Corporate social responsibility,
Floats on a soft breeze,
In through a high window,
To land delicately,
Bold and beautiful,
In the middle of a matrix,
Of meaningless aspirations.
Spun beyond substance,
Words betray readers,
Who do not ask questions;
And the buzzwords sit,
Meaningless on the manifest,
A lofty detraction,
From aggregated ambition.
Kjdfaskkfak’;lk’asd’kk’eq[oij-ekjfjnvpinriun24iguni2gnn24igtnitgitgtgnnitjnlfn,mv sn,dfmv i42-9irrhf-iojjrlfkwnkmdfvnmvnpefnkjernprflknlknfmdkwpn gfbuhi02bg5i1h`09i5jt9ih5ggijenj 2jnb nmv oritjgn2oij1opi
Shout louder,
Listen less;
A tribe in a bubble,
The other side can hardly hear you, you know…
Step out from within,
Away from the raucous din…
They hate you,
As much as you hate them;
And them over there,
Well, they despise you both.
Outside,
Up here;
You’ve got more in common,
Far more than you dare admit, even to yourself…
Yet you strive to demonstrate,
Differences that separate;
Shout louder,
Die with a sore throat!
The first to shut up,
Must surely win.
I been to Swanholme. More accurately I been to the Swanholme pub which isn’t in scope in this post. F15 is at the South end of Hartsholme Park which is a good place to take the kids for a run out on a Sunday afternoon.
Never been all the way round the park because it’s quite a long way round so the only view I’ve actually had of Swanholme Lakes is from the pub and the pub car park.
It’s quite a nice facility for the locals. Nice bit of nature. We are quite lucky in Lincoln with our bits of nature. After all we don’t have to go very far until we are in the countryside. Unless that is you happen to be travelling down Tritton Road in which case it’s mostly built up for a few miles.
Swanholme Lakes lie between the great artery that is Tritton Road and the sleepy commuter suburb of Doddington Park. Looked at buying a house in Doddo Park once but we ended up not doing so. We wanted to live in walking distance of Uphill Lincoln. More accurately within walking distance of the Bull and Chain, Morning Star, The Victoria, The Strugglers, oh and the shops of course.
We can always drive out to Swanholme if we want. We don’t. The kids are a lot older now and family life has moved on.
If you’re looking for birds Swanholme is the place to be. Splash. Splish. Splash.
What do you think of when you hear the words Canwick Pits? Crap innit? Canwick, it’s the pits. It’s not really. The pits are a quarry where much of the stone used in walls around the very ancient village of Canwick was sourced.
Lots of history to Can wick. That’s the cool way to pronounce it by the way. Can – wick – two separate words. The first people to roam Canwick were hunters and gatherers in the Mesolithic period approximately 8500-5300BC. The first settlers arrived in the Neolithic period, approximately between 4500 – 7000 years ago, and then a more structured settlement came here in the Bronze Age, with a Barrow cemetery near the river Witham. I got that historical bit from the internet. Google it. It’s not my own original work. Plagiarised though not in a bad way. I’ve added value to the original copy.
I’m not going to go into any more detail either. There is a lot to read. It’s been around a long time and that is all we need to know for the purpose of this discourse.
I’ve not actually visited the pits at Canwick. Not even sure you can, though it might be one of those “former” quarries where people can walk the dog or ride mountain bikes or just go for a bit of a walk. Usually there is a lot of interesting wildlife to observe – fauna and flora. I’m thinking rabbits and butterflies with the occasional bird flitting by. Then a few flowers in the long grass.
Possibly it is a place where lovers go. Somewhere for a discrete cuddle away from the prying eyes of nosy villagers, curtain twitchers and tongue reporters. Telephone calls made expressly for the purpose of spreading the news. The same people see their husbands out on the drive on a Sunday morning, polishing the car, nipping down to the newsagent for a copy of the Mail on Sunday, maybe.
Gah. I get my stone from B&Q. That isn’t really true. I don’t buy stone. I got a barbecue from there recently but now I’m straying off the subject.
R14 – Canwick Pits. You know it makes sense.
In K19 the River Witham should not be confused with the North Hykeham Pump Drain which whilst being also filled with water is not the same. The Witham is of course a natural feature of the landscape whilst the drain is not.
