Merry Christmas

Sewerby Hall

We heard on the grapevine Friday that 17H is going "tits up". Very sorry to hear about that, especially so given the unforgiving economic climate . . .  No rude and anonymous emails please. Rude, yes, but leave your names, okay, children?


On a brighter note, we had a great time at Sewerby Hall (near Bridlington) at the weekend, and soaked up as much of the remains of the summer sun as possible. Photos to be found in the usual place.

The Westwood Estate . . .

Today, we are on the Westwood Estate in Beverley. Watching the cows, watching us, watching the grass.


Not far from the racecourse and the Minster (to the left of the old windmill in the distance), we have taken the SMART for a spin. I've not had it back now, for two days, since the smash in July, when I was run into whilst stationary! Yes, each July, when in Bradford, I have someone run into the rear of the car. At least we walked out intact . . however, I am unable to use much of my left hand , and my laptop was damaged, along with my HTC Hero, and my Canon camera. Great!

Pier 13

Here we are at Pier 13 Marina in Hull - getting our stall stet up on this fantastic Sunday afternoon to take some shots of life around the water.

The East Riding . . .

Do you believe that it is August, already, dear reader? No! Nor can we. Yet another year at university is safely in the can, and just then final one looming, I am glad of the break, but wondering where 2010 vanished.


I reduced to marking time with news clippings from Yorkshire, and one of the truly funniest things that I have read this year is the drugs bust in Bradford - opposite the college (where else?):


http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/localbrad/8312921.__500_000_drugs_found_in_police_swoop/

The Phobe Files . . .

This is the first in an occasional series which merely serves to collect together and present a few of the more in-my-face homophobic tales discovered in my travels. The articles and links are in no especial order or priority indicative of merit nor capacity to offensiveness, for example. All have been culled from the popular press, and have been lightly researched by me for authorship credentials, currency of the hyperlinks and presence of original content: indeed, where an article cannot be reproduced, it will not be paraphrased. Articles have been sent into to me in some cases, by colleagues overseas. However, what they all have in common, is that the content and context just happens to be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I feel that it is important that I drive home this fact from the start, since upon digesting some of the reportage, it is quite easy to lapse and sleepwalk into the fallacy that we are looking at the Middle East.

The first item on my list is the interview given by Cameron to the Gay Times magazine. Enough said, eeeeh, Daaayve?




What century?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8033724/Student-jumps-to-death-after-being-filmed-having-sex-with-man.html


What year?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8013175/One-in-eight-bandbs-dont-welcome-gay-travellers.html

Church of filth and hypocrisy:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/senior-catholic-edmund-adamus-blames-uks-moral-wasteland-on-equal-rights-2067112.html

The same old tricks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/world/europe/30belgium.html?_r=1&hp

Tell us something new:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/27/child-abuse-catholic-church

At last, some sense:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/19/catholic-adoption-agency-gay-parents

We love this, due to the fact that fate obviously has a sense of irony:

http://freethinker.co.uk/2010/05/23/pope’s-visit-faces-a-3-million-shortfall-–-and-god-tv-urgently-needs-4-million/

What year are we in?:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301180/Ex-vicar-banned-foster-parent-refusing-let-gay-couples-visit-home.html

Again, which year? Care to misdate, anyone? Mid-70s?:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lib-dems-to-vote-on-full-marriage-rights-for-gay-couples-2046695.html

The church is obviously incapable of keeping itself out of the news, nor indeed, protecting vulnerable children:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/03/26/mexico.priest.abuse/index.html

Reserving some invective for the church of Rome, we have another beautiful revelation from the magazine, "Panorama" concerning the behaviour of the sad, people haters that work within Christ Plc:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1297083/Gay-priest-sex-scandal-undercover-Berlusconi-reporter-films-clerics-gay-clubs.html

And! Yet another lovely piece concerning religion, belief, christianity with a small "c", and boarding houses full of love and . . .  .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/21/gay-couple-refused-hotel-room

I am hoping that by mid-year that I will NOT have enough material for a book, but a cursory check of my clippings folder leads me to the conclusion that I could not only be constructing a commercial website, but also be looking for gay and straight people with which to staff it.

And the saga at Christ Plc continues:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7096149.ece

PC attack case (Liverpool), latest news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8620096.stm



Bookmark this page and check back from time to time? Contributions to the usual dead-drop . . .

St Patrick's Day

I was driving to an appointment yesterday morning and my journey as usual took me uphill, and along Valley View Grove, adjacent to the park.

