Three Down...

Three games finished, one almost worth watching but not quite and another about to disappoint.
No time to do anything else...
I might have a bath in a months time..

At Last!

At last something to watch on TV!
The World Cup 2018 has begun and for the next wee while we have three games a day to fill the screens.  How lovely!  Well that said I must state that this first game is living up to the usual forst game in a world cup, it's rubbish!  
We have had the prelude, with Robbie Williams of all people, drawling while some dafties performed around him.  That nice Mr Putin spoke about being careful of the doorhandles in the hotels while staring down at the Ukrainian representative.  For some reason the image I saw was of that nice Mr Hitler opening the 1936 Olympics, maybe that's just me?
The first game has gone as feared.  The Saudi's are full of zeal and the Russians, no great deal here, are well on top having scored two easy goals (as we speak).  The early games are often full of fear as no-one wishes to lose a goal so as yet I see little excitement approaching.  I will however check it out just in case.

This morning, long before you lot were up, with the dawn chorus in my ears I ate breakfast.  Having burned eggs in the microwave I made coffee and sat there wondering who was burning plastic.
I soon realised it was me.
Somehow the hob rear had turned on!  I didn't do it, but it was on. 
This was unfortunate for the plastic container of biscuits was sitting on that hob ring hiding from the sun coming through the window.  I grabbed the metal ladle more used to scraping eggs from the pan and scraped the melting morass from among the by now thick pungent smoke that was filling the place.  This I threw into a bowl of water and removed the rest slowly dumping it also in the water to cool.  All the while choking on the fumes which I must say were very strong!  Quite how firemen cope with that in real time amazes me.
It took a long time to remove most of the smoke, the smell is still clearly noticeable, and the ring might be almost clear for the moment but I suspect requires more work.  Good job I never use that one.  
How stupid!  How on earth did I manage to turn the hob on?  
At least had the Robin entered at the time he would have had several open windows to leave by!

He's Back.

What is it about this Robin that he can work out how to get inside the abode but cannot find his way back out again?  This is the second time he has come fluttering inside.  Now remember that on one side of him is the great outdoors and on the other a dark interior of the room so why come inside when it is easier to keep in the light?  

 Anyhow he has once again entered and flitted around for a while glaring at me like it was my fault!
I did make it clear to him where the windows are located but he preferred to sit focusing on me in an attempt to make me feel guilty.  It failed.  I opened the lower half of the front window wide and this tempted him to sit high up on the plant that towers over the window.  Indicating the lower half being open got nowhere and the bird merely chose to sit on various perches and remain indoors.
Possibly he came in to inform me the feeder was empty, he has an effective manner about him.

Satisfied he had put me off my dinner and interrupted me sufficiently he moved across to the open entrance and sat from a while pondering his next move.  I remain convinced this was an attempt to make me fill the feeder.  This was dutifully done and the Starlings have almost emptied it already!
Robin will be happy enough down below making a mess of my neighbours pathway while bottom feeding.

Today the museum was full!  Full of plumbers, electricians and occasional people come to see what was available in spite of it all.  One or two just came to buy things, insert sweet smile at this point, and one of my many suffragette bosses gave me work to do which made time fly as I kept wishing to be elsewhere.  

   
The second textile exhibition is a bit more 'arty' than the last one.  Some interesting items on show and a great many in the shop.  None sold today and I expect until the workmen have finished there will be too few in to view to aid selling the stiff on offer.

 
Look!  The brute even manages to get in here!

Look!  The brute's managed to come back inside yet again!  This time the window was not completely open so I have had another race around the mansion until he, though I am beginning to consider this Robin a she, until she flew out the way she came in.  Bah!

String

A piece of string.
This is the one used by Kim Jong-Un on the end of which he keeps the President of the United States of America.
Sleep safe in your beds people...

Carnival Time

Carnival time!  
The local carnival does not compete with those reported annually in the media however it is a bit of fun and local colour once a year allowing the kids to sit, somewhat perplexed, on the backs of big lorries offering lacklustre waves of the hand or waving frantically if the mood takes them.  I enjoy it because of the kids faces.  There is never much to it though some folks work real hard getting things together and preparing kids and parent for the day.  Just a bit of fun in the midst of the town.  The ability to pose comes naturally to Essex kids.  They may end up in television one day. 
So, here are a thousand pictures!

 
 As you can see the locals are a shy retiring lot.

