Quiz Night : Who sailed the Gypsy Moth?

As we won the Spitfaire Quiz last week, I had to come up with the questions for the quiz this week. Here they are for your entertainment. If you don't come from around these parts you can miss out the third round. I will try and post the answers as a "comment" to this post tomorrow.

ROUND 1 (1) Who sailed yachts called Gypsy Moth?   (2) What is the maximum number of Friday the 13ths possible in one calendar year, including leap years? (3) Which African city is named from the Greek meaning "three towns"? (4) Hirudo medicinalis is the most common what used by doctors? (5) Latvia has borders with four other countries, name them  (6) Who is the only footballer to have played for Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool & Everton? (7) The best film Oscars of 1990 and 1991 were given to films that contain animals in their title, name them (8) In Greek mythology, which nymph pined away until only her voice remained? (9) What is the name of the flag bearing the arms of the British Sovereign, flown only when he or she is present? : BONUS – on what occasions is it flown at half mast? (10) Which now-deceased Hollywood actor served time on chain gang in Georgia after being arrested for vagrancy? 

ROUND 2 (11) What actor, who starred in 130 Robin Hood adventures on TV, died in June 1982? (12) Who said: "When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad I'm better"? (13) In which city would you find Logan International Airport?  (14) Who wrote "The Old Man and the Sea"?  (15) Who were Benny the Ball, Spook, The Brain, Fancy Fancy, and Choo Choo? (16) Which is the largest land-locked country in the world? (17) Which two countries have been contesting the world’s oldest international cricket match since 1844? (18) Which famous vessel constructed of balsa wood was named after an Inca sun god? (19) Who claimed that “History is bunk”? (20)  What word can go after “kid” and before “kin”?              

ROUND 3 (21)  Which is furthest north, Halifax Yorkshire or Halifax Nova Scotia? (22) What is the name of the canal which passes through Brighouse? BONUS : Within 20 years either way, when was it built? (23) Which famous mill owner who created a village that is now a World Heritage site lived at Crow Nest Mansion near Hipperholme? (24) One of Yorkshire’s most famous writers was James Herriot who wrote the vet books. What was his real name and in which town did he live? (25) Yorkshire used to have a West Riding, North Riding and East Riding. What does “Riding” mean? (26) What was the name of the Brighouse cinema, built in 1899, which was where the Calder Bar now is? (27)  Who is reputed to be buried in the grounds of Kirklees Hall? (28) According to the sixteenth century Beggar’s Litany from where other than Hell and Halifax was the Good Lord asked to deliver us? BONUS : Why? (29) The oldest building in Elland is the Parish Church. The second oldest is a pub – name it. (30) In terms of population size which is the biggest  : Calderdale, Bradford or Kirklees?   

ROUND 4 (31) If you were sailing through the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic in which direction would you be travelling? (32) Which national holiday was first celebrated in England in 1974 with the introduction of a Bank Holiday? (33) What was Fletcher’s first name in Porridge?  (34) What is the capital of Venezuela?    (35) In which fictional county is the fictional village of Ambridge?   (36) What was signed and sealed at Runnymeade?   (37) What is the diameter in inches of a basketball hoop? (1 inch either way)  (38) What are the two main ingredients of kedgeree?(39) In the song which river is “wider than a mile”?    (40) What was the name of the sequel to the book “Winnie The Pooh”?       

ROUND 5 (41) Born in Salford, the actress Jane Leeves first appeared on television as a topless angel in an episode of Monty Python. She went on to be nominated for Emmy and Golden Globe awards for her portrayal of which character? (42) With their victory on Wednesday, Barcelona have now won the European Cup three times. But which team has won most European Cup Finals? (43) What colour is Noddy’s hat? (44) What type of rectangle has four equal sides and angles? (45) What title is given to the Chief Executive of the BBC? (46) How many finger holes are there in a tenpin bowling ball? (47) Which fruit has a variety called Ellison’s orange? (48) What type of newspaper is named after a form of condensed pill? (49) What was the name of the computer in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey? (50) Which were the original six countries which established the European Union in 1958? (Point for each) 

Tie Breaker: In which year was the first section of the London Underground Railway opened? 

JACKPOT QUESTIONS

A   Which bandleader married both Lana Turner and Ava Gardner?

B   In which country is the royal family the House of Bernadotte?

C   Who founded Standard Oil in 1870? 

