can’t help but feel that these people’s silly idea will achieve nothing other than make the child the attention of a media circus. And if that doesn’t screw up the child’s sense of self-identity, nothing will….

5 June 2011 (Sunday) - Fossils

 

Anyone who knows me will know that I organise my calendar. I plan for events months in advance. There are several reasons for this – it’s very easy to find that I’ve agreed to go to several conflicting events; it’s very easy for me to forget about events, and that if I don’t have something planned, it’s very easy to waste precious time doing nothing.

Some months ago when making plans, bearing in mind that this would be the first weekend in June we naively thought that this would be a good day to go to the beach. We woke to find light drizzle, but if we gave up every time the weather was against us, we’d give up an awful lot.

We set off, only ten minutes later than planned, and narrowly avoiding the police speed trap at Cliff End, we arrived at our destination (Cliff End) five minutes before the Folkestone contingent arrived. We had a quick cuppa, and then wandered down to the cliffs, where we embarked on our fossil hunt.

Fossil hunting is rather akin to arky-ologee. It involves taking an inordinate amount of time to not find very much. But occasionally there’s something worth having. And there’s probably more to be found in fossil hunting that in arky-ologee.  I think it’s fair to say that in an hour’s fossiling we found far more than we ever would in a day’s arky-ologing. We found fossilised sponges, fishes teeth, fossilised wood, and even a crocodile’s scrote. And I got to clout things with a great big hammer too (!)

It took me a little while to realise that one shouldn’t bam just any old rock; fossils are (apparently) quite fussy about where they lurk. But I soon found the right sort of rock.

Having got the hang of what I was supposed to do, it would have been good to have continued, but the rain was getting heavier and heavier. And the tide was coming in fast. Very fast. So not wanting to get cut off we beat a hasty retreat back to the cars. On the way back we were accosted by a normal person who asked if we knew anything about fossils. We laughed, but he was serious, and he showed us his find. We scratched out heads over what he’d found, and eventually concluded that it was some sort of stone. Possibly a rock or even a boulder. The normal person didn’t seem impressed with our sage wisdom, and we left him to get cut off by the tide and we went back to the cars for our picnic. The original plan has us picnic-ing on the beach. In the end we picnic-ed in the cars to shelter from the rain.

As the rain increased from “deluge” to “monsoon” we sadly gave up with the beach, and drove into Rye for a crafty pint in the Queen’s Head. A pint of mild, and a game of chess. There was a chess board, and once we’d picked it all up from where “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ” had thrown it all over the floor, we had a game. I won, eventually, but it took some doing. And then home, where I slept in front of the telly for a while. I would have preferred to have spent longer fossiling. Next time….

4 June 2011 (Saturday) - One Step Beyond....

 

The last two days have taken their toll. My stomach’s not been right for a day or so. I blame Thursday night’s curry. The menu did rate my vindaloo at six chillies, and the next hottest dish only had four. But it was tasty at the time. I expect my insides will be back to usual (if not “normal”) in a day or so.

As well as intestinal discomfort (posh for excessive farting) I also woke this morning feeling almost unable to move. I’m getting un-fit. I think I need to do more walks like yesterday’s.

I worked this morning: I wasn’t rota-ed to, but the boss was, and she wasn’t keen to work. Did I want to do her shift? So I had the chance of overtime and I took it.

After a dull morning I came home and cleaned out the fish pond filter, then (having scrubbed myself) I ironed for two hours, whilst watching the film “Aliens”. And then, having fallen asleep for an hour or so after the film, the day had been pretty much wasted.

Fortunately we had plans for the evening. To Maidstone, via Smarden – our usual chauffer had blown a gearbox (ouch!), and so it was only fair that he be driven for once. There was a dodgy five minutes on arrival in Maidstone: a skimpily clad drunken boiler was announcing to the world that she had no stripper for their hen party. I was seriously contemplating flopping it all out for a tenner for them. But I was reliably informed they could get better for cheaper at the Electric Rhino Sex Shop (!)

Fortunately for all, we soon reached our destination. A friend of a friend’s daughter is a member of the Stage Theatre Society, and tonight they put on “Our House”: the Madness equivalent of “Mamma Mia”. As a young lad in the late 70s I was there when Madness first appeared on the music scene. I remember when “Baggy Trousers” and “Night Boat to Cairo” first came out. And so I really enjoyed tonight’s show, quietly singing along to all of the songs. Mind you, the plot was somewhat difficult to figure out, but if you’ve seen the movie “Sliding Doors”, you’d soon get the hang of what was going on. I for one had an wonderful evening.

