Countdown

Posted on May 17, 2014 by cliverh

And no I don’t mean the Channel 4 programme, I mean that next Thursday 22nd May is the start of the countdown in earnest for the next general election.

Next Thursday the UK vote for their new MEP or Member of the European Parliament which is to me an anachronism in that they don’t actually legislate anything, that’s all done by ‘Brussels Edict’. So who is YOUR MEP? Don’t know? I’d be worried if you did because that would mean you are a keen follower of all things politically European. It’s estimated that MEPs are known to less than 5% of the population, mind you having said that many people don’t even know who their MP or Member if Parliament is and more to the point don’t care. The political parties should forget preaching to the converted, i.e. those, mostly older voters who are set in their ways and will never vote anything other than the same way that they have for up to  fifty years. No, the party political broadcasts need to aim their sights lower, but not in the intellectual sense, but in the age sense. New and recently qualified voters don’t, in the main, have a clue who they want to vote for. Normally it would be the party who would  directly affect their lives. This can be a North/South divide where working class areas, although I hate that expression, in the North vote labour and middle class voters (a term equally hated by me) in the south vote Tory or heaven forbid Liberal. So what do they do? Well I wouldn’t want their job for anything, trying to persuade mostly younger people to vote for them; most of these new voters, especially if they are disenfranchised or on job seekers allowance or other benefits would see  Labour as their benefactor, because they promise, occasionally, extreme riches for being unemployed and/or unemployable. I know I would vote for them if I was being promised a good standard of living for doing nothing. The coalition on the other hand and more especially the Tory Chancellor has had to make to tough decisions to claw back the mess the previous government left us in. We are at last on the up, slightly, but at what cost to the job seekers and those on benefits? They’ve been hit hard, but during the period of the last government they did rather well, while the rest of us toiled to provide them with unearned income. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no oppressor of the underprivileged, but the country couldn’t have gone on like it did, even though better-off folk have appeared to do all right as well. It’s a fine line, and I think the current opposition couldn’t really argue about the measures that had to be taken, and they have been remarkably quiet about it. So next May will be very interesting and could well result in another hung parliament, with maybe Labour and the Lib Dems getting into bed with one another, and completely screwing up the country with their largeese. Now I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, although I might have been once and I’m not a sycophantic supporter of them, but in the main I think they do a good job and will continue to do so in they win in May 2015. The only trouble is they won’t do well at the European and possible the local council elections, because any party in power traditionally don’t do so well mid term.  We’ll see.

Well you couldn’t expect me to pass up the opportunity to comment on the weather, so I won’t. At last some decent sunshine and higher temperatures. When will the first hosepipe ban be announced? So back to the government; it appears that Parliament is to close early because it has ‘run out of legislation’ to debate. Can’t see anything wrong with that especially if it means saving expenses and MPs costs. So what do we need political government for? We have governance, i.e. the machinations of running the country remain in place, but with out political interference does having Parliament make any difference? Well, Belgium went without a working government for 14 months and no-one seemed to notice. So the point I was trying to make is that is this country, or any other come to that, run purely on the whim of a few people who make the decisions blindly followed by the rest? Do we actually need politicians? Can we run the country in the best possible way, without politically biased decisions? The jury may be out for a long time, but consider this: government is not held to account for anything. Witness the Chilcot report, which was raised to investigate the Iraq war and the governments involvement in it at the time. Why has Chilcot not been published? Allegedly because private messages between Blair and Bush have been suppressed because Bush wanted revenge for 9/11 and thought wrongly (or ill- advised) that Iraq was to blame for the planes that crashed into the twin towers. So on the pretext of Weapons of Mass Destruction being stored in Iraq, later disproved, Bush got Blair’s backing to invade Iraq, because Saddam invaded Kuwait. This shouldn’t have been a basis to interfere so why did we, resulting in the death of 179 British servicemen and women during the conflict besides the hundreds injured and maimed. Similar invasions by neighbours haven’t resulted in interference by US and NATO forces so why did the Iraq war ensue? Bush and Blair need to be bought to book to answer the questions probably posed by Chilcot, but until his report is published we’ll never know. Apparently the PM wants the report published ‘by the end of the year’, but in any case before the general election mainly because when the truth comes out it will ruin Labours chance of winning in 2015.

