Someone famous said, "I love it when a plan comes together." I don't profess to know who it was, but he (she?) was certainly right. A number of small things have 'come together' this week the way I planned, which gives me that hinted feeling of satisfaction. More importantly, they're things that I can cross off my 'to do' list.
I often make lists these days, to make sure nothing gets missed. In fact someone I was talking to recently claimed to make 'lists of lists' but I'm not sure exactly how that works ... unless, by subdividing a list, when everything on a sub-list is crossed off, that's a whole list finished, and possibly gives a higher sense of satisfaction?
Tuesday evening brought echoes for me of my former working life, as I drove down the A1 past a succession of signs saying alternately, "A14 closed 30-31" (which didn't bother me) and "A1 closed from J14" (which did!). This meant that what had, up to that point, been a smooth and satisfying journey home was about to become a frustrating game of 'find the road that's open' and, although I had left my cousin's in good time, I would now be considerably later getting home than I'd planned.
Since my retirement, now I'm no longer using the road system as frequently as I did, I find I've forgotten some of the routes and numbers that were so familiar as to be 'second nature' and I suffered some moments of panic as I struggled to remember what diversion would get me home soonest in this new circumstance. Eventually I remembered that, long before the A14 would reach the 'fatal' junction 30, it would get me to the A1198, a road formerly known as Ermine Street or 'the Old North Road'. This would take me, without further ado, to Royston and a very familiar final leg home.
Incidentally, the junction of the A14 and the A1198 at Huntingdon, which I then used, has an interesting history. Before the roads in this area were changed and re-numbered about 30 years ago, the Old North Road was known as A14; at that time the main east-west route was A45 and it was this that was modified and improved and eventually became the A14 trunk road that we know today. Thus that junction carries the new east-west road called A14 over what had been a north-south road with the same number (now given the new identity A1198)! I've often wondered - inconclusively - whether there are other similar examples around the country.
As I drove down this ancient highway, I passed a roundabout flanked by a modern filling station and an even more modern McDonald's. It's on the site of an equally ancient crossroads known as Caxton Gibbet; on the verge just south of the roundabout can be seen an old wooden structure believed to be the remains of the gibbet itself. This was a macabre place where the bodies of criminals were displayed (if not actually executed there) as an example to the passing populace. I'm not sure whether the feature presently preserved by the roadside is actually authentic or whether its authenticity is subject to historic maintenance, as in the apocryphal tale of 'great-great-grandfather's shovel', which, apart from two new blades and four new handles down the years, is the very one that he used to bury his grandfather nearly three centuries ago.
So it was, then, that I arrived home at bedtime - too late to do those chores I'd intended to fit in before retiring. I peeled my intentions back to the very essential, and quickly scribbled a LIST of all the little things that I'd postponed. A couple more items came to mind when I got up and were hastily added to the list; it then gave me a great sense of completion to cross off the last of these just after lunch on Wednesday afternoon.
I'm now working my way down a similar list hastily compiled after breakfast this morning before I left for my present voluntary job which on Fridays requires me to be about half a mile from home, ready to leave with two others on a van at 8.30 am.
Friday, 26 April 2019
Saturday, 20 April 2019
The Back End
Whether you call it Zaterdag, Samedi, Samstag, Saturni or Sadwrn (those who know me well will identify the languages with which I've dabbled over the years), Saturday is for many - and I include myself here - the 'stub-end' of the week. It's the day when 'stuff' that has overflowed from other days is lined up to get knocked off, polished off, cleared out of the way, or whatever other metaphor you choose to use.
I don't know whether this technique is still current in primary schools today, but 60-plus years ago we had diary boards. A broad strip of the wall all the way round the classroom was coated with blackboard material. Each of us was allocated our section of this and on Monday mornings we were provided with chalk and encouraged to write our 'news', the story of what we'd done over the weekend. I suspect there was a fine balance between the educational benefit to the children and the amusement factor for the teachers. Six-year-olds aren't know for diplomatic reticence when it comes to family and domestic affairs!
This week a notice was displayed in as many places as seemed appropriate - including the gents' toilet! - at the warehouse where I presently volunteer twice a week, advertising a vacancy for a part-time van driver. I was told rather pointedly, "You can apply for this if you like." so I read it closely. The position advertised was for the equivalent of two days a week, with hours flexible but based mainly at the weekend.
I fairly swiftly rejected the idea because, as you might expect, I won't work on Sundays apart from for the most exceptional reasons. I can think of only one occasion during my employed career when I did so. It was at the annual stocktaking in a factory where I had been working for two or three years. The senior accountant had estimated that it could all be completed by Saturday lunchtime if normal working stopped at 4.0 on Friday. In point of fact with everyone working Friday evening and all day Saturday it still wasn't done by 6.0 pm, and we had to go in on Sunday as well. I think I was home by mid-afternoon, but the effect on motivation during the following week was quite remarkable. The fact that I'd lost a weekend upset the whole pattern of my life.
While working as a courier, the only work I would do on Sunday was the occasional pick-up ready for an early start on Monday morning, and I believe on one occasion I left home on Sunday evening to make an 8.0 am delivery in Scotland the next day. Saturdays are a different thing; for many years, I used to work regularly on Saturday mornings, sometimes until 1.0 or 2.0 in the afternoon, occasionally all day. For part of those years I was getting paid overtime for it, but always there was the question, how much can be squashed into a weekend?