The side entrance was cordoned off with many yards of flexible police incident  tape,  and present, minding the site were at least two uniformed officers, just standing by. One video unit van was parked up alongside on the road. I couldn't stop and stare. I had no time to spare.

Later that same day, as I was making the return drive, I witnessed three police vans in total and several more uniformed officers. On checking the local news when I got in, I discovered that although there had been a nasty murder by stabbing in Gladstone Street, maybe a mile distant, there was no mention of crime in our locality.

So, if anyone out there knows what happened this week then drop me or the T & A a line.

On a more upbeat note, the first flowers of 2010 are popping up all over the place. I am sure that many people, both young and old alike, and with some of the middle-agers such as I, very glad indeed to witness this outbreak of colour.  Does this presage a hot, hot, hot summer? Probably not. The displays have eased me into my photographic routine for Project 43, during which I will be using my camera and other devices to record at least one image a day from my life at the the age of 43.

Hole in the ground . . .

It is now Tuesday, the 16th. Coincidentally, and unfunnily enough, we find ourselves almost mid-way through our much-awaited half term week’s holiday, having realised that we are just about commencing on the small heal and mend of mental energy and whole life forces. I have been helped (pas si très grand) by a large IM injection of vitamin B12 that I shot into my upper arm this morning. Yeah, it’s a month overdue already, but I only remembered today! Okay! My other half has been assisted in the recharge process by enduring longer than normal lie-ins and earlier-to beds than we would otherwise submit to. Strange to believe that whereas I more than certainly told all my students, both verbally, and in writing that there would be “NO CLASSES AT ALL” the week commencing 15^th Jan, you would not believe how may phone calls and text messages that I received from said students, enquiring about the status of today’s Web Design course, etc. Indeed, it was on the way back to Hull, along what used to be the M62 motorway, of which, more later, that I got several incoming messages from MM at JNH, informing me that several of my learners had turned up at the campus, expecting moi, and normal classes . . . . Obviously, my communication skills need brushing up.

The M62 westwards of Bradford, has for a over a year, been in a moveable state of disrepair. Upgrades that nobody, I am sure minds about too much? However, we have been enduring the 50 mph zones guarded over by “average speed check” cameras for far too long. Bottom line, this is about mon£y. So, how much are the cameras costing? How much revenue are they bringing in? You know, after admin and service costs? How much is lost when someone burns them or steals them? (Good on you, lads & lasses)? How many lives they have saved hardly comes into it . . . since such figures can at best be only projections and at worst speculation. Personally, I’ve got to get an alternative route where I can move at speed through town and country from East to West Yorkshire. By the way, the newspapers reckon around £30 million for the upgrades!

Maintaining 50 in this environment needs skills that I would  rarely demonstrate in conversation, much less in reality behind the wheel: simultaneously dodging fools and the suicide drivers, while all around are motorists on the very edge: desperate to reach home or travel to that vital next destination and get there through fair means or foul calls for a calm head. All of us are being impeded by the high volumes of stop-start, the slow moving cars, and traffic  that is variously infected with the erratic behaviour of the commonly-occurring boy racer, the lane hopper, the undertaker, the tailgater, the non-indicator, the lane blocker, and the driver asleep at the wheel. We're all in the same boat, dammit: SMART, Fiat, Mercedes or Ferrari . . .

Glad to be home, updating Twitter, marking work, and making ready my desk and computer for the next module at university. So glad to be away from Bradford, complete with the hole in the ground known as the Westfield Shopping Centre. Along with the dreadful statistics that tell a bad story of empty shop units and stilted regeneration. On a more personal note, we have left behind also, the incessant noise, emanating from Flat 9 next door, where developers are updating the property prior to praying that someone buys it or rents it presently. In the East Riding we’ll stay until Thursday morning, when I have got to return for an interview with an agency in the city offering work, teaching in secondary schools in the LB Corridor. Annoyingly, I have to have a new rear tyre on the SMART which has had to be ordered in especially, on account of the peculiar wheel size (175/55 R15).

So, watch this space . . .

Stunning pictures on the radio . . .

A new, modern, aerial was fixed onto our roof last week - a four metre, multi-faceted model, fashioned on planet Eavesdropper from gleaming Aluminium, and which resembled apparatus more rightly belonging to the International Space Station. The whole sports separate arms for UHF  telly and FM radio. Apparently, the transmissions that I and my neighbours had been receiving were less than optimal: a thick slice of terrestrial Freeview channels were seemingly weak, else totally unavailable (yawn).