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Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Posted on May 5, 2014 by cliverh

Saturday 3rd May – Bournemouth International Centre

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It was a privilege and a pleasure to witness the first time Rick Wakeman had performed ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ on tour since 1974. There were only 14 dates and I was lucky enough to get tickets for Saturday night in Bournemouth. We had been to the BIC on previous occasions to see The Monkees and Madness, but on this occasion we decided to make a weekend of it and booked to stay the night in The Heathlands, a hotel we have used on many previous occasions including formal occasions. But we were disappointed when we checked in this time: the place looked tired and in need of refurbishment, our TV didn’t work very well, the shower was weak and the radiators were belting out heat and couldn’t be turned off. So no recommendation from me for that one. The only advantage was guests could park there for £3 overnight, which was considerably cheaper than the parking meters nearby even though it was a 20 minute walk to the town centre, which was another advantage. Anyway we didn’t spend much time in the hotel, we went into town for a bit of shopping, then a meal at Waggmama a Japanese fast food chain. Then walked back, changed and walked back to the BIC.

Rick appeared at 8 o’clock, dead on time and regaled us with tales about getting ‘Journey’ recorded and sold. I won’t bore you with details here, go to Rick Wakeman’s website

Suffice it to say he had help from Cat Stevens, David Bowie, his father and Edvard Grieg. You had to be there. There was a break, which showed the average of the audience in the ‘shock-horror’, yes a queue for the gents; a phenomena normally unheard of. The ladies had no queue and you could sense each one smirking as they came out of their loo and spotted the gents queue. Anyway that little diversion over it was back to the main course. ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ was performed without a break, with a symphony orchestra and the English Chamber Choir, the female singer from Strictly Come Dancing and a male vocalist whose name I didn’t catch.

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It was a tour de force with Wakeman playing (he says) 30 keyboards, the actor Philip Franks (Darling Buds of May, Heartbeat) doing the narration and all the musicians giving their considerable all. There was no flashy, annoying light show, but there were lights under Rick’s main Roland keyboards which changed colour attractively. The sound was fantastic except on occasions the ‘rock band’ element drowned out the strings and the choir. This didn’t detract from the overall effect though and it was a fantastic enjoyable journey.

We walked back to the hotel and found the bar closed at 11 o’clock! Never mind at least we brought our own drink with us to have a nightcap. The next day we went back into town to look around, and with lovely weather it was quite busy. We left to go home in the mid-afternoon and had an uneventful journey home. A lovely 24 hour mini break.

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Airman’s Cross

Posted on May 2, 2014 by cliverh

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the rededication of the ‘Airmen’s Cross’ which was located at a junction of minor roads near Larkhill in Wiltshire, adjacent to the Stonehenge World Heritage site.

The invitation came from the Officer Commanding 3(Fighter) Squadron based at Royal Air Force Coningsby (also home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight), who had been invited to attend the rededication with a standard party and to include a fly over by a Typhoon aircraft operated by the squadron. This was a rare privilege and was accepted by me as Chairman of the squadron’s comrades Association and I invited Vic Lorriman along who has investigated the history of the early days of the squadron.

On 5th July 1912, Captain Eustace Laraine and Staff Sgt Richard Wilson were flying in their Nieuport monoplane having taken off from Larkhill air station, when the pilot executed a steep turn and crashed killing both crew. The crash site is adjacent to the new visitor centre at Stonehenge:

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This picture shows the site after the crash, showing a tent covering the crash area, with figures from modern day and the new background superimposed:

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Just a year later a memorial cross was erected by their colleagues. They were the first military aviation casualties in the UK. The cross remained at the junction of the B3086 and The Packway for 80 years and was rededicated in 1996 by members of the 3(Fighter) Squadron Association, including the founder and Chairman Alan East, the Association’s historian Jack Long, both now sadly no longer with us, the aforementioned Vic Lorriman and Air Vice Marshal Barry Newton. Barry was dismayed at the state of the cross which had been neglected and left unloved for all that time, so he set about a near 20 year journey to get the Cross relocated and refurbished. The trouble is no-one; English Heritage, the local council, Wiltshire County Council or the RAF could lay claim to ‘own’ the cross. After a huge battle, and luckily with the decision to build a new heritage centre for Stonehenge, Barry got the permission to move the Airmen’s Cross to its new permanent location. During the building of the new roundabout and the access road to the new car park for the visitor centre, the Cross was taken away, cleaned and stored by a local army unit. It was re-erected just off the main pathway leading to the entrance to the visitor centre:

