Poppycock or false memory day

How can children remember something that happened before they or in many cases even their parents were born or someone they never met? Indeed why  should they even bother? Who benefits from all this? The dead? Long past caring.  The living, then? How? The land fit for heroes threw them on to the jobless scrap heap but every November out came  the bloody poppies and British Bloody Legion with their bloody flags, their bloody medals and their damn bloody marches.

It has become a routine that is only done because it has always been done. This year the PM put his wreath upside down! (titter ye not!) The other guy who wants to be PM turns up even though he has voted against every British military intervention there has been and has fraternized with just about every 'enemy' while he has been an MP, at least he didn't bow his head only because he's too damned ignorant. No-one dare say "Let us stop this nonsense now and get on with our lives". 

As a child I was told that on Remembrance Day we remember those who died in the War. The War then was the Great War, WW1. Now the War is WW2 though that too is fading, Korea (where was that now?), Falklands (oh yeah dimly recall), Afghanistan, Northern Ireland (maybe not so much NI as that wasn't officially a war and besides half the enemy were in the pay of the secret service), any patch of a scrubby useless middle eastern shithole that the British Army has been sent to and come home again having achieved precisely zip and at such a cost ... Ah yes I was told and you tell your children still they must remember these 'sacrifices' and show their respects. What for?

Now memory is as you know a pretty untrustworthy thing at the best of times but if you are going to tell your children stories what do you expect to happen? I was told by my mother that her father's brother joined up at the start of the war; both brothers enlisted together, leaving their jobs in the steel works, joined the Gordon Highlanders (the kilts were a thing back then). Poor old great uncle Thomas however died in the war, I was told, and grandpa married his brother's bereaved fiancée. That's a nice story with such a romantic ending... Or so I was told ... Hmm today I find, thanks to computers and internets that never forget, Great Uncle Tom actually lived to over 70 and died in 1959 and worked in a pawnbroker's shop and was in the Northumberland Fusiliers. Grandpa Joe, was living in a different town to his brother, was actually in the Gordon Highlanders in France from 1915 onwards (I guess something had to be true) and when I knew him as a chain smoking (Capstan full strength or Willy Woodbines) old man he cursed the British Bloody Legion whenever he could, he'd no time for poppies or poppycock. He never, ever mentioned (maybe he forgot) being wounded in 1916 but computers and internets they never forget ...

There I've done with my bit of remembering. Now what? Hmm?

Honey Fungus (I think)

On Snuff Mill Lane the other day large numbers of these pretty brown critters had sprung up alongside a blackthorn and ivy hedge. I think it's honey fungus (Armillaria mellea) a destroyer of broadleaf trees, particularly fruit trees. I'm told they are edible but somehow I don't think I'll try. I recall the saying that everything is edible at least once. Did I mention there were large numbers of them?

Pier review

Bridlington pier attracts all sorts who bring along all the right gear to catch either the light or the odd passing codling or flounder ... I have a tripod, I just can't be bothered to traipse around with it.

These guys are not allowed to fish off here during the summer in case a passing tourist (there are still a few who pass) might be harmed by seeing grown folk waste their time in the pursuit of the big 'un. There must be some hidden thing I'm not getting, each one finds their own way through that gap twixt cradle and grave.

Old Warty

Avid followers of my dreary tales will know of my pumpkin cultivation (if that is the word, they just romped along all by themselves) and will, no doubt, love to know that the only one that grew anything like a pumpkin ended up as all good gourds do: top sliced off, gutted and crudely hacked about in some really messy ritual. (I don't like Hallowe'en but making a mess still appeals) But then what do you do with the damn thing? Being a novice at this game I put old warty face on the garden gates' spikes  for any passing wildlife to enjoy; plus I'm sure he'll annoy the neighbours (who do things neat and tidy in the garden). He sits there still, a girning, toothy memorial to the sunshine of the summer of '19.

"Looks like an accident in the cutlery drawer"

Over last weekend and to the annoyance of many gridlocked motorists Castle Street was blocked off and the new footbridge (which we last saw parked up in preparation in a car park a few weeks ago) was shuffled into position in a faultless manner and much quicker than expected. The road was reopened fifteen hours earlier than forecast to much rejoicing. The bridge is only the small matter of thirty odd years late (who's counting?) ... and it won't be fit for pedestrians until spring.

The title was Margot's comment upon first seeing this. "Like the dish ran away with the spoon?" said I. Still you don't have to look at it when you're on it.

The weekend in Black and White is here.

Waste for Energy

As the train draws into Sheffield station you cannot but be a bit overawed by the outsized industrial plant with attendant chimney right in the heart of town. What do they make here I wondered, what new industrial delight has Sheffield brought forth?
But then a few days later and after a very small amount of searching I find this is no more than a commercial trash incinerator/power plant/community heating concern. That must be nice for the neighbours, I thought, what kind of idiot place would build that in its centre? Then I remembered that the small town of Hull has just built a very similar place also in the heart of town though that heart is somewhat more sclerotic and rotten. That place too will be bringing in other people's trash to turn into electricity though at what a price. Didn't we used to burn cheap, local coal and make sparks cheaply that way? Now we burn anything but coal and that is considered fine and proper (but it's damned expensive; not to say stupid), ah but the greenie bumpykins are happier; they are never happy as such just less unhappy. Maybe we could burn them and increase the sum of human happiness ...
I was going to look up a load of stuff about this place but it's an incinerator and frankly it bores me rigid but fortunately I find someone has already written a piece a few years back so you can (should you want on a slow rainy day) go look at this and I can just go think of something nice like blowing up Parliament with gunpowder ... drat it's no longer sitting.

And quiet flows the Don

Here's the river we've been trailing all the way up to Sheffield. The Don was once a jet-black flowing cess pit of pollution but since the 1970s it's been cleaned up and now salmon and other fishes spawn and thrive in its rushing waters.That's a nice little success story that's no-body shouts about for some odd reason.