In these days of retirement it might seem that there is all week to fit 'stuff' into, but lots of interests are at regular times, and some things are always on Saturdays because they involve others who are still of working age. As I considered this particular job, I quickly counted up nineteen Saturdays in the year when I wouldn't be able to commit to working all day without sacrificing something or other that has become part of my life. And that's without my increasing attendance at football matches! It seems that I've been to 21 matches already this season, with at least one more planned, a local cup final next week, compared to 15 in the whole of last season.
I'm wondering how long those notices will remain on display, and how long before an anonymous graffito appears on one or other of them! I suspect that there are many like me who value their weekends over and above what money can be made out of them.
I don't know whether this technique is still current in primary schools today, but 60-plus years ago we had diary boards. A broad strip of the wall all the way round the classroom was coated with blackboard material. Each of us was allocated our section of this and on Monday mornings we were provided with chalk and encouraged to write our 'news', the story of what we'd done over the weekend. I suspect there was a fine balance between the educational benefit to the children and the amusement factor for the teachers. Six-year-olds aren't know for diplomatic reticence when it comes to family and domestic affairs!
This week a notice was displayed in as many places as seemed appropriate - including the gents' toilet! - at the warehouse where I presently volunteer twice a week, advertising a vacancy for a part-time van driver. I was told rather pointedly, "You can apply for this if you like." so I read it closely. The position advertised was for the equivalent of two days a week, with hours flexible but based mainly at the weekend.
I fairly swiftly rejected the idea because, as you might expect, I won't work on Sundays apart from for the most exceptional reasons. I can think of only one occasion during my employed career when I did so. It was at the annual stocktaking in a factory where I had been working for two or three years. The senior accountant had estimated that it could all be completed by Saturday lunchtime if normal working stopped at 4.0 on Friday. In point of fact with everyone working Friday evening and all day Saturday it still wasn't done by 6.0 pm, and we had to go in on Sunday as well. I think I was home by mid-afternoon, but the effect on motivation during the following week was quite remarkable. The fact that I'd lost a weekend upset the whole pattern of my life.
While working as a courier, the only work I would do on Sunday was the occasional pick-up ready for an early start on Monday morning, and I believe on one occasion I left home on Sunday evening to make an 8.0 am delivery in Scotland the next day. Saturdays are a different thing; for many years, I used to work regularly on Saturday mornings, sometimes until 1.0 or 2.0 in the afternoon, occasionally all day. For part of those years I was getting paid overtime for it, but always there was the question, how much can be squashed into a weekend?
In these days of retirement it might seem that there is all week to fit 'stuff' into, but lots of interests are at regular times, and some things are always on Saturdays because they involve others who are still of working age. As I considered this particular job, I quickly counted up nineteen Saturdays in the year when I wouldn't be able to commit to working all day without sacrificing something or other that has become part of my life. And that's without my increasing attendance at football matches! It seems that I've been to 21 matches already this season, with at least one more planned, a local cup final next week, compared to 15 in the whole of last season.
I'm wondering how long those notices will remain on display, and how long before an anonymous graffito appears on one or other of them! I suspect that there are many like me who value their weekends over and above what money can be made out of them.
Saturday, 13 April 2019
A Long and Meandering Stream
Looking through what passes for a diary these days, I see that this has been a week with lots of routine but nothing that really says 'Write about me today!' It's all a bit boring, like the title of today's Bible notes, 'Are we nearly there yet?' These began with the innocent question, 'Can you recall the longest journey you've ever made?'
My thoughts floated back down the years (the older I get, the more that exercise seems to become a cruise along a slow-flowing river rather than guiding a canoe down a swiftly-running stream, with more and more places to stop and explore along the way) and didn't stop when I realised that this was probably a flight to San Francisco in 2000. Instead, recollection followed recollection until memory eventually came to rest in the early 'seventies, when I was living with my young family in the middle of a country town, almost opposite the pub and just around the corner from the church.
That was the time when I was studying economics as part of my accountancy training, and struggling to make sense of the written course material as it described the way that one government and then another had tried to control the British economy. It was then, too, that my thoughts first turned to politics as I realised that each government in turn had first undid what had gone before, in order then to implement its own ideas of what needed to be done now. Obviously the purpose of an Opposition is to oppose, but it seemed to me that too much of its energy was devoted to tearing the government apart, and not enough to explaining what ought to have been done instead.
The fact that the half-dozen Liberal MPs seemed willing to agree with one 'side' on one point, and then with the other on another point was what first persuaded me to join the Liberal Party and, although that enthusiasm proved only to be a 'flash in the pan', I've been a supporter of the politics of compromise and accord ever since. In the 'noughties', when I listened to RTE on long wave as I drove around the country, I became aware of multi-member constituencies and started to think about proportional representation as a real possibility.
To bring this truly up to date, I'll share a comment I read this week about the speed with which 27 European leaders could reach a compromise agreement about the extension of Article 50, compared to the length of time our Parliament has taken - and has still not been able to come to agreement - over the approval of the Brexit legislation. It was described as the grey productivity of European thinking versus the black-and-white failure of our own. People on all sides of the political spectrum are now voicing what I was beginning to see forty-odd years ago, that the days of a confrontational parliament based on a winner-takes-all mentality are numbered.
