Crofty's Blog

Sourdough at the Handmade Bakery

2011-03-29T20:03:00.005Z

I don't mind admitting I'm a bread geek. Baking bread, for me, is far more than the simple combination of ingredients to form what, on the face of it, is a basic foodstuff

So you will understand why I was looking forward to my course with Dan and Johanna McTiernan at The Handmade Bakery in West Yorkshire. The course set out to dispel the myths that surround sourdough baking and that make it sound so difficult. If you've read my blog before you will know that sourdough is easy.

What I was hoping from the course was more about the pleasure of baking in a commercially run bakery with a really passionate expert. I wasn't disappointed.

Dan and Johanna weave practical baking craft with, what for me, is the heart of bread making, the social challenge of producing sustainable, local food. I couldn't help thinking though that in the case of our course he was preaching to the converted. Most of us arrived at Dan's back door because we already knew that his and Johanna's views resonated with our own. And yes, it was great to be among fellow geeks sharing pleasure in the deck ovens and the baking rotas on the walls, And it was great to ask bread-head questions and not be thought nerdy, but the challenge for all of us who feel this way about bread is to show people who probably would not usually access Dan's excellent courses that good food is a right, not a privilege.

The second challenge is to show people that they can afford really good bread by making it themselves - it's easy.

I think though that our evangelising about real bread does not help. My colleagues sum it up when they say:

'Crofty's bread's lovely, but I wish he wouldn't go on about it so much.'

That then, is the answer. Let the bread do the talking.

I heartily recommend anyone who is interested in bread to consider a course at The Handmade Bakery with Dan and Johanna - you will not be disappointed. If you do not want to become a bread geek like me, and aren't, for example,interested in where Dan got his ovens (a Greggs bakery, second hand, I loved his comment - 'it was like rescuing a battery hen'), you will come away with armfuls of absolutely delicious bread, and the means to make it for yourself.

Here's what I made.

If you want to know more about real bread and why it is important check the Real Bread Campaign website here.

Sourdough - The (not so) Secret

2010-08-22T19:49:00.002Z

Culturing sourdough is easy, so why does much of the advice about it sound like a cross between necromancy and alchemy?

Why does sourdough seem so difficult?

Most amateur bakers have their own bread-bible for guidance, mine is Andrew Whiteley's Bread Matters, Dan Leopard's True Loaf is another, the sourdough starter recipes are consistently simple, here's one:

Some organic wholemeal Rye Flour
Some water
Nature (or science if you prefer)

If you think I'm being flippant I apologise. In truth I struggled to get a starter going at first but the reasons were simple.

Let's go back to the recipe and consider each ingredient:

Organic wholemeal rye flour -sourdough relies on natural yeasts in the air and flour to give it life. Therefore the freer your flour is from artificial messing about the better chance you have of seeing some life from it.

Water - again the cleaner and purer the better, if your tap water doesn't have chlorine in it all the better (chlorine's there to kill bugs, we want to encourage them). Our water is chlorinated - it still works ok.

Nature (or science) - yeasts multiply best between 28-32 degrees centigrade (apparently).

This was where my error lay. Time after time I'd mix a gloopy slop and wait for bubbles to form, sniffing tentatively and hoping for that tell-tale fruity tang that let's you know the yeasty blighters are reproducing.

Again and again it either dried up or went mouldy.

I returned to bread- guru Whiteley's advice and it struck me: consistent temperature.

I set about searching for a consistently warm place, but with no hot water tank, drew a blank.

Then I had a eureka moment: this was very similar to brewing. I investigated a variety of brewer's heat pads, which all looked promising. Then I remembered my mum-in-law's arthritis. All that remained was to whip the fleecy heating pad from her feeble grip and we were set.

http://cdn.cloudfiles.mosso.com/c54102/x2_1c9bf1d

It works a treat.

What? Her arthritis?... Err...

Anyway I have had a sourdough going for months now. So long as I use it and refresh it once a week, replacing old with new each time, it delivers vigorous, bubbly life to my loaves every time.

(The only secret is to make sure the Moon is in Gemini when you start your culture; that and the naked goat-dance in the garden.)
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Review: Licensed to Chill - Alan Steward

2010-05-21T16:22:00.003Z

I have a confession. Although I am predominantly an acoustic music fan these days, there was a time when I could have gone either way. Let me explain. Thirty years ago (when I was five years old) I had long hair and an Afghan coat. My musical time, as far as I can remember, was spent listening to Gong, Here and Now, and Steve Hillage.

Listening to Alan Steward I remembered why I loved that embryonic trippy-electronica of the seventies and eighties, and why I left it behind. I could never find that same brain-expanding quality in the likes of Jean Michelle Jarre, or Mike Oldfield (and it was the music not any chemical enhancement – the farthest I've strayed in that direction is a gallon of real ale).

Alan's music could, by an unkind ear, be classified as 'mood music' but that is to be dismissive of a whole tapestry of sounds, beautifully woven into a deep... Crofty stop before you drift off on some middle eastern carpet metaphor here, just tell us what you think for goodness sake!

OK, enough of that semi-literate prosy stuff. Here are reasons to like Alan's music:

It weaves (steady, on the cloth stuff agin Crofty) many multicultural themes around a fabulously rhythmic foundation and leaves you both satisfied and, at the same time, curious to hear more of the snippets from across the world.
Summertime demands music like this to ease you through the sweaty days
You need music to work to, and this music gets in your head the same way Bach's does but whereas you know what you are getting with the Brandenburg Concertos, for example, Alan's music veers off and forces you to explore something new at every turn, without go so far off the track as to be off-putting.
Sitting playing with yourself in your bedroom is easy. Sorry, I mean with your guitar, you have a limited range of notes and sounds to work with. I have massive admiration for someone who has the discipline to craft tunes like Alan's with a palette the size of the whole world of music – how do you do that?

