From Bumhole to Banana in seven paragraphs

Today I've been picking over the carcase of this old blog of mine. And I've found any number of metaphorical bones, bleaching in the sun, that are the remains of blog posts started but never finished. Things that seemed A Good Idea At The Time. This is one of them...

A few years ago someone coined the word 'NIMBY'. The term is generally used in a critical way to denote those people who oppose the building of houses, industrial units, airports, etc. in their area, and means 'Not In My Back Yard'. And there certainly seems to be a fair amount of nimbyism around at the moment. Like it or not, the UK government has signed up to us producing x per cent of 'green' energy by the year two thousand and something. And so, rather like Arthur Dent's Bypass in the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, the infrastructure for renewables has Got To Be Built, and it's Going To Be Built. So, we're looking at wind turbines, some of which are around 400 feet tall, and additional pylons to carry all that lovely green energy. But every time a new wind farm is announced, or set of pylons planned, a Pressure Group springs into action.

Pressure groups are curious animals. In the UK they generally consist of what used to be called 'the middle classes'; doctors, solicitors and the like, who live in picturesque villages or pleasant, leafy suburbs. And they are ever ready to spring into action when notification is received that a wind farm or power station is scheduled to be built in their particular back yard. So, they form their committees, hire halls for meetings, and spend just about all of their spare time getting up petitions, badgering Councils and chatting to the media about the terrible injustice of whatever it is that is planned for Sleepy Leafyville. And the One Thing that pressure groups will always point out is that this particular development is in The Wrong Place.

The Wrong Place. Let's have a look at this for a moment in the context of wind turbines. Wind turbines produce electricity, but to do so, they need something called wind. Large numbers of pressure group people live in the country, where winds blow freely over hills and through valleys. So on the face of it, windy country places would seem to be quite good places for wind turbines. Oh, and I should perhaps mention that these same pressure group people live in houses that are connected, as far as one can ascertain, to the National Grid, which supplies them with electricity, and they are quite happy to avail themselves of its use. Could it be that, when they tell us the proposed development is in the wrong place, they are really saying that it should be built near poor people? After all, most poor people live in council houses, don't they? With old cars and mattresses in the front garden? And the fact that they spend most of their spare time in the betting shop or pub means that they are unlikely to be bothered if a bunch of wind turbines are parked close to their Sink Estate?

Sorry. I think I'm getting a bit cynical in my old age. But pressure groups do seem to be a bit po-faced, don't they? I think they need to try and appeal to those difficult-to-reach individuals by being a bit creative. They could start with a snazzy acronym. Let's suppose you live in Petersfield and you want to prevent the incursion of wind turbines: hey presto! Petersfield Residents Against Turbines (PRATs). Or maybe you're part of a group of mums in the West Midlands who are trying to prevent the building of a new generating plant:  Birmingham United Mothers Heavily Opposed to Local Electricity Substation (BUMHOLES).

Some pressure groups manage to turn themselves into charities, the better to raise funds in order to fight their particular battle. And it seems that, in order to summon up a bit of cash from the general public, supporters are expected to undergo ever more difficult ordeals in the name of charity. Whatever happened to 'excuse me, I'm collecting for BUMHOLES. Can you give me some money, please?' Now it's 'hiya, I'm being tasered by my local police force to raise money for BUMHOLES. Will you give me a tenner to get zapped?' How would you respond to the latter? Would you say 'no, that's a terrible idea!' or 'your story has touched my heart. I'll give you twenty quid...but only if I can watch'.

So. If the government decides to build a giant set of wind chimes overlooking your conservatory, don't despair. Set up your own little pressure group, give it a catchy cognomen, have bits of yourself tattooed to fill the fighting fund, and tell anyone who will listen that it's in the wrong place. And when they accuse you of being a NIMBY, laugh in their face and tell them you belong to the BANANA bunch - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.

Strictly Come Loft Boarding

What an extraordinary length of time it is since we last spoke. And what amazing things have happened since then. Well...none, to be honest. But I am still around, still working, still dancing and still decorating. The latter task seems never ending. Wallpapering and painting our bedroom was straightforward enough, but the breakfast room...