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And so it was that the 1st May 2014 was to be the official unveiling and rededication of the Airmen’s Cross which was undertaken by the Earl and Countess of Wessex (Prince Edward and Sophie) who attended with local dignitaries including the Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire Mrs Sarah Troughton and Lord Trenchard, grandson of the ‘father’ of the RAF.

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Unfortunately it rained heavily all day but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the assembled people.

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There was also a double fly past by a Typhoon from 3(F) Sqn:

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Afterwards there was a chance to mingle with the organisers and the Royals in attendance. English Heritage (EH)were the main players as they run Stonehenge. Also in attendance was the volunteers from the local National Trust who carry out tours of the local area and are experts in local military history. EH provided a light buffet lunch and coffee etc which we were able to take advantage of. I was lucky enough to be in the line up to meet Prince Edward and we chatted about the squadron and the link to the Airmen’s Cross. I found him a delight to talk to and was very well informed. English Heritage had given us all badges for the event so we could visit the exhibition, which I did, and the stones, which I didn’t.

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The royals departed and lunch consumed, the party started to break up; email addresses exchanged and promises of ‘see you soon’. Vic and I had a quick look round the exhibition, which is stunning, but we both decided it was too wet to visit the stones. Besides, we’re both coming back again this year, so perhaps next time the weather will be kinder. It was a great day for a worthwhile occasion and one which shall be remembered for some time to come.

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Advertising?

Posted on Apr 21, 2014 by cliverh

At what point does advertising in its many forms become counter-productive?

Over the past week or so ITV have been advertising a programme due to be aired on Easter Monday at the prime time of 9.00pm. I’m not interested in saying what the programme is, the point is that it was advertised at every advertising break (that is every half hour) by playing the same couple of clips over and over. I suspect that these clips are the best bits of the programme, but having seen them probably 20-30 times, I am actually less inclined to watch it for real. So the question has to be asked: why do they do that? It’s not an isolated incident, all TV channels use the same device. I suppose the reasoning is that, things like this have to be advertised otherwise people won’t know they’re on. Fair comment, but anyone who watches any of ITVs output will have had the advert shoved down their necks to distraction. The next programme to be overexposed in the advertising stakes is the one that’s on Monday next at 9.00pm, and again that will be shoved out at every advertising break. I’m sorry but am I being thick or oversensitive? No don’t think so, I accept that goods and programmes have to be advertised, but there comes a point when its ineffective. In my case it worked well because I had no intention of watching the damn programme and decided on Jamaica Inn instead on BBC1, which wasn’t anywhere as near advertised as much as the ITV one. Slight rant over.

On which point whenever I write a blog or make a pointed comment on someone’s Facebook page, I’m accused of having an ‘old gits’ rant. The dictionary definition of rant is: ‘To speak or write in an angry or violent manner’. I can profess to being neither angry or violent in my writing or in life in general. I just like to point out, sometimes I know stating the bleeding obvious, life’s foilbles and inequities. Is it just me?  Don’t think so. Have a read of Richard Littlejohn or Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail, now they ARE ranting and pointing out the same things as I do, BUT they get paid for it. No these observations of mine aren’t rants unless you want to label them as such, I just like to make a stand about things that I find unfair or stupid. So please don’t say I rant, because I don’t, so there!