To review this album specifically is difficult, I could tell you my favourite tracks – I love Buddah Bar Fly, Rising from the East, and King of the Chill, but to be honest the whole album's cool, and will probably become a summer staple for the car (particularly at the end of the day for the drive home).

I see Alan's joined Experience My Culture, and there is more than enough to whet your appetite so don't take my word for it, go and check out his profile. In the meantime I intend to try to persuade my ExMC buddies to do an interview with Alan, I'd love to know more about his sources and his work.

You can buy Alan's music here:

itunes.com/alansteward

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Easter Stained Glass

2010-04-04T16:05:00.001Z

The stained glass in our church was created by the renowned Brussels glass painter Carpronnier. Our church must have attracted some wealthy Victorian patrons - there is a wealth of high-quality art like this that we certainly couldn't afford today! The detail on these pictures is from three windows in the same triptych in the East wall depicting Christ carrying his cross, crucified and his body being removed.

I always wonder whose faces the artust chose for the figures. Would have been quite something to think your face would be gazed upon almost 150 years later. Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Snow and the British Motorist - A Rant By Crofty

2010-01-10T17:45:00.001Z

Click here to download:

car in snow (44 KB)

The thing I like about posting blog stuff by Posterous is that you can pretend you are simply sending an e-mail to a good friend, the sort of friend who wouldn't mind if you had a good old whine and, you know, let rip about something that was really getting on your tits.

Take, for instance the snow. This is not a snow-moan - there has been enough of those. My message to anyone who moans out loud about the snow is this: WE ALL HAVE THE SAME WHITE STUFF. IT BUGS THE SHIT OUT OF ALL OF US, NOW GET ON WITH LIFE DESPITE THE SNOW LIKE THE REST OF US.

That wasn't my rant.

My rant is about car drivers, sorry, that's not fair. Some of you (I include myself in this category) are quite good. You slow down or move aside for a pedestrian who, due to three feet of snow on the footpath, finds it safer to walk at the edge of the clearer road. No, this rant is about the rest of you idiots who seem to think that once you climb inside your metal cocoon you are only governed by the bits of the Highway Code you can remember from when you passed your test, probably thirty of forty years ago, oh except of course you didn't read the bit about pedestrians having right of way and being rather more vulnerable - due to their lack of a metal box protecting them.

These motorists seem to have separated their behaviour from things like 'good manners' or 'common decency' to a kind of arrogance that transcends gender, race, sexuality and binds them together in a one-worldliness based around a common value of behaving like an arsehole.

So, if you were the man whose wing mirror clipped me as I trudged wearily through the snow to work the other morning and thought that shouting at me in a loud voice questioning why I was walking in the road (duh!), and who I shamefacedly admit got the brunt of some rather ungentlemanly ripostes on my part, if you are that man, this is for you.
I appeal to the British public at large to seek new role models of motoring that are not modelled on Mr Toad in Tales Of The Riverbank and whose response to pedestrians was to bawl "Get out of my way!", or role models that don't aspire to the epitome of masculine arrogance Jeremy Clarkson who seems to be breeding arrogance of a scale that rides roughshod (or should that be drives in some sort of four wheel drive monster truck) over any semblance of an idea that the idea of the internal combustion engine doesn't equate somehow to a deity, preventing us from considering that life might, some day, actually continue without motor cars.

There now, that's better, thanks Posterous.

PS The superb image is from Flickr, here's the link:

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Crofty's Message To The Nation on this Pointless Celebration

2009-12-31T16:53:00.005Z

If you have read my blog before you may be familiar with my views on New Year. Each year on this date I publish my annual message to the nation setting out my views on the festivities. So here it is:

Try telling anyone, as they are liberally splashing Hugo Boss over their manly chest or donning a posh frock (not necessarily the same person you understand) that New Year is a stupid celebration and they look at you like you have just told them you are off to join a commune of some strange religious sect. Now that it's all over I will explain why I have never quite understood the need to draw an arbitrary line in the sand of time and call it a new year. For that is all it is: an administrative necessity to have a beginning and an end of the so called year. I understand why it is convenient to have one but why celebrate it?.. nothing changes.

At least Christmas, Eid or Divali have some sort of symbolism, even if you don't believe the in the spirituality that goes with them; but new year is a nothing. If we are going to celebrate it we might as well celebrate it in April when at least the accountants have something to be pleased about.

For many people this idea of taking stock of the previous twelve months and looking forward to the next is anathema. The time to take stock is when it is right for you. That is why so many new year resolutions fail: people are forced into resolving when their hearts are not in it. When you really want to do something do it; make a plan, find your motivation for achieving it and go for it. Away with this clap trap.

And by way of a cheery note on which to end; did you know that the early hours of new year morning are the most common time for suicide. Surprised? You shouldn't be when thousands of people who have had a shit year and another shit one to come are forced to reflect on the fact.

Happy New Year!

Now normally my grumpiness is tempered by watching Jools Holland's Hootenanny, there's something cheering about good music, a bit of a laugh and great music (and some good whisky), this year though my heart isn't in it. Why? Because a friend of mine was purchasing tickets for Hootenanny and, just before putting in his credit card details, he glanced over the details of his order. The date of the event was, wait for it, in November.

Not quite the same is it? So thanks Jools - wherever you are. Probably watching Hootenanny on his own wearing his slippers, reflecting on his deception of the nation. Sheesh.

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Crofty's Message To The Nation on this Pointless Celebration

2009-12-31T16:53:00.003Z

If you have read my blog before you may be familiar with my views on New Year. Each year on this date I publish my annual message to the nation setting out my views on the festivities. So here it is:

Not quite the same is it? So thanks Jools - wherever you are. Probably watching Hootenanny on his own wearing his slippers, reflecting on his deception of the nation. Sheesh.

