johnatnocorners

Christmas in South Africa

2012-01-25T10:46:00.004Z

I had a wonderful time visiting my two step-daughters in Capetown for Christmas.
Please click on the title, this will bring you to the collection of my photos taken in South Africa.

Back over Africa

2012-01-09T15:09:00.002Z

Sahara
A few days ago I was on board a British Airways Airbus on my way back to London from my excellent Christmas spent with my stepdaughters in Cape Town, South Africa. BA looked after me well and I had an excellent starboard side seat with plenty of leg room. The passenger in the next seat was not talkative, which suited me fine and so I tried watching a film. After a while though, I switched to the aircraft’s moving map display and began to watch our progress Northward. Having flown this route twice before, I was aware that having flown up the West coast towards Nigeria, then northward over the Saharah desert. On a night flight such as this there is little or nothing to see from the windows: occasional settlement lights and so the moving map gives some indication of progress. It shows town names of exotic places, reminding me of books I once read, My boyhood hero Biggles http://www.biggles-online.com/index.php?bookID=50 was always flying off to adventures in darkest Africa or the Gobi Desert and other places. So, it is dark over the desert and only the moving GPS map to guide me. Looking down I could see occasional lights, not many but Touareg villages I assumed and the moving map announces places overflown such as Tamanrasset in Southern Algeria- Have a look at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamanrasset where goats and camels and many peoples come to the market.
Soon enough we cross the desert and on over the Mediterranean for breakfast over Marseilles then Nothward over the English Channel to Heathrow. Here I changed terminals to catch my onward flight to Budapest, where Ibolya was waiting to escort me home to Mezőbereny by train.

Travel Time Again

2011-10-26T10:36:00.003+01:00

Yesterday Stephen took me to Bristol centre to catch the early bus to Gatwick Airport. I arrived at Budapest Airport where I was met by Janos who escorted me via Solnok by train home to Mezobereny where Ibi met us at the station. It is nice to be back. This is just the start of my winter travels. At the end of this month we are off to visit Naples for five nights. Then on 8th November I am flying from Budapest to Cape Town where I will stay with my stepdaughter Jackie until the end of the year. So it will be a braai on the beach for Christmas. It is ages since I have seen the girls and I am really looking forward to seeing them again. I have no particular plans for my visit but I would like to go east around the coast to Knysna to see the amazing herd of elephants who seemed to have avoided notice for many years. See> http://www.knysnaelephantpark.co.za/ Apart from that I will be just happy to be there for a few weeks in the Western Cape. I return to Hungary for the New Year and Ibi`s Birthday. So, for the rest of 2011 I will be away from home. As far as I know, Stephen will be basing himself at my flat as he is mostly working in the West of England at this time.

Notes and News

2011-06-10T11:17:00.007+01:00

I have again been in Mezőberény with my dear Hungarian family Kalman. The weather is changeable with recent rain and wind, at least the many frogs in the stream alongside the house chant their delight throughout the night. I am very well looked after and if I have a problem, nothing is too much trouble to solve. It was my birthday on June 7th and I was presented with a special "gulyás", birthday cake and wine. Sadly the result necessitated a visit to the doctor because of a flare-up gout in my right foot - now I hope under control!
The garden is maturing well and the strawberry patch has been prolific and the fruit delicious. Later there will be grapes, peaches, figs, tomatoes and pears. The goat that lives next door has had kids recently and I can be seen with one of the kids above!
Other wildlife abounds:- We have been visited by a stag-beetle,a mole crickets which are now very rare if not extinct in the UK, woodpeckers,and nightingales. Sadly the storks which have arrived in the area to breed have ignored the excellent nest platform on top of the house roof.
We have downloaded some films to the PC and I enjoyed watching "Cat Ballou" with Ibi and this morning "The Grapes of Wrath" -if one can enjoy such a depressing film! I will try for something more comedic next time. Janos enjoys watching episodes of The Onedin Line in which my father plays the part of Fraser, the rival shipping line owner.
I am not sure exactly when my son Stephen will get back home to Bristol, about the same time as me I hope. What an amazing adventure he has had.
If anyone sees this please look at Steve's blog. It's a good read.
http://steviep.ontheroad.to/ It's not up-to-date yet but I hope he will catch up with it before too long. He has reached the Azores on the last leg of his transatlantic crossinf so not far to go now.

Hungary II

2011-03-03T10:29:00.003Z

I am still in Hungary (until 15th March when I fly back to Gatwick). The snow last night here has started to thaw and may just be the last of the winter. I have been watching with interest the unfolding news from North Africa and the interviews with Gaddafi who is in denial it seems. The scenes of fighting and crowds awaiting rescue from Libya are amazing. Stephen visited the Italian island of Lampedusa last year on his epic journey, I had never previously been aware of it and now it is headline news as it has become a haven for thousands fleeing Libya. In the other news today I was amazed by the Irish cricket team who have had a brilliant victory over England at the World Cup in Bangalore winning by three wickets. What an embarrasment for the English!

First Blog of 2011

2011-01-17T07:31:00.004Z

It's been a long time since my last post - Sorry for that but have excuses! I suppose the prime excuse is that I was laid low with a heart attack and spent some time in hospital in Bristol. As always, my Hungarian family was marvellous. Tünde flew over and looked after me, then her mother came over and we spent Christmas together. Apart from having to take many pills morning and evening, I seem to have recovered well. Now I am back in Hungary where
i will stay until the beginning of March. I can relax here and am very well looked after and any necessary medical checks performed by Doctors here. I have been walking as much as possible and yesterday Ibi and I walked along the Köros river road and watched the sun set over Mezöberény, our shadows refected on the trees by the riverside.
During the daytime, Ibi and Janos go to work and I relax in the house until Ibi gets home after one o'clock. After lunch, Ibi often has students who visit for private English lessons and I can join in the conversations and enjoy giving them the benefit of my knowledge and occasional stories of my homeland.

No News - or What Killed the Dog

2010-11-07T08:26:00.003Z

In my boyhood, I lived at the home of my grandparents in Tamworth which is to the north of Birmingham in the English midlands. In their drawing room was a handsome old gramophone radio and I spent many a happy hour listening to music and to various monologues some of which I remember to this day, particularly Albert and the Lion and other classics by Stanley Holloway. Attached is an American Classic - No News or What killed the dog, which is still worth listening to or reciting in a suitable social environment. Give it a try! Let me know what you think - please!

Thomas Edward

2010-10-22T13:19:00.004+01:00

One of the treasured books in my collection is a nice leather-bound copy of Life of a Scotch Naturalist by Samuel Smiles. It is an 1877 Second Edition with a school prize label as presented to A. N. Jack from Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby. His widow was an old friend of my family and who had been the school matron at Highgate School - my old alma mater. Mr Jack had been a champion oarsman in his day and I remember seeing in her home a cut section from a rowing eight. Anyway! I was given the book by her many decaded ago, presumably because of my interest in natural history.

Thomas Edward led a simple but hard life in Banff a village on the shore of the Moray Firth in North East Scotland. He was a cobbler by trade, a simple shoe mender, but every spare moment he devoted to exploring and studying the wildlife of the area. He collected specimens of the many species which he found in the sea and on land.

The book, written to encourage diligence and assiduity - suitable attributes for school pupils of the late Victorian age.

Return trip to Romania

2010-08-14T20:33:00.003+01:00

We (Ibi, Janos and I) returned last night from a lovely trip into Romania. I will uplad some photos later. The village we stayed in, was surrounded by mountains and the kind of place to really relax, soak up the relatively undeveloped ambiance of rural Romania where time seems to have stood still for many decades. Cattle with bells, horses and carts, with attendant dogs and villagers pass by and hay is cut and stacked in distintive small ricks. The village women came down each day to the copius spring water in the square to do their washing. Rugs and clothes were being scrubbed and the latest gossip exchanged ( I expect!) The food was good and the scenery really lovely with swallows and martins wheeling overhead. The trusty Trabant carried us well over the awful rutted Romanian roads with little complaint, even when driven expertly by Janos through a torrential rainstorm close to the Hungarian border. Before that we had stopped at a beautiful old wooden church and nunnery. The church reminded me of the Norwegian Stave Churches I had seen near Bergen many years ago.
tbc

Snowdonia 2010 [link to photos]

2010-07-24T12:18:00.005+01:00

The link above is to the set of Photos taken by Janos on our trip to Snowdonia. En route we visited Atcham Bridge over the River Severn near Shrewsbury and the famous canal aqueduct at Pontcycllte and on the way back we visited the lovely Bodnant Gardens. We also visited Allt y Rhiw the former home of my parents, now busy being renovated after the awful fire there. As you will see if you look at the photos, we camped at a farm at the foot of Tryfan near Capel Curig in lovely mountain and lake scenery. We also visited the slate museum and shared the demonstration (in Welsh) with a party of school children - it didn't matter about the language! We went up Snowdon on the mountain railway which we all enjoyed. Janos was a bit disappointed that we didn't take a bicycle with us, but I was very worried about him cycling on those winding and narrow roads. I hope he has forgiven me for my refusal.

The Tamworth Hoard [click here for link]

2010-06-09T14:53:00.005+01:00

My early years were spent at the home of my maternal grandparents who lived in Tamwoth, a Staffordshire town to the north of Birmingham. As a family Doctor, my Granfather often used to take me as a small boy on his rounds to see some of his "pooly patients" and I got to know a lot about the area. In recent times having lived elsewhere for many years, I still look out for news of Tamworth but have not visited for some years. Last year a metal detectorist made a magnificent discovery of buried treasure Saxon gold and silver in a field near the town. The hoard has now been valued at over 3 million pounds and will keep historians and conservationists working on the artifacts for many years to come. Have a look at some of the images!

Lonesome George

2010-04-22T07:57:00.002+01:00

Son Steve has arrived in the Galapagos Islands as a crew member of the yacht Ghost . His blog tells us of his wonderful adventures. He has met and written about the famous tortoise Lonesome George, who is the famous resident of the Charles Darwin Research Centre. Catch up with Steve's blog. It's a good read!