The breakfast room had been smelling a bit musty, and I'd noticed a couple of dodgy floorboards. So, I took them up, only to be confronted by a set of floor joist bearers that were rotten and riddled with the result of over a hundred years' worth of woodworm. Over the next couple of weeks I spent a jolly time stripping out and replacing the bearers, treating them with anti-worm jollop and filling around twenty rubble bags with, erm, rubble. The stuff looked suspiciously like the leftovers of the bomb damage our house suffered in the last war, courtesy of the Luftwaffe. I also found that the skirting boards were rotten and knackered, and removing them dislodged huge amounts of wall plaster, which I had to pay a plasterer to fix. What had started as a bit of cosmetic work ended up as a mammoth (and expensive) task.

Then there was the laundry room. Stripped out, wallpapered, painted and fitted with new shelves, this at least was a reasonably quick fix. Mrs H was happy because she can, at last, set all the new sets of sheets and towels out. The sheets and towels we bought before we moved. Four years ago. And then it was time to move on to the next job; boarding out the loft. Not, as an American acquaintance thought, renting it out, but rather placing boards over the joists so I can use the area for storage. I will no doubt fill it with things that would be better taken to the rubbish dump. Why do I insist on keeping things that should be re-homed, or sent to landfill to fascinate a future generation of archaeologists when they eventually unearth them hundreds of years from now? Sometimes I wish I could live my life according to the code of the Buddhist monks. They manage with a razor, a needle, a begging bowl and a few other odds and sods. If you met a Buddhist monk in a supermarket you could bet your life you'd find him in the 'Five Items or Fewer' checkout queue.

There weren't many Buddhist monks in Willingdon church hall on Friday; just a bunch of morris dancers in mufti, attempting to get to grips with a dance called Bill Brewer, which is loosely based around the tune for Widecombe Fair. And quite a good dance it is, or will be once I've got the hang of it. Some morris dances demand a great deal of concentration and not a little technical skill; every bit as much as the contestants on Strictly Come Dancing have to deal with. I really do think that the BBC is missing a trick. I could see Strictly Come Morris Dancing working well as part of the Saturday evening schedule...

Sun, sanding and psychopathic sorting

The weather down here in Sussex was pretty good earlier in the week, with temperatures up in the eighties fahrenheit, in contrast to the cold and rain we had in April. We were out dancing last Friday night at a pleasant little pub in Alciston (pronounced 'Aston') called the Rose Cottage. And, as often happens early on in the dancing out season, we outnumbered the spectators. At one point (I kid you not) our appreciative audience consisted of three people and a Jack Russell/Spaniel cross. The dog seemed to enjoy it.

Curiously, this warmer weather has had a strange effect on Mrs H and on me; we have simultaneously developed awful summer colds. But, being the stalwarts that we are, we haven't allowed it to stop us from getting on with things. I spent a jolly day yesterday, sanding down skirting boards and filling holes in walls, whilst Mrs H pottered around the house doing various exciting chores. I had thought, when I moved to the coast just over three years ago, that I would spend my time in solitary walks along a windswept beach, composing poetry or thinking through the next chapter of my as yet incomplete book, The Middenshire Chronicles, but that's not how things turned out. Instead, I work five mornings a week, then come home to a pot of filler and a sheet of sandpaper. But, once all the work has been completed, there will (I hope) be time for the walking and composing.

My preoccupation with work and domestic refurbishment does not, however, prevent my being creative. Why, only the other day I invented an eye test chart for illiterate gardeners - instead of capital letters, I used vegetables. And I came up with a way of avoiding the expense of personalised car number plates - simply take the letters from your car's registration number and change your name by deed poll to match them. Probably best I copyright these ideas in case someone else tries to pass them off as theirs.