Are countries in the far east getting a raw deal at the moment? First it was MH370 being lost and still being searched for, now its the Sewol ferry which unexplainably sank with many lives lost. That’s two large scale accidents which cannot be ignored. The Malaysian flight will probably be found, but is there any point in trying to recover anything other than the flight recorder or CVR (cockpit voice recorder)? After all this time there won’t be much left of the victims, best let them have the same fate as the Titantic which is not as deep as the aircraft in the Indian Ocean. It took two years to find the Air France flight that dived into the Atlantic in 2009, so I don’t hold out much hope for MH370. Beside anything lives could be put at risk looking for an object which won’t just be lying on the ocean floor, it will attached to a part of the airframe. Perhaps we’ll never will find out what happened to it, maybe the North Koreans bought bought it down, they could even have sunk the Sewol, who knows how their minds work? I feel so sorry for all those young lives lost in the ferry disaster and think back to the UK’s similar accident many years ago in the English channel when a ferry sank because the car deck doors may have been left open. Things happen. The movement of millions of people takes place in all forms of transport every day, yet thankfully most journeys end safely, but who knows if your journey will end badly? No-one can say for certain, even a short trip in the car to the shops could end in a tragedy, you never know. I remember an incident last year when a young mum and her daughter were waiting at a bus stop when they were mown down by a speeding drunk driver and killed. Just standing at a bus stop! How random is that? Perhaps we take the ease of transport too much for granted, after all a one ton car going at 30mph is a lethal weapon, but you wouldn’t think so seeing the way some are driven. Back to the Malaysian/S. Korean accidents, a faint hope but let’s pray nothing else like that happens.

By the way, today 23rd April is St Georges day. Not celebrated in England despite it being the countries’ patron saint. We embrace St Patrick though most of us aren’t Irish, March 1st is hugely touted as the celebration of St David, and St Andrew is shoved down our necks in November, but St George? No couldn’t have that; too altruistic, too parochial, too jingoistic. But celebrate it, have a public holiday? The juries still out. Enjoy the day anyway.

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A Full Weekend

Posted on Apr 13, 2014 by cliverh

An interesting and very full weekend (so far).

Friday night we had tickets booked to see another amateur dramatic (am dram) production (having seen daughters group Hook Players last Friday do ‘We’ll always have Paris’), at the Players Elstead Theatrical Society or PETS or Elstead near Farnham am dram group’s production of Where’s There’s A Will by Ian Hornby. To compare and contrast the two am dram groups would be insensitive, or maybe not, so here goes: sorry but ‘Paris’ wins hands down. Let me compare; PETS, timing and pacing was a bit slow, and the prompt was well used. In Hook, there was only two prompts I heard, but the pace and cross talk was much sharper and quicker. PETS had a good set, with one glaring error, while Hooks set was nigh on perfect. However to be fair, anyone who spends as much time as am dram groups do in preparing, rehearsing and performing a production has my admiration. For I have been there and know what commitment is needed, and its a lot. So all the effort might not produce vast profits for the company, but that’s not the point, its amateur for a reason. I implore you to get out and support your local am dram group, it’s much better than what’s on the idiots lantern, and it doesn’t cost a fortune to see it. Make no mistake any actor loves to play to an audience and the bigger, the better. Go see a play!

The 2nd event was today, the final day of the season for my local rugby club Farnham Rugby Union Football Club, which plays at the newly built ground and stadium in Wilkinson Way, Farnham. They were already London 3 South West Champions for this season and the opposition today, Old Mid-Whitgiftians are eight places below Farnham. The result didn’t matter as promotion was already assured, but in the event Farnham ran out winners 66-0. The whole event was celebrated though with a lunch on Friday in a specially hired marquee, attended by over 300 people. Speeches were given, prizes handed out and a good time was had by all, including some late night activity in local hostelries, some of it with no morning-after knowledge of the events or journey the previous evening by the participants. Perhaps this would explain the reason Farnham got off to it’s more than usually slow start against Old Mid-Whitgiftians. They made up for it in the end in front of the carnivally enhanced crowd at Wilkinson Way for the 1st XV match and ran out deserved winners. Prior to that there were exhibition matches for minis, under 12s and so on. I suspect there was after match proceedings to exceed the previous nights festivities, judging by the way the bubbly was being swigged at the end of the match. Well done Farnham and good luck next season in London 2 South West, I’ll be there to support!

