A Sad Tail(?) of a dog

A news item in the paper caught my eye on Sunday. It seems that Homebase are selling their own brand of slug and snail killer pellets under the brand name "Grow Your Own". A plastic bottle of these pellets costs £1.99 and has these words on the front of it.

Contains an animal repellant to reduce attractiveness to pets

Having read this, I think that most people would assume it was safe to use when pets were allowed into the garden.. Mr & Mrs Walch certainly assumed so, and after spreading the pellets allowed both their chocolate labradors their usual freedom to roam in their garden. Imagine their horror, when a few hours after eating some of the pellets, their four year old labrador Milo was dead as a result of eating them.

Mrs Walch noticed that Milo was fitting, his eyes were bulging and he was convulsing. A phone call to the emergency vet resulted in Milo being sedated, and the family were told it was the worst case of metaldehyde poisoning she had ever seen. By the time the family got home, the vet phoned them to say that Milo was virtually brain dead, and it was suggested that he be put to sleep.

West Yorkshire Trading standards Office Bob Unwin has stated that after the results of testing it will be decided whether Homebase can improve the labelling.

Don't waste any more time. Of course they can improve their labelling. Just tell them to get their fingers out and get the skull and cross bones symbol and the words "Poisonous to animals" in huge letters across the container immediately, before any more well loved pets suffer as a result of their sloppy labelling.

Those of you who follow this blog will know that we have a much loved chocolate Labrador - hence my strong feelings re the above.

Thank God It's All Over (Until the next Season!)

Well the 2009 Britain's Got Talent show is all over and done. So now we can sit back and mull over what has happened over the past few weeks.


First of all lets take a look at the judges themselves.

Piers Morgan - ex fleet street editor - still writes a column (called "The Insider") for the colour section of the Mail on Sunday. He strikes me as an overblown, pompous prat of the first order. What his credentials are to sit in judgement on up and coming talent I have no idea!


Amanda Holden (ex Mrs Les Dennis) brightens up the scenery a bit, but again, what are her credentials for judging up and coming talent?


Simon Cowell - conceited and self opinionated prat of the first magnitude, but to be fair, he must have some knowledge and ability where music and talent are concerned as he seems to have made a steady pile for himself via his Syco Records and other entertainment contracts!


Here I have to confess that I have not followed Britain's Got Talent, and only watched the
Finals. The thought of having to sit through ten shows with the likes of the precocious child stars was enough to drive me to drink.



Diversity - the final, some would say, surprise winners. From what I saw of their performance on Saturday evening they certainly produced an exciting spectacle. Vibrant, original, entertaining and well choreographed. I would say they were far superior to the other street dancing group - Flawless.



Susan Boyle (2nd) I saw her original performance (via U Tube), as well as her performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" in the finals. I felt her performance on Saturday did not live up to the original one, but there is no doubt that the lady from Blackburn in West Lothian has a powerful and fine voice, and can "sell" a song.

Julian Smith (3rd) played his saxophone extremely well and certainly showed he had talent. I think he well deserved the third place.

All in all I think the results were a fair judgement by the British public.

And what of the rest???

Stavros Flatley. What can you say about them? Mad? Entertaining (in a strange sort of way!) Completely off their trolley? Different is probably the kindest description I can give to them!

2 Grand. The grandfather and grand daughter appealed to the "Aw isn't it lovely that they are singing together" brigade. If he is a member of a male voice choir (which I have seen or heard somewhere) he's not a very good advert for them!

Shaheen Jafargholi - a young lad with a powerful voice. Could go far. Rumoured to have been head hunted by the Disney organisation.

Shaun Smith - aged 17 - not my cup of tea at all.

Flawless - they weren't. Didn't appeal in the slightest.

Adrian Davis - twitching, gyrating, pulsating, and judged by a true sense of the word dance - completely talentless.

Hollie Steel - Not my kind of voice (or child!) Grown up beyond her years, and probably there because of a pushy mum!

You may well be asking what qualifications have I got to sit in judgement on these talented people. I've been a member of two or three choirs, and trained choirs, and singers for over forty years!

Up Yours!

Our youngest daughter has just about completed her 3 year BA (Hons) in English with QTS degree course. This got me thinking about our language. There are some very strange and problematical words and pronunciations to master in our language. I wonder if you have ever seriously thought about how you pronounce the "ough"

Is it as in thought?

rough?

cough?

bough?