It is indeed a long journey, along a very long road. But I believe we will eventually learn nationally what children learn very quickly in the school playground: it's more satisfying to agree that one can play with the toy for a while and then for the other to do so, than for either to break it, or throw it over the hedge, so neither can play with it at all!
My thoughts floated back down the years (the older I get, the more that exercise seems to become a cruise along a slow-flowing river rather than guiding a canoe down a swiftly-running stream, with more and more places to stop and explore along the way) and didn't stop when I realised that this was probably a flight to San Francisco in 2000. Instead, recollection followed recollection until memory eventually came to rest in the early 'seventies, when I was living with my young family in the middle of a country town, almost opposite the pub and just around the corner from the church.
That was the time when I was studying economics as part of my accountancy training, and struggling to make sense of the written course material as it described the way that one government and then another had tried to control the British economy. It was then, too, that my thoughts first turned to politics as I realised that each government in turn had first undid what had gone before, in order then to implement its own ideas of what needed to be done now. Obviously the purpose of an Opposition is to oppose, but it seemed to me that too much of its energy was devoted to tearing the government apart, and not enough to explaining what ought to have been done instead.
The fact that the half-dozen Liberal MPs seemed willing to agree with one 'side' on one point, and then with the other on another point was what first persuaded me to join the Liberal Party and, although that enthusiasm proved only to be a 'flash in the pan', I've been a supporter of the politics of compromise and accord ever since. In the 'noughties', when I listened to RTE on long wave as I drove around the country, I became aware of multi-member constituencies and started to think about proportional representation as a real possibility.
To bring this truly up to date, I'll share a comment I read this week about the speed with which 27 European leaders could reach a compromise agreement about the extension of Article 50, compared to the length of time our Parliament has taken - and has still not been able to come to agreement - over the approval of the Brexit legislation. It was described as the grey productivity of European thinking versus the black-and-white failure of our own. People on all sides of the political spectrum are now voicing what I was beginning to see forty-odd years ago, that the days of a confrontational parliament based on a winner-takes-all mentality are numbered.
It is indeed a long journey, along a very long road. But I believe we will eventually learn nationally what children learn very quickly in the school playground: it's more satisfying to agree that one can play with the toy for a while and then for the other to do so, than for either to break it, or throw it over the hedge, so neither can play with it at all!
Friday, 5 April 2019
Regaining Sovereignty
It's a phrase that has been accorded a heightened currency in recent months that some would say is unjustified. I don't wish to comment on that here, but it is one that summarises the positive nature of my personal feelings just at this moment.
Two weekends ago I sat in A&E on Sunday evening looking at an X-ray picture and was told that recovery would probably be 'two to three weeks'. I had just learned that I didn't have broken ribs - not even cracked ribs - and no dark glamour could now be claimed by revealing that I had simply bruised my chest: after all, the only bruise that could be seen was the size of a postage stamp! All I could offer to explain my reluctance to do things was 'I had a fall'.
What I did know was that a wide variety of small movements that are part of normal life were suddenly painful and to be avoided if at all possible. In the last week many of these have no longer caused trouble, and I'm left with difficulty in only one or two things like getting out of bed; even breathing deeply is virtually pain-free.
As I mentioned last week, I attended a talk on the Burston School Strike and, quite apart from that expedition, this event has suddenly taken on a higher profile for me. One of my online friends was looking for something in her home and - on the 105th anniversary of the start of the Strike - discovered a map of the walk of protest the children had taken that sunny April day. She announced this fact on Facebook, accompanied by an album of present-day photographs of some of the places mentioned on the map.
Comments have been posted this week in reaction to the map and/or the photos. One person reported that a BBC documentary about the Strike is available on YouTube (just search for 'Burston School Strike' and you'll find all three 15-minute parts) and then - to my amazement - one of my many first-cousins-once-removed said she'd watched this and that it was 'lovely to see my nanny Violet there'. Violet Potter was the 13-year-old girl who had led the Strike in that last spring before the First World War.
I can remember as a teenager in the early '60s delivering groceries to her younger brother. At that time, and in the documentary made ten years or so later, he was running the village post office, but I had no idea that, about 11 months before I was born, his niece had married one of my cousins! Such are the inevitable consequences of a large family who were too busy with their own lives to socialise very much beyond the occasional funeral!
This afternoon I lost all track of time as I rekindled my latent family history enthusiasm and traced the Potter family back to the late 19th century, discovering and documenting those links of which I was hitherto unaware.
My other activity this afternoon provides a third strand to my positive reflections this evening. Last spring and summer I seemed to be fighting a prolonged battle with certain unidentified neighbours and the local council over the non-collection of recycling waste from my home community. To cut a very long story short, the council had - quite rightly - been refusing to empty recycling bins that were 'contaminated' either by materials put into the wrong bins, or plastic bags in which the right items had been deposited. Since we all use a small number of communal bins, this action deprived me of facilities to dispose of my own recyclable waste.