The third event had been arranged some time ago as a birthday treat for me, by my wife, and was a murder mystery night. If any of you have ever been to one of these, you know what to expect. Basically a ‘murder’ is committed, sometime during the evening. In our case there were five actors mingling with the diners (a three course meal was part of the deal), and answering questions from them in response to the outline of the evening in the flyer handed out at the start. At intervals two of the actors, two men and three women would stand in full view ( and full voice) of the audience and have a discussion (or argument) relevant to the plot. The whole room goes silent for these playlets and then the conversation caries on. The audience discuss their theories, eight to a circular table, in our case no one knew the others, and try to work who’s doing what to whom, before the ‘murder’ takes place and then each table discuss and decide who the killer is and the motive and method. There were 9 tables and in turn each actor sits at each table and talks to the diners, who ask questions and interrogate the actors in their characters. Its all great fun, and the meantime you get to know your fellow table guests, and chat generally to them as well as talking about the case. Its all very cerebral, and finally the ‘killer’ is revealed and the winning table gets a prize in this case some bottles of wine, and we all get an explanation sheet, laying out the whole story. The actors were excellent, the fellow table guests were engaging and friendly; all in all an excellent evening.

Just to finish, watching the repeat of Britain’s Got Talent, it struck me that out of the first 10 acts, 8 weren’t British. Have we no talent left in Britain, or is it that those that have any wouldn’t touch this crappy programme within a mile. Discuss?

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Where’s the year gone?

Posted on Apr 9, 2014 by cliverh

100 days old, and the year is nearly a quarter gone. Yes I know I’ve said it before, time flies, but no more so than when you get older because you’ve got less time left to enjoy it.

Time causes procrastination and putting things on the back burner. Just over a year ago I had a spurt of writing inspiration and dashed off 13,000 words for the start of a novel, intending it to be a series. I fiddled with it for several months and then, full of confidence, entered the story in a novel writing competition with a £50,000 first prize and guaranteed publication. The rejection arrived at the end of March, and I sort of gave up. This blog hasn’t been graced by my presence much recently either and all this lack of activity got me thinking about life a bit deeper. So all the effort writing and editing and pushing for publication of anything is, in the end, totally meaningless, unless you’re Shakespeare or Dickens. Their body of work is still read and admired 400 and 150 years respectively later. The rest, with a few exceptions including this august tome, will be forgotten and lost in the annals of time in a very short space of time. Archive film footage and news publications of yesterday are only looked at out of nostalgia or research. Not many bodies of work are held in high esteem and referred to many years after publication or death of the author. The ones that immediately come to mind are Winston Churchill’s ‘History of the English Speaking Peoples’, or Dr Jacob Brownowski’s ‘Assent of Man’. OK you could argue there are loads more serious books that could be included in this list, but its my list and I decide what’s in it, so there.

The point I’m trying to make is don’t put it off. ‘It’ can be anything. In my case its the aforementioned novel, but includes a TV play and getting a paid gig playing my guitar and singing. What some of you may not realise is that I’ve written a few tunes, some with words written by someone else and some I’ve penned myself. Just search Clive Handy on YouTube, there’s a few recorded items on that. It wasn’t until I stopped working that I realised I could devote more time to this stuff, but in actual fact I end up spending less time on each: go figure. So why is this? Well its down to the old saw, works expands in the time available to do it. In other words why rush? There’s nothing to be gained in finishing things quickly: you’ve only got to find something else to do in the time you’ve saved. Not that I’m trying to fill slack spaces of time, there’s always something to do. My old mate Dick Chadwick puts it well: today I are mostly drinking beer and looking into the wind. Why? Because he can, that’s why. There are people who think its an absolute sin to be bone idle for a few hours. Not so. Sitting at lunch time having a bowl of soup and watching ‘Doctors’ could be considered by some to be wasting your time sat in front of the one eyed god. No so, its down time and we all need it, whether you have a high powered executive job or retired. Nobody can be on the go all the time, its physically impossible.