Great Grandmother

2010-02-26T08:13:00.002Z

I have stumbled upon a poem written by my mother's grandmother, Jane Jones following the death of her brother Edward in 1890. Full of Victorian sentiment and dark religiosity, but nonetheless heartfelt and worthy of preserving here.
In loving memory of Edward Jones, Coedtalog
Written by his sister Jane Jones">

Sad news on the Welsh border!

2010-02-07T15:53:00.004Z

I am still in shock from the news that my parents' old home at Allt y Rhiw on the Welsh border near Oswestry in Shropshire is no more. After spending thousands on renovation, the present owner was having a party at the house when a fire got out of control leaving no option but to escape with their lives. Only a ruin remains - we can only hope that he was adequately insured. So many memories have gone up in smoke. I never lived there but was a frequent visitor prior to my parents' demise and my brother and I still own the 40 acres around the house which are let to a local farmer for sheep grazing. I have no idea yet what other damage has been made by the fire, I suspect that the ancient yew tree on the east corner of the house must have gone up in flames as well as eveything else. I am glad that I have several paintings and photographs of the house which will remind me of happy times there.
I am staying with my dear Hungarian friends for the next few weeks. Still cold here with snow lying on the ground, but their new house has almost been completed and with wonderful underfloor heating we are snug as bugs in a rug!

The Spas of Hungary

2009-11-29T10:35:00.005Z

Since I have been visiting my friends in Hungary, we have managed to visit a few of the hundreds of thermal water spas that abound in most areas of the country. Mezőberény where my friends live, does not have an organised spa facility, just a town swimming pool with therlmal water supply and nearby, there is a well frequented stand pipe. From the tap by the roadside, water flows constantly at around 30C, year round, twenty four hours a day. Townsfolk come with their jugs and bottles to fill up at this free tap. The water, as is all of Hungary's thermal water that I have seen, the colour of weak tea and not at all unpleasant to taste.
The nearest developed spa to Mezőberény is at Gyula near the castle and here, we have spent a great and relaxing time in one or other of the pools. At a spa like this, there are “Wellness” clinics, where one can have a massage or other treatments, but generally most people just enjoy a leisurely soaking in the tea-coloured waters, swimming with the circulating currents or standing under powerful showers that pummel and refresh the body. It is easy to lose ones sense of time and just meditate while watching others doing the same. After dark in the evening, the atmosphere is wonderful, steam rises, the moon and stars shine down on us while we continue relaxing, vaguely aware of the conversations going on around us before finally, making our way to the showers and the changing rooms.
Earlier in the year we visited the spa at Miskolctapolca which is built into the natural limestone and is very attractive and popular. http://www.thermaltours.hu/furdo_eng.php?furd_azon=105&hir_azon=105

Amazing Archaeology!

2009-10-03T12:36:00.002+01:00

The news from Rome has amazed many people. The Emperor Nero's rotating dining room has been unearthed on Rome's Palatine Hill in amazing condition. Nero's machine had been mentioned by Suetonius but the exact location previouly unknown until now - but here it is, in what appears to be fantastic if not exactly "working order" Please look at the link.

Great Explorer

2009-09-07T08:38:00.003+01:00

I would like to share with you the travel log of my son Stephen who has now started his wonderful world tour adventure. He has taken leave of absense from his work, has learnt to crew a ship and is now in Athens joining his ship and will be telling his own story at: -
http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?go=steviep
have a look - he writes well!

General Update!

2009-07-07T07:29:00.005+01:00

It is 7th July and 23rd April was my last blog entry here! I am ashamed that it has been so long as I am sure that many things that were worthy of inclusion should have been written up. In the recent past I have been to stay with friends in New York State - more deteils of that trip later. I am now with the Kalman family in Hungary again and will be returning to Bristol tomorrow. We have, while here, been on two trips, the first was to Szentendre, a romantic resort town on the Danube to the North of Budapest. We visited the model village and Railway nearby at Skanzen and had great meals at a local restaurant. This week we have spent in a guest house in Romania. Janos drove the trusty Trabant over tricky and difficult roads. Romanian roads are not the best in the world and one encounters many potholes, cart-horses, bad drivers and wandering animals. We visited the Ice Cave http://www.rounite.com/2008/05/17/scarisoara-ice-cave/ which was an amazing experience and on the way back had a barbeque feast by a river using the new hibachi type stove. I will try on return home, to find my copy of an excellent design for a brick built barbeque which I am sure that Janos can build in the garden at the new house here at Mezöbereny. There seem to be mixed feelings in Romania about Hungarians, but at our guest house, the hosts were friendly and helpful. We returned home yesterday tired and dusty after the long drive and now it is time to reflect on all the sights we have seen on the trip. Janos took many photographs and I will get some attached here soon.

Back to Bristol

2009-04-23T10:54:00.004+01:00

Last night I returned from my holiday in Hungary. I travelled By train to Budapest, changing trains at Szolnok - a rarther ugly industrial city, south-east of BP. As the evening drew on, we had a magnificent sunset. As we waited for the train, the full red disc of the setting sun was just above the horizon, showing mock suns to the north. On this leg of the journey, I was on my own and my mood matched the colours of the sunset. From a deep rosy pink to an indigo glow through to full darkness. A little light was still lingered by the time I reached the airport. The transition to a full night sky matched my mood as I was sad to be leaving Hungary again, having had a wonderful Easter holiday with my lovely friends, who always look after me so well. Now I am back at my base in Bristol, no disasters to report, but a full box of uninteresting mail to sift through!

Folklore evening at Budapest

2009-04-20T19:41:00.006+01:00

The Chain Bridge over the Danube at Budapest, showing the Parliament buildings.

On Saturday, we drove to the local town Bekescaba where we left the car at the station and boarded the train for Budapest. We were in plenty of time before going to the Danube Palace Theatre for the 8pm performance of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble where Ibi had obtained wonderful seats in the front row of the dress circle in this wonderfully decorated theatre built in 1895. We spent our time before the performance walking the city streets and onto the famous Chain Bridge over the River Danube. We stopped at a pavement cafe for coffee and fruit, eventually taking our seats high above the stage. Upper left of next photo!

Many of the audience were appreciative foriegn visitors and soon we heard the orchestra tuning up behind the curtains. Mostly they were violinists, a double bass, a cymbalom player and a clarinetist. After the overture the troupe of dancers came on stage and gave us their lively routines to the familiar music of Brahms, Berzsenyi-Mészáros, Liszt, Reményi and others. A varied programme of lively music and dance inspired by the gypsy tradition all brilliantly choreographed and performed. A ’must see on a trip to Hungary's capital city!

Eventually we found our way back via the Metro to the Train Station and got back home very tired at about 2:30 AM.

Photo of the Day

2009-04-06T17:46:00.003+01:00

Powis Casle, Welshpool, Montgomeryshire

Massive hedge topiary in the Castle gardens

Shielings

2009-03-27T23:45:00.006Z

I first noticed Shielings or "Old Sheilings" which are common on Scottish Ordnance Survey maps such as that below in an area one km to the north west of Ben Lawers near Loch Tay. Often the remains are only random and remote piles of stones but they are fascinationg reminders of a vanished culture. A shieling was the shelter for herdsmen who moved their flocks to upland pastures during the summer months. This practice is called transhumance. Still practiced in parts of Europe, but in the UK not since the land clearances of the early 19th Century. Transhumance was the fate of many Scottish cotters (cotter - a peasant farmer in the Scottish Highlands) for many generations. A healthy but bleak life in the highlands,
sharing the elements with
sheep or cattle, ravens and
golden eagles. There is little evidence left for any archhaeologists. The stone walls and a few hearth blackened stones would be the only signs of the anonymous former occupanrs who would have taken everything back with them as they herded the stock to the lowland pastures with the onset of winter.

2009-03-27T06:12:00.003Z

CRABBY OLD MAN When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in North Platte, Nebraska , it was believed that he had nothing left of any value .Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, They found this poem . Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital .One nurse took her copy to Missouri . The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem. And this little old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet ..

Crabby Old Man

What do you see nurses? …. What do you see?

What are you thinking…..when you’re looking at me?

A crabby old man, ….not very wise,

Uncertain of habit …………..with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food…….and makes no reply.

When you say in a loud voice…..”I do wish you’d try!

”Who seems not to notice …the things that you do.

And forever is losing ………. A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not………..lets you do as you will,

With bathing and feeding …. The long day to fill?

Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse……you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am ………. As I sit here so still,

As I do at your bidding, …..as I eat at your will.

I’m a small child of Ten…….with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters ………who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen ..with wings on his feet

Dreaming that soon now. ……a lover he’ll meet.

A groom soon at Twenty …..my heart gives a leap.

Remembering, the vows……that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now ………. I have young of my own.

Who need me to guide …. And a secure happy home.

A man of Thirty ………….. My young now grown fast,

Bound to each other …………… With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons ..have grown and are gone,

But my woman’s beside me…….to see I don’t mourn.

At Fifty, once more, ……… Babies play ’round my knee,

Again, we know children ……. My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me ………. My wife is now dead.

I look at the future........ I shudder with dread.

For my young are all rearing……young of their own.

And I think of the years……. And the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man………and nature is cruel.

Tis jest to make old age ……….look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles……….grace and vigor, depart.

There is now a stone.. ……….where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass ………. A young guy still dwells,

And now and again ……my battered heart swells

I remember the joys………. I remember the pain.

And I’m loving and living………….life over again.

I think of the years ..all too few……gone too fast.

And accept the stark fact……..that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, people ……….open and see..

Not a crabby old man.

Look closer….see……..ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within . . . . . we will all, one day, be there, too! PLEASE SHARE THIS POEM The best and most beautiful things of this world can't be seen or touched . They must be felt by the heart .

Folklore Guide to the Weather

2009-03-12T21:22:00.008Z

Back 1950's, considering that we had no car, we had quite adventurous family holidays. In 1954 possibly 1955 we went by train to Bideford in a North Devon, and have stayed in a caravan at Westward Ho! (Yes, the town really does have an official exclamation mark!

I am not sure if there are any extant photographs from this holiday, but I have on my shelves, a little booklet, now without its cover, concerning traditional weather sayings. It is Folklore Guide to the Weather published by the the Westerner Press at Westward Ho! in 1954.