The situation has now greatly improved, but one lingering aspect of the problem concerned the bin for paper and magazine recycling which had never been emptied. I had been by-passing this difficulty by making use of another bin further along the road but, when I found last weekend that this alternative was now full so I couldn't use it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. This afternoon I had the time and opportunity to empty the stinking bin and transfer the contents into a recently emptied general waste bin, thereby giving me the chance to empty my domestic waste-paper container into the right bin for the first time in over a year! How long this pleasant state of affairs will continue is as yet unknown, of course. Watch this space for news of further developments!
Two weekends ago I sat in A&E on Sunday evening looking at an X-ray picture and was told that recovery would probably be 'two to three weeks'. I had just learned that I didn't have broken ribs - not even cracked ribs - and no dark glamour could now be claimed by revealing that I had simply bruised my chest: after all, the only bruise that could be seen was the size of a postage stamp! All I could offer to explain my reluctance to do things was 'I had a fall'.
What I did know was that a wide variety of small movements that are part of normal life were suddenly painful and to be avoided if at all possible. In the last week many of these have no longer caused trouble, and I'm left with difficulty in only one or two things like getting out of bed; even breathing deeply is virtually pain-free.
As I mentioned last week, I attended a talk on the Burston School Strike and, quite apart from that expedition, this event has suddenly taken on a higher profile for me. One of my online friends was looking for something in her home and - on the 105th anniversary of the start of the Strike - discovered a map of the walk of protest the children had taken that sunny April day. She announced this fact on Facebook, accompanied by an album of present-day photographs of some of the places mentioned on the map.
Comments have been posted this week in reaction to the map and/or the photos. One person reported that a BBC documentary about the Strike is available on YouTube (just search for 'Burston School Strike' and you'll find all three 15-minute parts) and then - to my amazement - one of my many first-cousins-once-removed said she'd watched this and that it was 'lovely to see my nanny Violet there'. Violet Potter was the 13-year-old girl who had led the Strike in that last spring before the First World War.
I can remember as a teenager in the early '60s delivering groceries to her younger brother. At that time, and in the documentary made ten years or so later, he was running the village post office, but I had no idea that, about 11 months before I was born, his niece had married one of my cousins! Such are the inevitable consequences of a large family who were too busy with their own lives to socialise very much beyond the occasional funeral!
This afternoon I lost all track of time as I rekindled my latent family history enthusiasm and traced the Potter family back to the late 19th century, discovering and documenting those links of which I was hitherto unaware.
My other activity this afternoon provides a third strand to my positive reflections this evening. Last spring and summer I seemed to be fighting a prolonged battle with certain unidentified neighbours and the local council over the non-collection of recycling waste from my home community. To cut a very long story short, the council had - quite rightly - been refusing to empty recycling bins that were 'contaminated' either by materials put into the wrong bins, or plastic bags in which the right items had been deposited. Since we all use a small number of communal bins, this action deprived me of facilities to dispose of my own recyclable waste.
The situation has now greatly improved, but one lingering aspect of the problem concerned the bin for paper and magazine recycling which had never been emptied. I had been by-passing this difficulty by making use of another bin further along the road but, when I found last weekend that this alternative was now full so I couldn't use it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. This afternoon I had the time and opportunity to empty the stinking bin and transfer the contents into a recently emptied general waste bin, thereby giving me the chance to empty my domestic waste-paper container into the right bin for the first time in over a year! How long this pleasant state of affairs will continue is as yet unknown, of course. Watch this space for news of further developments!
Friday, 29 March 2019
When it All Goes Horribly Wrong!
Regular readers will know that the highlight of my spring every year - and this year has been no exception - is the annual bell-ringing expedition to explore the delights and challenges of places new. From the early part of last week, I had been feeling 'demob happy' on the brink of this year's adventure. By Thursday evening my bag was packed, draped with my coat in the corner of the bedroom and perhaps I should have taken it as a bad omen when, venturing into the bedroom in darkness (as has been my wont 'since Noah were nobut a lad') I forgot it was there, caught one leg on the bag, the other on the chair it was parked against and landed unexpectedly on the bed!
However, I'm not into omens, good or bad, and didn't give the incident a second thought until several days later. Home from work on Friday, all I had to do was change my clothes and pop the bag into the car and I was away, collecting two friends en route, and on our way to Warwickshire, where we stayed at the same hotel we had used last year, aiming this year to visit a different selection of churches against whose bells we would test our mettle.
All went well until after lunch on Saturday afternoon. We had driven through country lanes and made our way into the small town of Knowle. Passing the church and finding the parking spaces outside all full, we drove around the corner to a public car park, paid and displayed our ticket, secured the vehicle and were making our way back to the high street and round to the church. All of a sudden I found myself pitched forward. I stumbled, failed to regain my balance and just had time to realise that I was about to fall on the pavement before gravity completed the manoeuvre and I was laying breathlessly horizontal.
I cannot praise my two friends enough. With all thoughts of bells cast away, they were instantly by my side, reassuring me and trying to keep me still while I recovered my breath as I gazed helplessly up to the sky and wondered what was going to happen next. Meanwhile one of them had produced a tissue and had wiped blood from my forehead ... far more than seemed possible from the tiny cut that I later observed in the mirror back at the hotel. Before long I was back on my feet, and shakily making my way - under close observation - to the church. While the others joined our friends in the tower, I rested, wandered into the church and then out into the sunshine around the churchyard.