I'll Tell You What's Wrong With This World Steward

One of the great delights about reading old newspapers is that you know how the story ends. Take the above example which comes from the Times of 10th January 1957. Sir Anthony Eden had just resigned as Prime Minister in the wake of the disastrous Suez campaign. He was worn out and ill and the day after he resigned he set sail on a cruise ship to New Zealand in search of a complete rest. As the ship sailed to the antipodes, Eden struck up a friendship with his young cabin steward and they often talked long into the night about politics. Eden eventually recovered from his immediate illness and lived for another 20 years, although he was never again a well man. Nor did he ever return to any political career. Which is more than can be said of the young cabin steward - a lad from Hull called John Prescott. He went on, of course, to become Deputy Prime Minister in the Blaire Government. I will make a point of having a chat with my cabin steward when I get on the boat next week : who knows what he or she might end up becoming.

The 2009 P&O Book Bag Award Short-List

Four days to go and the packing has to be faced up to. The most difficult decision is, of course, the Book Bag. I have limited myself to just eight books : a notable feat of self-sacrifice in order to ensure marital harmony and room for a spare pair of shorts. The chosen eight are all illustrated above and have been selected from a shorter short-list of twelve. I will attempt to get through them all during the next three week and, on my return, will choose a winner of the annual Book Bag Prize. All I need now is someone to sponsor the event - come on P&O, all you need to do is to send me off on a three week cruise once a year and I will do all the reading and short-listing.

A Damsel With A Dulcimer In A Video Once I Saw

The other day I was browsing through YouTube when I came across a recording of Joni Mitchell singing "California" which dates back to a BBC recording made in October 1970. Despite the fact that it is frightening to realise that this was almost forty years ago, the clip is well worth watching for two reasons. First the song has always been one of my favourite Joni Mitchell songs and it has the power to be so evocative of both time and place. Perhaps it's because in a few days I will be on a Grecian Isle - where I must make a point of learning the Goat Dance - but for whatever the reason the song just reached out to me.

The second reason to watch the clip is to see Joni Mitchell play the dulcimer. Until I watched this clip I don't think I had ever seen a dulcimer before, although - like all school kids of a certain age - I know of the instrument from having to recite Coleridge's Kubla Khan. Remember the lines and they will transport you back to a world of wooden top desks and exercise books.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

A little later comes the verse :

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

I have no idea where Mount Abora is and - if my quick search on Google is anything to go by - neither has anyone else. But I don't really care, it is neither the fabled mount nor the sacred river that I am searching for. Granted, my chosen stimulants - real ale, malt whisky and the occasional Cuban cigar - are less powerful than those that Coleridge was fond of : but I just want a vision of a damsel with a dulcimer singing of California. Come to think of it, all I need is YouTube.

The Google Gods Have Spoken

Many years ago I read a collection of science fiction short stories, one of which, unlikely as it may seem, took as its theme the possible future of the retail sector. It was written long before the introduction of personal computers but it confidently predicted that retail demands would be fed into a form of electronic typewriter and then delivered automatically to your door by android-driven transporters (laugh if you will, but have you ever tried ordering anything from Tesco Direct). The point of the story was that the service managers had incorporated so much technology and automation into the system they were able to deliver goods even before you decided to order them. The story examined the kind of chaos which would result from such a service.

My mind was taken back to this old tale earlier today when I spotted the advert which had appeared - courtesy of those nice people at Google Adsense - at the top of my Blog. Normally there is an identifiable link between the subject of a recent blog posting and the product being sold : when I post about deafness there are adverts for hearing aids, when I delve into the lives of the great brewers there are ads for lager, and when I once waxed lyrical about Erasmic Shaving Cream there was an advert for false teeth! But there at the top of the page was an advert for a firm of solicitors who claim to be experts in the field of legal claims following aviation disasters. I was vaguely wondering what the link might be when I suddenly realised that I was going on holiday next Monday.

But, silly me (I told myself), I am not flying anywhere but sailing on a rather big cruise ship out of Southampton. However, I had been given a sign, and the least I could do was to try and interpret what it might mean. I tried to see if there were any statistics on the number of times that planes crash into ships at sea but apart from a rather steep rise in the curve in the early 1940s in the waters around Japan, these seem to be relatively rare. Could there perhaps have been a slight error in the coding of the prophecy - everything else is subject to error so why not auguries? Perhaps the powers that be had meant to send me the name of a firm of solicitors which specialise in maritime disasters. Whatever the reason, the advert is clearly a warning. Luckily there is still time to re-pack my case, getting rid of all those dinner suits and Bermuda shorts and stashing away an extra lifebuoy or two and a small inflatable raft. Call me silly if you want, but as I am safely pulling away from the wreck in my little lifeboat I will be singing a hymn in praise of those clever people at Google AdSense.