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Crofty's Message To The Nation on this Pointless Celebration

2009-12-31T16:53:00.001Z

If you have read my blog before you may be familiar with my views on New Year. Each year on this date I publish my annual message to the nation setting out my views on the festivities. So here it is:

Not quite the same is it? So thanks Jools - wherever you are. Probably watching Hootenanny on his own wearing his slippers, reflecting on his deception of the nation. Sheesh.

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The Traditional Christmas Dinner - A Story by Crofty

2009-12-30T23:18:00.002Z

This is not mine to tell. For all that, it is true. All I have done is to present it here for you. It was told to me this week by a friend.

The Traditional Christmas Dinner

Me and my mum don't always agree on food. This year though I was determined to get my way. I wanted a traditional Christmas dinner: turkey, stuffing, sprouts, roasties, parsnips and gravy, the lot.

I fell in love with Christmas dinner as a boy. I am Oldham born and bred but my first proper Christmas dinner was at school, and it was an eye opener. I wasn't supposed to have it, I was supposed to have the special food my classmates got jealous about.

As one of only a small group of Muslims in my class I had special school dinners. It was allegedly Halal and prepared separately to the other kids meals, this meant they thought I was getting something better than them. To even out the injustice I swapped with them, and that is how I came to love Christmas dinner.

My mum humours me, she'd just do Eid if she had her way, but I love a party and would do them all from Christmas to Divali if I could. Don't get me wrong, I love her cooking, but like many older people, she is stuck in her ways and only cooks what she's always cooked. I love all sorts of food and I've never had difficulty separating the religious aspects of our own faith from the need in us all to simply have a good time – I'll go to anyone's party!

So, this year it's Christmas Dinner at our house, and I'm in charge. Except all is not as simple as you might think. Take the Turkey for example. Have you ever tried to get a Halal Turkey?

It never occurred to me until now, that there are not many Muslim families who want to have a traditional Christmas dinner, so, as I soon found out I'd left it a bit late.

It's about a 120 mile round trip to Fleetwood, but three hours later a rock-solid 20lb frozen Turkey sat on our kitchen worktop after pulling in favours with a family friend who knows a Halal catering wholesaler just outside Blackpool. Looking at the Cyrillic script on the plastic wrapper, I wondered how far the thing had travelled to end up in our kitchen.

It would be touch and go whether it was defrosted in time but I peeled off the shrink wrap, and left it it on the draining board while I got on with buying veg from Oldham market. Even that was fraught with difficulty as the Muslim stallholders I knew looked askance as I bought Brussels Sprouts and Parsnips. Still, by Christmas Eve I was good and ready to stand my ground and keep mum out of the kitchen, while I prepared a traditional Christmas dinner for the five of us: mum, me, and my brothers Aswan, Ziggy and Iffy.

I didn't sleep much Christmas Eve, my mind whirled with the challenge to come, muttering to myself: “twenty minutes a pound, but don't forget the weight of the stuffing”. And that was another thing, the stuffing. We certainly weren't going to eat pork, so there was a problem. Thank goodness for Google I say; and sage, onion, breadcrumbs, rice, cranberry and other bits and pieces that went into the vegetarian stuffing recipe I found.

On Christmas Day morning I was down for breakfast before the others, eager to start. Besides I wanted to be sure the bird was fully thawed. But even in the dim morning light, with the kitchen roller-blind shut I could tell there was something not right. From the door I could the Turkey's skin had lost it's pimply look, if anything it looked smooth and glossy. Then there was the colour: it seemed to glow with an pinky – orange hue... wait a minute...

I flicked the light on taking in the familiar colours that glowed from our Turkey. The I bawled up the stairs - “Mother, what have you done?!”

She bundled herself downstairs full of explanations and exhortations as she tried to explain how my frozen turkey had ended up marinating in Tandoori spices in an old enamelled baby bath.

She had sabotaged my traditional Christmas Dinner. Wringing her hands she looked up at me pitifully, her eyes brimming:

“You know how tasteless their cooking is” she said by way of explanation, “and how can the meat stay moist if it's not marinated properly”

But she didn't reckon with the effect of seven years of sneaked school dinners, I remained determined and pressed on regardless . Four hours later we sat down to a traditional family meal. A Christmas dinner of Tandoori Roast Turkey and stuffing – with all the trimmings.

I think Mum secretly enjoyed it, though I don't think I'll ever convince her about sprouts. I guess we are both traditionalists in our own way, I don't know what the meal said about our culture or heritage, but I know, as we pulled our crackers and tried to explain the jokes to Mum, we were having a traditional family meal together.

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Awkard Conversations - Why We Should Have More of Them and Why Our Policies Make It Less Likely We Will

2009-12-28T22:56:00.001Z

When your gay mate came out to you did you have a list of things that you wanted to ask? Did all of your blokey fears crowd in on you as you remembered the conversations you'd heard at football matches or in the pub - 'backs against the wall lads', 'don't bend down for the soap in the shower' or 'Gays are alright as long as they keep themselves to themselves and don't try and touch me up'.

How did you get over your ingrained manly prejudice? I'll bet it was over the course of a few months as you had conversations over a pint, and had the opportunity to satisfy your curiosity ('Do you fancy me?... oh good....err, why not, what's wrong with me?...)

Many of us work for large organisations with policies and procedures to make it ok for people to be themselves in the workplace - whether it's a visible expression of faith, or simply being able to be 'out' as a lesbian or gay person. But how many of those conversations have you had in the workplace that make it easier to understand? Not many I'll bet.