I will repeat a few of the sayings at random:-

Green Clouds

If the clouds take on a greenish hue, A heavy storm of rain is very imminent.

Appetite

When everything at the table is eaten, it indicates continued clear weather.

Frogs

When the frogs croak much, it is a sign of rain.

The louder the frogs, the more the rain.

Turkeys

Turkeys perched on trees and refusing to descend indicates snow.

Sound...

Good day for hearing

A good hearing day is a sign of a wet.

Chairs and corns

See how the chairs and tables crack,

Old Betty's joints are on the rack;

Her corns with shooting pains torment her

And to her bed untimely sends her.

It will surely rain, I see with sorrow;

Our jaunt must be put off tomorrow.

The Electrophone

2009-03-04T21:29:00.004Z

The name Electrophone was used for a telephone-distributed audio system which operated in the United Kingdom between 1895 and 1926, relaying live theatre and music hall shows and, on Sundays, live sermons from churches via special headsets connected to conventional phone lines. This was similar to the French Theatrophone system and the Hungarian Telefon Hirmondó [fascinating link!] which carried news, entertainment and fiction readings. These systems can be seen as important forerunners of radio broadcasting. [from Wikipedia]

I first read about the Electrophone in one of my books, - a 1923 edition of Herbert Jenkins' vade mecum Enquire Within upon Everything. Before the establishemt of regular broadcasts by thto thee BBC it was possible to purchase an Electrophone for the sum of £10 per annum for a home installation. The normal telephone would have up to four receivers attached.

Imagine holding the earpiece to one's ear and listening on your phone - probably with poor sound quality, to a concert from (for instance) the Albert Hall or to the Victoria Palace Music Hall. All one had to do was call the telephone operator and ask to be connectd to ones chosen concert venue. Each venue would have had microphones in the footlights transmitting the sounds through the telephone wires.

The North Pole - Nailed at Last!

2009-02-27T12:18:00.008Z

As many of my friends will know I have had a great interest in polar exploration since my teenage years at Highgate. I built up quite a large collection of polar travel books over the years and learned about the heroic and sometimes not-so-heroic explorers of the Antarctic and Arctic. I was proud to be chosen at age 18 to take part in the 1961 expedition of the British Schools Exploration Society which took us above the Arctic Circle to Northern Norway and into Swedish Lapland. My appetite for knowledge dated from then and as this blog has recorded, I went on a glorious cruise with Noble Caledonia (link is to similar cruise) to Antarctica, the Falklands and South Georgia in the southern summer of 2005/6.
Yesterday, prompted by the arrival by post of the annual report of the Frederick A. Cook Society and then by coincidence in the evening I was viewing the comedian Billy Connolly’s documentary of his visit to the spectacular Canadian High Arctic.
When I visited the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge UK some years ago I spoke to one of the curators and expressed an interest in Frederick A.Cook. The curator was of the opinion that the Cook controversy was not something likely to be gaining more support for Cook. Nevertheless I have maintained my interest and reading on the subject over the years. The latest Cook Society journal records new acceptance of Cook’s prior claim as “discoverer of the North Pole” on 21 April 1908. Most atlases and biographies show Robert Edwin Peary as claiming the discovery on 6 April 1909 almost a year later than Cook had claimed. Cook's journey home took much longer, so that the two explorers reached the news services almost simultaneously. Peary was beside himself with anger having staked all his reputation on being first to the “Big Nail” and managed to denounce Cook’s claim with the backing of the press. Much more eloquent writers than I, have chronicled the ensuing media battles and the subsequent majority opinion for Peary that prevailed throughout the remaining decades of the 20th Century.
Now it appears that Cook’s claim has been gaining support while Peary’s claim is suspect because inter alia, his recorded sledge mileages for his return to his ship were deemed impossible to have been achieved. See Wally Herbert’s Noose of Laurels London 1989.

Swearing on the Horns at Highgate

2009-02-08T19:48:00.005Z

Shortly after, or even before I left senior school (many years ago!) I was introduced to the institution of the English Pub, several of which were within 1km of my home at Highgate in North London. One of these pubs, just around the corner from home and across North Hill towars Highgate village, is The Wrestlers Tavern. http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub2166.html It was here in 1961 or thereabouts, when I was 18 years old, the then publican revived the ancient ceremony of Swearing on the Horns at Highgate. It is now a biannual event at the same pub.
Many people came, placed their hands on a dusty set of deer antlers, held aloft on a stick and gave an oath, a very silly but enjoyable oath that conferred several strange concessions to those, having sworn, might visit the streets of Highgate in future….
While some versions are quite long—one source depicts a ceremony with six stanzas, the best known points are:
You must not eat brown bread while you can get white, except you like the brown the best.
You must not drink small beer while you can get strong, except you like the small the best.
You must not kiss the maid while you can kiss the mistress, except you like the maid the best, but sooner than lose a good chance you may kiss them both.
The exception clauses make it clear that the oath is not an oath at all; one may do as one pleases. Other parts of the oath include pledges to be kind to one's wife, to remember that the man is the head of his household, and to bring new initiates on one's next visit.

Privileges
Swearing on the Horns and becoming Freemen of Highgate confers several privileges, though the privileges were subject to several conditions and often turned out to be no privilege at all. The immediate reward was to kiss the prettiest woman in the pub; if no pretty women were to be found, the new initiate had to settle for less. If a Freeman in need of a rest was in Highgate, he could kick a pig out of a ditch and take its place. But if there were three pigs in the ditch, he could only chase away the middle one and sleep between the other two. If a Freeman found himself penniless in Highgate, he could have free drinks for himself and his friends, but if any money was found on him (or if it was found he had given it to his friends to hold) he had to buy a round of drinks for the house.

Looking back over many years, I cannot now remember kissing any maids on that day, pretty or otherwise! I kept a photograph from the local newspaper of the day, but cannot now find it.

I am pleased to see that Swearing on the Horns is still a Highgate tradition after so many years, and who knows, one day I might visit The Wrestlers Tavern again and renwew old acquaintance or kick out a pig I may find there.

Photo of the Day!

2009-02-03T07:53:00.004Z

California Sea Otters - anchored in Kelp

2009-01-26T08:12:00.004Z

My photo of the day! A limestone gravestone ravaged by acid rain erosion and almost completely obliterated! Yorkshire September 2007.

I am going to stay with my friends in Hungary the day after tomorrow and hope to take more photos there and publish some of them here - Watch this space!

Dazzle Ships

2009-01-05T23:16:00.004Z

I have been fascinated for some time by the succesful use of Dazzle Camouflage on ships during the First World War. Because of the development of radar by the time of the second war, Dazzle camouflage was not a realistic option, but earlier the complex broken lines meant that enemy submarines could not accurately judge distances and directions. No ships and few photos survive, but the World War I dazzle ships definitely earned their place in Art History - See Wikipedi link above.

A Christmas Carol

2009-01-03T17:47:00.004Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/dec/17/christmas-carol-tobacco-factory-review

On the Evening of New Year’s Day we went to see the production of The Tobacco Factory version of the famous Charles Dickens story – A Christmas Carol. It was a wonderful Christmas treat, full of good acting from all the enthusiastic cast and in the intimate space of the theatre: an appreciative audience of all ages, children, parents and grandparents. The little theatre is good for this intimate experience, Scrooge's bed, huge on the little stage was visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and yet to come in the hope that he, Scrooge mends his miserly ways and in the end he is redeemed and does see the error of his former ways. Bob Crachett and his family were able in the end to welcome him to their Christmas meal and we could feel almost sorry for the old humbug Scrooge who had been severely rattled by his nocturnal visitors.

Flickr

2008-12-26T08:45:00.003Z

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Flickr

2008-12-26T08:45:00.001Z

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Season's Greetings!

2008-12-26T08:27:00.003Z

May I wish all my visitors to my Blog the compliments of the season and very best wishes for the comin year.

Christmas Comedy TV

2008-12-22T17:52:00.001Z

Last night, Channel 5 on UK TV had a three hour long programme devoted to TV’s Greatest Christmas Comedy Moments – I watched most of it and revelled in the rich pickings offered and I will probably watch again when the show repeats on Christmas Eve.
It showed a wonderful variety of writing and acting talent that brought back many chuckles and even belly laughs as I watched familiar and not so familiar shows. There were scenes from Only Fools and Horses, Dad's Army and The Office. Famous Christmas Special moments such as the Morecambe and Wise Show with the newsreader Angela Rippon dancing, Dawn French having too many Christmas dinners as she goes around her parishioners in her guise as the Vicar of Dibley, and from Only Fools and Horses the amazement of Del and Rodney when the sale of their forgotten Harrison watch is sells at auction for millions of pounds, changing their lives forever. OK, perhaps not a very highbrow show and quite predictabled, but one to remind one of the great depth of comedy talent that TV has brought us over many years. Old friends that I had met as guests at my parents’ home in Highgate appeared. Paul Eddington in The Good Life, Graham Crowden in Porridge as the Doctor at Slade Prison telling Fletcher that he’s malingering. Many more too that had me chuckling my way to bed last night. I will try to record the re-run of this programme on Christmas Eve.

My World List! December 2008

2008-12-02T17:38:00.003Z

Before my memory goes completely and as a reminder so that future plans may be made to visit other counties or of course to revisit old favourites, here is a life list of countries visited so far!

England
Wales
Scotland
Argentina
Australia
Bahamas
Bermuda
Colombia
Denmark
Falkland Islands
Fiji
France
Germany
Greece
Holland
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Malta
Mexico
Monaco
Norway
Panama
Portugal
South Africa
South Georgia
Spain
Sweden
Tunisia
Venezuela

AND Antarctica

Canada
Ontario
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Alberta
British Columbia
Quebec

USA
New York
Washington
Washington DC
Montana
Idaho
Louisiana
Oregon
Colorado
Wyoming
Missouri
Arizona
Florida
Hawaii
New Jersey

Brunel and Bristol

2008-11-29T10:39:00.005Z

This is an interesting audio-slide show from the BBC on the subject of Robert Howlett - remembered as the photographer of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his achievements, many of which are evident around Bristol to this day.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7753000/7753202.stm

Well worth a look!