The rest of the weekend found me not ringing some lovely bells, but enjoying the warm sun and some beautiful villages. After visiting two churches to help ring for their services on Sunday morning, we found a convenient garden centre coffee shop for lunch and made our way home. Once I'd taken both of my friends home, I decided that, although I was feeling no worse that I'd expected, albeit very sore, it might be wise to seek medical confirmation that nothing more serious was amiss. A visit to a supermarket pharmacy led to a call from their car park to the NHS111 online service, who made a telephoned assessment of my condition. But, because I admitted the very slight head injury, they advised a visit to A&E to be 'checked out face-to-face'.
Anxious that taking pain killers wouldn't mask the symptoms of anything to actually worry about, I followed their advice and, after the usual respiratory and blood tests, I was seen by a doctor, was sent for an X-ray and then returned to the doctor to be told that my ribs weren't even cracked, let alone broken, but merely bent, so I drove home at last, thankful that nothing more serious had been revealed and hopeful that my next weekend away from home will not be so eventful!
Two lazy days ensued, as I cancelled all physical activities but I did drive over to Suffolk one evening, where one of the nearer branches of the Family History Society were staging a talk about an event local to the area of south Norfolk where I grew up. Although it happened long before I was born, I was aware of the main events of the longest strike in history - the 25-year School Strike in the village of Burston - but it was good to learn the fine detail of this story of social division and inter-class persecution stretching back to the early years of the last century
Today I was back at work as a relief driver on one of the Hospice vans, but careful to leave the heavier lifting to others. Hopefully my recovery will continue and I'll be fit enough to resume normal life next week. I'm also praying for patience if this should prove not to be the case!
However, I'm not into omens, good or bad, and didn't give the incident a second thought until several days later. Home from work on Friday, all I had to do was change my clothes and pop the bag into the car and I was away, collecting two friends en route, and on our way to Warwickshire, where we stayed at the same hotel we had used last year, aiming this year to visit a different selection of churches against whose bells we would test our mettle.
All went well until after lunch on Saturday afternoon. We had driven through country lanes and made our way into the small town of Knowle. Passing the church and finding the parking spaces outside all full, we drove around the corner to a public car park, paid and displayed our ticket, secured the vehicle and were making our way back to the high street and round to the church. All of a sudden I found myself pitched forward. I stumbled, failed to regain my balance and just had time to realise that I was about to fall on the pavement before gravity completed the manoeuvre and I was laying breathlessly horizontal.
I cannot praise my two friends enough. With all thoughts of bells cast away, they were instantly by my side, reassuring me and trying to keep me still while I recovered my breath as I gazed helplessly up to the sky and wondered what was going to happen next. Meanwhile one of them had produced a tissue and had wiped blood from my forehead ... far more than seemed possible from the tiny cut that I later observed in the mirror back at the hotel. Before long I was back on my feet, and shakily making my way - under close observation - to the church. While the others joined our friends in the tower, I rested, wandered into the church and then out into the sunshine around the churchyard.
The rest of the weekend found me not ringing some lovely bells, but enjoying the warm sun and some beautiful villages. After visiting two churches to help ring for their services on Sunday morning, we found a convenient garden centre coffee shop for lunch and made our way home. Once I'd taken both of my friends home, I decided that, although I was feeling no worse that I'd expected, albeit very sore, it might be wise to seek medical confirmation that nothing more serious was amiss. A visit to a supermarket pharmacy led to a call from their car park to the NHS111 online service, who made a telephoned assessment of my condition. But, because I admitted the very slight head injury, they advised a visit to A&E to be 'checked out face-to-face'.
Anxious that taking pain killers wouldn't mask the symptoms of anything to actually worry about, I followed their advice and, after the usual respiratory and blood tests, I was seen by a doctor, was sent for an X-ray and then returned to the doctor to be told that my ribs weren't even cracked, let alone broken, but merely bent, so I drove home at last, thankful that nothing more serious had been revealed and hopeful that my next weekend away from home will not be so eventful!
Two lazy days ensued, as I cancelled all physical activities but I did drive over to Suffolk one evening, where one of the nearer branches of the Family History Society were staging a talk about an event local to the area of south Norfolk where I grew up. Although it happened long before I was born, I was aware of the main events of the longest strike in history - the 25-year School Strike in the village of Burston - but it was good to learn the fine detail of this story of social division and inter-class persecution stretching back to the early years of the last century
Today I was back at work as a relief driver on one of the Hospice vans, but careful to leave the heavier lifting to others. Hopefully my recovery will continue and I'll be fit enough to resume normal life next week. I'm also praying for patience if this should prove not to be the case!
Friday, 22 March 2019
The Write Word!
Occasionally I receive comments about my blogs; usually they are clearly self-promoting and get ignored. However, those I received in reaction to my last post here - what I described as 'an earthy satire' - were indeed relevant and deserve a response. In fact, one response fits them all, those that condemned as well as those that were constructive, and it's this. "Don't shoot the messenger." Although it could be argued that I was my own messenger, I was in fact describing, as closely as I could, a dream and I had little option but to follow the details as I remembered them. I don't believe my conscious mind could dream up such a story line. You flatter me if you think it could.
