Posts Tagged ‘peter reynolds’
Jimi, Carlos, Eric – Look To Your Laurels
I saw this boy on BBC South Today. Incredible!
Christine Bleakley – The One Show
Where else in the world is there anyone as consistently, ever-increasingly sexy and gorgeous as Christine?
What future is there for those of us who are too old, too ugly and too hopeless?
A proud Welsh, Punjabi, Sikh girl
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7529694.stm
It moved me to see how Welsh pride and hwyl transcends race and religion as Sarika Singh emerged from the High Court and was determined to say “I am a proud Welsh, Punjabi Sikh girl”
Walking The Dog 8
If I was to say that I bumped into Capone on the foreshore posing as a Japanese tourist you’d say I’d flipped. Were I to propose that some 30 exotic herons were nesting at Langstone millpond you might think I was exaggerating. To say that the maize in the field next to my house grew a foot in the space of one humid Saturday…
Well it’s all true. Unfortunately, my greedy anticipation of some innocent scrumping in the sweetcorn field has been thwarted. A previous pilferer assures me that it’s cattle feed and the more you boil the cobs the harder they become. It does amaze me though, the way this stuff reaches for the sky. Planted in May as two or three inch shoots it now averages a foot above my head and, yes, on that very hot and humid Saturday it put on a full twelve inches.
Behind Langstone millpond I counted 28 little egrets nesting in the broadleaved trees. 
This feels more like something that you might see in the African bush but there they are, distracting me as Carla’s beady eyes focus on the coots and mallards taunting her from the pond. Little egrets were unseen in the UK until 20 years ago but now they seem to be taking over Chichester harbour due, we are told, to the effects of global warming. I wonder when the ostriches and flamingoes are going to arrive?
As for Capone’s antics well I wish I’d had a camera to record them. It was in the leg pocket of my trousers, the strap dangling carelessly.
As Capone put in another withering Ieuan Evans style run down the nearside wing he managed to pass his head through the camera strap. The pocket was ripped clean off my trousers and as he felt the weight he came to a shuddering halt and turned back to look at me, my camera hanging round his neck. He thought he was in trouble but not for long!
We’ve discovered a truly magical new walk recently. It’s as close to virgin territory as you can get on the south coast. I’m pretty sure that there’s no other humans have passed there in many months or even years, perhaps not since some maintenance work was last carried on the Thorney Island airfield approach lights. Judging from their sorry condition that’s been a very, very long time. It’s on the right side of the MOD boundary so I don’t think I’m in danger of being shot on sight. It’s saltmarsh with acres of waist high grasses and patches of damp but parched and cracked mud that sounds hollow as you walk across it. The dogs thunder across it sounding like a herd of buffalo and there’s a pair of herons, huge cormorants and shelducks always in the same place, vastly 
offended by our invasion. Walking here is an overwhelmingly soothing experience. Cares and worries just evaporate and I find myself returning to the car with a wide, involuntary and peaceful smile.
Only three days after that sweltering Saturday the temperature has dropped 10 degrees and out on the foreshore under thunderous skies there must be another 10 degrees of wind chill. My two favourite dogs are about 40 yards out squabbling over a stick in the heavy chop that’s thrashing in from Hayling.
Rain or shine, calm or wind, it’s just perfect out there.
A Plug For The Bluebell
Before I am outblogged by a blogger, I have to put in my plug, plugs and more plugs for The 
Bluebell Inn in Emsworth. Until now, mentioned only once in Walking The Dog 2, I have certainly been remiss in failing to acknowledge the important part that The Bluebell plays in my life in Emsworth. I am, after all, desperate for a free roast beef and horseradish baguette.
I am not a pub person. Or, at least, I wasn’t until I started frequenting The Bluebell but even here I confess that having walked in in the evening I have walked straight out again after discovering a tribe of boorish, beered-up twenty and thirty-somethings.
During the day though, The Bluebell is a delight. It is only right that I share the responsibility of propping up the bar with Owain and Sid because otherwise it might fall down and where would Giles and Chris and Nicole be then?
Tom, the former landlord, who I hold very responsible for the genial atmosphere that prevails is presently recuperating at home. My sympathy for him is, of course, not at all compromised by the three weeks he spent in Cuba with his 19 year old girlfriend immediately before his health scare.