You see, most of our policies give us a list of things we must not do or say - in fact in our organisation we even had an acceptable language policy which had really good intent. What we lack though is any organisational help to have open and honest conversations that help us get along better and understand life from another's point of view. In fact rather the opposite, people are just too scared to have the conversation - we've lost the words.

My mate Tony knew the sort of thing that was necessary, he was - is - gay but found a way to have the conversations that were necessary in his environment. In Oldham's working mens clubs Tony found a way to rebuff jibes, and even assaults. It helped him being a black belt in karate. His favourite expression, delivered in a gruff Oldham accent, usually in the Gents with his forearm across the throat of someone intent on attacking him for his gayness, was 'I might be gay mate, but there's nowt queer about me'.

My mate's gran once had a conversation with a neighbour about someone they thought might be gay, she said '...I don't think he's a proper one, but I think he helps them out when they're busy of a weekend...'

The point is that in each of those examples the conversation was of its time and in its own context - we seem to be stifling that with over eager and well meaning attempts to force our language in a certain direction.

Language doesn't work like that, and until we understand it, we'll stifle exactly the conversations we need to have to understand each other better.

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Ducks Discover They Are Living In A Hard Water Area

2009-12-19T14:24:00.001Z

Bless them for not being overly bright!
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The Works Do - A Cultural Phenomenon, or Just a Good Night Out?

2009-12-05T18:27:00.001Z

It's my works do tonight, that's what we call it, a 'do'. It's a generally accepted part of our organisational calendar that there will be a Xmas do of some sort. And it is an Xmas do, rather than Christmas, it having its own format and elements that are essential, but little to do with the Christian celebration.
Here is my checklist of essentials - feel free to add your own:

Getting ready:

1. Men should get by with as little effort as possible, if it takes longer than twenty minutes to get ready, it's taking too long.

2. Women should treat the event like a royal ball or gala dinner (which invariably won't be)

3. Women must spot which of the men are wearing the same clothes as last year

4. Men should at least make a token pretence at discretion when assessing their female colleagues' frocks

Food:

1. Turkey. That's it. Any deviation from this rule should be presented in such a manner as to be barely edible

2. Food of whatever type should make every effort to remind the diners of school dinners

3. Place settings must include crackers containing barely recognisable plastic novelties of no value whatsoever

4. Hat wearing is compulsory.

Disco must include any of the following:

Merry Christmas Everybody - Slade

Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Wizard

Stop The Cavalry - Jonah Louis (spelling?)

Wombling Merry Christmas

Fairy Tale of New York - Pogues and Kirsty McColl (bless her)

The one by Gregg Lake

In Dulci Jubilo - Mike Oldfield

(These are my essentials - the rule is that they should all be from the era when you got your first Christmas snog... Ahem...I was very young)

The final rule is that the remainder of the evening should disappear in a blur only to reappear the following week as office myth and legend.

I'm on my way to ours, on a bus as I write this. I intend to try and capture the mood via Twitter using hash tag #worksdo
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Kerfuffle in Concert - Expanding My Cultural Horizon Beyond 'Ark 'Th'Erald Angels...

2009-11-28T18:11:00.002Z

Advent is a time of tradition. Nobody doubts it and we all participate in it, even if it's the more modern Christmas traditions like spending a full quarter's worth of electricity lighting the outside of your house with a plastic reindeer and the left overs from Blackpool illuminations. Me, I prefer the traditions anchored in the real meaning of Christmas - at least I thought I did.

My heritage, as I've pointed out before, is in the Methodist chapel tradition whose musical repertoire got rather stuck in the Victorian times and the early twentieth century evangelical traditions of Moody and Sankey. I've been missing out.

Last night we went to watch Kerfuffle - a folk/traditional music group/band/ensemble (delete whichever doesn't afford the necessary degree of credibility in your musical world). The total age of the whole band probably added up to less than two of our ages, yet their musical expertise and knowledge of the older traditions of British music is staggering.

Their latest album Lighten the Dark is a collection of traditional songs and carols.

Still awake?

It doesn't sound very exciting does it? But this is where people often fail to understand folk music. Traditional songs are the foundation for whatever the musician builds, and Kerfuffle build a performance of energy and life that doesn't merely lighten the dark but blasts a refreshing shaft of sunlight right through it.

So, I had my cultural horizons expanded beyond the austere walls of the Methodist chapel of my youth to cultural traditions steeped in nature and myth. Still, I was reassured to hear one older member of the crowd say to her friend
"They're alright these modern songs that'th young 'uns do, but I much prefer the traditional ones like 'ark th'erald angels..."

Kerfuffle are on tour. If you fancy a warming, fun Christmas warm-up, that includes a genuine clog dancing knees up don't miss them If you are up our way try the gig at Leeds in Holy Trinity Church.

Find out more here: http://www.kerfuffleonline.co.uk/

Or there's loads of music on their MySpace page here: http://www.myspace.com/kerfufflemusic

And, best of all here's a clip of Hannah James clog dancing in the front room of a hotel during the Sidmouth Folk festival:

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My gran used to wear clogs, but her idea of dancing, bless her, was to do the Slosh after a couple of rum and blacks!

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Crofty's Christmas Pudding Post

2009-11-18T20:58:00.001Z

Apparently it's Stir Up Sunday this weekend. This is the Sunday, I'm told, when the family gathers after church to make the family Christmas Pudding ready for December 25th's celebrations.

Forgive me if I sound like all this is news to me. It's only in the last few years, when we've been going to an Anglican church - the state recognised Church of England - that this age old tradition has become apparent. It seems it has a biblical heritage from a text that reads 'Stir up, Stir up thy people Oh Lord...' or words to that effect.

We were brought up in the more austere Methodist Christian tradition which was a bit sniffy about the fancier imagery and glitz of the liturgical church. You know, the sinful stuff like candles and stained glass windows.

