Meg’s mate

This is your Court correspondent, reporting on the life and work of Snowdon, just call him Tony.

Of course those society snappers faced awful temptations. Some resisted, I’m sure; others, like Tony, indulged. But (again of course, given the the tempora and the mores) the extent of the indulgence was never revealed.

After Meg succumbed to the curse of her cigs, Tony continued to bat for both sides, taking his latest handsome squeezes to be entertained to dinner by ‘friends’.

A full-colour fella, eh? RIP.

 

Mutiny on the Harmony

I found this on the web a little while ago and it brought back a few memories, courtesy of the website of Mr Ambrose- Jones, who joined as the replacement Chief Officer.

http://www.oldsalts.org.uk/index-_ambrose_lof.html

I joined the London Harmony as an apprentice deck officer at the tender age of seventeen. As apprentices we worked with the crew for most of the time, which didn’t make it the most comfortable place to be on the ship when the crew mutinied. It did, however, rapidly improve my observational powers when walking around on the main deck alone.

This is Mr Ambrose-Jones account of the events that took place after he joined the ship

london_harmony_1964

London Harmony Incident Continue reading “Mutiny on the Harmony”

Homelessness

You would think that in so called civilised western wealthy democracies that homelessness would be dealt with a degree of efficiency.

Not so, it is obvious that it is on the rise quite dramatically in Canada, Great Britain and the USA. It may well be happening elsewhere in Europe too, I do not know.  Stories reported recently here.  Four have died in Portland of hypothermia since the beginning of the year.  They have 8 immigrants in hospital in Toronto.  Stupid Africans who tried to walk across the border north from Minnesota at this time of year (-40 below) who have now lost hands, feet and digits from frostbite.  Heavens knows how many have died in BC.

Continue reading “Homelessness”

The green line

In ’67 I visited a relative serving in the RAF at Akrotiri, conveyed by an ear-shattering  VC10 in the company of other families. We landed in Nicosia, at an airport which fell out of service in ’74 when Cyprus was split in two, the warring sides separated by the green line on a military map. I was shown the bustling port of Famagusta too, which has been a ghost town since ’74.

So I’m intrigued by the latest efforts to reconcile the north and south of the island at talks now underway in Geneva. My good friends there would be more than happy to recover their families’ long-lost properties. But there are serious reservations about Turkey’s willingness to withdraw their forces.

I hope Cyprus achieves unification. Fingers crossed.

Flannan Isles Lighthouse

In 1900 three experienced lighthouse keepers disappeared from the Flannan Isles Lighthouse. For those who are unfamiliar with the case, or with geography of a distinctly Jockish flavour, relevant lighthouse was some 20 miles west of Lewis, Western Isles. The lighthouse itself was in good order with the only physical sign of distress being an overturned chair. The lighthouse journal told of strange events that took place over the final days. Normally strong, even combative, men who had worked as keepers for decades became sullen, one even wept constantly. No bodies were ever found. On the final recorded days no unusually bad storms were recorded for that region. Some geologists have speculated that the deaths had an incredibly dull cause. The isle on which the lighthouse is built has many geos, or deeply-cut gullies. Water, especially when seas are rough, can be forced up sweeping anyone near into the sea.

My opinion? Scotland is one of the most atmospheric places I’ve ever had the fortune of visiting. There’s something dark and brooding, a heaviness in the atmosphere that I’m yet to experience elsewhere. Perhaps a synthesis of their isolation and an unusually thick atmosphere led them to toss caution to the wind. There was severe damage to one side of the island so it’s likely they were taken by the sea.

C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?

Hacking, bugging, snooping, leaking, infiltrating, etc., etc., seem to be the daily agenda for governments, as they have, I guess, since Adam were a lad. So let’s save our concern that Russia showed interest in the US election. Do we imagine the US is idle in Moscow or Beijing or Delhi or London or…..?

No doubt the meeja will be reporting Trump’s first decisions as President almost before he has made them; and the Brexit negotiations will be about as secret as a fart in a bathtub.

It’s interesting that Trump chooses to herald his activities by using social media, which can hardly be pre-empted by data thieves! Not a bad idea, perhaps.

 

Elementary?

I realise that during the holidays (Am.) all discerning trend-setters among screen addicts will have been on Netflix (or similar) but back among the plebs a milestone was reached.

I recall that from my earliest years it was mandatory at home to be silent at 3 pm on Xmas day to listen/watch HM the Queen making her annual speech to her subjects, on pain of Grandpa’s awful displeasure: Shut up! So it was.

But in 2016, for the first time, more tv sets were tuned to less regal matters: the first episode of a new series of Sherlock, promising fiendishly new twists and subtle references to the old characters and events. Obviously the average Brit isn’t quite so addicted to the monarch’s words. Or maybe only the pensioners tune in these days. Like Donald J Trump, the twat generation have little time for broadcast speeches of more than 140 characters.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Edgukayshun

There’s a lot of noise about further education, its price and its value. Let’s not question the principle that studying a subject after school will be valuable, not as a substitute for eventual on-the-job training but as an intellectual challenge by way of preparation for work. Its price varies from country to country. Here in high-tax DK it’s free, as it was for Brits when I were a lad. Now in England somebody has to find £9k p.a. in fees (or thereabouts) and the cost of living on top. Loans, bursaries, etc. are available but it ain’t cheap for the average family to deal with.

But the meeja bang on about the demographic bias in universities – as if it’s a surprise. But have you looked at the mix in fee-paying schools? A lot of non-local children from the nations of the world.

So not surprisingly the top universities appear to be biassed towards the ‘home counties’. Sorry to say it but that’s because they and many of the top schools are there. Not all of course, before there’s an outbreak of under-collar heat! The brightest kids can be found everywhere but life is not an ‘equal opportunity’ experience.

Naturally, if you don’t believe in further education this whole issue is meaningless. But I do and it means  lot.