Blackpool - Welcome to the house of fun

Poor Blackpool, beaten by Manchester in the great casino race. So sure were the media that either London or Blackpool would win, that no camera crews had been dispatched to Manchester. The unseemly haste with which they abandoned Blackpool to its winter-time desolation just about summed it up: they wanted glitz and glamour not a bleak northern beach.

But is Manchester the better place? The proposed location for the super-casino is only a fifteen minute walk from the socially deprived area of East Manchester that is the home of Channel 4's Shameless; there is no doubt of the need for investment. The Bishop of Hulme, Stephen Lowe, said as much but summed up his view of social investment based on excessive gambling saying "Can't we do better than that?".

Blackpool's image is based on fun and excess, whether it's the adrenaline rush from an experience on the Pepsi Max roller coaster, a big night out in one of the many clubs or bars or a stroll along the prom taking in the cheesy novelty of it all. On our own visit in October we spotted tourists simply enjoying watching others having fun. One Japanese tourist actually took a photograph of our favourite bright orange and blue, plastic-fronted chip shop, the inside characterised by its purely functional, vinyl bench seating and Formica-topped tables.

I would have preferred to have had no super-casino; but Blackpool's front of fun, plastic and tat surely makes it the better place to put one.

The Great Quorn Scandal

Each year there is a national scandal, here is my prediction for this year:

We eat a lot of Quorn, it's incredible how really meaty it is; how lovely and chickeny it is, how it has all the protein and texture of meat; but, is actually made from mushrooms. Hmm, the investigative journalist in me smells a story here.

(It's probably best if you read the next bit in the sort of voice that David Attenborough uses to watch gorillas)

I can see it now: creeping through the undergrowth on the outskirts of a heavily guarded, unmarked factory on the edges of Exmoor. Staying out of range of the CCTV cameras and dodging the regular patrols of tough looking guards. I creep to where I can see the sheds where Quorns are factory farmed.

(You can stop the Attenborough voice now and change it the sort of voice that the chap who does the advert for the Sunday People uses, you know, hard edged and shocking.)

Yes, I said 'farmed'; that is my shocking, scandalous prediction: Quorns are small cute furry creatures genetically engineered by sick scientists to be something like a cross between a guineau pig and a rabbit.

I'll be offered a six figure sum that Jade Goody would be happy with, from the red-top rags and a banner headline; then the offer will be doubled by an anonymous muscular looking man who arrives at the door unexpectedly.

"How do you know where I live?" I ask,
"We just do, remember that" he replies.

I take the red top money, because I have morals; then, hated by the cruel executives of the collapsed Quorn empire, I go in to hiding changing my name and identity, only to resurface in an ITV special revealing my next expose (how do you get the accent thingy over the letter 'e'? It's supposed to say exposay, like the French. I suppose it's because Blogger is American and they don't like the Europeans - except the Brits, at the moment).

Anyway there it is, I think my theory explains a lot. Johnny Kingdom the Exmoor naturalist was going on about the 'Beast of Exmoor' in his TV series the other week. My theory? the beast of Exmoor (and may be the Beast of Bodmin too) is surviving by eating escaped Quorns, that's why they don't come scavenging in Devon bins. In fact I'll bet that the beasts of Bodmin and Exmoor are actually genetically engineered predators, built in a test tube to mop up the escapees and prevent us from finding the truth... until now.

Of course we don't know what a Quorn looks like, but I bet they are cute. If you would like to send me your artist's impressions we could have a gallery of the best ones.

PS: New to the Crofty's Blog - my reading list, check out what I'm currently reading by clicking the new link

The Burns Ward

A three-day communication course I was once on culminated in a final session, during which each of us had to share something about ourselves, something that was important and wasn't what we would normally share. One of the participants took his turn; and amidst hushed expectation stammered nervously,

"I'm a m...m...m..."

Immediately I thought I'd guessed it - there was something about that twitchy handshake, and that briefcase - but I was wrong.

He continued,

"I'm a m...m...member of the Sons of the Desert."

He was, and remains, a long-time member of the fraternity of Laurel and Hardy fans. With the warm approval of the group, he went on to show us some of his fascinating memorabilia and explained why it was special for him.

My turn came for the AA moment (not the motoring organisation) :

"My name's Crofty...", there was a hushed expectancy, "...and I like poetry."