And that stripped down religion, sort of suited the post-cotton mill town of the Seventies. There was neither money nor time for much real home cooking, nor for that matter traditions, the mill workers' culture did away with al ot of that.

Instead mill owners created a network of Working Mens' Clubs for the amusement of the masses; and then in my Gran's case came Mecca Bingo - a blasphemous reference to a holy place for some of Oldham's Muslim residents, but a place of escapism and pilgrimage of a sort, to my Gran and her peers.

But back to Christmas pudding. In our house any recipe that required more than three of four ingredients - like meat, tinned peas and potatoes - was out. The sheer inefficiency of a recipe that required at least ten ingredients and, according to the Stir Up Sunday tradition, four people to stir it, meant it was a non-starter.

No, what could be better than something from the new fangled supermarket that came in its own plastic pudding basin and needed little more than reheating on Christmas Day - and of course the addition of custard (the real stuff made with Birds Custard Powder).

So on Stir Up Sunday I will fulfill my cultural heritage and find something far better to do than spend a whole afternoon combining ten quid's worth of dried fruit and other fancy stuff, followed by eight hours cooking if my research is correct.

Incidentally, when it does come to purchasing our family Christmas Pudding I won't be going to Marks and Spencer nor Waitrose. I find the luxury puddings to have far too little pudding. Being brought up on cheaper food means that pudding for me is the cakey bit so I can't stomach the over-fruity rich versions.

No, my favourite pudding year on year comes from Aldi. And I will still stick to my guns when it comes to the topping of choice. On Christmas Day, if I only have one culinary task (unlikely, I accept) it will be to to make sure no Brandy Butter or Rum Sauce makes it to the Croft table. I will take charge of the proper custard made with Birds Custard powder, about a gallon of the stuff.

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Time Contracts - The Final Week

2009-11-15T17:33:00.001Z

I said I wasn't going to share anything from my last year's notebook but a couple of entries caught my eye, here's one of them that was timed 4.05am. I've tidied and edited it a bit, and added another line to the end.

Time contracts, it closes in on us until we get so close that our measurement of it changes. Life contracts. From a lifespan of ages - childhood, teenage, adulthood, middle age - but no old age, not this time.

Even taking account of the occasions that time takes a breath in with a luxurious yawn: the first day of a two week holiday for example, with the luxury of time to ourselves before us like a blank page, even that, by the end of the first week starts to shrink into days till home, then the last night, and the final scramble of minutes to get on the plane in time.

We have measured time these last months in the gaps between symptoms and diagnosis, between appointments, and between samples and results. More recently time has contracted to the space between visits - friends, relations, and now, nurses and carers.

Sat in the empty hours of darkness tonight I feel time's weight pressing down, as it contracts once more to conversations - will this be the last one? Then to individual words - 'not yet'.

Finally we measure time in the number of tracks on a CD of brass band music. And then in breaths, just breaths.

And then time sighs, as the aching empty void of the future opens before us.

And yet time then contracts again, only this time to close in gently, slowly, to soothe.

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The Power of Stories

2009-11-12T10:48:00.002Z

The words in yesterday's poignant Remembrance Day service at Westminster Abbey were ripe with meaning and message. They held far less impact though than the diary entries of Cornish tin miner featured on Radio 4 that morning. He was one of a tunnelling team deployed to undermine German trenches during the Great War.
His story had the power to reach inside and speak to individuals - to me - far greater than the Archbishop of Canterbury's exhortations to peace.

On Tuesday I was at a conference where a workshop leader spoke about Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Manchester. He spoke of how people's views on them change when they here the plight that many people arriving in the UK face. 'You just have to hear their stories...',
the workshop leader said. And indeed many of their stories deserve our compassion not derision.

For some years I have kept a notebook, largely to remember things I might write about in the future, but at times it has become something of a personal journal. This time last year we nursed someone very close in the last week of their life, and yesterday I read my notes of that week.

I was both really pleased and deeply moved by the story I had recorded there. Remembering day by day what we had gone through together - the humour and pain - was easier for having the simple practical details laid out before me.

Much of my personal recollections deserve to be shared - not yet though. My point is that the story, in its telling - no matter how great the audience - is both a therapy and a possible source of future comfort for anyone else faced with a similar challenge.

I have recently been helping my friends develop a new website called Experience My Culture (www.experiencemyculture.com), my primary reason for thinking it is such a good idea is that we have such a lot to gain by sharing our stories.

If you consider your own life's events to be not worthy of remembering or recording, think again.

Our stories have the power to change lives and futures.
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Remember, Remember 5th of November - But Why, Does Anyone Remember?

2009-11-04T22:47:00.003Z

When we were kids there was a family across the street from my grans with two lads about the same age as me and our kid. They were Irish and Catholic, and different. We kids didn't understand the significance of that difference though so openly and naively asked each other things like what it was like to be a 'Proddy Dog' or what being Catholic meant. We also accepted the rants of Mick's and Rob's dad, sat on the sofa in his string vest shouting at the 70s news watching violence errupt on the streets of Northern Ireland.

But I never understood why their dad wouldn't allow them to come to bonfires or have anything to do with Bonfire night at all, even when he knew Nov 5th was my birthday.

Some things run deep in the veins of cultures, and it does us good to remember from time to time that our own country was once rife with religious persecution so bad that it drove a group of Englishmen to attempt to destroy the very foundation of the country's government by blowing it up in the famed Gunpowder Plot.

There won't be many people thinking about religious persecution on Bonfire Night as they stand around the cheery glow of a fire enjoying homely food treats. The actual traditions of fireworks and food have become so embedded in our culture many people have forgotten the religious bigotry that set it all off. I for one love black peas, potato pie supper and a good piece of Parkin.

Is that just a Northern England thing though - my spell checker has just underlined Parkin, and I'm positive that's how you spell it!