Then there are the different meanings we attach to a word. Take the word "up" - this would usually be understood as "in a rising vertical direction", but link the word up to many other words and it begins to have lots of different meanings. Take a look at this piece I recently found:-

UP
Lovers of the English language might enjoy this. It is yet another example of why people learning English have trouble with the language. Learning the nuances of English makes it a difficult language. (But then, that's probably true of many languages.)
There is a two-letter word in English that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is 'UP' It is listed in the dictionary as being used as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends and we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some garages fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has a really special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing:

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.

In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.

It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.

When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it wets UP the earth.

When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now ........my time is UP, so time to shut UP!

Oh....one more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night?

U P

Think about it!

Goodbye Morley - but not soon enough

First Andrew Mackay said he was going, and now Elliot Morley has said the same thing. In this time of gross monetary dishonesty by many of our MP's this news may (on the face of it) sound to be good news. Just look at their faces They both look fed up with their lot, and well they might be, having been found out for the dishonest rogues they are. But in the case of Elliot Morley (and I'm sure the same will apply to all the other MP's who are quitting at the next general election) they still have much to be happy about!


A news item on the ten o'clock ITN news caught my attention last night. It seems that because Elliot Morley is not quitting until a general election, he will still be able to claim a full years salary (until he steps down) then he can claim expenses for winding down his office, and then get a golden handshake of another years salary on top of that!


In total Morley will be able to claim in the region of £100,000 before he steps off the gravy train.


YES DO GO BACK AND READ THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE AGAIN. You haven't mis-read it.


He, and all the other MP's who are stepping down don't deserve a brass farthing.

Come back Guy Fawkes - All is Forgiven

I'm sure you recognise the image above. It is the famous (or infamous - depending on your point of view) Guy Fawkes who was born in Stonegate, York on 13th April 1570, and baptised in St. Michael le Belfry (which stands across the road from York Minster) on 16th April 1570.

His claim to fame was that he tried to get rid of unpopular Members of Parliament by attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

Now as I see it we have an enormous number of very unpopular Members of Parliament, due to the fact that they have been "dipping their fingers into the till"/"sticking their snouts into the trough" or whatever euphemistic phrase you care to employ. All I can say is it is a good job they were not around in November 1605, or they could very well have faced the threat of exposure to explosion.

If you've got the gunpowder Guy, I've got the matches!

Can it get any worse?

First it was Ed Balls & Yvette Cooper who were news.

In September 2007, with his wife Yvette Cooper he was accused of "breaking the spirit of Commons rules" by using MPs' allowances to help pay for a £655,000 home in north London. It was alleged that they bought a four-bed house in Stoke Newington, north London, and registered this as their second home (rather than their home in Castleford, West Yorkshire) in order to qualify for up to £44,000 a year to subsidise a reported £438,000 mortgage under the Commons Additional Costs Allowance. This is despite both spouses working in London full-time and their children attending local London schools. Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper nominated three different properties in two years to be their main residence. We paid for their million pound property portfolio plus a few of the usual “accidental” double claims.

Now it is Andrew Mackay & Julie Kirkbride

Andrew MacKay, the Conservative MP for Bracknell and his wife Julie Kirkbride, the Conservative MP for the Bromsgrove, own two homes: one in her constituency of Bromsgrove; and a flat close to Parliament in Westminster. In a case of so called "double-dipping," according to the Daily Telegraph, Mackay had used his Additional Costs Allowance to claim more than £1,000 a month in mortgage interest payments on their joint Westminster flat. His wife used her Additional Costs Allowance to claim over £900 a month on paying off the mortgage for their family home near her constituency. This means they effectively had no main home but two second homes – and were using public funds to pay for both of them. In 2008/9, MacKay claimed a total of £23,083 under Additional Costs Allowance, while Kirkbride claimed £22,575. They also claimed for each other's travel costs, with Kirkbride claiming £1,392 to meet spouse travel, while MacKay claimed £408

Is there any wonder so many people are sickened at the downright dishonest way so many of our MP's behave?

Just take the figures quoted for the Mackay/Kirkbride Additional Costs Allowance for 2008/9. Between them they claimed and were paid £45,658.

I CAN THINK OF A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE VERY HAPPY TO HAVE THAT AS THEIR SALARY.