This lot were either a 'Keep fit' team or a bunch of Amazons on the loose.  I took no chances and retired behind the tree.

Not all were Amazons however.

No scooters this year however there was one very interesting motor cycle.

'Showtime' was the theme this year and the floats offered a variety of music, mostly bad!

I have no idea what half these shows represented were!

When the army arrive the show is over.  The parade continues around town and ends up in the far away where the 'Fair' carries on for hours.

Just in case...

Robin

I was sitting here cogitating re a tale I was about to place on the local facebook page when I noticed a visitor.  He is not the first to enter via the back window, it is slightly ajar for air but this man and his kind insist on squeezing through to eat the bird pellets that lie behind the window on the ledge.  Once insdide he and they then find difficulty in retreating the way they came and instead insist on crashing beak first into the other window.  
So I sent time opening windows while he flew to the top closed portion, or sat on the end of my mug breathing heavily and deciding to reach the floor and walk to the next room to attack that window.  The lack of knowledge re the layout of the inside of buildings is clear and the inability to fly through an open window clearer!   
It took a while but he eventually departed breathing heavily again and determined to learn the difference between an open window and glass.  He is the second Robin I have met this way and someone came in the other week and managed to escape without me noticing him.  At least he left no mess this time.

I'm a bit stupid.  No, I take that back, I am very stupid.  Indeed stupidity appears to be my strongest talent.  However a short muse on the number of knife crime stats in recent days, exaggerated by the media, leads me to a quick solution to this problem.  I suggest that the law stating you get up to five years for carrying a knife as a weapon ought to be put into practice!  That way people, including wee black boys forced into this by their mates, may well change their minds about carrying or using knives.  Indeed any fifteen year old jailed for fifteen years for using one might well put others off and save lives.
Why don't we do this?

Moped muggers can be dealt with similarly. 

A Change at the Top.

There has been rejoicing all round on Twitter lately at the welcome news that Paul Dacre is to be moved aside from his position as editor of the 'Daily Mail' and take up another role in the 'Mail's' newspaper kingdom.  I thought the rejoicing was summed up in one tweet that ran "You may not have liked Paul Dacre, you may not have agreed with his editorial choices or the direction he took at the Mail, but you absolutely have to admit he was a ****." Sadly the rudeness is crude but that was the word Dacre used on his staff daily at the DM.  
For 26 years this man has encouraged hate, hate of blacks, Pakistani's, Asians, the BBC, immigrants and the EU, this in spite of receiving vast subsidies for his grouse farm in the highlands, and of course anyone he hated.  He encouraged xenophobia and an insular 'Little England' mentality while blaming Europe and especially the French the Germans and appeared to enjoy bullying anyone who came into the public eye.
Of course it is true he was a great editor, his paper outsells all others and has a worldwide reach via 'Mail Online,' a success built on knowing what the reader wished to read and supplying them with a great deal of repeated 'evidence' to confirm their opinions.  Facts he never included!  Half truths and downright lies are the thing for Paul, thought, care and a search for truth did not bother him.  
Harassing celebs or politicians, the private individual or the great, it was all one to Paul.  Sell dirt and be rich was his motto and dirt he offered in depth, dirt on the rich and famous, unless his friends, dirt on opposition MP's, dirt on celebs.  The same celebs who spend much of their time half naked posing in his paper, he has always known how important naked women are in selling papers, sex filled the pages especially online.  
All media have followed him, the right wing press tried to keep up with him and failed, the 'Express' and the 'Telegraph' losing numbers hand over fist and heading down market all the time.  Dacre knew what he could get away with by spouting right wing lies and bigotry, he knew what the people wanted and knew they would fall for it.  He walks away to an overseer role, the new man, the 'Mail on Sunday' editor hated him and will not allow Paul to push him around.  It may even be the DM will improve, but I doubt it, what sells stays.  
Paul Dacre walks away and Theresa may announces he has left the cabinet, though that however might be a false tweet I saw.  The judgement we must all face lies ahead of us, at 70 years of age Paul is running out of time to consider his ways, I hope he does so soon.

Tuesday Twaddle

With the museum closed for a week, the heating system is being ripped out and a new one installed, there was little to do today.  Only an occasional individual entered the shop and was quickly dealt with, a happy greeting, a smile, a joke and no money taken!  Grrrr!  I'll keep my smiles until they spend next week.  On top of this the hammering, drilling and constant passing of plumbers wandering to and fro kept me awake and interrupted my reading of the newer books.  Have these folks no consideration?  