A cursory glance at last Thursday's viewing schedules across the viewing spectrum from "BBC1" right through to "Dave" revealed to me the sacred mystery of TV: that the sheer, unalloyed crappiness of the whole was evidently much bigger than the nightmare sum of each individual portion of, say "Jeremy Kyle", "Judge Judy" or "Cops with Cameras". Faith now sorely tested and, incidentally, irrevocably smashed, the god of telly was revealed to have feet of clay and tits of Jello. In short, so many channels with so little to enjoy. No wonder then, that grazing with the remote has developed into a quasi-sport, being in itself, so much more gripping than the very thought of any single one of these cheap and hollow offerings. The whole is annoyingly crappier because of our thwarted expectation that leads us to believe that greater numbers of channels = improved choice = better viewing experience all round. What sort of sicko would have ever thought that the reverse holds true? Well, Bob Dylan, for one did; way back . . .

So, what to do? Well, no, not really. This conundrum is nothing of the sort, and hence does not require a poll, nor a stretch of thought and reflection. Solution? TV now in a box in the garage. We have incidentally beaten the digital Switchover (2011). Kenwood radio tuner attached lovingly to the new aerial, then dusted down (!) and retuned. We have some DAB, but most is of the analogue FM stereo variety. Give me anything, apart from the local guff concerning Bradford and Leeds, and the 'hole' that the telly left is more than amply filled to brimming with Radios 2-5. The pictures on these radio channels alone more than compensates for the drivel on over 40 Freeview TV programmes.

Why not join us? I challenge you to go TV free for a week. Then wonder what the hell the licence fee is being spent on . . . . cos' it can't be TV production, can it?

Must remeber to cancel the Direct Debit for the TV licence fee this week.

Man in a skirt and golden hat . . .

 

Yes, Bendedict, I was moved to put pen to paper to today and laugh at you, sad old, baggy old, drag act that you are! Hell, I nearly wet myself when I read about your latest public dribblings.  Giving nothing to your audience, ignoring the legacy of RuPaul, we have not even a touch of cheer, nor a demo of gyration and spontaneous lip-synching: you have the temerity to attack equality provision and law in the UK. Two words, and the second one is "off".

Nothing, Benedict is what you are. An pissy little anachronism. The world is moving on with bright, proud, creative people who are busy making a heaven on earth, and believe wholeheartedly in having a life before death. Who cares about what you say, oh man in a skirt.

You need to look in the mirror, you cross-dressing ass. I dare thee to travel to Ireland to deal with the nuclear fallout from your colleagues. You'll visit these easier, more equitable shores, first though, won't you? Keep away from Britain, and look towards the beam in thine own eye: your pervert priests and people-hating fuck-ups that join the 'ministry' where they can practice their misanthropy all over the planet. Go to Texas, that's where you belong . . . you might find some cute little accessories.

God is dead. Equality is here to stay. You are yesterday's news already. Let's have some women amongst you. Some married couples, some lesbians. Some gays, if you can find any interested.

Update 24 March 2010:

"Is there an end in sight to this mess":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/pope-benedict-catholic-paedophile-crisis

Update 12 March 2010:

"This just gets better and better":

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7060406.ece

Update 04 March 2010:

A timely gay sex "scandal" hits the Vatican:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/vatican-gay-sex-scandal

How many other affairs and secrets that we never get to hear about? People of all persuasions are sick of the hypocrisy. There will be much more rooting out and forced disclosures, I am sure, in the years to come . . .

Sod it all . . .

TGI will be Friday very soon. Literature review finished and uploaded (but not to the VLE). Deadline met. Pheeeeeeew! I even had a few hours left to indulge my passion: sitting there in my underwear and dressing gown reading a book, and relaxing in front of a warm fire. Radio 4 was playing in the background, and Patsy Stone was asleep on my lap. Almost heaven.

Just getting ready to upload a new set of video tutorials and images for Project 43, so just watch this space.

We are going to hunker down with mulled wine and a large hamper Saturday evening, on account of the expected snow this weekend; at least according to the Met Office. However, their perceived inaccuracy has called into question the long-term contract that they hold with the BBC. So, it's not just me that thinks that the forecasts are not as spot on as they used to be????? The plan for the hamper and the wine still stands, however . . . the risotto kit looks delicious.

I am very much looking forward to half-term for the week commencing 15th February, since I am determined to get the hall in the flat back to some sort of shape. Demolition evidence in the shape of brick dust and exposed plaster has lost its appeal several months after the initial rush of DIY zeal . . . spring being, unbelievably just around the corner. The other reason for my looking expectantly to a week off from teaching is that work continues apace on my new book, and I need a few days alone with the plan to whip it into a firmer shape.