Gormless The Sleepy

When I was young I was frequently accused of being gormless. It was a favourite expression in the West Riding of Yorkshire and could encompass a variety of characteristics from slightly dim to plain stupid. I sometimes wonder whether the origins of the word were - like so many in the Yorkshire dialect - Scandinavian and providing a direct link to the Viking occupation of these lands a thousand years ago. If so, I like to think that the word "gorm" originated from the famous Danish King, Gorm the Sleepy, who strutted his stuff in the early 10th century. Gorm the Sleepy - who was also known as Gorm the Old - was neither particularly ancient nor noticeably lethargic : "sleepy" implied watchful and "old" suggested wisdom. Thus someone who was wise and watchful demonstrated gorm and someone without those essential attributes was gormless.

Regular followers of this blog (good morning to the four of you) will recall that a couple of weeks ago the small plastic clip I use to anchor the wire from my cochlear implant to my MP3 player went missing (A Clip Around The Ear) and they will also have read the suggestions I have been sent for overcoming the problem (Ripped Off By A Clip Joint). One exciting suggestion was that I invest in a Clearsound Bluehook, a device that would convert Bluetooth signals so that they could be picked up by the "T" setting on my implant processor, thus doing away with the need for a connecting wire. I sent off an order and paid out my £50 quicker than you could say "what did you say?"

The contraption arrived yesterday and I have subjected it to a day's intensive field trial. I have to report that the early indications are not wonderful : there are several problems with the system. The match between the behind-the-hear transmitter hook and the "T" setting receiver can be a problem and can depend on head movements. Once you have obtained a decent signal you have to keep your head in a stable and fixed position which is a bit like walking around with your neck in a neck-brace. Secondly, you also pick up all the other interference which is picked up by the "T" receptor and this ranges from overhead power cables to mobile phone signals, and from the loop on our main TV to any passing car engine. Therefore the times when a hands-free Bluetooth connection would be most useful (when driving the car for example) it is least use. Thirdly, the device is fitted with a large flashing blue light which indicates that it is receiving a signal. For some reason the designers have made this exceptionally powerful and it can attract overflying aircraft and has the capacity to frighten the most placid passing horse. Combine these things together and you will see what my neighbours saw as I street-tested the device yesterday : a man walking with a strange gate and holding his head in a mystifyingly fixed position, shouting at passing cars and overhead power cables and with a large, powerful flashing blue light attached to his shirt collar.

It was my own fault for rushing in and giving the device a try (and my son's fault for misplacing the original clip in the first place).  It was a bit daft I suppose, a bit gormless. Talking of which, Gorm the Sleepy had a son, Harold Bluetooth, who became King of a united Scandinavian empire. When the techies at the mobile phone company Nokia where searching for a name for their new wireless protocol that would unite all the different protocols that existed at that time they remembered Harold Bluetooth and named it after him. If they had gone a bit further back they might have named it after Harold's father, which - in my experience - might have been more appropriate.

Ripped Off By A Clip Joint

My thanks to all those people who have responded to my cri de coeur regarding the small clip which anchors the wire leading from my cochlear implant processor to my MP3 player and mobile phone. Regular readers will know that my son Alexander (a.k.a. Pest) picked the clip up and moved it to somewhere inappropriate. As yet we have been unable to determine which inappropriate place he has moved it to.

Within hours of my appeal the first clips began to arrive and they still continue to materialise. The time has come to report back on some of the more enterprising suggestions. Clip No. 1 (above) came from an unidentified source and is quite functional, if a little on the large size. The problem with it is that it has a set of fairly fearsome alligator-style teeth. Most of the time these anchor the clip to my shirt collar but every so often they slip off and bite into the flesh of my neck.

Clip No 3 is a chunky plastic affair which was provided by who else that Cousin Dave. I did try it out by attaching the wire to the underside of the contraption and attaching the spring-loaded clip to my shirt collar. Unfortunately it was so heavy it ripped the top button off my shirt and has had to be abandoned on health and safety grounds.

Clip No. 2 was sent by my friend Edwin and I eventually took delivery of it today. Edwin posted it over a week ago but nothing happened until this morning when a postcard arrived saying that it had been seized by the Post Office for insufficient postage. According to the newly profitable Post Office it was 8p short on its postage (it was sent with a First Class Stamp and was well within the limits for first class post) so I was charged the 8p plus a £1 "handling fee". Being ripped off by the Post Office aside, it seems a very useful little clip and is under road tests as I write this.

One of the most exciting suggestions arrived this morning by post from my good friend Salim at the Yorkshire Cochlear Implant Service. He had found details of a Bluetooth connector which operated via a ear hook and the "T" setting. If this works it will mean that I no longer have a need for wires and therefore no need for clips. I send off my order this morning and I am waiting for delivery. At a little over £50 let's hope it is not another rip-off.