It was whilst reflecting on this reply, I hit upon the theme for this week's offering. Those who know me well will be only too aware of my interest in languages, the words that make them up and the words that link them. It's one reason why I offered the other year to join the team that produces our church magazine, and - let's face it - what other new retiree do you know who is willing to use some of his new-found spare time to learn Welsh?
I offer you three words to think about: 'shoot', 'fire' and 'burn'. We all know about animals and meat, of course: how the words for the living animal come to us from the Saxons who looked after them and the words for the meat from them are of Norman (French) origin from those who were privileged to eat it. But these three words are all from Old English, so we have to look further to compare them. They all have a wide variety of uses and meanings, but I'm thinking of this particular example, and wondering why we don't say 'don't fire the messenger' or 'don't burn the messenger'.
'Firing him' does, of course, have a modern meaning which could be entirely possible ... to remove him from his job. I nearly wrote 'discharge', showing clearly the close relationship between expelling an employee and releasing the missile from a weapon. And that's the point I wanted to make. 'To shoot' indicates the overall purpose of the exercise, whereas 'to fire' describes a more intimate action between the operator and the weapon. It also narrows down the range of weapons to be used, if we were thinking of literally shooting someone. 'Shooting' could be carried out with a long bow or cross bow, for example, but 'firing' restricts it to something that involves combustion.
That leads to the third word I chose, 'burn'. It wouldn't be a sensible alternative to 'shoot' - or even 'fire' - in this example, but there could be situations where it could be a more general alternative to 'fire', for instance if the speaker were inciting an act of arson, he might instruct his co-conspirator to 'fire the house' or 'burn the house'. And I'm sure that if you, dear reader, have the time and patience, you can think of others ... or indeed other words that could be explored in similar ways.
Burning not only destroys; it also produces light and we have a variety of ways to refer to the illumination of our homes. Dad's Army aficionados will recall the ARP Warden, Mr Hodges, and his call of "Put that light out!" How many of us today still talk of 'putting' the light on? Many, too, will speak of 'turning' the light on but some will refer to 'switching' it on and, almost universally, the reverse will be 'off' rather than Mr Hodges' 'out'. As with all language, we learn from what we hear in childhood ... from parents who did the same; I suggest that these terms refer to different light sources. 'Putting the light on [the table]' may well be inspired by the actual conveyance of an oil lamp or candle to where light was needed. 'Turning the light on' could reflect the movement of a gas tap, an expression only now being gradually replaced by the electrical equivalent, 'switching'.
Whence all this etymological exploration? Quite apart from the responses to last week's blog, I heard last weekend, from an unexpected source (someone who, frankly, I would have expected to know better) a very common error. It reminded me just how many people are confused by the challenge of whether to say 'Sheila and me' or 'Sheila and I'. My observation tells me that many who err believe that one is always correct and that, bizarrely, the other is always wrong. In fact, there are those occasions when one is the right thing to say and those when it is correct to use the other word. And, if your habit is always to use one and never the other, it's likely that 50% of the time you'll be losing points in the eyes of those who know!
It was whilst reflecting on this reply, I hit upon the theme for this week's offering. Those who know me well will be only too aware of my interest in languages, the words that make them up and the words that link them. It's one reason why I offered the other year to join the team that produces our church magazine, and - let's face it - what other new retiree do you know who is willing to use some of his new-found spare time to learn Welsh?
I offer you three words to think about: 'shoot', 'fire' and 'burn'. We all know about animals and meat, of course: how the words for the living animal come to us from the Saxons who looked after them and the words for the meat from them are of Norman (French) origin from those who were privileged to eat it. But these three words are all from Old English, so we have to look further to compare them. They all have a wide variety of uses and meanings, but I'm thinking of this particular example, and wondering why we don't say 'don't fire the messenger' or 'don't burn the messenger'.
'Firing him' does, of course, have a modern meaning which could be entirely possible ... to remove him from his job. I nearly wrote 'discharge', showing clearly the close relationship between expelling an employee and releasing the missile from a weapon. And that's the point I wanted to make. 'To shoot' indicates the overall purpose of the exercise, whereas 'to fire' describes a more intimate action between the operator and the weapon. It also narrows down the range of weapons to be used, if we were thinking of literally shooting someone. 'Shooting' could be carried out with a long bow or cross bow, for example, but 'firing' restricts it to something that involves combustion.
That leads to the third word I chose, 'burn'. It wouldn't be a sensible alternative to 'shoot' - or even 'fire' - in this example, but there could be situations where it could be a more general alternative to 'fire', for instance if the speaker were inciting an act of arson, he might instruct his co-conspirator to 'fire the house' or 'burn the house'. And I'm sure that if you, dear reader, have the time and patience, you can think of others ... or indeed other words that could be explored in similar ways.
Burning not only destroys; it also produces light and we have a variety of ways to refer to the illumination of our homes. Dad's Army aficionados will recall the ARP Warden, Mr Hodges, and his call of "Put that light out!" How many of us today still talk of 'putting' the light on? Many, too, will speak of 'turning' the light on but some will refer to 'switching' it on and, almost universally, the reverse will be 'off' rather than Mr Hodges' 'out'. As with all language, we learn from what we hear in childhood ... from parents who did the same; I suggest that these terms refer to different light sources. 'Putting the light on [the table]' may well be inspired by the actual conveyance of an oil lamp or candle to where light was needed. 'Turning the light on' could reflect the movement of a gas tap, an expression only now being gradually replaced by the electrical equivalent, 'switching'.