The Saga of the Stool

As you will have gathered from my "about me" commments (on the right hand side of this blog) I keep out of mischief one day a week by doing voluntary work in a Tourist Information Centre. This centre was sponsored by various trade bodies and the local chamber of trade, and ran extremely well and efficiently, then in its wisdom, the local council decided that it would like to take over the running of the Tourist Information Centre. I suppose I should have taken heed of the date the local council took over the running of the TIC - the first of April!

Those of us who are volunteers with the TIC viewed this event with some trepidation. Local councils are not exactly renowned for the common sense approach to running things efficiently - in fact the local council concerned had somehow managed to borrow £2,000,000 without the knowledge of certain of the elected councillors!


Once you become council run all sorts of new and wonderful rules and regulations start to apply to you - even if you are a volunteer. The first little gem was that before being allowed to use any of the TIC computers, (something we had all done as part and parcel of the volunteers work - looking up information on tourist attractions, booking accommodation, seeking timetable information and a hundred and one myriad pieces of information which tourists require) we had to read a 24 page A4 size book which told us what we could and could not do on the computers. Then all those volunteers who had read and agreed to the rules in the 24 page book had to be issued with a password. (This must contain at least eight digits, of which no less than two must be numbers. It must be changed each month!) I'll bet it's easier to get into the computers at the White House.

Then followed the Health and Safety Rules and Regulations. If you are beginning to worry about how the stool in the title is involved, stay with me - we're getting there!

For some years we had had a stool similar to the one illustrated above which was used by those volnteers who were unable to reach the top shelves where tourist attraction literature was kept.
It had served us well, and was well loved by all the volunteers, but one day - DISASTER - the stool began to develop a small split at the top where the carry holes were.

Now under normal circumstances (ie prior to being run by the council) common sense would have prevailed, and another stool would have been purchased from a local DIY store and bought out of petty cash.

But wait a minute - we now have a council who are empowered to make decisions on our behalf. First you need to seek their permission to purchase another stool, then you need to submit the exact specification of the said stool, then the Health and Safety department need to consider the safety implications of the said stool, then a chitty has to be raised to get the cash from the finance department to purchase the said stool. In and amongst all this the Health and Safety Department suggest that what is really needed is a stool with rubber covered treads, (so that there is no risk of slipping on the treads, and handrails on either side (so that there is no risk of falling sideways off the stool) , and if it is to have wheels (so it can easily be moved without fear of back problems arising due to having to lift it) then it must have safety brakes to stop it moving when you are stepping on and off it. Total cost for said stool in the region of £235.00

Now our beloved stool cost £5.35 from the local DIY shop. It was suggested to the local council that £235.00 was just a little over the top, and despite the amazing in built safety factors it was felt that an exact replacement would suffice.

FIVE e-mails later the wonderful council agreed to our request!

Our Wonderful Policemen

It wasn't too long ago that if you required a policeman you could always find one available, particularly if a crime was being committed. Do you remember those halcyon days when a police station was manned twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and fifty two weeks a year?





What follows is a true story, and more than worthy of PC John Cleese (see above)





George Phillips of Marsh Green, Wigan was going up to bed when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from their bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light when he saw that there were people in the shed stealing, amongst other things, his garden tools. Not wishing to become personally involved with the thieves he did what any sensible person would do............


He phoned the police.


When he finally got through, (after innumerable requests to "press one for..., press 2 for..., press 3 for... etc.) he was asked 'Is someone in your house?' He said 'no'. Then he was told that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be along when one was available.


George said, 'Okay,' and hung up, but George was made of sterner stuff. He was not content to be fobbed off with all the latest jargon and rigmarole. He wanted a policeman, and he wanted one NOW. He counted to 30, and phoned the police again. "Hello," he said, "I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I've just shot them." Then he hung up.


Within five minutes three police cars, an Armed Response Unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips' residence and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George: 'I thought you said that you'd shot them!' George said, 'I thought you said there was nobody available!'

Doesn't it make your spirits rise when you read a story like this?

Button - Next World Champion?

Jenson Button - the kid from Frome as he was known early in his career - is finally coming good, and showing the ability we always suspected he had.

There was a great deal of hype when he arrived on the scene in 2000. I remember he was hailed as a future world champion. The media went mad when Frank Williams announced that he would line up with the likes of Ralf Schumacher for the 2000 season! He managed to claim his first World championship point at Brazil, and finished 8th overall in the 2o02 Championship tables. Not a bad start for the youngster.