Just in case you need any help with your bonfire food, try this BBC Good Food Page - http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/blog/224-bonfire-night/

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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How We Do Death

2009-11-02T17:11:00.003Z

This weekend there was a wealth of death related activity, most of it the ghoulish scare fest type.

But beyond giggling witches begging tricks or treats Autumn also brings another centuries old tradition - the festival of All Souls.

Unlike Halloween, All Souls doesn't portray death as unreal or scary but rather an inevitable part of life's cycle that will affect us all sooner or later.

Our own simple moving act of remembrance at St John the Baptist, focused on the expression of continuing life - the love that helps life go on after our world comes crashing down around our ears when someone we love dies .

I saw awkward gestures from men facing the need to express love physically to a parent - the reaching of a hand, or just a shared look; and I saw children instinctively understanding the rightness of offering simple comfort - a girl of seven or eight trying to stretch her small arms wide enough to reach around her weeping Grandma.

What I took away from the service most of all though was the simple realisation that this final element of life, hard though it is to bear, is a shared one.

In our own packed church I was surprised how many families I knew as neighbours or nodding acquaintances, but who I hadn't realised had been touched by loss. This is a cultural tradition to do with death that reflects its natural place in life - though tough to deal with - rather than the unreal and horrific depictions of Halloween.
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The Defence of Old England - Fiction From Crofty

2009-10-10T18:48:00.001Z

The Heart Of England, painted white, its entrance crowned by the Flag of St George, is what you would expect from the Northern Headquarters of England's Protectors, the self styled defenders of national culture and heritage, in the face of, according to their website, an insidious black poison eating at the heart of a vulnerable nation.

The men in black at the door, wearing sunglasses and black leather gloves, only served to enhance the impression that this was not a threshold to be crossed easily. But Ron Chaney, darling of the far right and one of the few right-wing activists to have embraced modern social media, felt as much at home there as behind the keyboard of his PC.

He was there to answer a summons from party leader Rick Tiffin, long time friend and political idol. He exchanged nods with the over-stern doormen and then, as he entered, faltered for a moment, disorientated by the change in appearance from pub warmth to the formal coolness of what, to all intents and purposes, was a court room: a table draped with the loyal flag, one chair in front of it and Rick Tiffin sat behind, ready to judge, flanked by sentinels wearing the party uniform of black leather bomber jacket and matching gloves.

“Sit down Ron, thanks for coming, we need to talk”,
ordered Rick, not unfriendly, but not with the usual warmth for his old school friend and most loyal follower.
“What’s up Rick?”, he replied, anxious but not frightened, despite the grim guards at Rick's shoulders. Ron knew the appearance of menace was part of the image, part of the brand that backed up their policies with a healthy dose of fear.
“It’s this 'logging' stuff.....what?....oh, right, Blogging then. It seems very popular. You've done a good job making some of our policies seem quite reasonable, common sense almost.
" It’s this other one I don’t follow, this Twitter thing…"
"It's not me..." Ron interrupted. Now he understood. For months he'd been dogged by apparently malicious tweets by an anonymous Tweeter using his name. The offender seemed intent on undermining his reputation. Ron continued,
"Someone is obviously impersonating me to get to us, and I must say it looks like it's working, looking at all this fuss."
“Yes I was told that’s what you would say, but it does sound like you Ron, I mean, we go back a long way, and well…”
“It’s not me, what can I say?”

The juke box suddenly burst into life with a deep reggae beat, the previously taciturn minders stifled giggles as a Caribbean voice burst into song.
“Get that off, for God’s sake” snapped Ron, “It’s not funny…”
Rick nodded to the man on his right and the music stopped abruptly.
“Quite right, don’t want any of that Caribbean nonsense, that’s the sort of thing that's confusing so many of the youth…”
Exasperated Ron, continued,
“No Rick, they’re taking the piss, it’s the song”
“What?..”
“It’s the title…’It Wasn’t Me, by Shaggy”
“Oh, I see, let’s get on shall we, now about this Twitt thing…”
“Twitter and it’s not me, right? Some bastard is out to ruin my reputation, and I mean to say, some of those gay tweets are creating a really bad impression...."

"...for God's sake keep your voice down..." Spat Rick suddenly,

"....what? It's not on, here's me trying to do the right thing - no Gays etc.. And some half assed comunist bastard dressed up as an electronic me puts out Tweets like
'Off to Studz for a lad's night' or 'Reading latest edition of ManLove - it’s hot!’

Rick leant forward urgently, grabbed Ron by the lapels and yanked him roughly across the table, meeting him face to face, he hissed in Ron's ear,
“No, keep your mouth shut. Some of these men have been in prison…”
“You don’t mean…”
“You know exactly what I mean. Male companionship: we were at school together, you remember, the rough and tumble. Why do you think we didn’t come out against that cowboy film,' Breakbeat Mountain', or whatever it was?..
“Come out?...surely not…”
“No, not like that, we still don't like any of that queer stuff. I just mean that it’s part of the whole thing: Men. Together. Do I need to spell it out? We're not animals”
“No, ok, why am I here then?”

Rick sat up in his seat and addressed the whole room,
“What is our rule about membership, gentlemen?”
A chorus of deep voices responded
“White, English and Proud!”
“And?... don’t forget subsection 2.3”
There was some mumbling as men more used to talking with their fists stumbled clumsily with the additional words.
“Err….and any of the other Celtic or Anglo-Saxon true-blooded thingies…”
Rick beamed with pride
“That’s right, and that’s what we want to talk to you about Ron. The thing is, when this started we had to investigate, you understand, so we’ve had some of the lads do a bit of digging…literally.”