Buy Two Get Some Drivel Free

1434 by Gavin Menzies (Harper Collins) 2008

I blame Waterstone's and their wretched 3 for 2 offers. You find a book you half fancy and discover it is part of a 3 for 2 offer. You think you might as well see if there is a second book that would help make up the triptych, and - guess what - there is that illustrated history of Mongolian horse brasses that the Observer raved on about last Sunday. So all you need now is a third, and you can be really adventurous about the choice because it is what they call on Match of the Day a "free header". They seem to have a big pile of these chunky red books and they are obviously selling very well and it has diagrams, pictures and footnotes. Well, why not?

It is thus that I acquired a copy of 1421 by Gavin Menzies. It carries the impressive subtitle "The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed To Italy And Ignited The Renaissance" It is from "the international bestselling author" of "1421 : The Year China Discovered America". It is copiously illustrated and comes with a website-full of supplementary material, thirty pages of chapter notes, and a 15 page bibliography. And it is utter drivel.

You don't need to plough your way through 50 of the 370 pages, as I did, to reach this conclusion : the warning signs are there early on. It is written in a strange style which sets out a collection of loosely associated conjectures all of which are accompanied by reference to some relatively obscure text. It avoids both the development of a logical narrative and the construction of a coherent argument. The author constantly backs up claims about this largely fanciful 15th century Chinese fleet by reference to his own experiences as the captain of a Royal Navy submarine in the 1960s which seems a somewhat tenuous accreditation. It stretches even the wildest imagination by making claims that are more ridiculous than fanciful (the Chinese fleet got to Europe by sailing up an early version of the Suez Canal!). It constantly claims that there is a mass of supporting evidence on the website operated by the author and "his team of researchers".  All in all, it is a waste of time, a waste of space and a waste of a "get one free". I blame Waterstone's : not for their 3 for 2 offers, but for stocking this claptrap.

The Things That Dreams Are Made Of

It must have been thirty years ago. Isobel and I had moved back up north from London and we were living in a room at the top of an old house in Sheffield. Issy had stated her medical course at Sheffield and, after a period without a job, I had managed to get a job as a temporary lecturer at a college on the far side of Doncaster. We were seriously poor - no job, no grant, no house, no car  - so it was a blessing when I was offered a little extra teaching on Friday evenings at Rotherham Technical College. It was to cover someone who was off ill and it was teaching O level Economic History (a subject I had never studied, never mind taught, before). But the extra few pounds it offered would mean that we might be able to go out occasionally and even buy the odd tray of Yorkshire Parkin to keep our spirits up. In the ten days or so between being offered the job and starting I hit the economic history books with a vengeance and decided that practically all of the syllabus could be taught by walking down the canal towpath between Rotherham and Sheffield. My lesson preparation was immaculate and I did the towpath walk on several occasions making notes on the building which I passed : each of which perfectly illustrated some particular aspect of the developing industrial revolution. My chosen perambulatory approach to teaching would have the added advantage that I could finish the lessons increasingly closer to Sheffield and thus save myself considerable time on my journey home.

Things began to go wrong when I was given some extra teaching at Doncaster on Friday afternoon which now meant that I had a very limited time frame to get from Doncaster to Rotherham. I studied the timetables closely and decided the best option was to travel by bus and so, on the first Friday, I sprinted like a madman from College to Doncaster Bus Station in order to make the necessary bus. Alas, my calculations had not taken into account the Friday tea-time traffic and by the time the bus pulled into Rotherham Bus Station it was already twenty minutes after the class should have started. A further complication was that I had concentrated so much on researching the South Yorkshire canal I had neglected to check the location of Rotherham Technical College. I sprinted around the strange town asking for directions and was eventually pointed by some helpful citizen in the direction of Thomas Rotherham College which turned out to be the wrong building entirely. When I eventually found the Tech it was 40 minutes after the class should have started and the students, with commendable enterprise, had all gone home.

In the following few days I was told - politely but firmly - that I need not turn up on the following week : my services were no longer required. I was left with empty pockets, a set of unused teaching notes on economic history and a frightening memory, one which took a long time to fade away. I thought it was long gone, but last night whilst I was asleep, I relived every long minute of that Friday evening journey from Doncaster to Rotherham. And as I sprinted around the final corning and up the steps to the main entrance of the old Tech building, clutching my Roneo hand-outs, I finally woke up. Never to arrive, never to teach economic history.