The Witham will quite probably contain fish though not to my knowledge, salmon. The drain may also contain fish but it is less likely to do so than the river. In any event you should take care when out walking with small children that the youngsters keep well away from the edge of the water. It can be very dangerous especially after a period of heavy rainfall. The banks can get slippery.
I mentioned salmon because I quite like salmon sandwiches. Either smoked or poached with a bit of cuke and mayonnaise. Brown bread not white and butter not margarine. You should eat a variety of sandwich fillings in order to provide a varied diet. Just salmon every day would get a bit boring and you might find yourself short of a specific vitamin. This is guesswork.
I am somewhat digressing here. Artistic license. I did look online to see what information I could find about the drain. I was hoping to find the date where it was cut/invented (delete as appropriate). I couldn’t. At least on the first two pages of Google and I wasn’t desperate enough for the information to look any further.
So that’s it. Not a particularly enlightening article but it’s all you’re getting. Ciao.
We are in the last few days of summer. Goodness gracious me an Indian summer. This isn’t summer in its death throws. It’s going to be a hot languid day with movement kept to a minimum but we know thanks to the experts at the met office that Autumn is about to come crashing down on us like an anvil falling through the floor above.
Nothing quite that dramatic really but tomorrow it will be cooler and it will rain. Tonight Hannah is having a barbeque with her mates. Good timing. Likely to be the last one of the summer season at least.
My train is speeding south and it looks like the harvest is in. The fields are stubble and straw bales. There is a haze. The haze that heralds a hot day ahead. The nation awaits in anticipation.
The god forsaken railway line. Choose any one. They aren’t built for luxury. Back of the tenement, cement works, coal depot. No mobile signal. The long gaps in productivity a distraction. For productivity read connectivity. Don’t get me wrong. I like the fields. The countryside races by. Hares, deer even. Get up cows. Whadda you know!? Trees and hedgerows blurr. Warehouses clad in unattractive light grey. Golf course. Don‘t ask me where. Annoying private conversation spoken to all. Irritating sounds coming from someone’s mobile phone. I wonder what’s in that field. Cabbages? The harvest is under way. Hay. I hope he is getting off before me. Wondering whether to ask him to turn the sound off. This train is for Stanstead Airport. I’m not going all the way. Leicester. Fwiw. Was easier to drive to Leicester and catch a single direct train to Birmingham than to get a train to Newark, bus from Newark to East Midlands Parkway, train to Derby then one more connection to Brum. Either Brum is difficult to get to or Lincoln is. The bloke is overweight and has greasy hair. My dislike for him wasn’t instant. It has grown. Proportional to the length of time he has been in the same compartment. It isn’t that I don’t like train journeys. Far easier than going by car. There is standing room only in Standard Class. Popular line.
Today I had the first sense that summer is coming to an end. This morning there was a slight edge to the air when I went swimming at around 6.45am. This evening I put a fleece on to go out and do the barbecue.
It’s been a great summer. Probably one of the best. Great weather-wise and great family-wise. Hannah and I had a few days in Barcelona early on in the summer. Then the whole clan had a few days in North Wales followed by a week in the Isle of Man.
Everything seems to have gone right this summer. The weather, the sport – our Andy won Wimbledon and we beat the Aussies at cricket. Now as summer winds slowly down I have bought tickets to see Wales v South Africa in November. It is going to be a good autumn.
The house has been particularly noisy tonight. The three remaining kids were loud at dinner but then moved to the conservatory to play music – Hannah on flute, Joe on piano and John on sax. I sat on the settee listening, smiling.
Now all is quiet. Two of the kids are sat on the pew in the kitchen, reading quietly. Anne is watching TV. John has just wandered in with the iPad watching some instructional video! Sounds like he is learning how to build a bar! Okay, fine J
Not sure he totally appreciates the scope of the job though. I quite like the idea of having a bar in the house but you need to have lots of space. The bar should either be out near the pool or in the snooker room. We have neither. We have a pool table on the landing! I also like the idea of having a hot tub. We have space for one – provided we got rid of the play house which nowadays is only used to store garden furniture.
