Dying villages.

Longrider, in his latest post, mentions dying villages, by coincidence today I paid a visit to the village where I grew up.
The post box where I once posted letters stands testament to the fact that villages have died. When I was a young teenager some thirty children lived in the village, now there are probably none.
There are no traditional jobs locally, farming and timber cutting are now mechanised and need very few manual workers. Such jobs as there are will be in the service industries, leisure or tourism which pay so little compared with the salary required to buy a house there. Minimum wage does not buy £300,000 houses.
The village consisted originally of a few private houses among the houses built for estate workers. There were two local estates each with its own building style and houses formed part of the wage of the workers, the houses have been sold of as they became vacant, the workers having moved on to find employment elsewhere and the oldies, having spent their retirement years in their tied cottages, have passed on or have been moved to sheltered accommodation or nursing homes.
The village now houses just a few local workers along with retired business types and ex-military men, many cottages stand empty for much of the year.


There were two working mixed farms in the village, both have now been absorbed into the big estate; the farmhouses now dwellings for those rich enough to live here. The wall of one of the farms dating, I suppose, to the 17th century is surrounded by a stone wall. The wall contains recycled dressed stones taken from an earlier building. Centuries of working and community now brought to a close by changing economics.


The link to its history as a farm remains in the staddle stones, some with their mushroom tops stand as foundations to the small granary behind the tree. Others, topless, delineate the driveway; fashioned with their curved flanks and the mushroom top with a smooth horizontal underside to prevent rats from getting into the store, they now guard the lawn against errant 4 x 4s.

The real Mr Bean ?

It really is a pity that the Mr Bean joke was wasted on Gaygordon,

Britain's Future it says on the podium, fucking hell, that's our future ?

It was bad enough back in the days of Wee David Head-boy Steel but this little boy tipped as our leader, for fuck's sake has everyone taken leave of their senses ?

Quentin Letts catches the mood......"he dribbled on for nearly 22 minutes, posing, preening, pausing like some teenage Hamlet. He thought he was playing grown-up......"

"Maybe, inside, he realises he is not up to this task the Blairites have set him. Some of us, leaving the hall afterwards, conceded that this David Davis-style bosh-job was an improvement on the stinker he made to the conference last year.

'Yes,' said a colleague on Another Paper. 'But that's like being told you're a better violinist than Abu Hamza.' "

Not as things seem.

The Black Dog at Chilmark.

Over at The Kitchen chaps are getting a bit hot under the collar about this.

A storm over a sign..... or is it ?

I was born and raised very near this village, one of my sons attended the village school. Here we have a story about a couple who have bought a beautiful old building in a very lovely village in the best part of the best country in the world. I don't know when they took over the pub but let me tell you a tale about other pubs nearby.


The King's Arms at Fonthill Bishop which is the next village west of Chilmark, notice anything odd ? That's right, no inn sign, it is now a private house....
" Oh dear this pub (which we bought at a knock down price because we have to run it as a pub) is not making any money.... we have not bothered too much to prove people wrong when they say there is no money to be made running a pub in the sticks; but this can't go on we will have to change the planning permission to get it listed as a private residence. Result ! The land once used as car park and overflow car park will get planning permission for another dwelling or two, further result ! The locals? they can fuck off and find somewhere else to drink."

Now let's have a look at the next village east of Chilmark, Teffont, here you will find The Black Horse....

or rather, you won't find The Black Horse, another pub I used to call into occasionally, it is now probably called Black Horse House or some such...... The yard, outbuildings and car park ?..... this you mean ?


Brighter readers might spot a pattern here.

What about the Chilmark garage/workshop/pumps that couldn't make a go of it ? Don't bother trying to get a car fixed or buy petrol in a village, why work your arse off when you can say it won't pay, get planning consent and flog the site for houses like this ?


This was built on the site of the garage just a few years back, the development behind is on the old workshop site.

Adjacent to this site, butting up to the access lane is this....


I wonder how many houses for incomers you could get on there ? It's the large outdoor area and car park of The Black Dog. The owners of which are well down the track of the "we can't make it pay" route to getting a discounted desirable country residence and a big heap of cash. Old country inns have, usually, extensive outbuildings that were once stables and a brewhouse and a paddock alongside for turning out horses, the development potential is good on most pubs.