Richard III

2008-11-26T13:05:00.004Z

This little lead, hand-painted figure is one given to my late father on the set, while father was making the film Richard III with Lawrence Olivier back in 1955. Filming was done in Spain and so some scenes show typical Spanish skies and olive trees, rather than the green countryside of England around Bosworth Field. Nevertheless the film, recently digitally remastered on DVD is an epic of its genre and has wonderful performances from the cast. My father took the part of the Duke of Norfolk and this little model is of him in his court costume. Presumably the artist presented models to other actors in the cast, but I have no further information. I will try to add photos from the film but at this moment have not copied any to my computer.

Now obtained! My father on left - Lawrence Olivier on the right.

England Expects...

2008-11-24T10:15:00.001Z

One of the most interesting books in my library is a copy of the International Code of Signals published for the use of ships at sea by the British Board of Trade in 1899. I don’t know when or if later editions were published but there was, presumably not much further use of flag messaging after the invention of radio and signalling by morse code.
“Every schoolboy knows” that before the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 Admiral Nelson sent a message to his fleet using flag hoists which read “England expects that every man will do his duty”. My book has various sections, dealing with phrases, individual words, national flags, places around the world. The end papers contain fascinating advertisements of use to shipmasters such as “McInnes’s Anti-corrosive and Anti-fouling Compositions for Ships’ Bottoms. As used by Principal Companies at Home and Abroad. Contracts to the Admiralty. Sole Manufacturers: John McInnes & Son, 13 North Street, Liverpool. Another example: John Phillips & Co, 17 Anderston Quay, Glasgow, advertising cooking apparatus for use in steam ships.
Next time the Antiques Roadshow comes to Bristol I will try to take it for a valuation, hoping that it has increased from the fifteen shillings (£0.75) I originally paid for it, about 40 years ago!

From the three-letter codebook:-
KCQ – Crew have mutinied.
INP – I have been chased by disguised war vessel.
ETN – Do not approach the coast as it is mined!

Greetings from AEQC (Bristol)

The New President

2008-11-05T10:44:00.008Z

I stayed up late last night watching the BBC's coverage of the US Presidential Election. Gripping stuff! Once it was a forgone conclusion that Barrack Obama was winning the race, I eventually went to bed. I now find that he has secured a landslide victory and general congratulation from most quarters. What a task confronts him though! Moving to see the joyful tears of Jesse Jackson, the excitement of young America of all colours, even the support and graciousness of those he defeated. Interesting times! Good luck America!
One more thought! - I will greatly miss the memorable gaffes and faux-pas of George W who was so worryingly ignorant about so much of the world.

Allt y Rhiw

2008-11-03T12:19:00.002Z

http://www.struttandparker.com/property-for-sale/oswestry-shropshire/property_SBY080191.html

Update on the old homestead.
Mr & Mrs Whitthread, who bought my parent's property at auction three years ago have decided to sell it again. I gather that despite all the impr improvements to the home, that they are, sadly, planning to divorce and sell the house. The above link has all the details. It originally went on the market at £750,000 but I see that the price is now reduced to £695k. I am sure someone will snap it up before long.

The Wheelbarrow Graveyard

2008-11-01T17:26:00.005Z

In September I booked myself onto a couse at a school of painting run by a cousin of mine who has been gaining a name for himself as a Welsh painter, sculptor and printmaker. He runs the courses from his old watermill on the banks of the River Banwy in Mid-Wales, in the old county of Montgomeryshire. Accommodation was in the cottage next to the mill, and three other students and I assembled for lessons and practical sessions which were enjoyed immednsly. David is very knowledgeable and was encouraging even going so far as to praise some of my efforts.

Down the gap between the old mill and one of the studios there is a patch of rough ground which fascinated me. In it, there are various bits of timber, roof slates pots, a mannequin's leg and other random discarded items, but most intriguing was the number of deceased wheelbarrows. Not just one or two but four or five in various stages of decay or overgrowth. There are three in the above photo but behind me there were more. I thought of the Time Team archaeologists in centuries to come, digging down to find so many of these strange objects in one place, and thought of sketching the yard myself but in the event only took photos. A few metres away from the graveyard was a pond and here many waterboatmen, curious litte insects that skim accross the surface of the water among the duckweed! Another photo opportunity!

I have returned!!

2008-11-01T11:50:00.002Z

Though I have been regularly checking for my e-mails by using the public access PCs at the local library in Filton, at long last and with the diligent help of Ibi during her recent visit, I am now back "Up and running" with a new Dell Inspiron laptop and good internet connection. I have been away from the blog too long and my typing, never good anyway, needs more practice. Please forgive any typos! I will publish more later and I would like to thank all my recent visitors who have looked for me here over the last three months but have found nothing new to look at. I'll do my best and try to have a few words and interesting pictures added on a regular basis. More later....

Quick Mesage!

2008-08-29T12:56:00.002+01:00

My PC is sick! A virus is suspected, anyway I'm here in the local Library so I'm still mnore or less in contact with the world until my PC shop has sorted out the bugs. Back soon I hope!

Return of the Humpback

2008-08-12T07:54:00.005+01:00

Good News for once from Nora Schultz in today's issue of New Scientist, though the comment from Thilo Maack of Greenpeace expecting Japan to call for a resumption of whaling operation is sad.

Four decades after their hunting was banned in 1966, the humpback whale seems to have finally swum clear of the danger zone.
On the newest compilation of the Red List of Threatened Species, humpbacks are no longer classed as "vulnerable" but have made the leap into the "least concern" category, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature announced on Tuesday. The reclassification is sure to encourage pro-whaling countries to lift the ban on commercial humpback whaling.
Randall Reeves, chair of the Cetacean Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, who led the assessment, says that the humpbacks' recovery is down to the ban on whaling.
"It's pretty clear-cut. Of all the large whales, humpbacks are maybe the best at responding to the availability of food and breeding habitat, so as long as you leave them alone, they have a strong capacity to bounce back."
Safe to hunt?
Greenpeace campaigner Thilo Maack says he fully expects Japan to call for a resumption of commercial whaling.
"But we must not forget that even if numbers have improved, they are still miles away from what they used to be before whaling started. Commercial hunting should definitely not be allowed."
Reeves says he hopes that the good news "will not be used to reverse the humpbacks' recovery. But if there was a concrete proposal for very precautionary, sustainable whaling on the table, then we have to talk about it."
The IUCN estimate that there are now at least 40,000 mature humpback whales, up from a total population of less than 1500 before the ban was introduced, but still significantly below the estimated 240,000 humpbacks in the pre-whaling days.
Disappearing dolphins
Along with the humpback whale, the Southern right whale has also made it into the "least concern" category. But the future does not look as rosy for many small cetaceans, which continue to be taken in large numbers as fisheries by-catch.
"It is frightening how quickly and quietly some dolphins and porpoises are disappearing," says Reeves. "There is no blood and gore and no whaling ships. They are just quietly dying entangled in fishing nets."

Small Tortoiseshell

2008-07-26T09:50:00.002+01:00

Kettlewell, Yorkshire -September 2006

Antarctic Photo of the Day

2008-07-22T17:01:00.003+01:00

Photo taken 22 November 2005 - Click to enlarge.

St Andrew's Bay - South Georgia

King Penguins with sleeping Elephant Seal in the background

Welcome boys!

2008-07-07T11:47:00.010+01:00

Tibi, Norbi and Peti together with Ibi their English teacher, came to stay with me for five days. They flew into Bristol from Budapest on Monday 24th June. All were just about squeezed into my small flat and we all enjoyed (I hope) a packed itinerary of visits. On the first full day we visited Brandon Hill and its Grey Squirells. Expressing a desire to see a major football stadium, we failed to get into Bristol City's stadium as preparations were being made there for a concert by Bon Jovi but we had a look at the Suspension Bridge and Clifton before returning home. The football crazy boys were more satisfied the next day when we all took a coach to Birmingham, where we did manage to include a trip to Aston Villa's Doug Ellis Stadium and also experienced the Imax film about the prehistoric dinosaur T. Rex. We also visited Weston Super Mare where the boys visited the Aquarium and managed to get down to to the sandy beach for a few minuted with their toes in the Atlantic Ocean.

On Saturday we walked to Parkway Statiom and got the train to London where we "did" the major tourist sights: Westminster, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, St James Park, changing the guards at Horsegaurds Parade, Trafalgar Square and the London Eye. I was sad to see them go last Monday, they had been great company.

The Eskimo Curlew

2008-06-23T12:40:00.006+01:00

The Eskimo Curlew – Numenius Borealis (Museum specimen)

The curlew and its distinctive call has always had special fascination for me. It was one of the sounds that I remember from a very early age, first hearing the wonderful plaintive call echoing around the Welsh hills, then seeing them flying between nearby feeding grounds. These were the European Curlew Numenius arquata the largest of European wading birds. However since reading “The Last of the Curlews” by Fred Bodsworth (London 1964) which is a sad and moving tale of the inevitable extinction of the Eskimo Curlew, I have regularly "Googled" for possible news of the species.

