Author: janh1

Part-time hedonist.

Just a few piccies

A few piccies taken in Wales a couple of weeks back.  Took me ages to arrange them due to total ineptitude on my part but,  in the immortal words of Manuel in Fawlty Towers  “I learn!”

Link here – mostly because I didn’t want to mess up Bearsy’s lovely front page.

Due a power cut any second so I’m going while going is good!  😀

Another one bites the dust

Today is the day after all the Easter egg scoffing and the big full-on lunches with family and friends that the newspaper foodie supplements dictate should be gastro-feasts.

So what more could you want than to mosey on down to England’s longest village green and watch people stuffing their faces, at considerable speed, with even more food – and not just ordinary food but hundreds of wiggly, slippery, grey baby eels?

Well for many years that was the tradition at Frampton-on-Severn in Gloucestershire.

Rosamund’s Green – nearly half a mile long – is bordered along one  edge by the high walls of the Frampton Court estate where there were always springer spaniels wandering or lying around watching the world go by waiting for the next shooting gig. The only excitement one would usually see on the green was the village cricket match.

But on Bank Holiday Monday, just opposite the the Three Horseshoes pub, it was the venue for the annual Elver Eating Contest which was preceded by an Easter Bonnet parade and various Sausage Eating Contests.
Continue reading “Another one bites the dust”

Joke (from a wee Scottish pal)

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, Irish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Irish, in the weeks that followed, an English archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story published in the Sassenach Morning Herald read:

“English archaeologists, finding traces of 130-year-old copper wire,have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 30 years earlier than the Irish”.

One week later, the Banffshire Courier in Buckie, Scotland, reported the following:

“After digging as deep as 30 feet in his pasture near Enzie, Banffshire, Jock Broon, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely fuck all.

“Jock has therefore concluded that 130 years ago, Scotland had already gone wireless.”

When Mayors weep…

Sorry, this is essentially a local blog. No idea why I’m writing it, really because no locals will read this blog – well maybe one, at the very outside.

The thing is, Gloucester Carnival procession has been cancelled for this summer.

The tall ships festival has been cancelled this summer.

The cheese rolling at Cooper’s Hill near Gloucester has been stopped because it’s too popular.

Why does everyone take the easy option when logistics get a bit challenging?

It’s pure laziness. There are ways and means of making things happen. Continue reading “When Mayors weep…”

Lairy ladies

Violence among women is something I’ve never actually witnessed.  I’m blissfully innocent of situations where alcohol-fuelled tempers flare and it’s handbags at dawn.

Only these days, the trend seems to be less handbags and more knives or glasses or even, not so long ago, a stilletto heel in the eye. To be frank, it’s all got a bit nasty.

There was a case in our local paper recently about a young law student out on the lash in some bar who took exception to another woman and head-butted her in the face.

A head-butt. It made me think what sort of woman would resort to a head butt? How could that possibly be an instinctive thing for a woman to do? What kind of background does she have, this law student who uses her own head to injure another person? Does she really have more testosterone than oestrogen? Continue reading “Lairy ladies”

Dum, da-dum, da dum dum dumdum, dumdum….

A friend of mine has just started ballet lessons. She’s pirouetting and pas-de-deuxing like crazy and developing the firm, lithe legs of her youth – which isn’t that far back.

She’s signed up for a second course of lessons. What makes it really worthwhile now, she says, is that the other women in the class have loosened up and are friendlier and up for a quiet giggle.

“In the beginning, they were so serious. I was embarrassed to be the only one to find it funny when I went wrong,”she said.

A healthy attitude. Going wrong is what we all do when we fling ourselves headlong into the uncharted territory of Expression Through Dance and laughing is so much more becoming than puffy-faced snivelly-nosed misery. Continue reading “Dum, da-dum, da dum dum dumdum, dumdum….”

Cheesed Off.

A lot of us are extremely cheesed off here in Glawstershire at the moment.

More cheesed off than a piece of single Gloucester left out after a boozy dinner party and found soft and  sweaty in the morning.

More cheesed off than some Stinking Bishop that fell unnoticed out of the shopping bag into footwell of the car and sat there humming to itself unrescued while people went on holiday for a week.

Even more cheesed off  than  Eddie Izzard’s feet after doing 43 marathons. Continue reading “Cheesed Off.”

Wild Rovers

The Dubliners last night at Cheltenham Town Hall;  well, what can I say?

Cheltenham Town Hall is always a tricky venue. People with dosh tend to get the best seats at the front but they aren’t always the most enthusiastic, so the moderate spenders who are devotees are often found in the centre/back of the hall.

There was applause when the guys walked on stage but not the wild adulation of long-time fans.  It was warm but normal kind of applause.

Banjo Barney McKenna took a while getting to his seat. He is stout with an unruly grey beard, a generous corporation and owlish steel-framed specs perched on the end of his nose beneath a dark peaked hat. I was terrified he would fall over and break a hip. Continue reading “Wild Rovers”