Then problems began to set in. He was dropped in favour of Juan Pablo Montoya and loaned out to Benneton for the next two seasons. Then Benneton became Renault! 2001 was a bad year for the team, and he was outclassed by Giancarlo Fisichella. Getting a better berth for his yacht in the harbour at Monaco than his boss Flavio Briatore most certainly brought things to a head!

His time with Williams in 2002 was better, and he regularly outclassed his team mate - Jarno Trulli.


At the end of 2002 he moved to BAR and was paired with Jacques Villeneuve. It was during the 2004 season that Villeneuve described Button as a "boyband member". Not surprisingly he announced in August 2005 that he had signed with Williams, but BAR insisted that held the only valid contract with Button! The sorry saga dragged on for some time until the Contract Recognition Board ruled in BAR's favour.

After joining Williams, he still had contractual problems, but could now afford to buy himself out of the contract.

He joined Honda, but during the 2007 season, poor results for him and a poor aerodynamic design on the Honda did little to help him. Even when Ross Brawn joined the team the 2008 season was not a great deal better for Jenson. Only one points score in eighteen races is not too impressive! Honda were now looking forward to the 2009 season, but then came the "spanner in the works". Honda announced that they were to sell their F1 team. On March 6th it was announced that Ross Brawn had bought the team, and the rest, so they, say is history!

So far Jenson has had 5 wins in six races. Could this be the next World Champion?

Now I wonder what happened to that guy called Lewis......?

Fun in the stream at Austwick

Hello there it's Ruby here again.



Just a quick blog to keep you all fully informed. billatbingley and his missus had to go up to Settle on Friday. If you remember his missus had a poorly knee, so they went to see a man who is a podiatrist. He looked at the missuses knee and told her she would need some new built up insoles and that she had damaged the fibres in her collateral ligament.



Well because she had been cooped up all week resting her knee, I took her for a short walk down to a stream I know in Austwick. (That's the missus with me on the old clapper bridge.) The real reason I took her here is because we met a doggy pal of mine last time we came, and I had a great play in the stream with him. You'd never believe it, but we met him again on Friday! We had a great romp in the stream and played chase with a fairly large branch.

Must fly before billatbingley catches me on his computer!

Lots of love,

Ruby

The Wonder of Recorded Sound

Being a musician, I have taken the importance of recorded sound very much for granted. I have, in the main, been involved in "live" music. Over the years it has become obvious to me that most people hear music via recordings/TV/Radio. This got me thinking about what a revolution there

has been in the recording industry.

Thomas Edison invented the phonograph on 18th July 1877.

The very first commercial recordings were produced on wax cylinders and had the recording "engraved" on the outside surface. The cylinders were about 4 inches long, 2 1/2 inches in diameter and played for about two minutes! As the recording medium was soft wax, they would often wear out after as little as a few dozen playings! A device which scraped the cylinder clean could be used, and many of the early "phonographs" built in the 1880's and 1890's also had a means of recording sound on to the cylinder! It was this which maintained the popularity of the Cylinder over the early Gramophone records.


Disc record phonographs were first mass produced during the late 1890's, and whilst they were cheaper, they did not have the ability to record. By 1894 Emile Berliner was selling single sided 7 inch discs which ran at a speed 0f "about 70 rpm" (revolutions per minute) Hand cranked machines were gradually replaced by spring drives, and speed governors began to appear which kept the machines turntables revolving at a constant speed. Nobody seems to know why 78 rpm became the norm. A standard 10 inch 78 rpm record would play for between 2.00 and 3.30 minutes per side. (The variation being due to the closeness of the playing grooves). Over the years a 12 inch record became available which played for about 4.00 minutes per side.


I seem to remember my very first 10 inch 78 rpm record was of Bill Hailey and his Comets playing "Rock Around the Clock". The problem with these records was that they broke very easily, and I have none the those 78's left!


Eventually electric motors drove the turntables of these gramophones, and they then became known as record players. The old metal needles were replaced by a stylus (often diamond tipped), and the motors now drove the turntables at a choice of speeds. The early machines still retained the 78 rpm, but added 45 rpm for the latest 7 inch records which were now being produced, and 33 1/3 rpm for the very latest LP's (Long Players) which were recorded on either a 10 inch or a 12 inch record.