The following link is from the excellent Depasrtment of Ornitology at Cornell University in New York State: -
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/conservation/extinctions/eskimo_curlew
In the nineteenth century this Curlew was a common sight on migration between its summer breeding grounds in the tundra of Canada’s North West Territories and the pampas of Argentina. Between 1870 and 1890, unrestricted hunting rapidly reduced populations of these curlew. Considered very good to eat, the birds were killed by thousands of market hunters, just as the Passenger Pigeon had been years earlier. The curlew's lack of fear and habit of traveling in large flocks made it an easy target. Since reading their story and suspected demise, I have kept an eye open for news of the species, in the forlorn hope that perhaps a few might still survive; it seems not, but I found this from The Guardian newspaper from 2005:
In 1962 another rapidly declining North American species, the Eskimo curlew, was seen in Texas. In the four decades since, several other sightings have been claimed, but none has totally convinced the authorities whose job it is to pass judgment on records of rare birds.
With any species like these, on the brink of annihilation, there is a point at which we must finally admit that it has become extinct. Yet, it is human nature to hang on to the slim hope that a lost population may somehow, somewhere, survive.
So perhaps even now a flock of Eskimo curlews is migrating unseen across the crowded North American airspace, on the epic journey from their South American winter quarters to breed in the wilds of Alaska. With the resurrection of the ivory-billed woodpecker, this may not be quite as farfetched as it seems.
A close relative of the Eskimo curlew is now considered to be Europe's rarest bird. Once common, the slender-billed curlew underwent a rapid decline during the 20th century, and by the 1990s could only reliably be seen at a single site in northern Morocco. Gradually numbers there fell, until finally none remained.
But in May 1998, in a remarkable turn of events, a small curlew resembling this species was found at Druridge Bay in Northumberland, England. Though photographed and even captured briefly on video, the identification was doubted by some sceptics, who simply could not believe that such a rare bird could turn up in Britain.
Away from the well-watched regions of Europe and North America, it is much more likely that birds long considered extinct may yet be rediscovered. The last known Spix's macaw disappeared from its native forest in north-eastern Brazil some time towards the end of the last millennium.
But some species simply refuse to lie down and die. BirdLife recently revealed a possible sighting of the legendary pink-headed duck, the first since before the Second World War, in the remote region of northern Burma. Frustratingly, the bird was seen for just three minutes; and none of the observers had a camera to hand — making it yet another in the long line of "ones that got away." Which brings us to the $64,000 question. Is there any chance — however remote — that any of the three best known extinct birds in history could still be alive, awaiting rediscovery? In ascending order of notoriety, they are the passenger pigeon, whose flocks once darkened the skies over North America; the great auk, the last British example of which was killed by islanders who thought it was a witch; and finally the dodo, which fell victim to hungry sailors and the even hungrier dogs, cats and rats they brought with them.
Were any of these birds to be found again, it would be front-page news all over the world. Sadly, there is about as much chance of this happening as of Elvis being found alive. But then again, we can always dream ...
- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Cook-out by the Körös

2008-06-03T07:15:00.004+01:00

I am flying back to Bristol tonight and so last everning was my last with Ibi and family for a few weeks. As it is my birthday next week and by way of a little celebration, Ibi and Tünde, together with Tünde's friend Vera, we had a cook-out evening meal by the Körös river bank not far from Mezőberény. Ibi had bought a cauldron to hang over the fire and we had been given a bagful of wood by one of the boy's parents. The girls chopped wood while Ibi and I prepared food and soon a good fire was keeping mosquitos at bay and an excellent stew was on the boil!

A lovely Mezőberény orange birthday cake was also produced and eaten and a few glasses of wine consumed before returning home for a shower and an early night.

Canoe on the Kőrős

2008-06-01T19:47:00.004+01:00

Another visit on Saturday to Szarvas. Ibi had happy memories of her student days paddling kayaks on the river here and had made enquieues as to the present facilities. We hired a Canadian style canoe and enjoyed the experience very much. I was certainly a very rusty canoeist, not having paddled my own canoe since my Outward Bound Mountain School at Eskdale in 1981! (photo below)

We saw much wildlife on the river, birds, insects, fish and freshwater turtles. A few photos are here.

Szarvasi Arborétum and Bodies Exhibition

2008-05-26T07:49:00.006+01:00

Yesterday, Sunday was beautiful weather and we drove to the city of Szarvas, visited Tescos for supplies of food and drink then went over the river bridge to the Arbotertum. Photos - here. There were wonderful specimen trees from all over the world and some familiar trees laid out among well tended parkland with many birds including peacocks and meadows to enjoy the fresh air in beautiful surroundings. We almost got lost on the way back but eventually found the way back to the car park and the trusty Trabant. We had had a late picnic breakfast in the arboterum but followed this with a great lunch at the terrace restaurant by the river. We then returned home and I seem to have slept for many hours. Ibi has gone to school and Janos has gone to Budapest to take an exam. 5* Ibi took her exam on Saturday while I was visiting the Bodies exhibition. "Bodies" was well worth the entrance fee. It is an exhibition travelling the world with specialy disected and prepared real human bodies, respectfully displayed and labelled.

Birdsong

2008-05-17T15:46:00.005+01:00

Once again I am back in the home of my dear Hungarian friends the Kalmans. I arriverd on Ryanair via Budapest on Wednesday night. All well here and I have amused myself on the first two mornings lying in my bed and trying to sort out the various participants in the dawn chorus coming through my window. Birdsong has been a conscious and recurring wake up call most of my life. Here the summer visitors have arrived and the swallows and house martins are feeding young under the eaves. Common once in Britain, but now increasingly rare, there are many House Sparrows busy with new families. Wood pigeons are giving their distinctive cooing which I remember from childhood sounded somethging like "Take two coos taffy! Heard too are the wingbeats of local White Storks that fly from thier lofty nests to ponds and streams to feed. The swallows and martins are constantly cheeping as they teurn with food for their young and I have heard, though not seen a local cuckoo as it overflies the house on the way to lay alien eggs in some poor Reedwarbler's nest I suspect. I am sure there will be more in my current bird list. Childhood memories of the Rookery in my grandfather's elm tree persist, but no rookery is closeby but I mayl add here others to the list as I identfy them.

Apropos of birdsong: - If you, dear reader have not yet read it, I thoroughly recommend Birdsong, a World War 1 novel by Sebasdtian Foulkes is one of the best novels of its genre in print today. ,

No celebrations here!

2008-04-24T03:10:00.005+01:00

Yesterday April 23rd was St George's Day, though few people make any celebrations in the UK. He is patron saint not only of England but also of Aragon, Catalonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Germany and Greece; and of Moscow, Istanbul, Genoa and Venice (second to Saint Mark). He's also patron saint of soldiers, archers, cavalry and chivalry, farmers and field workers, Scouts, riders and saddlers, and he helps those suffering from leprosy, plague and syphilis!.

However, Travellers Beware! Sadly in recent years, flying St George's flag in England often signals an unwholesome and unwelcome brand of patriotism. I would like to warn anyone travelling to England, that if the St George's flag is displayed on a building, the owners are likely to hold xenophobic views, and be unwelcoming to any but white English people, maybe evem member of the facist BNP, the British National Party. I am sad that many pubs in England display this flag and any non-white, even a non English person who enters may encounter an unwelcoming attitude even hostility. All very sad really, I should be proud to display my National Flag and in fact I am proud to display the Red, white and blue Union Flag but it seems that the St George's flag has been misappropriated by many people who hold racist views and are best avoided.

Soon it will be Barbecue weather!

2008-04-21T09:00:00.003+01:00

Photo of the day! Taken at Ham Hill, Somerset, a few years ago!

Back Home

2008-04-06T08:20:00.004+01:00

It's Sunday and I've had three days to recover from my most excellent second trip to Hungary. My knowledge of the Hungarian language has hardly improved, it really is a most impenetrable language! I can however do a fair vocal imitation of storks clattering their beaks together, which they do when greeting their partners!
So, many wonderful memories from this visit thanks to the wonderful family I stay with.
As forecast I have looked out of my window this morning to find a light dusting of snow - maybe 1cm, and it looks very cold outside. No doubt other areas of the UK will have had worse and the news will be full with wintry personal stories of accidents and traffic problems.

Storks around the Town

2008-04-01T08:37:00.002+01:00

White Storks of Mezöberény

Some not in the best focus - will try for better next time :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/john0corners/Storks

Brone Age by the Willows

2008-03-31T07:53:00.006+01:00

http://vesztomagor.cremona.fotoalbum.hu/viewpicture/pictureid/576802

Yesterday, Sunday was fine and warm, so up early to take advanzage of the Summer Time change of clocks, we took a picnic with us and drove to an important Bronze Age site not far from home. We had a delightful wander around the site though the museum part was still closed for the winter. There were many birds around among the willows and flowering hawthorn trees. I heard my first cuckoo of the year and Janos took many photos with my camera. The scenedry was great and even hot enough to bask in the sun for a while. While we were out, Tűmde won her latest handball match, so that was an improvement!

Photos HERE

Eggs and Buda, Hot Water and Storks

2008-03-29T15:18:00.012Z

As "every schoolboy" knows, Budapest, the capital city of Hungary is Pest on the right (East) bank of the River Danube and Buda is the name of the old city on the West bank where some wonderful old buildings and monuments remain and there are great views down to the river below. On Thursday we took the train from Mezöbereny, picking up the school group with Janós en route. I was moved and honoured to be given two splendid traditional Hungarian Easter Eggs made specially for me by two of the girls,(see above photo)

The object of the day's trip was to explore the old city and go to the National Military Museum. From the main station, we went by Metro to the old city and climed the steep hill to the museum where the children made a beeline for the shop, but all were so well behaved and seemed interested in the exhibits. There are many fine views from the ramparts of the old city and we saw many fine buildings including the Presidential Palace.

The children stayed on to climb Gelert's hill but I rejoined Ibolya who had been at her tutorial all day and we returned on an earlier train.

Today, Saturday, we have been to see Mezőbereny's own hot spring - a stand pipe near the town swimming pool where several people were filling containers with the water. I tried it and found the taste quite acceptable. Then we drove to the river to take more photos. We were pleaded to see several storks today and a rabbit hopped by two metres away from where we sat and had our picnic lunch. We also visited an interesting small museum at the local pumping station.

While we picniced, we were visited by a rabbit who hopped by us with little concern On the way back we took some photos of a typical small farm, chickens, turkeys, a tractor on a hillock, a dovecote, rickerty barns, a spavined horse, rusting machinery and a traditional water pump, that reminded me of my grandfather's photos from India taken before World War I!

All our photos here

My Portrait!

2008-03-25T08:33:00.006Z

I am TOLD this is good! It was drawn when we visited the Renaissance Festival at Gyula during my first Hungarian visit in February. What do you think? Please comment!

Another day, another Spa

2008-03-22T08:37:00.004Z

http://www.gyoparosfurdo.hu/
Good Friday, Southern Hungary. Again combining a couple of work visits for Janos, Ibi and I went to the excellent spa at the town of Orosháza to the north of Szeged. A lovely morning tempted us to the outdoor pool where the thermal waters, jet sprays and people watching kept us amused and soaking in the tea coloured waters. After that we relaxed indoors and I was interviewed for a national Hungarian TV station - Did I like the spa? How do you like Hungary? - that sort of question! If I'm not edited out, maybe we can tape the interview to be shown next Monday - probably. It was my first ever interview wearing only swimming trunks!
We had brought a picnic lunch and after that we walked down to the lake.
As I write this evening we have returned from the school where we have watched a handball match involving Tűnde and her team up against a much stronger team from Bekescsaba. Her school played well and came away noit too displeased with the result which was I think 20 -30 or thereabouts.