Pop Stars at Factory Street Studios

Yes! You read about it here first!

Taking the "P" from "Copper"

I am patently not qualified to enter into a discourse of other people's tastes concerning schadenfreude, but I don't mind signposting a few likes of my own in this regard. Indeed, I must confess a strong affinity for finding amusement and and downright pleasure in the reading of tales like this: a sadly all-too-common reportage of a West Yorkshire copper getting caught out, doing something that they shouldn't. Indeed, the further that they stray into the territory of "illegal activity", the more that I enjoy reading about it. Here's an extract from Bradford's local 'newspaper' that I thought it my duty to share with you, dear reader:

Police officers who reversed on motorway banned

Shame that this is only a pair of mere Sergeants. We need more Commanders, Detectives and Chief Inspectors to get detected, busted and sent deeeern. However, we must content ourselves, for the present,  with the fact that that these are coppers and public servants. Of all people, they should have known better. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, the joy!

And don't forget, you lot out there, the more that you read my blog, share my blog, and click through my blog, the more cash that I am able to trouser through the agency of Google Adsense.

Please don't print it, though: we need to think of the environment!

I do have other writings online, such as Armstrong Education, Project 43, and a few others such as this but you'll have to go searching for yourself via the agency of Google to gain a fuller perspective. Needless to mention, you will also have to use Clickthrough, in order to get the full benefit of my publications.

Good luck, and sleep tight!

 

Scandinavian Climes on our Doorstep. . .

Now, if I had been gifted the benefit of foresight, I would have known in advance to pick up a couple of kilos of Lavazza filter coffee from the Tesco Express at the Top of Valley View Grove BEFORE the 12 inches of snow came on Tuesday. As it is, it is now 1500, and I need a caffeine fix. Also, I am becoming jaded at the making of snacks from surplus Christmas hamper goods, canned delicacies, and home-made bread. Not bad, but not healthy. Food tastes so much better when someone else makes it, or you take a break before serving the dish. Focusing on my coffee urge, I took the plunge, wrapped up for the Arctic, and and left the flat at about 15.30 with my camera in tow.

I was lucky to have a neighbour help me dig the SMART out of the standing snow. Also, I am grateful for the fact that the covering on the car was still powder and not solid ice. Took us about 10 minutes to get the vehicle onto Lister Lane. Empty. Not a soul in sight, spare the kids on sleds and snow boards in Peel Park.  Did the deed in Tesco, and bought more than I should, plus a little bottle of Marsala, for the trifle, you understand. On the way back down the Grove, I stopped the car repeatedly to take photos of the park and the roads.

Couldn't wait to get back inside. I had that many layers of clothing on that I was sweating like a glassblower's bottom. The coffee was good, and I will be getting a taxi into the University tomorrow - Huddersfield University has been open today, and I took a taxi in this morning, whereas BC was closed, and all classes, including the one that I teach this evening near Bradford Uni at 1700 have been cancelled. Better safe than sorry.

Be careful out there - this could be the pattern for weeks!

Now, the weather is so delightful . . let it snow. Let it! SNOW!

The white stuff looks fantastic on postcards or even dancing on the small screen. Especially when the viewer happens to be relaxing, parked up in front of a vibrant fire with a racy book. Can you see the mulled wine, yet, reader? (Note: The Book Burning for 16th January is still very on: so far). However, when one has to travel back to Bradford, westward towards the Peninnes and along the M62 and M602, the merest mention of snow, brings more than a small tremor of alarm.

I checked up on the Met Office late tonight referencing tomorrow's forecast for the whole of the UK, and it does not look good Monday and Tuesday: emphasis Yorkshire and the Humber. Very heavy emphasis on the M62 and the M602! Well, reader, what I will do is this: I shall check the Met Office and MM at work, and also  with the folks in Bradford for a weather update in real time up until about 1600, and then, if the weather proves too much, I will decide whether to swap the SMART for the Mercedes, or indeed whether to postpone travel altogether until a break arrives in the cold snap.

If you have any news on the College or University closure for Monday, 5th January, please get in touch!

Happy 2010

Happy new year from the East Riding of Yorkshire!  No, we're not looking forward to going back to work, either, but it will soon be half term. No resolutions this year that I didn't already have in place, and I hope that it's the same with you all.

Right now, I am very much wishing that the snow that fell in East Yorks will clear by Sunday when I have to return to the big smoke. If not, or the roads get worse as I travel west, then, watch this space . .  .

See you all soon.