Here Is The Weather Forecast

Just outside the main door of the Nags Head hung this great stone on an iron chain. Nearby was posted the rubric for its interpretation, which went as follows:

Boynton's Infallible Weather Stone

If rock is wet

it's raining

If rock is white

it's snowing

If rock is moving back and forth

it's windy

If rock is casting a shadow

it's sunny

If rock is hard to see

it's foggy

If rock is warm

it's warm out

If rock is cold

it's cold out

Yorkshiremen are never wrong

Looking at the picture you might have thought that it was brilliant sunshine all weekend. But it was a lucky shot during a break in the rain clouds. Yorkshiremen are never wrong, but they are frequently damp.

A "New World Cruise" And A "Reasonable Cruise"

Feeling fed up with the grey skies and wet weather, I decided to treat myself to a month's subscription to the Times Archive (I always think that a dip into the collected 200 year on-line archive does the body and the spirit more good that a bottle of pills). Believing that it would be fun to read - on a regular basis - the newspaper for exactly 50 years ago I turned to May 1959 but didn't get past the front page. I spotted an advert for a "New World" cruise on board the RMS Andes which, at £278 for 22 days, seemed quite a bargain.

The Andes was built in 1939 for the Royal Mail Line and it was intended to carry both mail and passengers. The intervention of the war meant that it was converted into a troop ship and it did not become a mail and passenger ship until 1947. It was eventually converted to a dedicated cruise ship in 1960, a few months after the cruise being advertised in the 14th May 1959 issue of The Times.  At the time of this "New World" cruise it had still not been converted into a full cruise ship and would have had accommodation for about 300 passengers (after conversion in 1960 the total capacity increased to 500). The Andes kept operating as a cruise ship throughout the sixties and had another refit in 1967. But by then the market had contracted and what demand remained was for the new generation of ships such as the QE2. The grand old ship was eventually sold for scrap in 1971.

£228 for 22 days seemed quite reasonable at first sight. There is a wonderful website called Measuring Worth which will carry out currency conversions to give the current equivalents of historical prices. Feeding the 1959 data into the calculator reveals that the cost of the cruise in today's prices is a mighty £3,819. Suddenly the price of my forthcoming cruise on the Arcadia seems very reasonable indeed.

A Clip Around The Ear

I came very close to giving my son a clip around the ear last night. I didn't because, in the first place, I have never been very good at violence, and secondly, he is bigger, fitter and stronger than me.  If we were boxers, he would be a fairly handy middleweight whilst I would be an over-the-hill sack-of-potatoes-weight. The reason I was driven to thoughts of violence was because I had been the victim of one of his annoying little habits : he moves things. This isn't moving things to create space, nor is it moving things to improve one's feng shui : it is picking things up carrying them around and then putting them down in some entirely different place without any pre-conceived plan and without any knowledge of it having taken place. When you are the victim of one of his moving episodes you are likely to find some of your possessions in the most unusual places : your toothbrush in the fridge, your car keys in the bath, your wallet in the dog basket. And that's if you are lucky : if you are unlucky you might not be reacquainted with some vital aspect of your day-to-day existence for months or years. If you challenge the little bugger he may be able to recall having picked something up but he will have no idea where he put the said object down.

Last night he picked up the little clip which I use to attach the wire which runs from my cochlear implant processor to my MP3 player. Without the small spring-loaded plastic clip the wire pulls down on the implant : so when I turn my head I am in danger of either pulling the wire from the processor or pulling the processor from behind my ear. Simple as the little clips are they are almost impossible to source : I originally had two : the first one came off my coat collar and fell over a bridge onto the M62, and the second went .... who knows. The wonderful folks at the Yorkshire Cochlear Implant Centre have none and it seems that the implant manufacturers, Cochlear, don't supply them anymore. I am lost. You might just as well have taken away my crutch and melted it down for scrap, or had my guide dog turned into sausage. 

The focus of my life is now trying to find a replacement clip. My first idea was to try one of those ubiquitous shops that sell mobile phone accessories. My idea was that a similar type of clip is sometimes used to anchor hands-free kits to a suitable collar. In almost every town there are now numerous little shops which sell dangly things to tie onto mobile phones or replacement pink flowery battery covers. I have never actually been in one of these shops but they always appear full of little plastic things and I was definitely searching for a little plastic thing. Unfortunately I was in Sheffield today and being unfamiliar with the city I had difficulty finding the ubiquitous shop in question. Eventually I remembered that such shops - for reasons unknown to me - seem to have a symbiotic relationship with tattoo parlours. I fairly quickly tracked down a tattoo parlour and sure enough, next door was a mobile phone accessory emporium.