The problem is that we wouldn’t really use a hot tub. The idea is great but in practice it would become a very expensive pond with a cover over it that no one actually uses. Of course we could have Jacuzzi parties but we only have parties once or twice a year and not everyone could fit in.
It’s totally dark out now. Twenty to nine. The nights are drawing in. I don’t mind. Like I said it’s been a good summer and nature is quite kind to us in easing us into winter. Autumn is a rather gentle side.
I’m going to pour myself another brandy…
The eagle eyed will spot these as some of America’s best hopvarietals, though there is an obvious contender missing from this splendid lineup. I’ll save you the googling, it’s “Cascade”.
Hops, those luscious vines of alpha and beta acids and sticky resins, are much line grape vines. We can’t grow what we like, where we like – it’s soil, weather, conditions and husbandry… our hop growers need to learn to grow world class hops (again?), or to quote Stinger from Top Gun
You need to be doing it better, and cleaner than the other guy.
The National Hop Association is waving the flag, I’ve met some great hop farmers, and things are looking good.
But please, don’t just try to plant what’s selling to the hop-heads right now, grown what grows, and grow it well.
Giles was keen to know, and the rest of us certainly were interested…
Do we know what’s going on here?
Someone else had spotted it, but kindly remarked
I know, I saw that. I think that was the pressure jet, but pollution will sort it out.
Turns out
He thought he was being helpful by jetting away the debris that had accumulated.
All is well now, but we still wonder…
But is it art?
My Dear Mrs Davies Anne,
Word has made it through the ecclesiastical grapevine that you are celebrating 25 years of being married to your husband Tref. I realise that you are not of the Catholic persuasion but I felt compelled to write to you on this, your very special occasion, to share with you some important news.
Familiar as we all are with Tref the realisation that you have stuck with him for so long took us all by surprise. To say that we were astonished is to greatly understate the reaction of everyone here at the Vatican City.
The purpose of this communication is not to ask why you have performed this amazing feat of endurance. It is a well known fact that love empowers and motivates people to perform feats beyond the ken of ordinary men and women.
We, and when I say we I include all the staff here in Rome (not a single dissenting Cardinal voice) wanted to let you know of our admiration for what you have achieved. You should know that most of us lock ourselves away in solitude and inner contemplation for many years in an attempt to attain the state of spiritual serenity that you have managed despite spending 25 years with the bloke and bringing up four intensely demanding children.
Not a generally publicised fact is that over the two millennia of development of the Catholic regime we now have well established methods of quantifying achievements such as yours.
Before I go further you need to understand the basic tenets of our achievement system. In our game growing levels of serenity are achieved by the chanting of a Hail Mary. One million Hail Marys gets you a Cardinalship. To be a Pope needs at least five million. Anyone hitting the 10 million mark is considered to have done enough to achieve sainthood. It’s pretty impossible for ordinary people to attain this level.
I don’t need to tell you that even the Cardinalship is a bit of an ask. Some people spend a lifetime saying Hail Marys and never get there. For most it is simply beyond their reach.
Where is all this going I hear you ask and well you might. The fact is that the physical act of putting up with Tref for so long has been assessed as being the equivalent of having to say a penance of 1,000 Hail Marys for every day you have been together.
A quick back of a bible calculation suggests that 25 years, which is 9,125 days give or take a leap year at 1,000 Hair Marys a day comes up well over 9 million Hail Marys. Ordinarily that would immediately fast track you through a Cardinalcy to an instant Papacy.
Now there are two problems here. One is that there is already somebody in the job, ie me. If this were the only obstacle it would be remiss of me if I weren’t to tell you that this is not an insurmountable problem. There are ways around it as was shown with my own appointment.
However the fact that you are a woman is the killer. I’m afraid that the Papacy, for a complex web of reasons which I don’t propose to discuss, is very much a case of jobs for the boys.
This isn’t to say that we don’t think we shouldn’t do something. We, my dear Anne, have been sufficiently impressed with you that we wanted to make a positive show of support.
We have revisited your case and are able to increase your tally of Hail Marys based on a number of fiddle factors. Firstly our initial estimate of 9 million one hundred and twenty five thousand Hail Marys can be raised by the use of alternative Papal calendars that need no clear definition or clarification for the purposes of these calculations. Then we are able to add an escalation factor based on the fact that you had four kids (are you sure you aren’t a catholic?).