As I have previously stated, my first records were of the old 78 rpm variety, but I quickly began to build up a collection of 45's and 33's. The very first LP I purchased was a 10 inch Philips label recording of Karel Ancerl conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture on one side, and Smetana's Ma Vlast on the other. Another early purchase was the Sir Malcolm Sargent recording with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra & Huddersfield Choral Society performing Handel's "Messiah" with Elsie Morrison (soprano), Marjorie Thomas (contralto), Richard Lewis (tenor) & James Milligan (bass). This was a three record set. My pop hero at this time was Lonnie Donegan and I collected quite a few of his recordings. I wonder if you remember "The Battle of New Orleans ", "Puttin' on the Style", or "My old man's a Dustman"?

Around the early 1960's the open reel tape recorder became available. This wonderful machine offered the ability to "home record" live via a supplied microphone, or dub (copy) from the radio or records). The usual size of tape reel was 5 3/4 inches, but some of the more expensive machine would take a 7 inch reel of tape. The standard tape speed was 3 3/4 inches per second (ips) and you could record on one side of this tape for about 45 mins, then turn the reels over and record on the other side of the tape. For lower quality recording some machines would also operate at 1 7/8 ips, which doubled the recording time available, whilst the more expensive machines had the ability to record (and playback) at 7 1/2 ips (halving the standard speed time) or even 15 ips (which gave a quarter of the standard speed time). Commercial machines usually operated at 30 ips, and carried even larger reels of tape than the 7 inch ones available to enthusiasts. Pre recorded tapes could be purchased (usually on 5 3/4 inch reels) from companies like WRC (World Record Club). I remember my very first tape recorder was an Elizabethan which ran at speeds of 7 1/2, 3 3/4 and 1 7/8 inches per second, and was a four track machine, which meant that you could record the equivalent of 3 hours on to a single 5 3/4 inch reel at the standard speed of 3 3/4 ips! My last machine was a Phillips N 4408, which was a four track stereo recorder and capable of recording sound on sound (i.e. you could mix different sources together on to one track, so, for example you could record yourself playing the piano, go back and add yourself singing, go back and add a drum track etc.) The sort of thing that Mike Oldfield does when he records much of his music. (He was the person who recorded the Blue Peter Theme Music and is probably best known through his recording of "Tubular Bells" which featured on the soundtrack of the film "The Exorcist")

Then came the age of the Cassette. Which vastly reduced the size of the recording medium, and increased the length of time available for recording. There was also the ability to "home record" and copy music from other sources. Cassettes became available as C15, C30, C45, C60, C90 and C120's. The number denoted the total time in minutes available for recording on the cassette. Pre-recorded cassettes became available in their thousands, covering all genres of music, and superseding the 45's and LP's.

In October 1982 the first compact discs became available, and these hold up to 80 minutes of recorded sound (700 Mb) on a 120 mm disc.. The age of the computer is upon us! From this followed the CD-ROM. CD-R (a write once only audio and data storage system), CD-RW (A re writable system), SACD (Super Audio CD), and a whole range of photographic and video CD's. The compact disc has now become the standard device on which pre-recorded music and video is stored.

Maureen Lipman's Humour

At Christmas last year I had acquired approximately £80 of book tokens, and being the frugal (some would doubtless say stingy!) soul that I am, I resisted the urge to dash straight out and spend the lot. I waited until the New Year Sales, when bookshops like Waterstones vastly reduce the cost of the books they purchased for Christmas, and still have in stock. So early in the New Year I staggered home with an enormous pile of books. - The Guinness Book of Records at 75% off, Britain from Above (a tie in with the BBC TV series) also at 75% off, The Works, - a selection of Pam Ayres poems, various other tomes, and autobiographies of Katherine Jenkins, Julie Walters and Maureen Lipman.





I had already read some of Maureen Lipman's previous books (How Was it For You?, Something to Fall Back On, Thank You For Having Me, When's it coming Out? etc.) and thoroughly enjoyed her quirky sense of humour. Her latest book, (Past It Notes) which was written after the death of her much loved husband, Jack Rosenthal, continues the story of her somewhat chaotic and very funny family life, and includes many anecdotes of her life in the theatre. The chapter headings themselves are usually a play on well known words or phrases (Au Pairfect tells the story of her au pair, Pumping Irony tells the story of an exercise regime she tries to follow, and Dandy Lying and Murdoch [Dandelion & Burdock - get it?] - well why don't you get hold of the book and find out for yourself?