As well as stocking 250 different replacement mobile phone covers and 50 types of lanyard, such shops also seem to provide a useful public service in providing employment for people who have failed their Stage 1 City and Guilds exams in customer relations. Explaining my search parameters to the chap behind the counter he managed to adopt a look which implied that I had just stepped off the stage at the wrong stop. The wrong stop in the wrong country in the wrong century. I abandoned my attempt to find an easy solution to my search : finding a replacement clip would not be that simple. When Alexander sets me a challenge, it generally turns out to be a good one. Tomorrow I intend to start trawling the entire Internet for a source of tiny spring-loaded plastic clips. If, by any chance, you happen to be a manufacturer of such a product, why not get in touch and save me a lot of trouble. And save Alexander from a virtual clip around the ear.

Bloody Awards .... Oh! Hang On A Minute

The other day I was contacted by the people at the Blog of the Day Awards to say that I had been nominated for a Blog Of The Day Award. In itself, it was not particularly surprising as I had nominated myself. The formal announcement would be made, I was told, today, so I have been watching their website in anticipation. And nothing has appeared.  But I don't care. Such awards are nothing more than a form of digital self-abuse, an excuse to bask in self-satisfied false glory as one preens oneself in front of a bored audience. Have we not all felt the bile of loathing rise in our throats as we have watched some overpaid, under talented starlet step up to receive some meaningless award? A plague on all their houses I say.

A Little Later .....

I have just checked the Blog of the Day website again and I am delighted to say that I have won the prestigious award for the News From Nowhere Blog. I feel humble as I write this but I would like to thank those wonderful people at Blog of the Day for their faith in me and my work. As the citation says, "the accolades and praise heaped upon winners of these prestigious awards can be best described as fabulous and the stuff of legends". I would like to thank all those who have made this award possible including Amy the Dog, my late Mother and Father, Janie and Edwin, the infamous DPH, Jane who dusts my room, Isobel and Alexander, Mark and all the Dogs, ............

Even Later .....

I am sorry I had to stop writing as I became overcome with emotion.

I Liked Right Well

The postcard is from Uncle Fowler's collection and shows Fleet Street in Bury, Lancashire. It is from Eliza Beanland, Fowler's sister, who was working in Lancashire during the Great War (Fowler and Eliza's brother, Albert, was my Grandfather). As far as I can make out Fleet Street no longer exists - I don't know Bury very well - but if I am wrong I am sure someone will point out my error. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the card is the message on the reverse in my Great Aunt Eliza's spidery hand. It reads as follows:

Dear Brother, Just a line to say I arrived allright. I went to the New Church at Haywood last night and I liked right well, Mrs Land went with me, and they were a man and woman sat with us and they gave us an invitation to their house. With love, Eliza.

In its own way this message is just as fascinating as the messages from the Venetian Ambassador I wrote about yesterday. It tells not of the death of powerful monarchs but the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. Wonderful stuff.

Read It, Catch It, Kill It, Bin It.

The UK Government is currently delivering a handy little leaflet on swine flu to every address in the country. My copy hasn't arrived yet, but I have to say that, even at this early stage, I have two problems with the initiative. 

First, as anyone who has read my previous post on the flu crisis will know, I have a spiritual objection to the use of the term "swine flu". It is a phrase calculated to cause offence to pigs and it is a description which is unwarranted by the virological facts of the case. Second, the production and distribution of twenty million or so paper leaflets advising people to sneeze into a paper hanky seems to have missed a potentially fruitful symbiosis. Did not anyone at the mighty Department of Health see the possibilities?  All they had to do was to print the leaflet on tissue paper : it would have been easier on the poor old postmen who had to deliver it and it would have served a very useful purpose once it had been read.  As the campaign slogan states : READ IT, CATCH IT, BIN IT, KILL IT.

Keep Your Porcine Head Down And Employ A PR Consultant

I've always been rather fond of pigs. Indeed, amongst one particular group of friends, I am known as "Hoggy" (their children - always paragons of politeness - address me as "Mr. Hogg"). Granted, my fondness for pigs extends to them in both their natural state and their sliced and fried state, but I would never condone needless cruelty and, if pushed by a logical vegetarian, I would limit my consumption to road-kill pigs. It is with sadness, therefore, that I note that the Egyptian Government has ordered the slaughter of all pigs in an effort to prevent the spread of "swine flu".  

The WHO have been at pains to point out that there is absolutely no evidence that flu can be caught from eating pig products but such reassurances are having little effect, as neurotic humans quickly decide who the swine in the pack is. Whilst criticising the Egyptian cull. it must be recognised that the damage was done once someone came up with a name for this new strain of flu. The European Union spotted the danger of careless nomenclature a week or so ago and, in an effort to protect the reputation of Danish Bacon (and other such brands), tried to get the outbreak renamed. They came up with a name - "Novel Flu" - which at first sight might appear less open to backlashes, but might well have brought about a spate of public book-burning. However, the idea of EU countries calling for a cull of all Jeffrey Archer books has its attractions.