Anyway back to the written and spoken word. Wouldn’t it have been great for Shakespeare or even Dickens to have had video in their day? We could have seen and heard what they sounded like. That would have been something. Like most great writers Dickens had doubts about his work and serialised a lot of it in weekly magazines. That’s incredible when you think of the JK Rawlings and Dan Browns of today. Many of today’s writers target their exquisite tomes purely towards the angle of being turned into a film. To my mind that must be one of the most satisfying things that could happen with anyone who writes original stories and scripts. The thrill of seeing your words and actions being portrayed on a screen must be the highest. Given that, it amazes me that some of the movies being made are total copies of previous releases. Not much originality there then. Yet, you see something like ‘Silk’ or ‘Law and Order’ on TV both of which are original, well written and well acted, and you wonder why the movie industry find it so difficult to find funny, original scripts to turn into a film whereas some of the crap films that ARE released makes you wonder how they ever got to that stage. Quid Pro Quo as they said before Forsprung Durch Technique, whatever that means. I’m brimming with ideas for story ideas but where’s my outlet? How do get I started, to be honest I can’t be bothered, the same old hackneyed rubbish would be pedalled out, and the TV moguls will jump on it as ‘fodder for the masses’, like a syrupy placebo to calm the great unwashed. But so long as there are people like Peter Moffat and his team and the various writers for Silk and Law and Order respectively, who write such intelligent, thoughtful drama for TV, alls well in the world.

So what to do then? Right, starting from now, I’m going back to the novel, the play and the playing to get something going. Trouble is its all too easy to be lazy and not do a lot, but it takes determination, tenacity, work ethic and a need to do it and I’m going to, I’m going to, promise…. Now where’s that TV guide, oh bugger I was going to do some writing. Oh well there’s always tomorrow…..

In the meantime, here’s the words to a song I wrote a month or so ago:

The PQ17

In July ’42 35 merchant ships left Iceland
Only eleven ships made to Russian land
This was PQ17 the first UK/US convoy
To deliver to our allies and bring joy

The convoy sailed Commodore Dowling in charge
Along with the Royal Navy at large
They were bound for the port of Archangel
But before they arrived there would be hell

The German Navy & air force combined
Searched the Arctic to seek and find
U-boat 456 launched the first attack
To try to force the convoy back

And PQ17 was left alone and scared
Being torpedoed, bombed and attacked from the air
Because the Admiralty told them to scatter
As if being on their own didn’t matter

This decision was made by Admiral Pound
To turn back the escort and be homeward bound
This left the convoy without any cover
And thus was spotted by German flyover

24 ships were sunk in a dreadful blitz
They were frightened of the battleship Tirpitz
“It was the blackest day we ever knew
Sheer bloody murder, the end of the PQ?”

But a total of 153 men on that convoy died
Along with the supplies on which Russia relied

The legacy of PQ17 has always caused a fuss
The Royal Navy were blamed for all the loss
But it was one man’s decision to turn it around
To leave unguarded a convoy Russia bound

To quote an officer from HMS Norfolk who said
“We all swept past the convoy, it was sad
I’ve never known the men in such good heart
Then we told our aircraft to depart

The ship was in turmoil every one was boiling
The master said he had never known such feeling
It was the blackest day we ever knew
Sheer bloody murder the end of PQ.

At least some things work! © Clive Handy 2014.

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Grumpies

Posted on Mar 25, 2014 by cliverh

It could only be my generation, the ‘baby boomers’, the nearly state pensioners or slightly older, the people who are tech savvy with time on their hands and the wherewithall to complain and ‘get something done’. We’re the ‘Grumpies’, but have we got anything to complain about?

Despite the fact the population IS getting older, everything is still geared to the younger set who can read small print on phones, books, notices etc without glasses, and do it quickly. By the time you patted all your pockets (or dug the depths of your handbag) and found your glasses, there are noises off about the time you’re taking to do this supposedly simple task. The buttons on my mobile phone are infinitesimally small and need the dexterity of a brain surgeon and the fingers of a small child (and the eyesight of 12 year old) to operate it. Yes, yes you can get the BIG BUTTON version, but really could you look less cool? I know the modern world is built around the technology of the day, and we could hark on ad infinitum about the ‘good old days’, although there wasn’t that much good about them in some ways. Medicine, technology, diet, information are all much improved over the last 50 years, but manners, acknowledgment, respect and tolerance have in the main not improved but got worse.