Quiet Weekend

2008-03-16T17:57:00.004Z

A very quiet day today. Yesterday was a lot more strenuous as Ibi and I took a bicycle ride and a picnic down to the river. My cycling skills were tested and it took some time for me to get used to the gears and the back-pedalling brake. I had to explain to Ibi that I had not ridden a bike with a back-pedalling brake bike since I was about 10 years old. However I only fell off once! The river was very full since our previous visit and we couldn't get as close as previously. We saw and heard several birds then returned for a soak in the barh.
Today Sunday, there was a chance to go and see where White Storks may have arrived but in the end we have had a quiet day at home.

Medical in Szeged

2008-03-14T15:50:00.006Z

My lovely Hungarian family show great interest in my health and welfare. On this visit Ibolya had arranged for me to be checked out by one of the leading Hungarian specialists: Professor Tamas Forster at the University Hospital of the historic city of Szeged. Janos drove me in the Trabant and apart from visiting the hospital we had a very full and interesting day sightseeing, ending with a visit to the White Lake wildlife reserve as it was already getting quite dark. This was to observe the nightly event of hundreds of Demoiselle Cranes flying in to roost in the reed beds. Sadly they arrived after it had got almost too dark to see them but we certainly knew that they were arriving as we heard their distinctive calls.

At the hospital we waited for various tests to be done before Professor Forster saw me. He was very reassuring and Ibolya is now more satisfied with my state! She worries I think, that I might have another infarct while I am a long way from home and effectively her responsibility. Prof. Forster has recommended that I take Beta Blocker tablets to lower my BP and regulate the atrial fibrillation but otherwise has recommended a normal and active lifestyle. (Long may it continue!)

After the hospital visit we had an excellent lunch at a large Tesco store.

In the afternoon we walked around the city centre. There are many fine buildings, statues and monumdents, not least to comemmorate the Great Flood (photo above) that devastated the inner city in the 19th Century. Other photos from the day are here.

2008-03-10T14:39:00.006Z

On Saturday 8th March we made a very early morning (0430) start for the railway station and to meet a party of children plus some parenets for a school trip to Hungary's Capital City Budapest. I had met most of the children on my previous visit and they seemed excited to see me again. I I seem to have acquired the name "Uncle John" - "John Bácsi" in Hungarian which sounds like John Bahji (as in Onion Bahji(!) since my last visit, and many of them tried out their few words of English on me, I am ashames that my few words of Hungarian are woefully lacking.

Arriving at Budapest Station around 0830, the children went off to visit the zoo with Janos while Ibi and I went on the metro to visdit the spectacular parliament buildings after briefly looking at the Danube which flows next to it. An excellent English speaking guide showed us round and pointed out meny interesting features and richly gilded interior. After that we went to a restaurant for an excellent lunch then vwaled back to the station to rejoin the school party. A great day and we have plans to go again soon, probably to one of the spas.

Photos here

Off again!

2008-03-03T09:58:00.003Z

Flying off from Bristol again tonight, Janos will be meeting me at Budapest Airport, then a train to Szolnok and then collect the car and drive to Mezobereny. A full month this time and so I hope to be there before the resident pair of storks arrive at their nest in the Tesco Car Park almost opposite the flat. We have plans this time to visit Budapest, go fishing, more birdwatching and various other activities. I'm back on 2nd April.

Return to Blighty!

2008-02-23T17:18:00.003Z

I flew back to Bristol on Wednesday evening after a wonderful month with my Hungarian friends who looked after me so very well. Not long now before I am due to fly back there and enjoy the spring weather and maybe do some more birdwatching and fishing. Not much news from Bristol and am slowly reducing the pile of mail that awaited my return.

School Trip to the Zoo

2008-02-20T11:10:00.006Z

Janos invited me to join his children on a trip to the local town Bekescsaba to visit a travelling zoo exhibition. A curious display of small mammals, insects, plants, reptiles and Hungarian minerals were shown to us and one of the girls bought a hamster to take home. After the exnibition we went to a talk and slide show om the subject of the life and landscape of the Danube Delta on the Black Sea. The children are all keen to look after me and I was touched and ber able to join in their expedition and have several young ladies wanting to hold my hand. I must try hard to increace my Hungarian word and phrases which are sadly lacking at the moment.
My Photos

The Renaissance Fesival At Gyula!

2008-02-16T15:52:00.006Z

Today we have been to Gyula for the annual Renaissance Festival. Very colourful, at times very noisy and under a snow laden sky. We took loads of photos and enjoyed the ambience of this medieval town. Numerous groups from all overr Hungary and Romania were represented and the costumes were great. We found a beautiful old fashioned cafe for a coffee before waiting on the roadside for the processions to begin. Old and young were colourfully dressed and eventually we found a great viewing spot right behind the judges tables. After that we had some lunch in the marquee then explored the Castle and were entertained with traditional music while I indulged in a glass of excellent mulled wine.
It was a cold day and by the time we got home to Mezőberény we had had about an inch of snow with what looks like more to come later! Link
I will place the link to my photos HERE, at the moment I am recharging the batteries in order to do this and must in future make sure that I carry spare charged batteries!

Hungarian Update

2008-02-10T05:54:00.003Z

Awoke today to a misty morning with frost. Soon we will leave for a vist to see Janos's mother who lives over an hour's drive away and I am promised stuffed cabbage for lunch. Also a chance to see some wild deer nearby.

Mother looked after us well and after lunch we took a walk in the forest (P02) and though the deer were mostly elusive, there were plenty of signs of them as they are regularly fed with maize having beren put out for tem along the paths. We also encountered a flock of goats, and a brightly coloured cup-fungus! (P01)

After the walk we returned to the town for a stroll around the vast stables once owned by nobility and now a hotel. Here (P03) a scene of love in the stables.

All continuing well here, fantastic hospitality. Yesterday we walked from the flat to the new house Janos is building and I am encouraged to do this 2-3 km walk more often to get more exercise and fresh air. There is a plan for me to leave tokens at the building site every time I visit on my own as proof of my exercise regime!

Bustard Day!

2008-02-05T17:34:00.010Z

An excellent half day excursion today to the Hungarian National Park that protects the Great Bustard and is home to several rare brees of cattle, pigs and sheep situated at Dévavanya, only a short drive from where I an staying. I went in the school minibus with a dozen nine year old children from Janos's class who were all very bright and welcoming though their English was about as good as my Hungarian but all told me their names and were interested in being introduced to this strange visitor from England.

We arrived at the park and were met by one of the guides who showed us around and explained the highlights. My photos tell the tale but also please see linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bustard
and my photos which I will upload shortly.
Here are my photos

Hungary!

2008-01-29T10:36:00.000Z

I have arrived in Hungary to stay with my friends for a few days. I am very comfortably settled into Ibi's home in South Eastern Hungary, close to the border with Romania. The town has few older buildings that I've seen so far anyway and the countryside is generally flat. We have several plans to explore further afield over the next two weeks when time allows but it is now termtime and both Ibi and Janos work very hard, both as teachers at local schools. We arrived on Sunday night at Budapest Airport, then caught a train towards our destination. Getting off the train at Szolnok were we were met by Janos in his trusty East German built Trabant, the first I had ever seen! Driving then in the moonlit night through sleepy towns finally arriving at the apartment around 2am. Apart from a short walk to the local shops, yesterday was spent at home and in the evening I had conversations with two of Ibi's students - boys of 14 who had come to Ibi for extra English lessons. They were great and intrigued to converse with a "real" English person! Ibi's daughter Tunde, who had been at school all day finally arrived home and so I have now met all the family. In the evening we had a lovely hungarian sausage, with stuffed peppers and potatoes for dinner and discussed some of the things we plan to do over the next days. Budapest with some of Janos's students, a trip to a trypical Hungarian Spa and to a restaurant. Probably a visit to see some wildlife nearby. I hope to see Bustards.

Everyone is out at work now, so I am here at the PC catching up on emails and the blog. When Ibi gets home, about 2pm we will go into town again, I expect.

Brief Update

2007-12-28T20:05:00.000Z

To all my loyal visitors to my blog!
Sorry about my prolonged absence. Sadly I suffered a stroke at home here in Bristil on 9th December, b I have some residual problems with my eyesight and cannot now drive, but I'm getting around, walking wounded! But with some damage to my eyesight. I was taken to Frenchay Hospital and stayed there until the Thursday before Christmas.
I may not be posting to my blog very often but will try, as often as I am able.

I would love to hear from any visitors to my site by comment on the blog or by personal email to me at johnp@wega.org.uk
Some recovery expected but don't expect my typing to improve!
Love to all my loyal friends, relatives and any other visitors.
Happy New Year from
John

A blot on the Landscape?

2007-12-03T09:57:00.000Z

Near the proposed site - Cefn Coch near Llanfair Caereinion

I have been preparing this piece for a few weeks now, trying to get together pertinent information and trying to come to some sort of rationale. One of my cousin had alerted me to the fact that at Cefn Coch, in the hills above Llanfair Caereinion in Montgomeryshire, plans are afoot to build a wind turbine farm in this particularly beautiful area of Mid Wales. Many local peopled had been demonstrating against the proposal and urging the planning authority to withhold permission. I considered protesting mytself, but I realised that I knew little about the main issues. It seems to me that the fundamental questions that need consideration are 1. Would this wind farm generate enough electricity to be cost effective? 2. Are the turbines a fatal hazard for near flying birds or bats? And 3, Does the noise or visual impact of this farm, placed on the Cefn Coch ridge detract from the natural beauty of this sparsely populsterd area.