Whence all this etymological exploration? Quite apart from the responses to last week's blog, I heard last weekend, from an unexpected source (someone who, frankly, I would have expected to know better) a very common error. It reminded me just how many people are confused by the challenge of whether to say 'Sheila and me' or 'Sheila and I'. My observation tells me that many who err believe that one is always correct and that, bizarrely, the other is always wrong. In fact, there are those occasions when one is the right thing to say and those when it is correct to use the other word. And, if your habit is always to use one and never the other, it's likely that 50% of the time you'll be losing points in the eyes of those who know!
Friday, 15 March 2019
An Earthy Satire for These Difficult Times
With all the twists and turns of parliamentary activity this week, coupled with a chest infection, it's little wonder that I haven't been sleeping too well. It's also a long while since I regaled my readers with my dreams ... so here goes!
The scene is somewhere near Sevenoaks in a couple of years' time; I'm outside a small greengrocer's shop. I can tell it's a greengrocer's by the sign that says, "H & B Cobb - Fruit & Veg" but the absence of any produce makes me question even that. I step inside and ask Henry Cobb, "How's business?" "Doing fine!" is the firm reply. I look around at the almost empty shelves and back to him in disbelief. "Turnover has shot through the roof!" he says, "I've got five tons of golden delicious arriving shortly. In fact," he turned to the window, where a white transit van had just pulled up, "that's them now - he told me he's got two left."
I was puzzled. That van couldn't carry five tons of anything; nor two tons for that matter. The door opened and the van driver entered, carrying a paper bag in one hand and a sack in the other. He put the bag on the counter and the sack on the floor and went out; seconds later he returned with another sack, which joined the first. "Here's the two that were left," he told the proprietor and added, pointing to the sacks, "and here's your SHIT." Unfazed by the remark, Henry told him "Thanks" and invited him to help himself to a cup of tea, "You know where it is." I wondered whether I'd heard correctly and peeked into one of the sacks. Neither was closed and each was stuffed full of little forms, neatly stapled in sets. On the top of each was the heading "Self Help In Transit".
When the driver re-appeared, mug in hand, Henry's concern was for the paper bag. "When you said you had two left, I thought you meant two hundredweight at least," he gestured to the bag, "not just two apples." He hesitated, and I could see the cogs turning. "I shall have to sell these for £15 or £20 each ... no. I'll shut the door and Brenda and I will spend the afternoon sorting this lot out. The apples will do for our lunch." He turned to me and laughed. "We call it 'shit-shovelling'" My blank look clearly demanded further explanation.
"Tom here has just been down to the lorry park. People go down there to get the produce as fresh as they can, straight from the trucks off the ferry. The buyers and the lorry drivers then fill in these chits, Tom collects them along with whatever stock they've got left and brings them to me, and the trucks spin round and get on the next ferry back to France. Two apples apart, I've got paperwork here for 5 tons of apples. We now contact the buyers to get paid for them." he smiled, "Simples!"
It might be simple to him; to me it seemed daft. I asked him how likely he was to get money on the face of these scraps of paper. "It depends. Most of the people I deal with are pretty honest, I can get about 70% out of these and that keeps me going. Some folks have a hard job to get 40 or 50%, and they suffer.
The scene changed to a lorry park just off the M20. I'd just come back with Tom to see where those SHITs had come from. As we approached the park, he'd pointed out a couple of tents with signs outside 'i-TURD' and said, "These are the cowboys ... don't trust them." We now walked up to a tidy wooden shed, with the same sign outside. Waiting to go in were pairs of mostly men, but a few women were amongst them, and I even spotted two women together. Tom explained, "The buyers go and deal with the truckers who've got what they want after they've seen the goods and reckon they're fair value. They then come here, and fill in the paperwork. They go back to the truck, the goods are exchanged for the papers - the SHIT - and the buyers go off happy.
"Then I come along, and meet the trucker who's supposed to be selling 5 tons of apples to Henry Cobb, and find he's got diddly squat left. Sometimes, like Henry was expecting, he'll have half a load, and I have to wait until I can get what's left into my van." I was beginning to see how it worked, but it all seemed very dodgy. Tom showed me what went on in the shed.
To my amazement, here was a most civilised set-up rather like the traffic offices I'd known in the past but, instead of smart computer systems, there were big ledgers and hand-written forms. I discovered that i-TURD stood for in-Transit Ultimate Receiver Delivery, which was printed on the top of the form that the truckers were completing. The buyers, the ones who would be taking goods away with them, completed a SHIT accepting receipt of the goods. The two completed forms were then taken to the desk, entered into the ledger, stamped and stapled together and given to the trucker. He then gave the goods to the buyer and kept the paperwork to pass to the courier ... Tom.
It was clearly a system that was open to misuse and fraud but, as I found out when I spoke again to Henry, it meant that goods got to the end-user quicker and in better condition that would be the case if they had to wait for the trucker to deliver them to him and him to arrange the deal with the buyer ... not to mention warehousing costs. It had grown up quickly and unofficially, but was now a recognised way of processing perishable goods. Yes, there were rogues, but they soon got their come-uppance one way or another.