Nor does work and DIY stop me from getting out of the house now and then. The other day I thought I would take the old papers and magazines down to the small recycling area that lives in a corner of the car park at the end of our road. It was a quiet Sunday morning and there was no-one else around. As I approached the recycling bins, I saw a man leaning against one of them, reading a newspaper in what I can only describe as a furious manner. When he clocked my arrival, he stopped reading, opened up the bin he had been leaning on, and started sorting through the mixed collection of papers and magazines therein. He placed the magazines in a separate bin, and returned the newspapers to the first.

'Don't people realise?' he asked. 'Papers and magazines should be sorted.'

I muttered something like 'Oh, really?' as I absent-mindedly placed my own mixed load of papers and mags in the bin. He instantly fell upon them like a wolf on its prey and began to furiously sort them into categories.

'I don't know what's wrong with these people,' he said. 'Magazines in one bin, papers in another. How difficult is that?'

I was about to point out the sticky labels on the paper recyc bins that permitted both types of periodical in the same receptacle, but thought better of it.

'Violence. That's all these people understand,' he said through gritted teeth. 'Violence.'

So, there I was. In a deserted street with a furious man who wanted to tear amateur recyclers to pieces with his bare hands. I decided to leave Mr Furious to his one man crusade, and wandered off to buy some newspapers to replace the ones my potentially violent acquaintance was e'en now in the process of sorting.

Never a dull moment is Sussex.

A work in progress

I was to have been dancing today, at the Ram Inn at Firle and in the village of Alfriston. But it was not to be. Some typical Bank Holiday weather (rain and high winds) put paid to Long Man's planned programme. So, after a consolatory pint of Harveys bitter, I trundled off home to watch Midsomer Murders. And, in an idle moment, started writing a modern sea shanty. As you do.

Twas on a bonny morn me boys
We sailed upon the sea - oh
All for to catch the silv'ry fish
And have some for our tea - oh

Chorus

And it's heave ho me jolly lads
Let's start the outboard motor-oh!
Heave ho, we're homeward bound
'Cos we've passed our EU quota-oh!

Our skipper bold threw out the nets
Some seafood for to slay - oh
He caught some crabs and a couple of dabs
And threw the rest away - oh

Chorus

The skipper sighed and sadly said
'There'll be no pay today-oh
For those in Brussels have decreed
We throw good fish away-oh

Chorus

If anyone's interested in writing a few more verses, please feel free.

Warning - contains the word 'arse'

I've always been interested in words. So much so that, a few years ago, whenever I encountered a new word, I enquired as to its meaning, which I then carefully wrote down in a note book next to the word itself. I carried on doing this for some considerable time, and eventually told a friend what I had done. This friend pointed out that what I had created was a dictionary, and said it'd already been done.

Language is a fascinating thing; I love the way my own language has developed over the centuries, from Anglo Saxon, through Norman French additions to Middle and then modern English. It is the language of Beowulf and Chaucer; of Shakespeare and Betjeman; and of your humble blognator. I'm afraid I do have a bit of a thing about using language properly, albeit I accept that it is constantly evolving. And it does amuse me when people mess things up. Take proverbs, for example. Last week on the radio, I heard the presenter describe something as 'a pain in the proverbial'. I assume she wanted to say 'a pain in the backside' or, more vulgarly, 'a pain in the arse'. Now, this confused me. During the course of my life I've encountered a good many proverbs. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' and 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away', to name but two. But I have racked my brains to recall any proverb that contains the word 'arse'. 'A friend in need is a pain in the arse'? No. 'Too many cooks spoil the arse'? No in italics. Perhaps what the presenter should really have said was 'a pain in the metaphorical arse,' where the arse symbolically represents the object or person that is causing the problem. Equally, she could have indicated that the given something was 'Figuratively speaking, a pain in the arse.'