(And on the way home we got to see a seriously foxy transvestite, which isn’t something you see every day).

However (and there is always a “however”), I’ve always said that I don’t like going to the cinema; preferring to see the film in comfort at home. The same is doubly true of theatre. Tonight’s show was excellent; there’s no denying that. However (like every performance I’ve seen at the Hazlett Theatre) the hard work of the performers was let down by the sound system. For about half the time it was not possible to hear the actors because the band’s music was too loud. The theatre was too hot, and I was very uncomfortable and very sweaty for the entire performance.

And then there was the Great Unwashed. There was a constant stream of the Lower Orders walking in and out of the theatre on various missions of their own. The porky biddy next to me stank to high heaven, and wouldn’t shut up about her grand daughter who was playing the part of “second baggy trouser”. And I came very close to slapping the prat in the queue for the ice cream stall who was oblivious to the rest of the world. Could he honestly not see that whilst he was attempting to charm his way into the knickers of the young lady selling ice creams, the queue was growing longer each second?

The same company will be putting on a production of “Les Miserables” in a few months time. For all that I know I would really enjoy the show itself, I might give that one a miss….

3 June 2011 (Friday) - Exploration

I started reading a new book on my Kindle today – the memoirs of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton is a personal hero of mine. He was a major figure in Antarctic exploration; at one point holding the world record for the person who’d got closest to the South Pole. I won’t go into endless details of his life – there’s a good summary here. A brief synopsis would be that despite three failed Antarctic expeditions, he was embarking on his fourth one when he dropped dead. (That’s what being British is!)

What I find so amazing about the chap is that he was one of the last “proper” explorers. I’m currently reading about his expedition of 1914 in which he planned to cross the Antarctic from one side to the other, via the South Pole. He didn’t quite achieve it; in fact he never quite got started. But he got to the Antarctic, and made his way through hundreds of miles of uncharted oceans and ice floes and coastlines. He was going through utterly unexplored territory. He was drawing the maps as he went along, naming mountains, cliffs, beaches and other geographical features after the patrons who’d financed his expedition. And had he actually managed to start his intented traverse, he may well have been utterly scuppered by as-yet undiscovered mountain ranges. But the fear of the unknown didn’t bother him. Or any of the other explorers of his time (or earlier).

There will never be an age of exploration quite like Shackleton's. Even as mankind (slowly) reaches for the Moon, Mars, and beyond, everywhere we go will have been mapped out by satellite radar long before any explorers get going. And the same satellite technology will allow explorers on the ground to locate themselves on their maps to within a yard or so thanks to the wonders of GPS technology. Whilst our interplanetary explorers will be brave and bold, they will none of them face the unknown in quite the same way that Sir Ernest once did….

These profound thoughts came to me today, when ‘er indoors ^TM and I field tested her latest acquisition: a set of cards detailing short walks round Kent. Yesterday we decided to go to Aldington. We’d chosen Aldington because it was (for us) unexplored territory. And the instruction card was excellent. It spelled out our route, pointing out when to turn left, when to turn right, and brought up points of local interest along the way.

We had a wonderful walk: ‘er indoors ^TM missed seeing the fox, but we both saw the water vole – I’d never seen one before. I know it was a water vole because I took a photo and looked it up when we got home.

And we will do more of these walks. Yesterday I thought of them as walks into unexplored territory. Now I know that they are only unexplored by me. No one has been to "unexplored territory" since Sir Ernest died…

2 June 2011 (Thursday) - Stuff

Albert (Einstein) once mentioned that everything is relative. This morning I had something of a lie-in; not waking until 6.30am. One man’s early start is another man’s lie-in.

After brekkie I popped to Asda for various bits and bobs. Amongst the stuff they were flogging this morning was washing up bowls. It was pointed out last weekend that some of the bowls we take camping have seen better days, so I thought I’d get new ones. At the bargain price of three for a fiver, it wasn’t to be sniffed at. However there was a problem. When I came to pay for them at the self-service checkout, the device had a minor humdinger. Its programming couldn’t comprehend anyone buying three washing-up bowls. It flashed up a warning about triplicate item purchase, and flashed the “ask the nice lady” warning. Eight members of staff then ignored me. Eight! – I counted them. As a ninth tried to ignore me I made great show of shouting at her and loudly broadcasting my problems. She politely (but firmly) told me that it wasn’t anything she could deal with: she’s not trusted on the tills. I firmly and noisily (but not politely) told her to go and get someone who was trusted on the tills.