I have seen various figures given for the vast amount of wind energy potentially available to us in the British Isles and turbines are becoming a common sight around our coasts and on ridges in hilly areas. I could copy various references, damning or praising wind turbines but would only be adding to the confusion. No one I think would deny that renewable energy must be used where and when possible though because of the noise and the scale of the plant some would say “Not in my back yard or spoiling our view!” I can sympathise with this view, I love this area of Mid Wales that my mother described in her book, A View of Old Montgomeryshire as: humped backed hills, lying like sleeping lizards in the sunlight.

As for a wind farm being fatal for migrating or flocking birds, according to this Eco-Myth and Healthlink articles the danger does seem to be mostly an urban myth, though I would like to see some evidence if there is any, of bird kills from around other wind farms. Some birds have undoubtedly been killed by flying into the blades of wind wirbines, but is the number greater than those killed by domestic cats and irresponsible royal shooting parties far more? I think so!

Any comments gratefully received!

Stop Killing Whales!

2007-11-22T07:22:00.000Z

I am not one to avoid red meat from farmed sources if it is on offer, but I have little sympathy for the Japanese who are in direct defiance of international whaling bans under the excuse of "scientific research." and are resuming the killing of humpback whales with barbaric exploding harpoons after a forty year moratorium that has brought about a modest recovery in some species, but populations are still precarious, and will be made more so with the resumption of whaling. I can understand the cultural arguments of the Japanese apologists like Hideki Moronuki, of the whaling section in the Far Seas Fishery Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries who says that, "If someone eats a cow, why should one object to a dolphin and whales being eaten; they're all mammals." He added, "If Australians want to eat kangaroos, we don't care. . . . Please do not care what Japanese do. . . . Eating dolphins and whales is part of Japanese food culture." Apparently the Japanese are eating less whale meat, but nevertheless, it is still a huge industry.
My own disgust at this matched by many people who believe as I do that the great whales are all still in great danger of extinction, are intelligent and worth protecting for future generation to marvel at rather than have the remaining few turn up on Japanese dining tables.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1686486,00.html

Apologetic Update

2007-11-20T07:36:00.001Z

Several weeks have again passed by with no new blog posts from me and I begin to feel guilty! However I do have an excuse this time . For the last two weeks I have been experiencing headaches and eye problems, finding reading,and writing quite difficult. I thought it may be migraine and went to see my doctor but he could find nothing particular wrong but advised me to have an eye test to see if my glasses prescription needed changing. Anyway, I had the optician look at my eyes yesterday and because I have been reading and writing with a great deals of difficulty for over a week now she is referring me to the Bristol Eyer Hospital for further investigation. I don't know yet how long before the hospital can see me. Slightly worrying - as you can imagine! I will however attempt another post today...

My Photo of the Day

2007-10-26T08:41:00.000+01:00

Sadly since returning from Madrid, my blogging activity has dwindled and I am anxious to catch up with at least one post per week and there are several topics going through my head.
I have been busy with many things and projects, not least a Journalism course at Bristol Uni, an Ebay business venture - details sometime soon, and various other things breaking into retirement gradually and getting used to the idea that i don't actually have to get up at 6:15 am every morning! Here goes with an easy photo of Cape Town with Robben Island in the distance. Taken from the top of Table Mountain

Polar Ice Melting

2007-10-09T16:46:00.001+01:00

As a lifelong collector and historian of Polar Exploration; I have noticed an item that has popped up today. Much effort was made in the early years of Polar Exploration by many Sailors and adventurers to find a route around the north of Canada and down into the Pacific to China and India.

Finally the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen in the Gjoa took three years to complete the first voyage East to West in 1906 through the ice and Islands of the Northwest Territories in 1928, and the first West East voyage in the little Royal Canadian Mounted Police Vessel St Roch in 1941-1942. (See photo)

There has been record ice melt this year, and the normally ice-blocked channels are free as never before. due to Global warming according to the BBC. Stunning graphics show the retreat of polar ice in the high arctic over the last two decades. BBC Link.

If your home is near sea level

Inconvenient Truth

2007-10-06T09:44:00.000+01:00

I have been aware for some time of Ex US Vice President Al Gore's personal wake-up call regarding global warming and its effects. I bought the DVD An Inconvenient Truth some weeks ago but only yesterday found the time to watch it from beginning to end. Immediately some starkly familiar images . The swirl of hurricane Katrina approaching the Gulf Coast in 2005, stranded boats far from the edge of the Aral Sea (See my blog), great calving from the edge of the Greenland Ice cap and many others that I have become familiar with over the last few years, but there were many new and thought provoking topics and Al Gore did a great job of presentation throughout, unafraid of naming and shaming the corporate polluters nor of upsetting the fundamentalists and deniers of evolution. It was certainly worth delving into the DVD extras after the main film to see various updates (as of late 2006) and the Director - Davis Guggenheim's own commentary. Well done Al Gore. If you haven't yet seen the film PLEASE do so soon! Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun wrote:

In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to. I agree with him!

Madrid

2007-09-29T09:22:00.000+01:00

Took a few days break in Madrid to celebrate my rertirement! I'd never been before. Though the break was not without a few problems, like my credit cards not working for me! I now need another week to get over it! My hotel was very central, only a few minutes walk from Plaza Mayor. The pavements were hard as I tended to walk everywhere. Feet still sore 2 days after return. The highlights were the trips around the Prado where the current exhibition is the dreamlike paintings of Patinir [Painting of the Flight into Egypt at the Bournemisza]
, the Bourne Thyssen Bournemisza Gallery*- there, excellent Rodin Sculptures and many other famous artworks, sadly, photography not allowed. I missed by one day an exhibition of Etruscan art at the Archaeological Museum and was a little disappointed by the visit to the recreation of the cave at Altimira, the cave art was not in my opinion very well displayed or lit, but that musem was generally very good.
Generally Madrid was a great place to go and visit. Very busy, noisy, excellent food, even the beer was OK and cooled me down after a walk in he heat of the day.

Not my best set of photos, but here they are- click on link Picasa Madrid

2007-09-15T16:34:00.001+01:00

Today has been wonderful for the annual St Pauls Carnival I hope these two photograpphs and the others taken today >>link here<< gives some impression of the colour and the passion. What my photos cannot convey though is thesound of the music and the smell of cooking from every street and private back garden. Street vendors were selling watermelons and fresh coconuts and sugar canes, jerk chicken saltfish and akee and other caribbean dishes and everyone was having a great time watching the dancers, the stilt walkers, children constantly blowing whistles and the celebrastions will continue well into the night - I wouldn't like the job of clearing up the rubbish tomorrow morning.

Madiba we love you

2007-08-30T11:32:00.000+01:00

That wonderful elder statesman Nelson Mandela was honoured yesterday by the unveiling a statue yesterday in London's Parliament Square. There are many statues in our Nation's Capital, but this is, I think one of the most deserving to be remembered in this way.

Its creator, the British sculptor Ian Walters, did not live to see it being unveiled. He died last year.
Amid shouts of "we love you" from the crowd that thronged the road and hung from office block windows, the 89-year-old former South African president and his third wife, Graca Machel, made a dame for her own humanitarian work, were visibly moved at the reception.
Despite being supported by a cane, Mr Mandela took to the stage to address the crowd. He said: "We never dreamed we would all be here today. Though this statue is of one man, it should in actual fact symbolise all those who have resisted oppression, especially in my country."

[Daily Telegraph on line]

Mandela still has much to do, not least in trying to persuade his successor, President Thabo Mbeki who has been a scandalous failure to confront the scourge of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa. And there are worrying signs that the situation is about to get worse. Last week, South Africa’s deputy health minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, was fired by President Mbeki.
Madlala-Routledge was one of the driving forces behind a plan to extend anti-retroviral treatment to 80 percent of those with AIDS by 2011. This focus is exactly what South Africa’s AIDS program had been lacking. But now Madlala-Routledge has gone, there is a serious danger that the momentum toward this goal will be lost.

Back again to Wales

2007-08-26T16:23:00.000+01:00

Another trip to the land of Wales earlier this month and hundreds of photos taken at or around Lake Vyrnwy, the River Vyrnwy, Pontrobert and Llanfyllin. Pontrobert Watermill was the retirement home of my grandparents, Bob and Margaret Jones and my regular holiday destination for most if not all of my early years. Here is the long pool on the Vyrnwy about 200m below the mill house.

The link to my Picasa collection is here. - Sheryl - look at the pic of the tapestry in the church at Llanfyllin!

My Tango Photographs

2007-08-26T16:00:00.000+01:00

The sound and the sight of the Tango is all over Buenos Aires but particularly around La Boca near the old port and in the heat of the sun.

Demise of the Yangtze River Dolphin

2007-08-08T14:56:00.000+01:00

Sad news today from various sources confirming the first large mammal extinction for many years and the first cetacean extinction through human activity despite recent and high profile efforts to save it. The species is the Baiji or Yangtze River Dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer). See New Scientist link. Other river dolphin species from the Amazon and from the Ganges are also on threatened species lists.

Tom Russell

2007-08-07T16:33:00.000+01:00

Another excellent musical evening at St Bonaventure’s last night. We went to see the incomparable American singer Tom Russell who was accompanied by the excellent Michael Martin as second guitar and mandolin. The hall was packed, with chairs for only about half of the appreciative audience. Those without, sat on the floor or stood for the whole performance in a very warm and sometimes airless room. No one seemed to mind and we were encouraged to join in lusty and fun choruses. There can be no other singer-songwriters to come up with the one word chorus “Criminologist!” which refers to Tom Russell’s own early career.

My Antarctic Photos of the Day

2007-07-30T14:25:00.001+01:00

The British base at Port Lockroy.

Designated as Historic Site No 61 under the Antarctic Treaty, 19 May 1995. Restored 14 Jan 1996-18 Mar 1996. Since Nov 1996 the station has been run as an Historic Site and is open to tourists and visitors during austral summer seasons.

Bristol Harbour Festival

2007-07-30T09:36:00.000+01:00

A really nice weekend for ship, boat and people watching here on Bristol's Harbourside. Lots of photos taken and cheeses bought at the French market in Queen's Square. We also visited St Mary Redcliffe Church, that which Queen Elizabeth 1st called "The goodliest, fairest and most famous parish church in England" A selection of photographs are here on Picasa. Please click on the link.