There it was, out in the open; but where were the warm indulgent smiles, the understanding nods; and I was sure there was a barely perceptible leaning-away by my adjacent group members. I reflected that poetry crossed a boundary in the minds of the the testosterone-heavy group; and it was perhaps as well that I hadn't shared my liking for ballet - this was before Billy Elliot.

Anyway, there it is, I like poetry. On that occasion I think I shared the Thomas Hardy poem 'In time of the breaking of nations', and a more modern choice from Simon Armitage's collection Book of Matches. I tried to explain how unsatisfactory it is to say simply that one likes poetry; you might hate Simon Armitage or Carol Ann Duffy; but William Blake, who I can't stand, might resonate deeply within you. The best way to decide about poetry is to read it: get an anthology that cuts across eras and styles; and discover how fourteen lines can say more than fourteen chapters; or how poets can make words do judo: a few small, well crafted, innocuous sounding phrases flattening you without any apparent effort.

I was delighted when my sons were doing GCSE English; both Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage were on the syllabus. I enthused about both poets only to find that the general class consensus was they were boring and crap. They were boring and crap simply because they were part of the syllabus; I just contributed to their crapacity by confessing my liking: it's not cool to like something that your dad likes. In much the same way I had dismissed John Betjamin and Philip Larkin when I studied for my O-Levels in the seventies. Betjamin still gets on my pip with his train-spotting.

Thursday night is a special night, it's Burns night; the night of the year when golf clubs and all other clubs for grown-ups, will be full of people claiming every tenuous association with Scotland and claiming a love for the poetry of the bard of Scotland, Robert Burns. You can hear it now:

"Oh yes Taylor is from the Gaelic, Burns himself features a derivative version of the word when he describes the "wee timorous beastie"

"Ah yes but of course my great great grandfather was actually a Burns, a dashing sort of fellow named Flash."

And after dinner speakers, who can affect anything approaching a Scottish accent, will be dusting off their pronunciation guides to tackle words like :

"Painch tripe of thairm..."

As the evening draws to its dramatic climax there will be the symbolic slaughter of that poor wee highland creature, the haggis, to the skirl of the pipes.

I have difficulty with dialect poetry, I don't have the patience but if you can bear them, many of Burns' poems are worth the effort (if you click on the link you also have the opportunity to purchase many Burns goodies, do go to the shop and have a look, the list of top-ten best sellers says it all!).

The singer Eddi Reader - remember her in Fairground Attraction - has done a stunning album of Burns' poems, with some of the best traditional musicians around: Ian Carr and John McCusker among them. So that will be my way of celebrating the night: Eddi Reader and my only connection with Scotland, a liking for malt whisky (although I am a little short at the moment, donations gratefully... etc etc)

Whether you only have an aunt who once went on a coach trip to Edinburgh or are a true Scot, enjoy Burns Night.

The title? Oh yes, sorry.
That's the punch line to a story about the Duke of Edinburgh visiting a Scottish hospital. He goes round many wards until, finally, he is shown one where all the patients have blank looks and are lying on their beds murmuring snatches of barely intelligible dialect poetry. The Duke says,

"Ah this must be the psychiatric unit."
"No", replies the guide....

A Grand Day Out

This coming Monday, January 22nd is, according to experts with calculators, the most miserable day of the year. A whole host of factors combine to create a day that's fit only for staying home, shutting the door and eating chocolate/drinking wineand or watching old films; or maybe, we could have a day out together. Regular readers will know that I have been stuck indoors for a while so let's share a day out in London without leaving our computer chairs.

First, we'll visit the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, we'll spend a good hour taking in our favourite painters or group of painters. We can take a look at the impressionists, for example, or read more about the one pictured, the Wilton Diptych. But best of all, we'll wander round the collection learning, without the need to put on one of those funny Walkman things that give a guided tour; then next time we go in person we can show-off: talking knowledgeably about the paintings we have learnt on our day out.

After the National Gallery we'll have a cup of tea or coffee and imagine we are in the tea room at Fortnum and Mason. Lets pretend that our cup of Fair Trade tea is actually Fortnum's reasonably priced Irish Breakfast Tea at £6.95 a tin. Their website really is posh, it has a very tastefully animated home page, but the best bit is that they deliver, just like Tesco.