A manager-type came over to find out what all the noise was about. I explained that I quite understand that the machines are fallible, and that not all of the staff are till-worthy. But that it was rather frustrating to be obviously studiously ignored.

Picking up my sack barrow from HomeBase was (in comparison) utterly painless.

Work was much the same as ever, and after work a gaggle of colleagues went into town to the Wetherspoons’s curry night. After a quick diversion for a McFlurry we had a pint and ordered our food. In retrospect a vindaloo was perhaps not the most sensible of choices, but it (eventually) went down well.

There are those that run down Wetherspoons, but I must admit to liking them. They aren’t the most up-market establishments; the food isn’t haute-cuisine, and the service often leaves a lot to be desired. But a curry, dessert, two pints of ale, and change out of a tenner isn’t to be sniffed at….

1 June 2011 (Wednesday) - A Rant. (Sorry!)

 

Yesterday I ranted about kites being banned at Bexhill. Today I’m going to rant some more about it. Because it’s important, and because if you don’t stick up for yourself, you get walked all over.

And because I’m sick and tired of being banned by officialdom.

Many years ago, together with a gaggle of mates, I'd go to "Star Trek Events". Between 1993 and 1997 we'd go to all sorts of trekkie-related things. Conventions in the University of London. Booze-ups at the Star Trek theme pub in the West End. Trekky/Gaming festivals at Camber Sands. “Trekky Nights” in the gay pub in Canterbury, and in the “strangely normal” pub in Margate. To the cinema, all dressed up as Captain Kirk. In full Star Trek costume at the end of Southend Pier. On one memorable occasion there was over fifty of us (all dressed up) at the pictures in Folkestone.

But not any more – it all got banned.

I used to keep large snakes as a hobby. At first sight you might think it's a dangerous thing to do, but you would be wrong, as anyone who’s ever held a royal python would know. No one in the UK has been eaten by their pet python. Nevertheless there were those who sought to ban snake keeping, and by the early years of this century the ban had pretty much succeeded. Where in 1999 I was spoilt for choice for a pet shop, within a few years there was no pet shop with an hour's drive of my house that supplied snakes, equipment or food. In 1999 there were four reptile societies within an hour's drive of my house. Today there are none that I know of.

(Having said that, the hobby is once more picking up, but realistically it is but a shadow of what it once was.)

One of the pastimes for many years has been mass outings to a lovely picnic site at Kearsney Abbey where anyone who knows me will tell you what I do there. I guzzle two bottles of beer and fall asleep.

Not any more! I can’t do that any more as the area is now a “zero tolerance for alcohol” zone.

I enjoy a cigar. I used to sometimes have as many as six in a year. Now thanks to the smoking ban I can’t remember my last cigar.

In 2001 I bought my first power kite. It was great fun. A few months after that we experimented with the fun and frolics of people lifting and “arsing”, but it didn’t take long to realise that what we were doing was potentially dangerous, not only to ourselves, but to passers-by, so we formed a formal kite club and got insurance. Very soon after this we began hearing rumours of certain councils banning kite flying on their land. Wonderful! There is a Google group called rec.kites. If you go back far enough on that site you’ll find my comments on the subject are still there, some years later.

But then – Salvation!! This bloke in Yorkshire was getting in touch with all of the kite clubs in the UK. Together we’d be able to form an organisation that would work with councils to educate kite fliers, to formulate a code of practice, to be a unified voice for kite flying across the country. Here was an organisation that would stand up for us.

So we joined up with them from the start, enthusiastically supporting them. Mind you, they were never easy to support. It took some weeks to get a straight answer to the question of how much they wanted off of us as a subscription fee. Our enthusiasm was somewhat blunted by the observation that as members we were liable for anything they did wrong, and incredibly blunted by their flat refusal to take the problem seriously.

We let our affiliation lapse until such time as the liability issue was sorted. During this time my support for the ideals of this club remained as enthusiastic as ever. I would regularly post on their club Internet forum, but as time went on, my enthusiasm was more for the ideal than for the club itself. Having drawn up a constitution and having very rudely told me how important said constitution was, the BKFA then flaunted it several times.

And so I for one rather resigned myself to losing yet another hobby. And I was right. The ban at Bexhill is the thin end of the wedge.

Whilst there is some pyrrhic satisfaction in saying “I told you so”, didn't I spend years ranting at the kite flying community that this would happen? Didn't I? And did anyone listen? Did they?

Let’s no one act surprised about this. I ranted about this over six years ago……

But ranting is easy. Doing something about it….. is easy too. Should this ban be enacted at Bexhill, does anyone fancy joining me in some mass civil disobedience?