Capone and Carla are made very welcome and I am considering starting a fan club for them as potentially a far more lucrative business than anything else I have ever done!
It is no exaggeration at all, though, with or without a roast beef and horseradish baguette, to say that the food at The Bluebell is exceptional. I have never been less than delighted with anything from a pot of cockles to a baked sea bream. They even do the best frozen chips in town!
Last week I travelled to Dorset and, just north of Weymouth, called into The Old Ship Inn at Upwey. There I selected, for £5.95, a ham and tomato baguette which, when it arrived, was probably a fraction longer than the word itself and “filled” with carefully crazy-paved supermarket ham (we have to go metric here because two millimetres thick doesn’t work in imperial) and a couple of slivers of tomato. That, combined with ten crisps and two slices of red onion, made me appreciate what I have at home.
The Bluebell does not even deserve comparison with that. Nowhere will you find finer food at better value and if I’m offered a roast beef and horseradish baguette for saying so, I will, for propriety’s sake (but very reluctantly) give it to my dogs.
Birds Of Prey And the RSPB
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7527359.stm
I was horrified to see a spokesman from the RSPB on BBC Breakfast this morning make
Kestrel over Nore Barn Wood 8th June 2008
outrageous and disgraceful accusations against the “shooting community”. He laid the responsibility for all attacks on birds of prey entirely on those who shoot.
Of course, the shooting community has done more to protect and conserve the UK environment and wildlife than any other group over hundreds of years. The RSPB, which has become an undignified, over-commercialised hotbed of “loonies” becomes more power hungry and sensationalist every day trying to over extend itself into a general environmental organization. It pontificates about everything from packaging to helping grannies cross the road and, occasionally, birds. Its primary interest is commercial and it promotes this by such nonsensical, attention grabbing nonsense.
It is appalling that the BBC should allow such blatant lies to be broadcast and without offering those accused the opportunity to respond.
It is also time that someone, and I am setting myself up here, took a long and careful look at the RSPB. Its chief oddity, Bill Oddie, was recently involved in a verbal punch up over the rights and wrongs of eating game. No doubt he is more the battery chicken and Tesco sponsored enthusiast.
Masterchef
Alright, I know it’s sad, I’m sad. I just love Celebrity Masterchef!
The programme has always captured me but this series seems particularly special. It’s the gorgeous, sweet, delightful Liz, the passionate, intense, slightly bumbling Mark or the precise, determined but equally passionate Andy.
The thing that really gets me is the music. I think it’s what they call “uplifting House”. It drives progress. It drives suspense. It builds. It fulfills. And it turns around again. It builds. It drives. The buzz intensifies. And, it, crescendoes.
That’s what really pulls me in and I love this show! Food is, of course, a wonderful narcotic and the whole experience of this fabulous television is a rush.
The drama never ceases. I care deeply for each of the contestants. As their eyes well up so do mine – again! Triumph and disaster. Amazing how they compete against each other yet weld together as a team, caring and supporting each other. It’s wonderful to see the pride in Gregg and John’s faces!
Forgive me while I retch at my own sentimental nonsense but I’ll definitely be watching the final!
The Disappearing Canoeist
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/7520803.stm
What utterly absurd sentences for Mr and Mrs Darwin! When there are violent thugs loose on the streets, this is the sort of idiocy that brings the law into disrepute. The judge has made himself look an utter fool and has done nothing at all in the cause of justice. Clearly these two people were dishonest but the greatest harm they perpetrated was on their sons. I have no sympathy for the insurance company at all because, by definition, it is engaged in a process of long term, calculated but legalised fraud. How many years are the directors and regulators of Equitable Life looking at?
Prison is a place for those convicted of violence, not for sad people like the Darwins. How can the judge live with himself? What rationale can there be for this? I hope he has no connection with the insurance industry. He should have no further role in the judicial system.
The Banks, The OFT, Avarice and Evil
At last, some straight talking from the OFT about the way the Banks treat consumers. As if we didn’t know it already but there is no excuse for the way these evil institutions have been allowed to operate and there can be no more compromise or filibuster about the consequences for them. They behave as if they are above the law. They conduct themselves in ways which in any other context would be defined as theft and fraud. Whilst they throw people out of their homes, deny legitimate business the means to operate, they let their cocaine-fuelled gamblers take ludicrous risks on ridiculous schemes and all the time present themselves as the backbone of our financial system.