The next bit of our day out is to take the tube to St Pancras (not to be confused with St Pancreas the patron saint of diabetics) and while we are travelling we can enjoy one of my favourite bits on our jaunt, Poems on the Underground. This scheme has been running for twenty years and is responsible for the brilliant posters on the underground of famous poems. They also produce an anthology of the poems that, in my view, is worth every penny; but for today we'll have a look at some of the current posters by clicking here. This is the website of the London Underground where you can click on the 'random poem' feature or just learn more about the scheme.

OK, next it's the British Library; we're only going to look at a couple of things here to give us plenty of time, there is far too much to see otherwise. The British Library is pretty much like your local library except you get into an awful lot more trouble if you don't take your books back - in fact you'd get into an awful lot of trouble if you tried to take books out in the first place.

The link will take you straight to the on-line gallery; here you can see some real page-turners, no joke, you can actually turn the pages of some of the world's rarest books: including William Blake's notebook, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Mozart's musical diary (with audio excerpts) and, thoughtfully, there's even an exhibition of London's historic maps in case we get lost. That's only just scratched the surface of this site, you'll see time disappear!

(note: you may need to download Macromedia Shockwave to do the page turning thing but it's worth it)

Finally, as our day out draws to its close you have a choice, we're going to split our group into two because there's only time to do one more visit and I know that there will be arguments. Half the group can go off on a tour of Buckingham Palace and the rest can come with me for a much more interesting tour of Highgate Cemetery.

The Buckingham Palace link will take you to the official website of the British monarchy and you can actually visit other royal residences while you are there too. The Highgate Cemetery link takes you to the Sexton's Tales site where you can learn heaps about the people buried there, this one is another site where you can lose significant chunks of time. Incidentally did you know that the murdered Russian ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko is buried there in a lead-lined coffin?

Well that's it, all back to Euston Station for the train home, tired, happy and skint. Hope you enjoyed your day and are feeling much more cheery than at the start.

By the way our day out is a good way for web-virgins to get an idea of how to navigate round a website (mum!), so pass it on if you know any (it's probably not a good idea to enter 'web-virgins' as a search term in Google though).

Yoga and post-sugical recovery

I recently read a review a book called Gardener's Yoga, subtitled Bend and Stretch, Dig and Grow it's by Seattle yoga instructor and gardener Veronica D'Orazio and espouses the virtues of yoga to gardeners complaining of aches and pains who have, up till now, relied on the relaxing properties of a Radox bath. The review was by the type of gardener I would call a trendy gardener. You know the sort, undoubtedly an excellent horticulturalist; but more likely to be found sipping Chardonnay among the prize-winners at Chelsea Flower Show than messing with his spuds down the local allotment.

Trying to reconcile the suggestions in this, it has to be said, lovely looking book with the reality of gardening here in the cold damp north-west of the UK, I had amusing visions of flat-capped men warming up for a session of double-digging with the bridge pose, or more correctly: Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Illustrated from the book).
I also wondered whether there was any benefit to be had in yoga for my own post-surgical recovery, in fact was there a market for a similar book for recovering patients in general.
Already I have established that there are tasks to be done in the home of the recovering patient that would benefit from the additional extension of muscles and sinews that yoga gives. Here are some of the tasks that I might feature in the book:

• Bathing with a leg wrapped in a bright yellow hospital hazardous-waste bag teetering on the side of a bath
• Climbing the stairs on your bottom, bad leg extended in front, when feeling, after a glass of wine or two, less confident on crutches
• Maintaining your balance whilst competing with the dog to answer the door
• One-legged onion chopping
• Emptying the dishwasher on one leg; just how do you hold the plates and your crutches at the same time?

Perhaps there is something in the spiritual aspect of yoga too, all that enlivening of the chi could perhaps benefit recovering patients and also encourage vegetables to grow. Maybe the local tai chi class - I believe that tai chi is good for the chi too- could carry out fresh-air sessions down the allotment to encourage the plants, whilst allowing the gardeners to concentrate on the more practical aspects of crop production.

I have to say, I'm all in favour of allotment gardening, albeit at the moment by other people; the parsnips we are getting from my father in law's allotment are fantastic. I think, though, that our vegetables have more to gain from Carol Klein's Grow Your Own Veg on BBC 2 on Friday evening than from mystical practices; although Prince Charles is a self confessed plant-whisperer - I wonder now that he has a large organic farm, whether he has to employ a team of people to talk to the crops? Carol Klein's programme is not only stuffed with down to earth gardening know-how, but is attractive to watch and has excellent music too. Yes, you can't beat watching other people doing back breaking work against the beautiful back drop of the Derbyshire countryside.