Still, I like a grump as my regular readers will know, but that is not what I’m all about. One of the down sides of retiring and getting older is that you can feel your worth is not as high as it used to be. I try to counteract this by helping people in all manner of ways, including but not exclusive to: transporting furniture in my van, plumbing, electrical work, woodwork, gardening, log chopping, you get the picture. I’m fairly confident in all these things and as a former engineer/technician I have a good grounding in many aspects of technical and craft work. This is no accident; as a former apprentice I had a formative education in fitting, precision, and being useful with the hand/tool interface. Its never left me, but of course as my joints start to seize up and I can’t lift such heavy stuff any more, I get tired more quickly. Its very frustrating, and I don’t want to be like that, I want to be as strong as I was 30 years ago. But muscles weaken, stamina decreases and general fitness tails off. I hate it, but I should, and do, embrace my lack of ability in this department. I can compensate by doing little jobs for people without a) charging too much and b) doing the job properly. I don’t charge too much, mainly petrol money, because I really don’t need it and have never been a ‘money’ person, enough to live on is enough. Not like the elderly couple whose tap I repaired recently who had a sticking door and a ‘carpenter’ shave off a slither, taking no more than half an hour and charged them nearly £100 for the privilege! What part of his brain said ‘this is value for them’, when he knows full well its a good old fashioned rip off. Maybe he felt he could charge that much, because they were rich/old and could afford it? Neither on both counts, but they had to pay. Perhaps this malaise is what’s wrong with this country, I mean £60 billion for HS2? What? How can that be justified? And guess what when HS2 is finished, you will have to catch another train into central Birmingham! What is going on? Of course it may be the terminus for the line to go up to Leeds as promised, but the good thing is no decision will be made until after May 2015. Which political party will win the next election? I don’t know, but I sure as hell hope its cancelled.
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RAF 100 – 2018

Posted on Mar 10, 2014 by cliverh

I was invited by the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff to meet at RAF Northolt in north west London to add input to the celebration of the Royal Air Force’s 100 anniversary on 1st April 2018. I met there with many other veterans and serving RAF people to try to work out the best way for the celebration of this important milestone.

All well and good but the main proviso is that no public money will be allocated to help, it all has to be self-funded; perhaps from savings. The main intent of the event as stated by The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Andrew Pulford is to deliver a Centenary through the three work-strands of Commemorate, Celebrate and Innovate. It is very exciting to be involved in this project, and our input can be as little or as much as we want to get involved. There will be subcommittees to cover various activities but the essence of the whole celebration is that it will not be centred on one day, but the whole of 2018. This is because the 1st April 2018 is Easter Sunday, a bit of an awkward day to have out and out celebrations! I was invited in my capacity as Chairman of the 3(Fighter) Squadron Association which seeks to bring together those who served on the squadron at any time in its history since its formation as a Royal Flying Corps squadron on 12th May 1912. This therefore makes it the oldest military flying unit in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. There is a website which gives some information and an opportunity to volunteer, here:

RAF 100

I have some of my own ideas and there will be plenty of opportunity to have an input to the celebrations, because after all, the RAF is intrinsically linked to the history of the 20th and 21st Centuries, especially in times of war and keeping the peace. One of the main tasks is to make the celebrations inclusive, so anyone in the country, whatever class or station in life, can be a part of the family. I think this will be one of the most difficult things to achieve. There may be awareness in most areas but perhaps in some inner-city and rural areas there is not much connection to the RAF, or indeed any reason why there should be. To make it fully inclusive will require some work but also help from hopefully some committed celebrities who have a connection, so that a role model can be looked up to. If anyone who reads this blog has an input into 1/4/2018, please leave a comment or email me.

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The Broadstairs Blues Bash

Posted on Feb 25, 2014 by cliverh

Its one of those weekends which is so well organised and advertised you wonder why the idea isn’t taken up elsewhere. This is the third weekend we have been to the Broadstairs Blues Bash (BBB) which is held annually in February in Broadstairs in Kent, a quaint seaside town adjacent to it’s larger neighbour Ramsgate. Famously the home for a time of Charles Dickens (he wrote Bleak House in where else but Bleak House), and part of Nicolas Nickleby in a town-centre hotel. Broadstairs was also the home of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath, for which he was the town’s MP for many years.