On the lane up to the main A303 there are some fun bends at the end of a long straight downhill section. The lane is for much of it's length single track, for the townie driver (who has never figured how to use main beam and expects all corners to be lit and signposted ) it holds a couple surprises in the form of 'Wall of death rides' as witnessed by the bent over markers.....



At the junction of this lane with the A303 we have this clutter, pictures taken progressively back towards the east.......


The junction with clutter ( don't look at that, look at the moneymaker ahead.)


moving on a few yards,

more clutter, and even more....


then the sign in question,

Now I reckon the view is better without the sign,


But then I am biased. I love this part of the world, it is my home, it was my ancestors' home for generations I do not want it spoiled. We already have areas beyond saving.... London or any other major city for God's sake let us save some bits for my granchildren to look at and enjoy.
Looking around from the junction but ignoring the traffic and signs we see this....



and from the bend at the bottom of the lane


I do not see why Wiltshire should be despoiled by signs because Londoners can't drive for a few hours without throwing alcohol down their throat.

A solution is perhaps to be more inventive, like Yapp Brothers who's camion is often parked up alongside the A303 as you approach Mere a few miles on from the sign in question.


As for the fuss about pub signs, this one has been the subject of a lengthy dispute; it was formerly a sign for The Ship Inn at Mere but the hoarding (with its established use, it had been there for many years ) was taken over by Wookey Hole who have been forced to tone down the graphics.




The irony of all this sign nonsense is that you have been driving for hours, you can't go another mile without throwing booze down your throat.... it is 2.30pm, a perfectly reasonable time to eat....you arive at The Black Dog to see this....

so much for all-day opening !

If you are anything like me, you would want to drive back up to the A303, down the by-lane that runs parallel to the A303 to the sign, take a chain saw from the boot and saw the bloody sign down.

Remember to bring petrol for the chain saw, the garage in the village is closed.

Oily corruption.

From The Mail........

I note that the oily fucker Vaz has been up to his usual 'professional ethnic' corruption.

If there is an inquiry I'm sure we can predict the outcome..... but will it be because of "insufficient evidence" or will it be " not in the public interest".

WTF ?

And just where do these 'powers' come from ?

A council decides that I can be questioned if I go into a park !

My reader will take no time at all in predicting my two word response to any uniformed twat that questions my right to walk in a public park.

'Explain my presence' to a fucking council worker, I should fucking think so.

If he's going to throw me out he'd better go find some big mates to help him.

He will 'report me to the police'... who will be told just the same by me.

What a bunch of cunts we are ruled by... time to say fuck off to all authority, back up ordinary people who are trying to enforce our laws by taking fucking scrotes, beggars and chav scum to task. The 'authorities' are not doing what we pay them for, we will have to do it ourselves.

My house overlooks a playing field, I'm expecting a knock on the door at any time .......

Of course, what they mean, but what they do not say..... is that adult males will be questioned.

In the bunker with Brown

and for those of you who don't visit Guido...

this had me laughing out loud..... brilliant !

The One ( PBUH)

for those who don't visit Cranmer ( and why don't you ?) this gem

The nonsense of EU fishing policy

I hesitate to send my reader over to The Guardian, but in this instance pop over and watch a video of good food being dumped at sea, and wonder at the intelligence of our masters.... and the greed of our commercial fishermen.

Can we leave soon ?

If I'd said this....

from here

A controversial race relations campaigner has called for the creation of "black schools" to "stem the avalanche of educational failure and the descent into violent gang culture".

Lee Jasper, who advised former London Mayor Ken Livingstone on equalities, said it was time the black community ran its own schools, with black teachers and black governors.

He said black schools and colleges could prove to be a "beacon of excellence" for the black community.

Mr Jasper said Jewish, Muslim and Hindu communities already had their own schools. And he accused the "liberal community" of dismissing the idea of black schools, while failing to address "institutional racism" within education.

The comments come after a study suggested that black Caribbean students are less likely to be entered for higher-tier science and maths exams because of low teacher expectations.