I do see the sense in stretching and warming up certain muscle groups before strenuous gardening, but yoga? it doesn't seem to fit here among the mud and compost. If you do want more information about the yoga of Veronica D'Orazio click here to go to the website of the Seattle centre at which she teaches. There you can view a video of the Samadhi Yogini Dance Group (don't ask because I didn't bother; but if you do, let me know what you think, I can always go back for a look!).

On the other hand if after bending and stretching a bit in your old clothes and cloth cap you fancy some vegetable gardening click here to visit the BBC pages that go with Carol Klein's show.

The fug and the time

Prisons and schools, in fact all institutions, require their inmates to adapt to a certain set of behaviours. This has never been more apparent to me than during my hospitalisation. In an earlier post I mentioned that my two fellow patients Harry and Bert inducted me into the ways of the ward, telling me about the routine, the food and the staff. Other things though more subtly effected my change into 'a patient'. On the first day I wandered around, in my own clothes, chatting amiably with Harry and Bert. Later I changed into pyjamas; that was one significant change, wearing night clothes during the day.

My surgery and subsequent awakening attached to a syringe driver and intravenous infusion deepened the view to anyone passing that I was very much a patient, and in some ways too with Harry and Bert because all three of us now were immobile.

Another thing that bonded us as patients were our shared concerns; in our microcosm different things mattered, the quality of the food, visitors, and doctor's rounds all sparked conversation and concern. All of this was enhanced - and if you have ever been camping you will understand this - by the complete lack of privacy; curtains are not sound-proof. So, Harry and Bert knew to ask me about my pain, Harry and I knew that Bert was having difficulty going (that is the end of that phrase by the way, please don't make me spell it out).
After only 24 hours my pain was pretty much well controlled and I was heartily tucking into hospital fare. After 36 hours, although I mentioned it to no one, Bert and Harry instinctively knew that I too had my own l concerns about going.

Determined that anything that was necessary in the toilet line could wait until I was more mobile, I waited; by day three there was a lurking presence that, sooner or later, had to be dealt with.
On day four physiotherapists taught me to do non-weight bearing walking with crutches, there was only one place that I was heading, Harry and Bert knew it. After manly efforts, I gave up on the grounds that I might break something. "How'd you do lad?" asked Harry anxiously. I shook my head dejectedly and limped back to my bed. Bert was quiet, his own internal drama not yet resolved, and from the conversations we heard, requiring some pretty significant chemical intervention.

I resolved to apply all my food and nutrition knowledge to the problem and gorged on grapes, porridge and hospital curry. The following day I tried again and with considerable effort joyfully exorcised the beast.
Bert's problem though was starting to make him feel ill, he withdrew and only joined in a few of our conversations, dozing on his bed for much of the time. Bert's visitors spent time chatting anxiously with Harry and me about trivia, not knowing how to talk about their concerns about Bert. Later that afternoon from behind drawn curtains snatches of doctors' discussions could be heard:
"Looks like we'll have to...", "Yes, we'll give it him tonight..." Something was afoot.
The following morning Bert remained subdued, feeling unwell, Harry and I chatted about the papers and hoped Bert would be OK. Shortly after lunch the drama came to a head,
"Nuuurrrrsse!" shouted Bert, I reached for my nurse-call button and pressed it, so it seemed did Harry. As two nurses ran to the wrong beds Harry and I pointed in unison across the ward. Curtains were whisked shut and a wheeled seat brought to the bed side. Harry and I glanced at each other, who were they kidding?We knew what that seat with the deep bottom was. For fifteen minutes we listened to groans and strains until finally in response to Bert's call a nurse slipped back through the parted curtains.

We waited anxiously but knew all was well when we heard a happy exclamation from the nurse:
"Good grief Bert I think you've had a baby!"

For two hours a thick faecal fug hung over the ward blurring our vision like a heat haze, but nobody minded.

The title? Fans of the 70s Northumbrian folk/rock band Lindisfarne will understand, click here if you want to know more..