We meet Maureen's wonderful Jewish mother, Zelma, who is an expert at saying not quite the right thing at the right time - in a Greek restaurant she was heard to ask for the fellatio and chips. It is not recorded what the Greek waiter said!

Just to give you a taste of Maureen Lipman's humour, here is her version of the first time she took Jack Rosenthal home to meet her parents..........

At home of course I was placed in my own bedroom with the teddies, and Jack got the boxroom. Naturally enough I found it hard to sleep and was pacing about when my mother, as always, majoring in the rhetorical, called "Can't you sleep?" On hearing the negative reply she suggested I came in for a chat - which I did. My father grew more and more annoyed at this intrusion into his shut eye, and finally, after dark mutterings and much thrashing about of limbs, he got up and stalked into my room. I ultimately settled down with my mother and the night passed normally away.

Except for Jack. Unaware of this game of musical beds, he awoke at 5.30 and remembered where he was. Then he remembered were I was, crept out onto the landing, creaking his way past my parents room, silently negotiated the door into my room, and gratefully got into the single bed (with my father!) It was only after he'd kissed the short hair at the back of his neck, and my father had whirled around saying, "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" that he realised his mistake.

"I - I - I wondered if you'd like a cup of tea....?" he stammered.

It took a long time for Maurice to totally trust the man who was to marry his daughter.

Happy reading!

Hello! My Name is Ruby

Hello there! you've probably seen a mention of me in the
"about me" column on the right hand side.

My name is Ruby and I'm a pedigree chocolate labrador and I live with billatbingley and his missus.

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I was born on a farm across the valley from where I now live, and my breeder and her daughter had a helper called Hannah who used to do some dog grooming for the daughter - so she could earn some extra cash during her vacation from university. All my brothers and sisters were sold, and I stayed on the farm with my Mum. My breeder had decided to keep me so she could breed from me (You see I think she thought I was the cream of the crop. My kennel club registered name is Marchmanor Dior - and with a name like that you'd expect a bit of class wouldn't you?) My mum is called Marchmanor Truffle, and my dad was re-imported from the States. He's called Oulsmi Its Just Me. Well one day Hannah decided she would like to take me as a present for her parents as it was going to be their Ruby Wedding Anniversary, so she had a quiet word with billatbingley's missus to see how he would react to having a canine in the house.

I've since been told that his words were "Over my dead body" Anyway, I was taken along as a small pup one day, and billatbingley thought that Hannah had got me for herself! The next week I was taken again, and billatbingley allowed me to stay overnight. After that it was a piece of cake. He fell for me hook, line and sinker!

Like all young pups I was a bit mischievous. The second morning when they came downstairs into the kitchen, I'd bitten through the mains flex for the fridge freezer. His nibs wasn't very pleased with me but he soon got over it. I have to admit that my favourite was chewing shoes, slippers, sandals, or any other footwear they accidentally left around for me to get my teeth into, but they soon learnt not to leave any footwear around, and his nibs suggested that I should go to a dog training session.

That was great fun. I met six or seven other dogs, and I learnt how to sit on command, how to lie down on command, how to stay, and the hardest one was I was taught not to take food until I was told! Hannah has taught me to "give a paw". I've learnt that with my big sorrowful looking brown eyes I can melt just about anybody. I have lots of doggie friends, who I usually meet when I go for a run in the fields with billatbingley. Max lives just across the road from us, and Toby and Bella live about five or six houses down the road and Peggy lives about six houses up the road. I have great fun chasing sticks in the field. Billatbingley's missus used to take me for long walks once or twice a week, but she has a poorly leg at the moment, but Hannah and her sister Sarah often take me for walks. I went for a super walk with Sarah at teatime today, and we went into the park in Bingley, and I met up with Peggy. Must finish now, as I don't want billatbingley to know I've been on his computer!

Lots of Love

Ruby

A Yorkshire Parliament in Whitehall?

I read an interesting article in the Yorkshire Post this morning, which is looking at possible candidates to represent the interests of Yorkshire if (and when) many of the current MP's will either lose their seats or be deselected.


Amomg those suggested were:-

John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York,

Ken Morrison, the head of the Morrisons Supermarket Group,

Keith Halliwell, the ex head of Middlesborough Police,

Geoff Boycott, cricketer,

Angela Baker, "Calendar Girl",

Selina Scott, ex TV presenter,

Sir Michael Parkinson, retired chat show host.