Any pig with a half decent knowledge of history will have been keeping its porcine head down for some time. They only needed to note how Spaniards were treated during the great "spanish flu" outbreak of 1918 and 1919 to know what was in store. They could also note that the serious attempt to get the outbreak re-named "german flu" (in a believe that it originated in the German trenches in Flanders) came to nothing : once a name had become widespread it is - like flu itself -  rather difficult to shake off.

The only advice I can give to my fellow swine is watch your back and, maybe, go in search of a good PR consultant. If we, as a breed, were to employ Max Clifford or the like, perhaps he could start by pointing out that whilst it is very difficult for humans to catch "swine flu" from pigs it appears to be much easier for pigs to catch it from humans. Now how about a cull of all humans? Just to be on the safe side

Who Do You Think You Are In The Rain?

Went to Liverpool yesterday on a whim and a Trans-Pennine Express. Isobel was going to a conference on some dreadful disease and I decided to travel over with her and have a wander around. If it had been a plan rather than a whim I would have carefully re-read the family history file before departing and made a list of places to visit. But it was a whim and therefore all I had with my was my MP3 player and a bag of crisps. Such is the start of all great adventures.

I caught a bus to Crosby which is about six miles north of the city and the place where Isobel's Great Grandfather, William Henry Usher, was born. It was grey and cold and I cursed my lack of preparation as I tramped around the graveyard of St Luke's Church looking for any friendly Ushers. Eventually I decided to abandon the exercise and head for the nearest pub, but on the way I found a small bookshop which was advertising a slim volume on the history of Great Crosby, entitled "Mills, Mollies and Marl Pits : The Story Of The Township Of Great Crosby" by John Cochrane. By now it was raining heavily and therefore clutching a slightly damp copy of the book, I headed for the pub on the corner. And there I found the following passage on page 63.

"In 1912 Cooks Lane, which now started from Victoria Road, was renamed Manor Road with great plans for the extension of the Crosby housing stock over the fields to the right and left. At this time the only building to the north of the brick works was White Cottage owned by the local farming family the Somervilles. It is often called Somerville Cottage. In 1866 Henry Usher and his family moved their rope making business from Liverpool to Crosby. They settled at No. 13 Alma Vale and established the business in Cooks Lane roughly between where Manor Drive and St Michaels Road now run. It consisted of a long barn-like structure where the long lengths of twine could be stretched and plaited to form the necessary thickness of rope. This type of building was known as a rope walk. In 1871 Henry moved over Liverpool Road to York Road and in the early 1880s he was joined by Levi, who moved into No. 3 Lune Street, and Thomas who lived at No. 13 Hornby Street. Henry left the firm in 1890 and it was then run as Levi and Thomas Usher with an office at 89 Victoria Road until 1894 when it was taken over by the rope makers Radcliffe and Brown. This became S.J Radcliffe and Company in 1898 and had one of the earliest telephone numbers, Waterloo 231. By 1904 the rope walk was no more."

Now all this, I am sure you will agree, is very fascinating, but it raises more questions than it answers. Henry Usher can't "have left the firm in 1890" as he had died two years before. It must have been his son William Henry (brother of Levi and Thomas) who left the firm and this was Isobel's Great Grandfather. And where exactly was the ropeworks? According to family sources it was in Coronation Road, but according to the book it was much further north on Manor Road. Any attempt to conduct further research was curtailed by the fact that it was pouring it down so I found a bus and headed back to the city centre with the determination to return when the sun was shining and my notebooks were with me.

I know that this might not sound like an adventure to you, but when you are getting on in life and walking the dog is the high spot of the day, it was an exciting day out to me. What else is there to do but to stay at home waiting for Swine Flu?

Dear Mr Rude

My friend Harry is one of the most affable and avuncular men you could ever hope to meet. Many has been the evening when we have shared a bottle of Marston's Pedigree as we watched the tropical sun set over the poop deck and you could not have asked for a more amusing and convivial companion. But when riled, Harry can bite back like a Rottweiler : one would expect nothing less from a former Guardsman and Police Sargent. And Harry - like most of us - gets riled by those people who knock on his door trying to sell him such things as double-glazing, loft insulation, roof reconstruction and drive resurfacing. In such situations Harry is a tad short on patience : in just the kind of way we would all want to be if we only had the courage.

Recently someone called on Harry uninvited and tried to persuade him to insulate his loft, inject cotton wool into his wall cavities or some such thing. He sent them away with a maximum of haste and a minimum of politeness. Having had my own experiences with these incompetent idiots, I admire his approach. Some time later an anonymous hand-written note was put through his letter-box. It is a note he is intensely proud of, a note he intends to frame, a note he has scanned and sent to me.