One disingenuous individual did suggest that strictly speaking all this should be offset by the fact that you lived with Tref before getting married which comes with negative Hail Marys. This person has now been posted to a Parish on a desert island somewhere off the coast of South Georgia (I will not go back on this – it’s a tough job being a Pope – you make a decision, you stick with it).
Anyway to cut a long story short, and recognising that I am going on a bit here, we have come up with a revised Hail Mary count that takes us well North of the 10 million mark and Mrs Davies bach Anne we all know what that means don’t we?
Anne, I have been authorised by the Vatican boys to make you an offer that I think you won’t be able to refuse. Anne we would like you to accept a sainthood.
If you would like to take us up on this offer please complete the enclosed form and return in the envelope supplied. You will need to put a stamp on it (times are hard).
This offer comes with an associated package of benefits. You will receive your own saints day together with a shrine, location to be confirmed but the suggestion has been made that it will be at the location of your ironing board. You will also need to decide on an activity that will be performed on your saint’s day. Initial opinion is that this should involve mothers and wives everywhere spending the day being pampered at a spa.
So that’s it. I hope that you will take us up on our offer. It will involve conversion to the Catholic church but I assume that this will not be a problem – it certainly won’t be from our end (wink wink).
All the best and have a great celebration.
Yours in expectation
The Pope.
Classified ads.
Berth wanted
Aspiring world traveller would like berth in boat headed for exotic shores. Adventure welcome. Prefers to avoid pirates.
A few clarifications will be useful here. Skegness does not count as an exotic shore. Neither does Clacton on Sea or other UK coastal resorts. We are after excitement and romance. Palm trees, marlin, golden white beaches. A schooner gradually edges over the horizon.
As land approaches music comes from the brightly lit bars lining the harbour. The smell of barbecued fish carries on the warm evening breeze. The boat ties up outside Joe’s Bar and Barbecue Grill. The sign is painted on a piece of driftwood plank nailed to the outside of the bar. It is still early so we manage to get a table looking out on the water. A candle in a glass jar flicks light across our faces. Inside, saxophone and piano snare.
Joe’s is a regular stop off for seaborne journeymen. Where wandering people meet. Every island has one.
His daughter Maisie welcomes us back with her wide smile and without asking brings us four cold ones. The beer revives. A week at sea builds up a thirst.
We eat chicken and crab with our fingers. Our bellies extend. Lean back, eyes closed, sounding satisfaction. I can feel it.
With a bang, Joe slaps four glasses of rum on the table. “C’mon boys, you can’t go to sleep yet. It’s early and we have a party.” We move to the bar and empty the rum. Plenty of ice. The evening is still warm. The ice is needed. Our faces glow and eventually, as the evening dies down, we fall back onto the boat and our bunks. Sleep of the just.
You have to dream. Have ambition. There is no other point.
Normally on the boat we wake up with the light. Not this day. After the exertions of the week at sea, last night finished us off. We wake around lunchtime. It’s getting hot again. Jump over the side of the boat into the harbour and climb back up the iron ladder onto the quay.
Dripping faces lifted to the sun. Smile. Maisie shouts. “Breakfast boys?” Maisie knows her customers. We settle in to our usual table. Hot strong coffee and bacon rolls. Revive. Talk about nothing. Nothing goes on here. The best way. Healthy tanned bodies. Sun bleach hair. Ropes groan in the swell. Barefeet.
At the local market we buy an old treasure map. There is an X. The journey continues. White sails take us back out to sea and the compass is set for Half Moon Island. Anchored outside the reef our tender takes us towards the beach. Angelfish fill the lagoon. Deserted white sands. We drag the boat up to the treeline.
From the hill you can see for ever. Once through the vegetation. There is no treasure but it is all about the adventure. The tender is still there and we are not chased by natives. Outside the reef we catch a tuna. Big fish. We shall not go hungry on this trip. There is no rush. No compelling reason to be anywhere. Slow pulse.
The sun sets another time.
3rd Law Part 61 here
I was going to do a section of writing using just speech to text. I once did this on twitter and it came up with a wonderfully creative random set of words that bore scant relation to the original spoken version. This would be a nice imaginative bit of pseudo creative writing I thought. Unfortunately Android’s voice recognition is getting so good that everything I just spoke as a test sentence came out perfectly.
