The real reason....

that Gay Gordon is such a cunt ?

it certainly looks like him, that funny thing with his jaw obviously started at an early age, the photograph explains too why he has to eat bogies.

More cheering up stuff. ODJB

The Original Dixieland Jass Band

Quite a few bloggers put up a video of their favourite music, I have a problem in that no video exists of the early days of this music, but there is a bit of the reformed band in 1936

The 'new' polished and rehearsed music of that era has none of the raw musical talent shown in the early recordings made during the period 1917 to the early Twenties. Have a look at this site,
there are .ram files of their recordings; make allowances for the recording techniques of those days, one take recording, poor reproduction of early records... and enjoy jass at its best.

Tuscan Tony has a clip of Louis Armstrong who is perhaps now thought of as a 'Typical Jazz Player", but is wasn't always so. Note the players making up the band, all white and all from New Orleans, and their success came from recordings made in London not their native city.

Click on 'Darktown Strutters Ball' Columbia A2297(3); if that doesn't cheer you then there is not much hope for you, for something a little more restrained then "Tell Me" (Columbia 804) should fit the bill.


If Carlsberg did clarinet players they would all be like Larry Shields........ sublime.

Cheer up ! it's not all bad.*

A walk in the October sunshine, with a camera around Stourhead, snapping what looks good to me and not the usual subjects you will find in the guide-books. Perhaps some photographs will cheer you up in these gloomy times.

.
Stonework showing the subtle variation in colour in the local stone, when I get around to it I may attempt a lino-cut print of a detail from this

One of the 'Temples' or some-such, the beauty of which is totally overshadowed by nature.

.... nature in the form of lichen and moss.

Ahhh, England at it's best; traditional parkland, but not, I suspect, traditional cattle.

One of the former owners collected pelargoniums, this seems to be an early variety. Modern varieties are usually florid and showy ( and known by the wrong name of geranium ). I prefer the simple beauty of this example.

Another variety, a bit more to the modern taste but lacks the elegance of the other sample.

The old kitchen garden with a non-scary scarecrow. I suspect it is there more to amuse the children than to frighten crows.... Wiltshire crows are not that stupid.

A few pictures of very old Sweet Chestnut trees. They probably date back to the 18th century and are showing their age. No chestnuts to be found but it brought back memories of swollen fingertips full of tips of the spines that protect the nuts.

Cottages in the valley, much more to my taste than a Palladian mansion.

The cast iron cranking mechanism that controls the ventilation in the Pelargonium House; made back in the days when this kind of thing was 'Made in England' and exported to the world.

A beech tree brought down by recent storms. Shallow roots into a light soil leaves the tree at risk from summer gales when the leaves add to the wind load.

A beech tree, seen by many as a beautiful part of the southern landscape. Seen by me as also a fine standing crop, a resource to be harvested for the timber in the good uninterrupted straight growth of the tree.

Sunlight through beech trees ... and a robin singing on a branch somewhere.

And one guide-book type picture, landscaping at its best; as I was taking this shot an old fellow sitting on a bench nearby was filling a battered old pipe with tobacco... it's enough to make a person take up smoking again... a leisurely smoke on a bench, warm in the sunshine... with this to look at and the sounds of robins and of children playing.......


* actually it is all bad, I was just kidding.

This whole estate was bought by the 'bonuses' of a banking family. Built and landscaped to tell the public what riches they had, riches that came from 'lesser' people, the tradesman, the artisan.

And the upkeep now paid by the ordinary people.

There must be a moral somewhere here, surely

Honour.

a comment by 'runar' on Daniel Hannan's Telegraph blog

It is worth reading, it needs a very wide readership.

"Hi. I am an Icelander and currently I am studying in Denmark. I could never in my wildest nightmares imagine this situation, which is upon us. It is amazing how things can alter within few weeks. As I left Iceland one year ago everything was fine, I had been working as a fisherman for many years to be able to pay for my education, and therefore raised some capital, which I believe is almost gone today (it was stored in Landsbankinn).
The little money I got left is impossible to transfer to Denmark because no one will accept Icelandic currency today. My part in this madness was ZERO and same goes for 99, 99% of the Icelanders. It was a group of ca 30-40 persons who are to blame for these crimes, some of them even had a tight relationship with the government.
Today I have lost much of my savings, many, many people has lost everything and face bankruptcy. I am mad at my government, I am really, really mad at the owners of Landsbankinn, Glitnir, Baugur and other companies who may cause the bankruptcy of my nation. But I am furious at Gordon Brown for his use of anti-terrorist law in the UK to freeze assets belonging to Icelandic banks. I believe that he is doing that to cover up his own mistakes as a leader and uses the lowest imaginable method, finding a mutual enemy, and chooses one of the smallest nations in Europe to step on.
I and thousands of Icelanders have lost our money, maybe Iceland will loose its economic freedom, but we will never accept loosing our honor, which is way more valuable the money ever can be.
Iceland will pay their dept to the British people, no matter what. I will quit school and abandon my dreams, go back to my ship and work till my fingers bleed to do my part in paying this dept. Because the people which is to blame, has all left Iceland in their private jets and left their financial crimes, all around the world, to the Icelandic people.
I apologize for the errors I believe are in this text, but English is not my strongest language to communicate with. But I do my best.
Best regards to the English people and I hope you will not judge the Icelandic people for the errors made by so few."