So how are they qualified to represent our interests?

Well it seems to me that John Sentamu is a man of principles. I recollect him cutting his "dog collar" in half on a TV chat show, and saying he would no longer wear one until Robert Mugabe was removed from power. This certainly shows that he is not afraid to speak out about what he perceives to be the wrongs and injustices of this world. I wonder how many politicians have made such an open stand against the tyrant?

There can be no doubt that Ken Morrison has the entrepeneurial skills required for running the exchequer! It was his father, if I recollect correctly, who began selling eggs and other similar produce on a market stall in Bradford. Ken also saw the opportunity to purhase a less successful supermarket chain (Safeway) and combine it with his own and eventually make a success out of the deal!

Keith Halliwell (nicknamed Robocop for his zero tolerance approach to criminals in Middlesborough) could do well rooting out the present corrupt politicians!

Now Geoff Boycott is renowned for being a straight speaker - what we in Yorkshire say "Calling a spade a spade". There seem to be very few polticians who speak totally truthfully. Geoff would bring a breath of fresh air to the government!

Angela Baker has shown that from little beginnings great things can be achieved. The need to replace some tatty furniture in the hospital waiting room where her husband had been treated for leukaemia sparked off the original idea to do some fund raising, and from the initial need to raise a few thousand pounds, the Calendar Girls, with Angela as their leader have now raised well over a million pouinds for leukaemia research. I wonder how many of our current politicians could do anywhere near as well in the money raising stakes?

Selina Scott has already challenged the BBC's attitude to ageing people, but she has also shown that older people can be gainfully employed. She produces knitted garments from her own herd of (I think it is) alpaca. She advocates more people living in our beautiful countryside and respecting it. A Possible Green Party Candidate???

Sir Michael Parkinson - well he got himself into a bit of hot water with his comments on Jade Goody, but what he said was essentially true! He seems to be becoming a champion of the senior citizens - and let's face it, the proportion of older people to younger people is rapidly increasing.

Others suggested to represent the people of Yorkshire were:-
G P Taylor, the Scarborough based author , ex policeman and ex vicar who has wide life experience and undoubted communication skills, Mike Tomlinson, husband of Jayne, the fundraiser, Kevin Sinfield, the Leeds Rhinos Captain who has shown that you don't need to be seen staggering out of night clubs in the early hours of the morning to gain street credibility. He could be an excellent role model for young people. Med Hughes, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, who could inject some much needed common sense into Westminster and former labour politician David Hinchliffe who stood down in 2005 to register his disgust with labour and the "ya-boo" atmosphere at Westminster. Then we could also have the Wakefield Whistle Blowers - Karen Allcock, Keth Bayliss, Clive Womersley, Vincent Felix, Doug Lafferty and Grant Morley, who were prepared to put their jobs on the line to expose the injustices and failings they saw within the Wakefield care systems.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that Yorkshire men and women should make up at least 50% of our parliament. They certainly could do no worse than our current MP's, and I am sure they could do far better!

The Classical Brit Awards

I stayed up later than usual last night to watch the Clasical Brit Awards, which were hosted by Mylene Klass. Despite her recent exposure on Radio & Tv she seems to have kept her "girl next door" image, and has none of the inflated ego which some of our so called Radio & Tv presenters suffer from!

The programme opened with 13 years old Faryl Smith singing "River of Life" which has words set to a Strauss Waltz. Her debut CD "Faryl" sits at the top of the classical charts, and has been one of the success stories of classical music. This is the first debut CD to go straight to the top of the classical charts and stay there.

Katherine Jenkins (the Welsh Mezzo Soprano) [who I recently had as a guest at a wedding I played] joined Placido Domingo in a duet, and later sang a solo. I found her to be a very natural person, with no over inflated ego, or airs and graces.

Possibly one of the highlights for me was the singing of the German Tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Another was the performance of the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue by two pianists, Lang Lang and Herbie Hancock. The contrast in their styles of playing could not have been more pronounced. Lang Lang gave a very dramatic performance, with much arm waving and similar gestures, whislt Herbie Hancock's performance was altogether more laid back and relaxed.

Alison Balsom performed the Rondo from the Haydn Trumpet Concerto with great gusto and aplomb, and also quite deservedly collected the Female Artist of the Year Award.