With nothing much to do it was therefore impossible to make mistakes, not counting the one phone call that came in which I lost because I pushed the wrong button when transferring it.  She never attempted to call back...
Nothing else went wrong as the boss tied my hands behind my back and chained me to my chair.  She appeared quite happy with this arrangement.  

 
I now find an amazing amount of free time in my life, this is because there is no football on tv.  The books are getting read, some jobs are getting done, well one or two, and the rest of the time I sit staring at the screen wondering what is missing.  How did I live before tv football?  I either read a lot, watched poor tv or just sat staring at the wall.  I must have done more, possibly in days of yore I had a life?  Hmmm I'm not so sure about that...

Sunday Blether

Being stuck indoors while avoiding food adverts on TV I realise once again just how poor TV is at the weekend.  It is bad enough during the week but at weekends it actually gets worse!  To fill the schedule many channels are filled with just one programme with 20 or so episodes churned out all day then repeated.  What fun to watch a whole day of 'Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away,' or 'The Big Bang Theory,' or 'Monkey Life.'  The last I suggest the inside story of TV producers working on ideas to fill their screens.  There is the occasional sporting event to be found, a documentary that has only been seen seven times before might brighten the day and watching the news channels struggling to make headlines out of nothing more than local news is a bit of a giggle.  
However even if we have the iPlayer and other channels repeat opportunities it is a poor show that weekend TV is just awful.  I realise there are videos, DVDs and such that entertain many but surely there is better available at the weekend than this pap?

I remained indoors today pleading weakness from not eating yesterday.  Some would suggest the weakness was there already and I fail to find an argument fitting to that one.  The annoying thing is that I did have a decent exercise the other day and was looking to more of same to come.  Each time I start exercising something goes wrong.  I think I am meant to be a fat slob!  With the Rugby League Cup game on at the moment, something I rarely watch but the only thing worth having on, I look at the players and the men on the bench and note that while I am of similar weight to them they are bristling with muscle and none possess a beer belly.  From what I see of the fans few of them are so endowed.  Maybe I should take up the game?  
In the 1860's football fell into two parts, the game had been played for years, hundreds of years in one manner or another, but then there came the 'Toffs' who agreed an accepted form of rules the Laws of which form the basis still today.  Most were happy to play this form of 'Association Football' but some, Blackheath amongst them, felt that not being allowed to 'hack' failed in so far it stopped men learning to 'take it' and play on with a 'stiff upper lip.'  They chose to join the handling game which became 'Rugby Football.'  Until the later days of the century many did not get a Saturday afternoon off work, however some ceased work around lunchtime.  This meant that men playing either game lost money by taking time off, money they could not afford to lose.  Fine for the 'toffs' who had plenty but men required cash and payments soon began to be paid to players 'under the counter.'  This upset the middle classes who did not require payment and many who honestly thought of sport as an amateur enjoyment not a paid profession, trouble soon erupted.  By the end of the century football came to accept players being paid, many until then were signed by clubs and given jobs close by, whether they did much work other than play football is uncertain.  That system continued long after professionalism was legal but it was used to increase players wages.  In Rugby however a different attitude arose.  The class system caused the middle classes to become jealous that the common types were taking to football and so strenuous efforts were made to ensure Rugby did not tolerate players being paid.  Up north however rugby players required cash and soon Rugby Union for the middle classes became separate from Rugby League run by and for the Working Classes.  A sad day but one the middle classes held onto for many years.  Only in the last thirty years has rugby in the UK accepted payment much to the detriment of many local clubs.  In Scotland there exists only two senior rugby union cubs, Edinburgh and Glasgow, all the clubs that reared the famous faces in the past are regarded as small fry.  The same is true in England where many known names have been reduced to a whimper.
Football benefited from payments even though much mishandling by football authorities and boards was to be seen along the way.  Today some areas are awash with cash and while huge clubs get bigger the smaller, and in my view the 'real' clubs are suffering hanging on the coat tails.  Money is a good thing when used to benefit all, alas we are all sinners and far too much is abused by all.

