Category: Techo stuff

The price of precedence

We are all air travellers. We choose the deal that suits our needs and our pockets. Meanwhile the airlines tempt us with every conceivable incentive to pay less or more, while pretending to consider our comfort and convenience.

And BA, perhaps our homeland’s favourite airline, are coming clean. So that if you pay a higher ticket price to travel with them you get ‘priority boarding’ – which Ryanair and easyJet have offered for a while at a premium price.

Result? Shock horror that BA could be so class-obsessed! ‘Rich people given priority’ according to Osborne’s London rag. But as far as I know, his rich people always got it  – with BA and every other airline. Although the chavs he appeals to will always cry foul if they can’t get to the front of the queue.

I have noticed during my many years of easyJet travel that there are folk who gladly fork out double the ticket price to occupy the front row on the plane, preening themselves as superior beings. BA know how to catch them! And good luck to them.

A Dorset lad’s pome

Thomas Hardy dun gud, lik wiv pomes. So eres won wot I lik. ‘The Darkling Thrush’, 1900

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

Continue reading “A Dorset lad’s pome”

All topped out at last

Thanks to 12 daytime periods of rain, it took the friendly thatcher nine weeks to complete the renovations. And last Friday a symbolic shower accompanied the traditional ceremony of topping out, flags ‘n all. We stood outside to enjoy a red sausage with a bread roll, mustard and ketchup dips, washed down with probably the best beer Denmark can offer. Believe it or not, that really is the traditional fare for such occasions!

He recalled that he himself had re-thatched parts of this same roof 25 years ago – and could even remember the details of his earlier work, replacing some rough-hewn battens with modern planed timbers, by now specified as to quality and dimensions by the building authorities. Not surprisingly, the latest requirements take account of the burgeoning girth of the craftsmen they must support!

Skål! Og vi ses! (Probably not.)

A name to conjure with

Carles Puigdemont. It’s a cracker, anagram-wise.

Let’s leave aside the bizarre concept of an elected European pollie seeking political asylum in Belgium – whose own cultural conflicts deserve serious attention!

CP offers us some marvellous phrases:

Is he RECOMPUTING DEALS? Does he come from the CAMPGROUND ELITES? Is Catalonia now an IMPREGNATED LOCUS? Is Madrid PROSECUTING LAMED ducks? Or are they all MODULATING CREEPS? Is there a MOULDERING ASPECT to all this? Is JP PERMEATING CLOUDS? Or is it a storm in a SMOLDERING TEACUP?

Have your own fun with it – the list is endless.

Very hot under the collar

That’s me.

I’ve had it up to here with transcrap, gender assignment and neutrality, pregnant persons, lady boys and all the associated PC balderdash. Such character defects should be identified and treated, not encouraged and catered for. Boys must be boys and girls must be girls. Take your pick – it”s an easy choice, almost exclusively assisted by your body parts as observed at birth. No, you can’t change your sex, however bonkers you are and society shouldn’t let you try. And if you prefer same-sex relationships, fine. But don’t call them marriage or pretend to be competent as parents.

So there.

Don’t be silly

It must be the proliferation of wannabe journalists that’s responsible for the ridiculous attention given to the American festival of Halloween – in shops and in the meeja. Because if nobody wrote about such rubbish, nobody else would find it interesting to participate in such childish games.

Continue reading “Don’t be silly”

Small but ready to conform

This little kingdom of only 5.5 million souls, it has to be said, is a mèlange of the clichèed sublime and gorblimey; rarely making the international meeja top ten in anything but happiness and nordic noir eccentricity. The last week’s front-runners were a murderous submariner and a national ban on the rarely-seen burqa, both stories remarkable for their otherworldliness. Continue reading “Small but ready to conform”

A new roof

We’re being rethatched. And a very interesting procedure it is! But never fear – I’m not going to give you a straw-by-straw commentary. And while our expert thatcher is at it, he’s replacing many of the original roof timbers from 1860 (ish) which were hewn by hand from trees in the forest right here. The ‘good’ stuff which he leaves in place is extremely hard, almost defying his drill.

The thatch itself is Chinese these days. Why? Because local reed beds produce a much shorter stem which is more expensive to install – covering only half to 4/5ths of the area per bundle (see above).

So I’ll try to take some pics when it’s done – already a tribute to the craft.