So now you, the reader, have no idea whether I’ve dictated these words or merely typed them in in the old fashioned way. I am happy to come clean and admit to having used both hands and several fingers. None of this one finger prod stuff. Lightning across the keyboard, I’ll have you know although I am prone to spelling the as hte and their as hteir. Means I keep having to go back and correct it. You won’t be able to see all this backroom spelling correction because it happens before publication. I’m a pro.
The absence of a voice to text engine in Microsoft Word does mean however that anything you read that might make you think to yourself, “wow that was an imaginative bit of prose” or “gosh how did he manage to think of that” is all 100% genuine Tref. Aw shucks. Course your response might be more along the lines of “how does he come up with this drivel” which I can completely understand. I don’t know where I get it from meself.
When I was a kid I used to read all the Enid Blyton books. Famous Five, Secret Seven etc. I foolishly gave them all away and so when I had kids of my own I began to buy them second hand. Unfortunately what was an exciting read in the late 1960s for a nine year old with a thirst for books and adventure proved to be a load of dated twaddle for a thirty something parent looking to relive his childhood through his own kids. So drivel written in pursuit of the proof of the 3rd Law of the Internet may well have originated in children’s novels of the 1950s and 60s.
For the uninitiated the heroes of Enid Blyton’s novels all went to boarding school and came home for terrific adventures during the holidays. Cook used to make picnics of jam tarts and ginger beer which were jolly yummy. This was far removed from my own experiences growing up in wales but my imagination was fired by secret passages, smugglers and spies.
Kids these days need the constant high tech stimulation of MMORPG. If you don’t know what it means Google it. To kill or be killed. Far more realistic than the prospect of One Eyed Jake tying up the pesky kids with rope before making a getaway with the loot. Fortunately Timmy the dog knows how to untie knots using his teeth. Good old Timmy. Get him a bowl of Pedigree Chum.
Whilst I like the idea of having a dog I am not attracted by the thought of actually having to look after the thing or the fact that your house will be constantly covered in dog hairs. Good for scaring off the burglars though unless you happened to have taken him out on a picnic. You have a burglar alarm don’t you? Then why not use it and let the dog have a bit of a run out. It’ll do him good after being cooped up all day whilst you do extra cramming with your tutor. Bummer when it’s the holidays I know but hey. You should have or more effort in during term time or not gone down with the measles and had to be sent home to quarantine or some similar plot. You will have to read the books to find out more. I wouldn’t though if I were you. As I said, drivel.
The funny thing is that whilst I no longer view an Enid Blyton novel as realistic I totally buy into Harry Potter as credible. Of course Harry Potter must be real. It’s obvious isn’t it. Doh. I wonder where I can get hold of a wand? Does Olivander have a branch around here?
You may have noticed on a number of occasions during your saunter through the third law that it is assumed that you are a supremely knowledgeable individual. No attempt is made to explain obscure references. I assume, for example that you are totally au fait with all things Harry Potter. In the quite likely event that the third law is translated into multiple foreign languages one will also have to assume that this is will be similarly true of HP. Culturally specific references may cause problems but no doubt there will be fan clubs, fora and Facebook pages dedicated to the exploration of the third law. Esoteric passages will be discussed to the Nth degree.
Don’t ask me why they chose N. Could just have well have been H or Q. Mind you Hth degree doesn’t sound quite right and Qth makes you sound as if you have a speech defect. Maybe someone went through all the letters and decided that Nth sounded best. Try it for yourselves: Ath Bth Cth Dth Eth Fth Gth Hth Ith Jth Kth Lth Mth Nth Oth Pth Qth Rth Sth Tth Uth Vth Wth Xth Yth Zth. See what I mean?
I would have been different had they chose the alphabet of a different language. Welsh for example has 32 letters in it including some double ones: LL, CH, DD, FF, NG, PH, RH and TH. Imagine using LLth or FFth. Would be quite funny mind you.
We all like a good laugh don’t we? Let off a bit of steam every now and again. Choo choo.
3rd Law Part 60 here
3rd law Part 62 here
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