  

Sick Again

Passing Showers

This passing shower took ages to pass, cleaning the streets and overflowing the gutters.  Jolly good I say as the streets needed a wash (remember the days when a lorry would spray water on the streets?) and while I saw no lightning and thunder was minimal over me it did show up elsewhere. 
This part of the land often has thunder after a few days heat.  When in London I sat in a pub on the Thames called the 'Mayflower.' This pub claims to be the oldest in London and also that the 'Mayflower' parked itself here to avoid taxes nearer London before heading out into the wild of the Atlantic Ocean.  Such things can never be proved but it had to dock somewhere nearby.
As we sat there a storm blew above.  Brave soul stood at the door leading to the jetty while lightning flashed across London easily seen from the view over the wide expanse of the Thames caused by the bend in the river at this point.  
I sat by the bar.  
Soon however the heavy downpour poured in through the door and the barman was to be found fighting the incoming tide of rainwater as it sloshed its way under the door.  Cries of "Man overboard etc" were to be heard.  
I sat by the bar.

Estuary by Rachel Lichtenstein

Amazon

This book is great!

Having a liking for the sea and a wish to spend time around the estuary of the Thames I was glad to mae use of the Christmas Book Voucher in Waterstones to get my hands on it.  The author, brought up in Leigh on Sea, took a few years to sail on, travel around and talk to people who worked or used the estuary.  Once of course many boats went out from the inlets to catch fish, cockles, oysters and the like and this dangerous but fascinating work continued for generations after generation.  There was often of course nothing else to do so the danger of the sea was what was on offer.  Today the work continues but much reduced and very technically improved.

Rachel sailed on the refurbished Dutch sailing barge 'Ideaal,' once a working barge that from the 1920's carried freight on these waters but now served as home to Be the owner.  They took a trip from near the Tower Bridge along to Southend where a storm gave an indication of a seaman's life.

Meetings with men who once and on occasion still fish for cockles tells us of the arduous life such men endured.  Women were not allowed to work at sea, not only were they considered unlucky the job was dangerous and all too often the boat did not return.  There job was on shore, with the kids and often dealing with what was brought in the next morning.  Many lost their men to storms and mishaps, this a danger no less today than before for those who work at sea.

The author frequently refers to the huge new London Gateway Port as many believe the dredging for this colossal project has harmed the fishing grounds, moved sandbanks, often dangerous enough as they shift during the night, and created an environmental disaster in the making.  One day vast container ships will plough through the seas, mostly from China, to unload at the port polluting the Thames and killing the sealife.  We will have to wait and see if this is the case.

Southend and the pier where once immigrants landed and others left for far shores gates a visit, as do several aged rusty defence forts built during the second world war to defend the estuary from German bombers.  Some of these have been made use of since, illegally and often with conflict, while one, 'Sealand,' outside the seven mile limit has become an interdependent nation.

The 'SS Montgomery' gets a mention, this 'Liberty ship' became stranded on a sandbank during the war and while much of the munitions aboard were removed a great many remain.  This is a perfectly safe wreck except for the thought that an unfortunate accident might blow the ship up sending debris around twenty miles from the source.  This indeed happened during the Great War when the 'Princes Irene' exploded while loading mines killing many people and causing a great deal of damage. She remains where she sank also on the Medway.

As she travels around we read of the long history of the estuary, ships have travelled this way for millennia bringing and taking, wars have been fought, many fortifications remain, and the newer nature reserves are built of land once used by the army or navy.  Canvey Island, just see how many 'islands' dot this coast, sits on what was just a sandbank that grew and grew, 'Two Tree Island' grew from the London rubbish dumped there and now is too polluted for human habitation, wildlife survives fine.

Wandering around the estuary, or sitting on it watching other vessels pass by, we read of history and get a eel for the scenery all around.  Her descriptions of the shoreline are fine though some reviewers feel she is too girlie I feel.  That is certainly an element and she does not hide her fears when they arise, this ought not to put us of the book however.  I particularly liked the later chapters of sailing the yacht 'Jacomina.'  Her descriptions of the view of disappearing land, passing ships and the sounds of water as they headed towards Harwich, especially in the dark were excellent.  I can now understand why people wish to travel the world on such boats.  What does is the mistakes that appear, sloppy, tired editing possibly, and the photos which while excellent are indeed too dark in the pages of this book.  It is however possible to understand what is in the photographers mind.

This is not a perfect book but worth a read to get the 'feel' of the estuary, the size and danger, the busyness of the seas, and understand what culture lies behind those who grew in this area.

This book is worth a read.

I have just found a site with a chapter from the book and the photos also but the photos are in colour and well worth a look!   Spitalfields Life