The composer of the Year Award went to Howard Goodall, who, you may recall, composed the theme tune to the BBC TV Series "The Vicar of Dibley" [The Lord is my Shepherd - a piece I performed last week at a concert with my Male Voice Choir.]

Unlike most of the Pop music programmes the Brit Awards did not rely on what I can only call "Son et Luniere" effects. I don't recall any fireworks exploding, or strobe lights flashing during the programme. Something which happens all too frequently in the so called "Talent Shows". If the standard of the music and the performance were up to scratch there would be no need to distract our ears with pyrotechnics! I always thought music was an aural art. Something which primarily involved the use of ones ears. I really feel there is no need for all the visual effects which are foisted on us!

Why is it that the TV programmers schedule such a quality programme so late at night? Is it that a high standard of performance and musical ability are frowned on by the TV establishment?

The Government Gravy Train?

What a rotten state of affairs we are living through. Just have a read of the following:-

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics:-

29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
9 have been accused of writing bad cheques
17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year
And just to top all that they probably have the best 'corporate' pension scheme in the country!! Which organisation is this?


It's the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline.






And now we are starting to discover the mammoth dishonesty of many of their reimbursement claims. How in Heaven can you justify claiming for a moat? The more I discover about the present MP's and their claims, the more I am convinced that the lunatics are running the asylum!

I feel we British people are far too content with whatever is thrown our way. We are prepared to join a queue at the drop of a hat. We don't mind having to wait interminable lengths of time to be seen by specialists. The drop in standards in our transport system (less trains, a bus service which has rapidly diminished - and all for higher fares.) Dustbin collections being threatened to become a once every two weeks collection. A reduced fire service. An ambulance service which requires more money for less service. An education service which costs the earth and produces less children educated to the standards we knew a couple of decades ago, and more children unable to read and write. Isn't it time that we took the bull by the horns and threw out this rotten government? Isn't it time we complained vociferously to our MP's about anything, and everything that we seem content to moan about to our friends and colleagues? Come on the Great British Public. Gird up your loins - get out there and cause a fuss. Nothing will improve by quietly moaning to your friends! Give the MP's something to think about. Rattle them out of their torpor. Show them that they are there to SERVE US.

Education, Education, Education???

Having been inspired by "Wife in the North" I felt it was time to sit down and start composing a blog. Let me first of all introduce myself. I am an early retired head teacher, who got out of education whilst I was still sane. I worked for one of the Education Authorities which after being Ofsteded was found to require outside help (had it been a school it would have been classed as failing) - which says much for the capabilities of the powers that were! Prior to them being inspected I used to say that the vast majority of the inspectors couldn't run a bun fight in a tea shop, and that I wouldn't pay the bulk of them with brass washers. I think the findings of the inspection confirmed what my own feelings were about the Education Authority!

Having been out of education for nearly fifteen years I sometimes wonder what happened to all those good, old fashioned teachers, who gave their all to provide a good all round education for their charges. You, like me, will probably remember the teachers who were "characters". Sadly these people are no longer allowed to be part of the education system. It appears to me that all teachers have to conform to a set "pattern" and become clones of the Teacher Model. It is a sad fact of life that over the past fifteen years many first class teachers have left the profession due to the pressures imposed on them by central government dictats. I see good teachers being hounded by a central government that is more concerned with box ticking than education of the children. Once the thrust and emphasis of education became judged by likening education to business the whole system became a shadow of what it should be. Where judgements are based on cost, value added, and other such phrases, the true meaning of education flies out of the door.



From the previous paragraph you may well have got the impression that I am a very disgruntled and dis-satisfied ex teacher! Far from it. I now go into local schools to accompany the children, who would not get any regular music and singing lessons. Many primary schools lack a suitably qualified music teacher - you see the thing is, it is hard to quantify the "value added" which music gives in terms of a business plan!



Once the powers that be start running the education business, the arts immediately begin to suffer. Ask yourself, how much emphasis does your local school/education authority place on the arts? How many better educated children have we got as a direct result of SAT's and school league tables? How much money is wasted with all the unecesary testing, which could be better spent on the childrens educational needs? How many Ofsted Inspectors are swanning up and down the length and breadth of the country, claiming their expenses (rather like our wonderful members of the Houses of Commons and Lords?) I wonder how many of these inspectors have ever been gainfully employed as a class room teacher, and how many are full of hot air and theories? Isn't it time we demanded that our so called government got their fingers out of the trough and for once tried a common sense approach to education?