Ron shifted uneasily, his mind running through the list of unusual activities that could have come to light. Rick held a sheet of paper in each hand for Ron to see, then in a voice like a conjourer about to reveal a rabbit said,
“In my left hand is a list of these, what are they called? Tweets. In my right is a list of the contents of your wheelie bin for the last few weeks?”
“What?!” Ron was aghast “You can’t be serious, you’ve been through my bins? Rick! After all we’ve been through over the years.”
Rick met his gaze,
“Hear me out. Nothing gets in the way of the blood of old England, you know that.”
“But I’m English through and through, you know that”
Rick looked down the list.
“OK, first the Tweets. Last week, here we go:
‘Oh goodie, Margarita time’, then ‘Lovely lunch: Lollo Rosso, Lambs Lettuce and Pesto Salad’
- doesn’t sound very English does it?”
The atmosphere in the room chilled, as the dark clothed men murmoured to each other.
“It - Wasn’t - Me” Ron picked out the words as if speaking to a child
“So you keep saying.” Rick turned to the second list,
“Let me read you some of the things we found in your wheelie bin” he ran his finger down the page and stopped, looking up again,
"Sainsbury’s Continental Salad. Cous Cous. Mango - for Gods sake Ron, they sell them in Packi shops!” Rick was shouting and
Ron looked at the floor, and then spoke.
“But Rick surely you can’t think that, what about everything else, Scots Porridge, Heinz soup ….”
“Heinz? Even that sounds German - could be worse, I suppose.
" I don’t know what to think. All I know is that you say it wasn’t you and in your bin is a lifestyle we don’t recognize…I mean look at this….Dry Sherry…”
“My old aunt came…”
“Crème Fraiche…” he looked up and addressed the room, “Does anyone know what that actually is?..”
The room was silent, except for Ron’s rapid breathing
“But Rick, all this, it doesn’t mean anything…”
Rick stood, towered over him and slammed his fist on the desk
“What it means is that we don’t know who you are anymore!”
Rick looked around the room once more, drawing a deep breath, he spoke calmly,
“What do we stand for...?”
“England Rick…” chorused the reply, but Rick was misty eyed and didn’t expect a response. He gazed out over distant green and pleasant lands, out beyond the inner city estate of the pub, beyond the poor white estates he relied on for followers and out to the public school of his youth where things were reliable and safe.
“We stand for our England. Our culture. A land where a man can earn a crust without risk of job being taken by the first dark skinned foreigner willing to do it cheaply; a land where a man can drink beer, go to a football match, have a fight…”
Rick started to jig from foot to foot, dancing to a rythmn no one else could hear, then he sang quietly almost to himself,
“I get knocked down, and I get up again, ain’t never going to see me down…”
Ron leant forwards, trying to speak to Rick, conspiratorially,
“But Rick, that song, that band….they were taking the piss…they are an anarchist band…Chumbawamba…”
But Rick wasn’t listening, his eyes now fixed and staring,
“…a land where men can be men; a land where women have babies and men have each other…”
He thrust his arms out, pointing left and right as he shouted,
“The Army! The Navy! The Scouts! Men! Our Men! And School! Yes good old school!”
And with that Ron looked up at the face he had known for twenty years or more.

The years fell away and he no longer saw the sweat beading on Rick’s brow, nor the line of spittle forming on his lips as he raged. He saw his prefect; he saw the leader of the Oxford Paddington Club, he saw his guide and mentor and realised he had let him down.

Ron crumpled and sobbed into his hands
“Oh Rick, I’m sorry. I’ve let you down so badly. I did eat the salad and drink the sherry. I’m so sorry, I like cocktails. Wahhhahhhahhh.

" I DID THE TWEETS…

"Wahahahah…”

Relieved of his burden Ron suddenly felt very alone and very small. What he really wanted was his nanny: what he wanted was a hug.

He didn’t notice that Rick had stopped talking and had joined him on his side of the table; but he did feel his strong arm around his shoulders and smelt the leather of his black jacket.

The inconsistencies, the contradictions, even the nonsensical rules and policies all fell away. None of it mattered, this was where he belonged. The men around the room were rough and uneducated but each shared that common bond - not England or country, but belonging.

These hard men were all different but it wasn't the differences that bound them together, it was the things they shared, the common bond, the working together.

As tissues were passed around the room and eyes were dabbed, Rick spoke again, more quietly at first.
“Come on men, I think we’ve seen enough. We know what we should do, don’t we? We are going to be together. We are going out for a proper English Mens Night!”

He started a chant and was joined in mass masculine chorus
“What do we want?”
“Fifteen Pints!”
When do we want it?”
“Now!”
“What do we want?”
“A great big scrap!”
When do want it now?”
“Now!”
“What do we want?”
“A Vindaloo!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
As the men marched arm in arm in a line from the pub towards the city, they joined in song, as women, children and weaker men crossed the road out of their path ahead,
“Vindaloo, Vindaloo, we all love Vindaloo…”
An asian shopkeeper anxiously pulled down the shutters as the group marched happily on, a from within the group a voice called,
"Bollocks, the shop's shutting early, I wanted some fags..."
Another replied,
"P'raps it's one of them religious festivals, never mind we'll rob that kid's fags at the bus stop..."
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Not Still Life But Slow Life

2009-10-06T16:48:00.001Z

...Or even low life!
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Why I Like Folk Against Fascism

2009-09-30T20:31:00.004Z

I've written before about the cheeky British National Party who tried to hijack English traditional music and hitch it to their political bandwagon. What was cheeky was that on their website they sold CDs of English folk music thereby linking by association the artists with their political agenda. Hardly surprising then that some of these artists took umbrage and formed Folk Against Fascism.