The study, conducted by Dr Steve Strand at Warwick University, noted that black Caribbean pupils are among those more likely to be excluded from school, or have special educational needs, including behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.

Mr Jasper said: "The fact is, it's time the black community ran its own schools, devised a curriculum that suited the needs of our children, employed teachers that look like the young people they are teaching."

Mr Jasper said black schools would be open to all races but would be "focused in terms of their ethos, ethics and curriculum to the needs of our children".

"Some of the greatest black leaders in the world - Dr Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, to name just two - attended all black schools and universities.

"The US has many historically black colleges and universities. They cater for the needs of the African American and they excel. I am not arguing here for a BNP-style 'apartheid education system'. I am talking about black business, parents, schools and our magnificent churches coming together and establishing schools that are open to all and are organised around the behavioural, pastoral, psychological and cultural requirements of black young people growing up in a economic environment that excludes black people."

I'll be glad when he shuts the fuck up and gets back to being fucking annoying in those Halifax Ads.

It's not racist at all then if any white kid living locally gets bundled into one of these schools to be taught to have a fucking chip on his shoulder (.... we already have schools for that in Scotland and Wales ).

All this talk of special behavioural, pastoral, psychological and cultural requirements of black young people sounds fucking racist to me, I thought we were all equal. I expect that if I said all the fucking thick, drug crazed gun-toting thugs should be put into special schools it would be a racist crime.

If I suggested that no black or other ethnic teacher should be employed in my area because the pupils are 99% or more white the howls of rage and shouts of racist would be deafening.

I'm interested to see what the thought policewill do about this black twat, but I won't be standing on one leg while I wait.

Let them eat sticks...

.

Bits of inedible stick, only £3.33 per kilo or £1.50 a pound !

Things will soon change, despite the efforts of marketing experts, even the most gullible of trendies will realise, when the economic do-do hits the fan, that £1.50 for bits of stick is not the way to spend your money. Buy the tomatoes loose, the grower will save you the bother of recycling the sticks in special bins or slop buckets... he will compost it or plough it in.


Risk the wrath of the food-faddista and spend your money on edible stuff.

taking food from a child's mouth

Labour "to pay back £15,000 it received from a children's charity after a report found that charity law had been breached."

I just did not think my opinion of those Nulab cunts could sink any lower.... then this

A governing party taking money from a fucking charity !

Money given to feed children, what fucking low life they are.

Totally devoid of ideas

Totally devoid of honour.

Totally devoid of decency.

Totally devoid of morals.

What a fucking state these bastards have created by their greed selfishness and total lack of concern for ordinary people; the cunts will even sacrifice their self respect to cling onto power.

Fucking vermin, yet some people will still vote for them.

rubbish

'schoolsanospiduls' no longer Nulab priority.....

'hard working families' jump to top of list

"getting on with the job on behalf of hardworking families"



Palin for Prime Minister

Michael, that is, at least he is funny when he talks fucking rubbish.

Kishor Asre

This morning, bleary-eyed, I look at an email from my internet provider in response to me giving them some grief over the slow connection they foist onto me.....

I see, in bold in the header
Kishor Asre

I thought for an instant that I had met someone who shares my skills at customer relations and diplomacy.

'Kiss your arse indeed', just answer my fucking questions !

Maths and pachyderms

from here I learn that elephants can do maths, great !, perhaps the various elephants in the room that are so ignored by the government could be given the Chancellor's job......and make a better fist of it.


picture nicked from this site, which is worth a click around rather than working.

It's early, I'm still bleary eyed

I'm watching BBC this morning.*


"we are not spending money we've not got"



"the money is going to go to decent young couples........ and decent families"



Hazel Blears 7:38 this morning on BBC News


Phew, that's OK then, I thought that they were going to buy some votes by shoring up fucking stupid reckless people that have borrowed money against the soaring 'value' of their house and pissed it away on plasma screen televisions, new cars, overseas holidays and fancy designer clothing. She didn't quite explain how only the decent types are going to get our money, but I believe her..... after all,what's not to trust about a stunted ginger dwarf promoted wayyyyy above her ability.

Nothing firm about stamp duty..... so that has fucked the market a bit more.

* online, I'm not paying to watch that shit.