Metaphors and similes are figures of speech that seem to cause more than a few problems. There is a tendancy to confuse the two. But I can explain the difference very clearly, here and now, with a couple of examples. 'You are a pain in the arse' (metaphor); 'You're like a pain in the arse' (simile). How hard is that? However, my own view is that it is only proper to describe something as 'a pain in the arse' when it is, in a literal sense, a pain in the arse. But it is, perhaps, unfair of me to restrict my fellow human beings to the use of the phrase only when gripped by chronic piles, or some terible fistula. So I am not going to place upon them any such restriction. Instead, being of a generous disposition, I shall explain the difference between the literal and the figurative. It pains me to hear someone say 'I literally laughed my arse off,' when such a feat is, of course, impossible. When I hear it I always have the urge to say, 'but I see you've had it stitched back on again.' If they must use this particular part of the anatomy to indicate the effect upon them of a witty remark, then do not use 'literally', which literally means 'word for word'. Instead, it would be more proper to say, 'I laughed so much that it felt like my arse would fall off'. Or maybe even, 'Were it possible for my arse to detatch itself from the rest of my body in response to the paroxysms of laughter that this particular incident generated, I feel almost certain that it would have done so.'

So there you have it. Just be careful that you don't confuse any of my arse-related ramblings with Seigneurie d'Arse, which I'm told is a nice little wine from the Fitou region.

Pieless in Lewes

Every now and again it's good to get out and do something. So on Saturday Mrs H and I decided to go for a wander round Lewes, the county town, and have lunch in one of the many eateries that are dotted along the high street.

I like Lewes, but there's something about the place that I can't quite put my finger on. The late Keith Waterhouse said that Brighton 'looks like a town that is helping the police with its enquiries.' But Lewes, on the other hand, looks like a town that is best mates with the Chief Constable, and tells you that you'd do well to remember it, as you both try to nab the last parking space behind Waitrose. Most of its inhabitants look quite well heeled and have that air of self-assurance that I've never been able to carry off. Even the down and outs are posh. A ruddy-faced street drinker strummed a guitar as he sweetly sang 'you killed ma wee brother ya bastard' or something very like it to passers-by; in any lesser town the same words would have been screamed out in the middle of the night outside a block of flats, and without the benefit of a classical twelve string. But I digress.

Mrs H and I negotiated the doors of our chosen eatery and were greeted by a shaven-headed whirling dervish, masquerading as a waiter, who handed us a couple of menus and promised to seat us soon. Initially, the menus could not be read as our glasses had steamed up. But we needn't have worried. The 'soon' turned out to be a few minutes as the dervish multitasked his way round the restaurant, clearing tables, laying tables, collecting monies and delivering meals. But eventually we were deposited at a table for two in the middle of the restaurant and left to our own devices to study the menu now that the fog had cleared from our spectacles.Eventually Mrs H settled upon a little smoked cod and haddock dish with chunky chips, whilst I decided to tackle the steak and kidney pie. Off went the dervish to fulfil the order, which gave us the leisure to examine our fellow diners. Behind us was a husband and wife with two children; one a girl around three years old, and her little brother, probably no more than nine months old. They had clearly been waiting some time for their food, as the girl was in the process of demolishing two slices of bread, which she laboriously buttered with a knife that was almost as big as herself. And, after every mouthful of bread, the child wept copious tears for no readily apparent reason. Her little brother, in contrast, was rather quiet and solemn, dressed as he was like a mini country gentleman, with a tiny tattersall shirt and a grey waistcoat. I expected to see a gold dummy on a watch chain tucked into his waistcoat pocket, but disappointingly this was absent.

After waiting for more than half an hour for our food, I enquired of the dervish as to its whereabouts. Off he sped, and returned five minutes later with the news that my pie had been dropped on the kitchen floor just prior to its delivery to our table. This piece of information I found very hard to believe, for the following reason. I noticed that someone in the kitchen would ring a tiny bell when food was ready to be collected. One of the junior dervishes would then dash into the kitchen, emerging with said food. And, whilst I had heard many tiny tinkles during the preceding few minutes, I had not heard the tumultous crash of a steak and kidney pie, encased in a ceramic pie dish, hitting the kitchen floor. I suspected that they had simply forgotten us and our order, and had concocted the dropped pie story to cover their tracks. Deciding not to cause a fuss, I let it pass, and settled down to my dish of complimentary olives to await pie number two.

A few minutes later, a young female under-dervish arrived.

