North/South Divide

The North/South divide is essentially an invention of hacks that never venture beyond the M25. Those London centric pontificators of the unreal. This article in the Observer has irritated me no end.

The first point to make is there is no clear divide. North merges into south in many ways over various geographical locations.

Apparently "The new line, devised by Danny Dorling, professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield, is based on a number of more recent socio-economic developments, including rising house prices, increased life expectancy and voting patterns.". Bollocks ! There is no way that it can ever be that clear cut. How does the saying go, "Lies, damn lies and statistics" ?

Academics know that if they present this sort of stuff it will be published, and journalists love to write about and print it. It is effectively mutual masturbation.

I’ve got news for Prof. Dorling and hack Day. There are two other significant points on the compass, and I live in one of them. The East. It ain’t North and it ain’t South. I suspect that those in the West Country get equally pissed off, not to mention inhabitants of the Midlands. I’m sure like their papers, journalists would like life to be black and white, but thankfully it is not.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Matinee Idol

Being born and bred in a brewing town, it’s hard to imagine what life must be like living in a dry area, e.g. a remote village without a pub. For me it would be a horror of horrors. Equally as bad, and very much a reality for me, is living in a town without a record shop.

A year ago Bury St Edmunds had an MVC and a Fopp. Then MVC went into receivership. Fopp bought MVC. Fopp went into receivership. Result - droves of portly, balding middle-aged blokes, desperately trying to hang on to their misspent youth and not the spare cash in their pockets, bereft of a refuge on a shopping trip to town. Now I know that you can just about get any CD on the internet, and I have in fact made purchases this way, but it ain’t the same as rifling through racks in a shop. Rifling and wondering, "have I got this album on vinyl or CD" or thinking, "this looks interesting, I might give that a go". The only choice, if choice is really the word, is now Woolworth or Tesco with all the limitations that that implies.

I’m a great lover of rock-a-boogie music sung in a British regional accent. Arctic Monkeys and The Proclaimers being two obvious example exponents of this fine art. But for the last few months I’ve been champing at the bit awaiting the release of Jack Peñate’s debut album Matinee. My biggest worry was, "where am I going to get it from ?". Release date had been advertised as 2/10/07. Came the day and I went in search, but alas my search was fruitless. I searched subsequent days, still nothing. After the weekend I discovered that the release date had been delayed by about a week. Got me greasy mitts on it yesterday. Fan-bloody-tastic ! If you’re not familiar with this bright young upstart, then I could probably best describe him as a cross between Mike Sarne, Billy Bragg and Jamiroquai. Some might even compare him with Paul Weller or Lily Allen. He’s a lively performer who bounces around stage playing a mean guitar. Jack Peñate is rock ‘n’ soul !

Drink! Feck!

Anyone else come across this search engine?

Sur le Continent

Last weekend we had a trip to France. It was a quick hop under the channel and a short drive down to the Cote Picarde/Baie de Somme area. It appears to be one of those areas that is bypassed or ignored by the British. Some French friends of ours have a mobile home down there, and we had arranged to meet them for le weekend. I’m sure I’m missing the point but the actual Baie de Somme was not over impressive. It’s obviously a place that is important in natural history terms, although not important enough to stop French hunters being let loose with guns to blast ducks and goodness knows what else to kingdom come. In many respects the bay is not too dissimilar to The Wash, just longer and thinner. Sadly we didn’t go armed with binoculars so we couldn’t see the Phoque.

There are some wonderful little towns near and on the coast, including one called Brighton, which is nothing at all like its namesake in the UK. A mix of sleepy promenades and buzzing bars and restaurants seem to be the order of the day in most of the towns. The weather was gorgeous but surprisingly the people were not in great abundance. It was just so pleasant wandering around.

Fishing is a significant industry on this part of the coast. This means that there are an abundance of fish stalls and fantastic fish restaurants. Saturday night saw us out at a restaurant in Fort Mahon Plage; it is supposedly quite famous throughout France. You can believe it as the food was fantastic. There were also queues outside the door for the second evening sitting. They were turning people away in droves. It was a good job our hosts pre-booked our table. I had Hareng Doux for starter followed by the ubiquitous Moules Frites, the like of which I’d never tasted before, and for pud a couple of dollops that were L’Ile de Flottant. Scrummy.

Me skimming stones

It was a hectic weekend bombing down there and back in such a short space of time. Plus when you get there you don’t want to come home. The journey was helped and made a lot easier by both The Armchair and Thomas Tom. I hope we can return soon.

P.S. Sorry for any French misspellings but I couldn’t be arsed to check the correct ones. Why our closest neighbours haven’t learnt to adopt English yet is beyond me. If the Americans can just about manage it surely the French can!

Ain't that right boy

This morning as I was driving to work I saw this old boy in a flat cap walking along the road holding a radio close to his face with the aerial up. In the age of the MP3 player, headphones etc. it’s good to see that parts of Norfolk are still in second gear when it comes to the juggernaut that is technology. I can just imagine him saying to a contemporary over a pint in his local hostelry, ‘these new wireless transistor radios are something, only trouble is it makes the Light Programme sound a lot different !’.

 

Are you a beer drinker?

If you’re a beer drinker you might have heard of Michael Jackson. He was to many, a guru and the most famous beer writer in the world. Sadly he died of a heart attack a few weeks back. He had also been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Alan of A Good Beer Blog is suggesting a world-wide toast to the late Michael Jackson on 30th September and give to a Parkinson's disease charity. This call has been inspired by a national toast to MJ that has been organised in the USA.

The idea is to raise a glass and raise some money for charity. Please click here to read more about Alan’s suggestion.

Please try and organise something in your part of the country. Stonch brings news of something happening in London.

Please support the call. It's your round!

The Parkinson's Disease Foundation

Please pass this on/tell the world about it.

Brave new world

I know that there is universal disappointment that we still haven't got the rocket packs, protein pills and robot generated infinite leisure time promised during the white heat of technology era. But all the boffins that are out there working on this important stuff need to cease immediately, and get onto an idea that I've just come up with to save the planet.

Climate change is probably the biggest challenge we've ever faced on earth. There's an awful lot of talk above reducing our carbon footprint, but not always the practical solutions. I've come up with a cunning plan to sort the world's energy problems and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels in one fell swoop. I'll explain:

The answer lies with the male gonadicus danglii. It doesn't matter how cold I am there is always one area of my body that is boiling hot, namely the underpants region. Now the science of heat exchange is a well-established one, and so is generating electricity from the process. I also read recently that scientists have successfully transmitted electricity by Wifi. So there we have it, the answer to all our energy problems. All that has to be done is to join those three things up issue all us men in the world with ACDC Wifi Y-Fronts and Bob's your uncle, lashings of electrically (as Catweazle used to say). Sustainable energy, well at least for 5 minutes at a time anyway. Should I patent it ?
Can I retire now ?

Perhaps the title should have been Pubic Service Announcement or How Green is my Valley.