The BBB is an unusual festival, featuring mainly all forms of blues music, because it’s not held in one venue over a couple of days, but has eleven pub venues spread over a whole weekend. A programme is produced which includes a matrix of all the venues cross-referenced to the acts. The publican pays the artist whether an afternoon or evening session, and hopefully fills the pub (not difficult) to raise enough funds. On the Friday night we saw a band in the Balmoral, overlooking the seafront, and the landlord told me he needed to make £700 that night to cover his costs. I don’t think there was any danger he wouldn’t, the place was jam packed, as was just about every venue we tried. The reason the BBB was started was to increase tourism in the close season, but I doubt Nigel and Dave who got it going thought about that, they just wanted a weekend of good music. Broadstairs also holds various other music festivals through the year. The BBB though is strictly (almost) the Blues, in its many forms, Delta, Deep South, traditional, modern. The Blues is the basis of just about every form of modern pop or rock music, especially the form 12 Bar, which has four bars each of chords separated by intervals of 4 full tones and 1 full tone, so the classic form would E, A, B or G, C, D. Indeed any key can be played so long as the form is kept, and this makes it 12 bar. The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin were early exponents of the form, so was Elvis Presley when he was a rocker.

Back to the BBB, it is a fantastically organised event Broadstairs Blues Bash by Nigel Fiest and his team and they have the whole event off to a fine art. Thanks to them. The afternoon sessions were very good, we saw excellent and professional bands between 1pm and 4pm, culminating on the Sunday afternoon in the Pavilion, when it was an open mike with a base band and musicians volunteering from the floor to perform, either alone or with backing. Yes, its done elsewhere to great effect, but here amateurs from the floor were being backed by professional musicians in some cases, and the effect was tremendous, if not always perfect, but hey that’s the nature of the gig so to speak. The organisers also cleverly created a ‘tube map’ of the venues:

image

BBB Venue Map

…so even if you had never been to Broadsairs, although not a huge town, it was easy to find where each band was playing. Broastairs is a delightful town, wasn’t subject to huge disruption due to the recent storms, and in the summer season has something for everyone. I suggest, if you like ‘The Blues’, to look out for the BBB next year, it will be in its usual place at the end of February.

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Winter drags on

Posted on Feb 9, 2014 by cliverh

Flooding, the threat of more, possibly colder weather on the way; ice, snow and fog.

All these elements have been part of British life since time immemorial. The recriminations now taking place in the press and the media generally try to lay blame for the current flooding on inaction by various factions of local and central government. The lack of ‘river dredging’ and ditch clearing has been cited as the root cause of the situation currently being experienced in the Somerset levels. A year ago I went on a trip to north of Taunton and had to cross the levels to get there. We went had to turn back on two roads which were flooded and find alternative routes which we eventually did. Nothing seems to have been reported in the media at that time about the flooding situation, which happens most years, but is obviously more pronounced this year. It seems that when a greater emergency situation arises, affecting more people and property, that is when those in authority sit up and suddenly decide ‘something should be done’, to quote the then Prince of Wales in the 1930s when the poor were much worse off than they are now; Coincidentally the current Prince of Wales is the only Royal so far to visit the stricken areas, closely followed by the rest of the great and good. So in swift succession: the Chairman of the Environment Agency, the Prime Minister and various local MPs appeared in front of camera to say ‘something should/should have been/ be done’. Perhaps they remember the previous occasion those words were uttered.

But action was suggested, many months ago, including dredging strategic rivers, but the requested funding for this action was refused. By whom? Some bean counter made the decision not to dredge, and some of the consequences of that can now be seen. I say some because with the best will in the world, all the dredging possible wouldn’t have stopped ALL the flooding, but would have gone some way toward alleviating it. The person or department should be sacked, and replaced with someone who knows what they are talking about. They will all probably retire on a fat pension, while the poor sods in Somerset will have to deal with the flooding. The situation in Devon and Dorset is somewhat different. There was no way of knowing that Brunel’s railway route along the coast at Dawlish would be destroyed 150 years after it was laid down, the damage is all due to nature; and there’s nothing that can be done about that. It is nature that caused all the rain, but it totally ignores any criticism, similarly to many people in power.

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