As a document it deserves to become one of the sacred texts of the League of Grumpy Old Men. I am thinking of printing a copy and attaching it to my front door to act as a warning. Congratulations, Harry : you make me proud to be a fellow Grump.

A Cream Egg Left Too Close To The Fire

It has been a weekend when I have been forced to confront prejudice and preconceptions. Whilst there is nothing wrong per se with one's own prejudices and preconceptions - other people's are an entirely different kettle of fish - events occasionally conspire to make one question them and it can be an uncomfortable process. In case you think I am about to suddenly announce a decision to start buying the Daily Mail or supporting Manchester United or receiving religious instruction : fear not. I am talking music here.

For most of my life I have been a lover of jazz and, as with all things, I am a faithful lover whose eyes (or ears) rarely stray. During the years when I was deaf I shunned music like a Trappist monk at a girl band convention, but during my listening years I have seldom been happier than when Billie Holiday (or Gerry Mulligan, or Miles Davis, or Duke Ellington etc. ) was going in one ear and not coming out of the other. I avoid other types of music because "I don't like them".

So picture the scene : it is Saturday night at the White Horse Karaoke. A bloke I don't know (smaller than me, nearly as fat and just as old) is singing some country and western song about a love-sick truck driver burning rubber on the highways from Denver to Des Moines. My wife turns to me and whispers in my ear, "this is the kind of music I really like". I am shocked, how can anyone I have lived with for the last 40 years confess to such crimes? I decide to pretend that I didn't hear the comment, I have always been a great believer in denial. So there I  am sipping my pint of Tetleys with a sour look on my face when with horror I suddenly realise that my foot is tapping in beat with the music. By the end of the song tears well up in my eyes as the story unfolded of the truck drivers' young wife being accidentally crushed beneath his Firestone tires as he drove through Tucson, Arizona.

As I recall this on Sunday morning I hope that it might have been an alcohol induced dream. To take my mind off things I tune into CUR 1350, the radio station operated by Cambridge University. My good friend Tim Atkin is doing a Sunday morning radio show called Two Wise Men. It is a mixture of contemporary music and talk and Tim's on-air persona is a kind of cross between Alan Bennett and Alan Partridge. I fully intend to confine my listening to just the chat between the records but I don't. I listen to the music. My foot begins to tap in tune with some Glasgow Art-House Band and tears well up in my eyes at the rapping of some mono-denominated artiste (well, not quite, but you get the idea).

So what is happening here? It appears that my musical prejudices are melting like a cream egg left too close to the fire. Who knows where it will lead to, but I am anxious to explore the possibilities. I therefore invite anyone who is interested to suggest some particular track of music that I should listen to. It can be Grand Opera, Punk Opera or Pan's Pipes. I will honestly listen to the first half dozen or so recommendations I receive. I will explore life without musical prejudice. After all, you can only go deaf once can't you?

Picking A Fight With A Potted Plant

I am currently in considerable pain : and it is all the fault of a potted palm tree. I was carrying the manky specimen you see illustrated here to a new location when my way was blocked by a closed door. Bending over to put it down whilst I opened the door I felt my back suddenly go. I was unable to fully investigate the physical consequences of this process as it was accompanied by the most intense pain which caused me to collapse and scream like a banshee. By the time the pain struck I had managed to open the offending door and therefore I fell, not on the hard floor, but upon the form of my ever-sleeping son. My screaming (due to piercing back pain) was now joined by his screaming (due to having a "slightly" overweight man fall on top of him). Amy, the dog, watched all this with great excitement and decided to join in by barking and whining. I thought I had at least slipped a disk, Alexander thought I was having a heart attack, Amy thought it was time for a walk. The medics tell me I have done nothing more than strained my back : but whatever it is, it hurts.

If a potted plant could lay me low, what real damage could it do if it took a serious dislike to someone? I went in search of an answer on the Internet. And, dear reader, you would be shocked and surprised by the scale of the danger we all face from potted vegetation. Did you know, for example, that US President William McKinley was killed by a potted palm tree? (well OK, his assassin hid behind a convenient potted palm tree but that is clear causation in my book).  Or did you know that the potted plant, Dieffenbachia, can cause serious eye injuries? (Ottosen CO, Irgens-Møller L et al Ugeskr Laeger. 1984 Dec 10;146(50):3927-8). And what about the dreadful case of the Lady in America who was re-potting a indoor plant and found a nest of Copperhead snakes curled up inside the pot? (the type of snake varies with the version of this story you read).

No, I consider myself lucky to have got away with nothing more than an horrendously painful back. It will be a long time before I pick a fight with a potted plant again.