"What about the tax-man?" I asked, "How do you keep track of everything?" For a brief moment Henry Cobb looked worried. "You're not from the Revenue, are you?" Being reassured that I was not, his face relaxed again and he made the common suggestion of a physical impossibility that that official might attempt, before explaining that he didn't bother to keep accounts. A lot of his business was in cash and, so long as he made enough to keep Brenda and himself, he was content to carry on that way.
The scene is somewhere near Sevenoaks in a couple of years' time; I'm outside a small greengrocer's shop. I can tell it's a greengrocer's by the sign that says, "H & B Cobb - Fruit & Veg" but the absence of any produce makes me question even that. I step inside and ask Henry Cobb, "How's business?" "Doing fine!" is the firm reply. I look around at the almost empty shelves and back to him in disbelief. "Turnover has shot through the roof!" he says, "I've got five tons of golden delicious arriving shortly. In fact," he turned to the window, where a white transit van had just pulled up, "that's them now - he told me he's got two left."
I was puzzled. That van couldn't carry five tons of anything; nor two tons for that matter. The door opened and the van driver entered, carrying a paper bag in one hand and a sack in the other. He put the bag on the counter and the sack on the floor and went out; seconds later he returned with another sack, which joined the first. "Here's the two that were left," he told the proprietor and added, pointing to the sacks, "and here's your SHIT." Unfazed by the remark, Henry told him "Thanks" and invited him to help himself to a cup of tea, "You know where it is." I wondered whether I'd heard correctly and peeked into one of the sacks. Neither was closed and each was stuffed full of little forms, neatly stapled in sets. On the top of each was the heading "Self Help In Transit".
When the driver re-appeared, mug in hand, Henry's concern was for the paper bag. "When you said you had two left, I thought you meant two hundredweight at least," he gestured to the bag, "not just two apples." He hesitated, and I could see the cogs turning. "I shall have to sell these for £15 or £20 each ... no. I'll shut the door and Brenda and I will spend the afternoon sorting this lot out. The apples will do for our lunch." He turned to me and laughed. "We call it 'shit-shovelling'" My blank look clearly demanded further explanation.
"Tom here has just been down to the lorry park. People go down there to get the produce as fresh as they can, straight from the trucks off the ferry. The buyers and the lorry drivers then fill in these chits, Tom collects them along with whatever stock they've got left and brings them to me, and the trucks spin round and get on the next ferry back to France. Two apples apart, I've got paperwork here for 5 tons of apples. We now contact the buyers to get paid for them." he smiled, "Simples!"
It might be simple to him; to me it seemed daft. I asked him how likely he was to get money on the face of these scraps of paper. "It depends. Most of the people I deal with are pretty honest, I can get about 70% out of these and that keeps me going. Some folks have a hard job to get 40 or 50%, and they suffer.
The scene changed to a lorry park just off the M20. I'd just come back with Tom to see where those SHITs had come from. As we approached the park, he'd pointed out a couple of tents with signs outside 'i-TURD' and said, "These are the cowboys ... don't trust them." We now walked up to a tidy wooden shed, with the same sign outside. Waiting to go in were pairs of mostly men, but a few women were amongst them, and I even spotted two women together. Tom explained, "The buyers go and deal with the truckers who've got what they want after they've seen the goods and reckon they're fair value. They then come here, and fill in the paperwork. They go back to the truck, the goods are exchanged for the papers - the SHIT - and the buyers go off happy.
"Then I come along, and meet the trucker who's supposed to be selling 5 tons of apples to Henry Cobb, and find he's got diddly squat left. Sometimes, like Henry was expecting, he'll have half a load, and I have to wait until I can get what's left into my van." I was beginning to see how it worked, but it all seemed very dodgy. Tom showed me what went on in the shed.
To my amazement, here was a most civilised set-up rather like the traffic offices I'd known in the past but, instead of smart computer systems, there were big ledgers and hand-written forms. I discovered that i-TURD stood for in-Transit Ultimate Receiver Delivery, which was printed on the top of the form that the truckers were completing. The buyers, the ones who would be taking goods away with them, completed a SHIT accepting receipt of the goods. The two completed forms were then taken to the desk, entered into the ledger, stamped and stapled together and given to the trucker. He then gave the goods to the buyer and kept the paperwork to pass to the courier ... Tom.
It was clearly a system that was open to misuse and fraud but, as I found out when I spoke again to Henry, it meant that goods got to the end-user quicker and in better condition that would be the case if they had to wait for the trucker to deliver them to him and him to arrange the deal with the buyer ... not to mention warehousing costs. It had grown up quickly and unofficially, but was now a recognised way of processing perishable goods. Yes, there were rogues, but they soon got their come-uppance one way or another.
"What about the tax-man?" I asked, "How do you keep track of everything?" For a brief moment Henry Cobb looked worried. "You're not from the Revenue, are you?" Being reassured that I was not, his face relaxed again and he made the common suggestion of a physical impossibility that that official might attempt, before explaining that he didn't bother to keep accounts. A lot of his business was in cash and, so long as he made enough to keep Brenda and himself, he was content to carry on that way.
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