In the lead photo the "Matthew" the replica of the ship in which John Cabot sailed from Bristol to discover Newfoundland in 1497

The Royal Welsh Show 2007

2007-07-26T09:51:00.000+01:00

The annual Royal Welsh Show at Builth Wells had always appealed but I had never been to it before and so I was pleased to have chosen a nice bright day with no rain for the 80 mile drive through the South Wales valleys to the venue on the banks of the River Wye. The countryside looked magnificent until we joined a long and tedious line of traffic moving very slowly the last few miles into the show ground car parks. I took with me my visitor from Hungary and my son Stephen and we all had a great time looking at the excellent livestock and other displays, We were entertained by a sheep-shearing competition, Ukrainian riders, pole climbing, canoeists, Shetland ponies, and a man with a sheepdog which has been specially trained to herd his flock of ducks.
Some of our photos are here on Picasa.

My Antarctic Photo of the Day

2007-07-12T10:15:00.000+01:00

Fur Seal families, Cooper Bay, South Georgia
Arctocephalus gazella

The Jurassic Coast

2007-07-10T16:46:00.000+01:00

Ladram Bay - East Devon

Another trip organised by WEGA - the West of England Geologists Association and other Geological societies took us last Saturday to Exmouth and onto a Stuart Line boat, Eastward along the coast as far as Lyme Regis and back. Our guide to the area, explaining the varied and fascinating geology enroute was Dr Richard Scrivener BSc, PhD, CGeol, FGSDistrict Geologist for the British Geological Survey and is head of the BGS station in Exeter. He had picked a particularly fine day with only slightly choppy watrer on the return trip and an excellent time was had by all. My photos of the trip are here on Picasa.

Weekend disappointment

2007-06-29T10:15:00.000+01:00

This coming Sunday we had been looking forward to going to a Folk Festival at Saul, a little village on the canalside near Frampton on Severn. Sadly the torrential rain in the last few days has led to the event being cancelled. We are told that we can expect, as the century progesses, many more extreme weather events. I am sad the Saul festival has been put off until next year, but there many other things to do, though some may involve putting wellington boots into the boot of the car as a precaution! Today the sun is shining (rather weakly) after another night of heavy rain. At least the rain guarantees a green and pleasant England.

Bristol and its artistic legacy

2007-06-22T11:30:00.000+01:00

I am saddened this week to hear of further problems for two of Bristol's much loved but under used and under funded venues: our two theatres offering serious drama. I have written before of the Theatre Royal, known as the "Bristol Old Vic", our wonderful but somewhat dilapidated 240 year old theatre. It still needs another £2 million to complete the programme of improvements and there is now talk of its possible permanent closure. I can remember going to the theatre as a child in the late 1940's when my father was in the Old Vic company and have noted with interest the fortunes of, and have seen some of the productions at the theatre in the years since. Artistic directors have come and gone over the years, have tried hard to bring challenging drama to our city with little support from the City Council and a Bristolian audience that seems to struggle with such challenges. Popular opinion seems to be saying a root and branch overhaul of the articitic policy is required, bringing whenever the renovations have been completed, a schedule of plays with much more public appeal than has been offered in the recent past.

It would be tragic to see the demise of the BOV, my father and many other actors and directors of his generation like Stuart Burge, Newton Blick, Nat Brenner and Paul Eddington, to name just five men I have known, would be turning in their graves to hear of the theatre's current parlous state.

As well as the Old Vic, our other "fringe" theatre The Tobacco Factory in Bedminster is also struggling. It is an intimite venue at the top of one of the former Wills factory buildings in Bedminster. It has put on plays from Shakespeare to "The Wills Girls" and has had great critical acclaim, but has not been commercially popular enough to ensure long term survival without additional funding and/or an injection of more successful marketing.

I do my best to support and urge others to do the same!

A Welsh Wedding!

2007-06-18T14:59:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, I was in Wales again for the Wedding of my cousin David's daughter Gwen at Llangynyw and at Powis Castle. There had been torrential rain in the area on Friday but despite river flood warnings and maybe because of a lot of people keeping fingers crossed the weather for the ceremony and for the reception was exellent as was the occasion.

As usual I took many photos which can be seen here: -

Gwen & Will's wedding.

Very best wishes to the newlyweds.

One of the Great Tragedies of Our Time

2007-06-14T16:43:00.000+01:00

One of the Great Tragedies of our Time

One of the great tragedies of our time is that in our desperate incapacity to cope with the complexities of our world, we oversimplify every issue and reduce it to a neat ideological formula. Doubtless we have to do something in order to grasp things quickly and effectively. But unfortunately this "quick and effective grasp" too often turns out to be no grasp at all, or only a grasp on a shadow. The ideological formulas for which we are willing to tolerate and even provoke the destruction of entire nations may one day reveal themselves to have been the most complete deceptions....The American conscience is troubled by a sense of tragic ambiguity in our professed motives for massive intervention. Yet in the name of such tenuous and questionable motives we continue to bomb, to burn, and to kill because we think we have no alternative, and because we are reduced to a despairing trust in the assurance of "experts" in whom we have no real confidence.

Thomas Merton

Celtic Tales

2007-06-06T22:32:00.000+01:00

My Photos

Today I have been away over the water into the "Land of My Fathers" - the Pricipality of Wales on a coach trip organised by my old friend and colleague John Vivian. We had excellent weather for the visits to two excellent places.

First we went to Castell Coch - the Red Castle, not old but in a lovely wooded setting in the hills overlooking the City of Cardiff. There were twenty-five former colleagues of the Bristol & West Building Society on the coach and we spent an enjoyable time looking around the castle, approaching it over a drawbridge above the dry moat. Built in the late 19th Century for one of the richest men of the time, the Marquess of Bute at the height of Victorian fancy for the medieval. Inside, the rooms are decorated and furnished lavishly in the most eccentric style with many wall paintings depicting scenes from Aesop's Fables (see above) and fantastic furnishings.

Further to the West of Cardiff is the wonderful National History Museum of Wales at St Fagans. I had wanted to go there for years and this was my opportunity to see it and also to see what they had done with my mother's "Ghost Bottle" or Witch Bottle (see second photo above). Back in 1983 my then little cousin Mark was playing outside my parents' cottage on the Welsh border near Oswestry, when under the old Yew Tree he found this jar or bottle, very heavy, as it is filled to halfway with lead. The story goes that a ghost once inhabited the cottage and so in order to remove the ghost, a priest or perhaps more likely a white witch was summoned in to pray the ghost down, into the bottle and this done, it would be sealed into the bottle with molten lead! Then the bottle would have been buried under the tree as Yew trees do have special mystical significance. So, there the bottle is, in the main gallery at St Fagans where it had been sent by my mother back in the 1980's for investigation. I was glad to see it again, and for the first time, the many other exhibits and houses displayed on the open air site. Houses, churches, mills, shops and many other representative buildings from all over Wales have been dismantled and taken from their original sites then put back together at St Fagans, now a working museum where carvers, millers, blacksmiths, farmers and other craftsmen and craftswomen demonstrate their rural trades for the visiting public. My Picasa photos show some of the highlights of our day.

Bristol's Little Rivers

2007-06-04T06:50:00.000+01:00

Another good walk yesterday, this time with about 50 assorted Bristol Living Rivers supporters from Sea Mills, where the River Trym joins the Avon. We hiked upstream into Westbury where the Trym is joined from the North by the Hazel Brook, sometimes known as the Hen Brook which we then followed as far as its emergence from drainage pipes near the huge shopping centre at Cribbs Causeway.
My photos on Picasa tell the tale - but just to explain the gravestone in Henbury Churchyard! The boy was one of many young african slaves who had not been sent to the sugar cane fields of the West Indies or the Cotton Fields of America but was chosen to be a servant in the household of Bristol nobility. It seems he was treated well, though he must have been the object of much curiosity and novelty at the time.

The Dragon flag flies on the top of the World

2007-05-24T15:27:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to Tori James who has just climbed to the summit of Mount Everest 8,848 meters above sea level. She is a fellow member of the British Schools Exploring Society and is climbing with a team from the London School of Business. At 23 she is the youngest female Briton and first Welsh woman to have successfully made it to the top.

The Father of Taxonomy

2007-05-23T11:53:00.000+01:00

He's more influential than ABBA, more famous than Bjorn Borg and Sweden is celebrating today the 300th birthday of its most illustrious son: Carl Linnaeus, also known as Carl von Linné or Carolus Linnaeus. He is often called the Father of Taxonomy. His system for naming, ranking, and classifying organisms is still in wide use today and his ideas on classification have influenced generations of biologists during and after his own lifetime. His signature plant the Twin Flower, Linnea Borealis is to be seen in paintings of him as shown above.

This year's Chelsea Flower Show in London has a Linnaeus feature garden and Sweden's University of Uppsala, his alma mater, is holding various celebrations.

How times have changed!

2007-05-23T10:25:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the quality of this but it is a genuine extract from a British sex education textbook for girls printed in the 1960's. Click on it to enlarge so as to read it easier! In the last paragraph I am wondering what the girls who read this originally thought their future husbands might have suggested in the line of "unusual practices"! I reckon there would have been a few giggles in the classroom!

The Brislington Brook

2007-05-20T17:26:00.000+01:00

Bristol like many British cities has grown over the centuries and many villages formerly outside the city walls have been subsumed into the whole and are now the kind of suburbs to be seen anywhere in the country. However on close inspection of the map there is parkland and wasteground between many of the built up areas. Often these "between" areas follow streams and are havens for both plants and animals.

Today's walk was through an area of Bristol that I do not know well and about 30 of us met near the southern edge of the city at Whitchurch to walk down the route of the Brislington Brook as far as St Anne's a Victorian parish church on the site of a much older monastic building and place of pilgrimage in times gone by.

As usual with these walks we were given full explanations of the history of the area and any buildings of note were pointed out and their names explained. For example a side street pub we passed called The Pilgrim Inn was named so, because it was on the regular route taken by pilgrims walking to St Anne's Well, including King Henry VII who visited twice.

Sometimes we were traipsing though quite long grass and plant cover, at other times on well used woodland paths but mostly we were oblivious to the busy roads beyond and to either side of the Brook. The second photograph shows a magnificent but weary old Plane tree, standing by the brook in Nightingale Valley.