There is no way through The Telegraph site to contact people who comment on that blog, so just to put on record somewhere, thank you Runar. I wish our politicians had the same understanding of the word and the concept...... honour.

Trick or treat US/UK

The Wiltshire Police, having no villains to catch, pikeys to move on or car drivers to intimidate, have delivered a poster for me to use. Very nice of them I'm sure and I will use it; on reflection their poster is more subtle than the "just fuck off" message I had intended to use. Like many Englishmen my understanding of Halloween in America ( from where this nonsense was re-imported having nearly died out here ) is based solely on Charlie Brown.
I have an empathy with CB; each of us, if thrown in to a barrel of tits, would come out sucking a thumb.

"During trick-or-treating, everyone else is getting assorted candy, gum, apples, cookies, popcorn balls, and even money. But at every house, Charlie Brown gets the same thing — a rock. When everyone compares what they get at a particular house, Charlie Brown reaches into his bag saying "I got a rock." "

This highlights the difference between our cultures.... in the transposition the tricking or treating of the child by the householder in the US has mutated into the chavlings/chavettes demanding a treat on penalty of having your house burned down around your ears. It used to be called 'demanding money with menaces'.


When I was a child Halloween was remarked on only in the same vein as "It's Saint Whatsit's Day today ", if anyone was inclined to go any further they would obtain a mangold, hollow it out, carve a face and put a candle in it. This tradition now survives only in memory.... and that memory only of Worzel Gummidge ( who had a head carved from a mangold-worzel ) rather than the original custom. The only thing I remember associated with this was bobbing for apples in a bucket of cold water and the telling of ghost stories.

I imagine that in those days to march up to a door and howl your demands of a treat would gain you a clip around the ear and a kick up the arse in swift succession.



The pumpkin is a recent import along with the trick or treat scam, I can see that hollowing out a pumpkin is 'a good idea' .... you don't then have to eat the muck.
I was once given pumpkin pie to eat, bloody hell....
I can see why if you are starving in a new colony you might eat it, but it brought to mind what cowshit, dyed orange, and served on a bed of limp cardboard might taste like.

Jade Goody

...... she thinks taking money from the NHS is wrong.

'There are people out there who think I deserve to be sick and to die, but I'd never wish this on anyone, not even Bin Laden ........ "

"This isn't something I've brought on myself. Some people will say it's about time I got my punishment, but my whole life has been awful.

I can't waste my time thinking about these people. I need to think about me and my boys."

so speaks someone that people see as the Queen of Chavs.

for someone who has had shit heaped upon her for an imagined racist slur against a racist she seems very level-headed in a crisis.

Good luck to you girl, my opinion of you changes by the day.

Back to the dark age.

Today I thought it was about time I prepared for the inevitable power cuts that we will face as winter gets a grip on our ill-prepared generating capacity. I have been out to buy a replacement wick and find some paraffin. Tomorrow I have to pass a place that sells cheap candles, time to stock up on them too.
Until I was seven I lived in a house that had no electricity ( or inside plumbing ) For lighting we relied on an oil lamp in the main living room and candles elsewhere; the actual lamp is shown in the above picture. The light in the room is provided by a 14W energy efficient polar bear saving light fitting.



I was quite amazed at how little light we made do with back in those days, but one of my abiding memories of childhood is dropping something when playing at the table in the evening and having to leave it there until it could be found in daylight the next day.

The room here now has a faint smell of paraffin hanging in the air which brings back old memories, but when I open a door I imagine the smoke detector will have hysterics, the old and the new seldom rub along nicely together.

The lamp had a certain status in the house, it was NEVER TO BE TOUCHED ! by children. Sudden draughts caused by children flinging open a door would cause a flare of the flame which could crack the glass chimney; that was a disaster of epic proportions as it meant a three mile walk to town to get another. Throwing things around the room was a sure way of getting a clip around the ear as THE GLASS WILL BE BROKEN ! The concern was for the lamp, not the safety of children; our 'wireless' ran on a big high voltage dry battery, the size of two house bricks flat side by side, and an accumulator, a glass square jar containing sulphuric acid and lead plates. One of us would be given the task of lugging the accumulator to the chap with a van who came around weekly to swap a fully charged one for the used. I can imaging the reaction today of the health and safety types seeing a six year old carrying a glass container of acid down a concrete path....

If you notice oil lamps films or TV programmes the glass chimney will invariably be soot blackened. The props people obviously don't think that through.... if the glass is black then the light, feeble enough to start with, will not shine through. The glass was treated to careful washing and drying, and a final buff with crumpled newspaper to give it a crystal shine.

I'd like to be really authentic and use the oil favoured by the Victorians.... anyone up for whale hunting ?

Good advice.

from a Wessex Water Publication