'I'm really sorry, ladies,' she said. 'I mean, sir and lady,' she added, having noticed that I was, in fact, a man.

'It's the hair, isn't it?' I said.

She blanked this rejoinder. 'I'm really sorry, but it was me who dropped your pie.' I gave her a half smile in an effort to show that I felt her discomfort. They had obviously drawn straws in the kitchen, and this young lady, having picked the short one, had been selected to confirm the story concocted by the senior dervish.

'Your food will be here in a couple of minutes.'

Our food arrived in a couple of minutes and, I have to say, it was well worth the wait. But what was even better than the food was the middle aged, middle class couple on the next table, who were clearly having a blazing row about where they were going to spend their next holiday. However, it was conducted in a very quiet and civilised manner, like two people who barely knew each other politely conversing about the weather. She wanted to go to Aspen in Colorado. He wanted to go to Europe. What have you got against Aspen, she asked. The length of the journey, he said. You didn't think Bermuda was too far away when you wanted to go there, did you, she asked. Well, then we'll go to Aspen, he said. I really want to go to Aspen. What's the snow like at this time of year, he asked. I have no idea, she said...

We paid the bill and departed before things turned really nasty and they started dipping their fingers in the carafe and flicking water over each other.

Incidentally, I can thoroughly recommend the restaurant to you. Sorry, did I not tell you what it was called? Oh dear...

Hoarder! Hoarder!

In the course of my life I've had six house moves. This averages out to a move about every nine years. Most of them happened when I was quite young, so I didn't get fully involved in the trauma that is The House Move. But my most recent one was just under three years ago, when I upped sticks from London to the comparative peace of East Sussex. And I discovered that a move gives you the opportunity to go through your possessions and, hopefully, have something of a clearout, so that you start life in your new house with rather less clutter. What a pity I failed to use the opportunity. As a consequence, I am now, three years later, still making weekly trips to the charity shops and the Council tip, getting rid of the stuff that, had I disposed of it earlier, would have saved me a good few pounds by enabling me to hire a smaller removal van.

But I do struggle to give things up. Ask Mrs H and she'll quite happily tell you. I have more books than you can shake a stick at. I have a shed full of odds and ends that I've been collecting for years, in the belief that they might one day 'come in handy'. And drawers full of fossils, miscellaneous pebbles picked up from beaches, old pens, bits of electrical equipment and beer mats that I can't bear to throw away. The declutter experts advocate getting rid of something if you haven't used it for a given period - six months, for example - but I find it nigh on impossible to ditch things that I haven't used for half a lifetime. Or more. I have tried to declutter; heaven knows I've tried; but I invariably get stuck after the first item. And that first item is usually a bus ticket or a till receipt.

So, I'm a rubbish declutter-er. But just lately I've begun to wonder whether I shouldn't have hung on to all of it. For in the North Laine area of Brighton there is a large emporium called Snooper's Paradise, wherein a positive gallimaufry of antiques, curios and collectibles are for sale. Walking round Snooper's Paradise is like taking a stroll through your life. A bit like a near-death experience, only in slow motion. I was in said emporium a couple of weeks ago, and saw a good many items from my past. I used to store my fossils and sea shells in old Havana cigar boxes; the shop had them for six pounds each. My father cleverly rigged up an internal telephone system in my bedroom so my mother could phone me when dinner was on the table. Those same telephones, long since gone to landfill, are now worth around £100. And old bits of military clothing which I picked up for pennies at jumble sales in the sixties when such things were in favour (blame the Sergeant Pepper album) now cost as much as a new suit.

So, dear reader, I've come to a decision. I shall call a halt to any kind of de-cluttering. I wil start to fill my house with piles of newspapers, empty bottles and cans, and my garden with redundant bits of furniture. And I shall retain every book, CD, electronic gadget, empty takeaway carton and any other object that passes my way, on the off-chance that it may, at some point in the distant future, be worth a few bob. OK; if you visit me you might have to wipe your feet when you leave the house; but on the plus side, I think I'll soon have my very own documentary series on TV.