Christ’s rage in the temple is the precise analogy. It is time that we saw some of these silver haired, grey suited monsters in jail. Their depth of corruption and manipulation and creation of misery has no comparison. Right now the financial squeeze we are all suffering is entirely down to the incompetence of the banks in making lending decisions based only on the greed of individuals conspiring to create multi-million pound bonuses for themselves. They deny honest, hard-working people the means to progress or recover but there is no consequence for themselves when things go wrong.
Let us pray that the OFT follows through on this properly and brings to heel these out of control, rabid dogs.
Plod – the truth about our wonderful police force
I admit, I am not a 100% law abiding citizen. I park on yellow lines. I exceed the speed limit. I smoke weed. BUT I would describe myself as a strong supporter of the police. Any society has to have rules and that means there has to be someone to enforce them. I don’t envy the police in their responsibilities and I admire the way that many of them are fulfilled. If you’ve ever been in a traffic accident and seen the way they deal with such chaos amidst the confusion, fear and danger, you have to admire their training and focus. If you’ve ever lived in central London and experienced the little shits, wasters and a***holes who plague the streets then you have to admire their patience and persistence.
I think “institutional racism” was probably a fair criticism but then it was born out of the fact that the majority of street violence and crime was carried out by young black men – and still is. If I was a policeman I’d probably be “stopping and searching” more blacks than whites. It wouldn’t be my job to worry about the causes and the social whys and wherefores. My job would be to protect the public.
There is another institution in the police though and its been there for years. You can call it cynicism. You can understand it by realising that they see themselves, inevitably, as separated from the rest of us – on another side. You can appreciate how the ridiculous administrative load they are placed under grinds them down. BUT they can be their own worst enemies when they deal with people in a way that alienates and antagonises those that want to support them.
I had an experience with my local police in Havant recently that, at the end of the day, just makes me sad. It’s a leadership issue really and whilst I feel pretty sore at the rather stupid young policewoman who tried to stitch me up, I don’t really blame her. She’s a foot soldier, not gifted with huge intelligence and steeped in this destructive culture of “us and them”.
I had some property stolen from me in what you might call a “domestic” context. In fact it wasn’t mine. If it was I’d probably have let it go but I had to get it back and I had no option but to look to the police to do their job and enforce the law.
So, knowing all too well that if I telephoned it in or even went to the police station to report it, I’d just be brushed aside, I made a written complaint.
After two weeks I’d had no response at all so I managed (with extreme difficulty) to find an email address and sent a reminder. It took several further emails and a number of telephone calls before, nearly six weeks after my initial complaint, a crime reference number was allocated.
Another week later I attended at Havant police station to make a statement. I very much had the impression that the policewoman was just going through the motions and she was much more interested in any detail that would enable her to write the matter off as a “domestic” rather than deal with the real issue. I did say to her that I felt I was entitled to rely on the police to take action but I didn’t think that was unreasonable.
Nevertheless, she took my statement and was pleasant enough. She made some small talk and casually enquired how I had travelled to the police station and where I was parked.
As she showed me out of the police station we met two of her colleagues in the corridor who I held the door open for. I returned to my car, drove less than 25 yards from my parking space and was suddenly and violently intercepted by a police van driving across in front of me.
The two colleagues I had met in the police station emerged from the van and told me that they proposed to breathalyse me. They called another car in and I found myself on the pavement surrounded by four police officers being made to take a breath test – which I passed.
Draw your own conclusions. Mine are that I have no confidence in Havant police at all, in their bona fides, good intentions, integrity, intelligence or even common sense. I don’t blame the policewoman involved because she’s just a victim of the police culture that creates this sort of stupid, dumb, “us and them” culture.
In the higher echelons of the police force there are clearly some very clever people doing fantastic work on matters such as anti-terrorism and thank God they are. Amongst the footsoldiers, as well as the heroes and those who understand their role as a public servants, there are undoubtedly inadequate individuals who choose a uniform to bolster their own self image and who enjoy wielding authority that is beyond their ability.
It is a leadership issue. If you antagonise, offend, upset and deal shabbily with those you are supposed to “protect and serve” then where do you expect your support to come from?
Peter Reynolds 