How to be famous

In yesterday's post I mentioned that during my stay in hospital, some of the conversations I overheard reinforced my view that the cult of celbrity has passed me by. I remain unimpressed by Big Brother, uninterested in soap opera and underwhelmed by gossip journalism. In todays Independent, Katy Guest's feature on Jade Goody the Big Brother winner, lays bare the UK's fascination with fame. In a wry look at Goody's path from dental nurse nobody, through 'Britain's most despised woman', to multi-million earning professional celebrity, she disects our national need to be close to famous people even to the point of inventing our own. As publicist Max Clifford is quoted as saying, "The public get the celebrities they deserve". My favourite quote though, goes to Guest herself when, talking about Goody's mother Jackiey, she says:

"She is not your average one-armed lesbian."

Having read the Goody piece I am no closer to understanding why I remain unaffected by the obsession with fame. In the same edition the paper celebrates the return of the Gallagher family in Channel 4's fabulous series Shameless. The piece compares the reality of West Gorton, the tough Manchester estate where the series is set, with the reality of the true residents. The comparison, even according to the locals, is a good one. Ironically the makers of the series may have to move the family to another Manchester estate because redevelopment plans could mean that the estate loses its tough appearance. Oh, by the way, when you watch Shameless tonight take a close look at the area; my grandma, used to live there, in Armitage Court an eleven storey block of flats, typical of the '60s housing used to replace the terraced slums that were the heart of many of Manchester's older communities.

I have an irresistable urge to to tell everyone that my Gran is nearly famous; tell your friends.

Pull up a sandbag, it wasn't like this in my day

My first night in hospital, I am to have my surgery tomorrow. My only other fellow patients are Bert, aged 82yrs, and Harry, aged 87yrs, they have both been in hospital over four weeks having had new hips and suffered the sorts of complications that come as we get older. They attempt to induct me in the ways of the ward but conversation proves challenging because both are fairly deaf, our conversations frequently punctuated by "You what, lad?", but they do a good job of reassuring me that the nurses and surgeons are of the highest quality.

I am visited by one of the surgical registrars who discusses the procedures to be carried out on my ankle and foot ensuring that I sign, again, a consent form that I had previously signed in an out-patients clinic. It seems that you have to really, really know what it is you are having done. The registrar draws a big black arrow pointing to my left foot. I tell him not to worry because I wouldn't let them do the wrong one, "You'll be unconscious" he reassuringly replies.

During the evening Harry and Bert are asleep early so I settle down to television viewing which is a simple matter with my personal four inch telly. After fifteen fruitless minutes I start to become a grumpy old man, railing pointlessly against the paucity of choice across the Freeview channels, for which I might add, I have paid fifteen pounds. Moodily I settle down for sleep at around eleven o'clock.

Now, when I trained as a nurse night duty involved a very important factor, the need to be quiet in order that the patients could sleep. I'm sure that under the strict regime of that time I drifted noislessly about my tasks like a hospital ghost. Things seem to have deteriorated in my absence and the nurses chat loudly about their colleagues (interesting), the state of the NHS (predictable), the coming Celebrity Big Brother (I am so out of touch with what matters) and the plots of various soaps (see Big Brother) until midnight. Harry and Bert seem to be fast asleep judging from the contended sound of their breathing, perhaps the nurses have forgotten that they have a non-deaf patient, I can't wait to meet Staff Nurse Smith after what I have just heard about her!

I pull the covers over my head and gradually drift into the open waters of the deep night. That is when the real night sounds take over, the nurses tip-toeing about their duties, checking we are all still breathing, and collecting filled urine bottles which are delivered to the sluice room and deposited into the pulping machine. Obviously it would be unhygienic to let the bottles and bedpans fester inside the machine all night so it throbs with a deep rythmic vibration that travels up through my bed frame. Harry and Bert seem unaffected by the throbbing and say so with a chorus of snoring, shouting and farting that seems to last for hours.

Eventually sleep overtakes me and I dream fitfully about a gigantic arrow that resists all attempts to stick to my leg sliding off on to the floor then floating around the ward wafted on the breeze generated by snoring and farting patients; eventually the arrow is wafted back over to my bed where it lands, on the wrong leg and no matter what I do I cannot get it off.

I wake with a start to find a nurse stood at the bottom of my bed with a surgical gown draped over her arm. She invites me for my pre-operative shower, instructing me to wash all over with an anti-bacterial shower gel.

Now I know it's getting serious, it will soon be time.