I'd have been pretty miffed myself had they used any of my creative output on their site - hardly likely, I know, I don't have the appeal of people like John Boden, one of the founding artists of the campaign whose music was used as part of one of the party's muddle-headed arguments. The BNP make a quantum leap between the building of new mosques and the destruction of an English heritage - a heritage when pushed, they can barely define, I don't see a queue of Doc Marten'd skinheads queuing up outside the Cross Keys Inn at Uppermill eager to join the Saddleworth Morris in defence of this English culture they seem so eager to protect.

The odd thing is that the BNP seem to ignore the swathe of folk songs that rail against exactly the type of thing they promote, I wonder if they'll be selling any of the famous protest songs that campaign for equality and freedom, I do hope so.

I'm not always an advocate of campaign groups, I prefer subtler methods of winning an argument, but the nature of much of the BNP's highly efficient propoganda machine is insidious and pervasive, which to my mind needs people to take a visible stand. So this is mine:

I SUPPORT FOLK AGAINST FASCISM!

Mind you, if you ask around our office admitting you like folk music is possibly lower down the scale of embarrasing revelations than actually being a member of the BNP, so there you go.

One of the clever things artists supporting Folk Against Fascism are doing is to put the FAF logo on their CDs, a neat way of either putting the BNP off selling their discs in the first place or a good way of having the BNP promote Folk Against Fascism - either way's good. Mind you, I'll bet the FAF people haven't reckoned with the risk of the BNP recruiting a team of skinheads with felt pens who might colour out the logo before CDs are sent out.

Have a look at the FAF site there's loads of great photos, resources and details of artist who are supporting the campaign.
Anyway have a look at the website - there's even some music

Watch Out For These Subtle But Nasty EMails

2009-09-24T18:53:00.002Z

Have you had one of these chain emails? I've had two very similar ones that I've taken to replying to all the people in the chain. First here's the e-mail:

Hi Everyone. This e-mail was sent to me by Jeans auntie Mary, as well as the caption below. But it really is true!!

WELL LETS FACE IT I HAVE TO AGREE

An incident occurred in an English supermarket recently, when the followingwas witnessed:A Muslim woman dressed in a Burkha (A black gown & face mask) was standingwith her shopping in a queue at the checkout .When it was her turn to be served, and as she reached the cashier, she made a loud remark about the English Flag lapel pin, which the female cashier was wearing on her blouse

.The cashier reached up and touched the pin and said, "Yes, I always wear it proudly. My son serves abroad with the forces and I wear it for him".

The Muslim woman then asked the cashier when she was going to stop bombingand killing her countrymen, explaining that she was Iraqi.At that point, a Gentleman standing in the queue stepped forward, andinterrupted with a calm and gentle voice, and said to the Iraqi woman:"Excuse me, but hundreds of thousands of men and women, just like this lady' son have fought and sacrificed their lives so that people just like YOU can stand here, in England , which is MY country and allow you to blatantly accuse an innocent check-out cashier of bombing YOUR countrymen.It is my belief that if you were allowed to be as outspoken as that in Iraq ,which you claim to be YOUR country, then we wouldn't need to be fighting there today... However - now that you have learned how to speak out and criticise the English people who have afforded you the protection of MY country, I will gladly pay the cost of a ticket to help you pay your way back to Iraq .When you get there, and if you manage to survive for being as outspoken as what you are here in England , then you should be able to help straighten outthe mess which YOUR Iraqi countrymen have got you into in the first place,which appears to be the reason that you have come to MY country to avoid."Apparently the queue cheered and applauded

.IF YOU AGREE... Pass this on to all of your proud friends..I just did...............!!!

Here is my reply:

Sorry if you think I've spammed you with this reply, but..

For ages I couldn't work out what bothered me about this account of an Englishman's defence of liberty and support for our boys in the Force .

It is the second similar email I've had where a fair minded Englishman has the opportunity to defend, in reasonable tones, our reasonable English nature against outspoken Islamic fundamentalist.

The tone, style and vocabulary in each are very similar, and each has the same earnest common sense appeal to reason - after all who wouldn't defend the right of a mother to support their sons out there risking their lives?

But then I spotted subtle way in which my attention was being directed. For example we are encouraged to consider the potential loss of the soldiers' lives - rightly abhorrent - and to view the Iraqi woman's stance as ingratitude.

What we are not encouraged to consider is the -Iraqi woman's story - the possible losses or experiences, for example, that may have brought her to this point.

Worse though is the way the author pits two visible symbols - the cross of St George and the woman's traditional dress - against each other, forcing us to view one in the context of moderate patriotism and the other as strident radicalism.

This is not the casual account of supermarket conversation, but a well crafted attempt to influence the reader.

Don't let this increasingly common tactic slip beneath your intellectual radar. Give these things a thorough assessment before endorsing them and propagating them

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Least Successful 'Talk Like A Pirate' Conversation

2009-09-19T18:49:00.003Z

Today was International Talk Like A Pirate Day a day of fun when we all, well, talk in the style of our favourite Corsair or vagabond of the high seas. I entered into the spirit of the thing with gusto and tried to assimilate my briny chat into our usual Saturday tasks:

Scene: Sainsburys Supermarket, Oldham

Crofty: Avast scurvy wench and have at ye shopping vessel yonder

Mrs C: ?

Crofty: Let us board and keel haul this provisioning craft for our very own use in yonder victuallers yard

Mrs C: If you think I'm going to walk round Sainsburys with talking like a prat you've got another think coming

Crofty: Hmmm, do you know why pirates are called pirates?

Mrs C: Go on amaze me...

Crofty: Because they ARRRRRRRRRRR

Mrs C: Last chance...

Crofty: Sorry, I'll clap meself in irons and walk the plank to Davey Jones locker below

Sound of hand striking bare flesh
Crofty: Ouch

Mrs C: What's that?

Crofty: What?

Mrs C: That, hanging from your ear..

Crofty: Oh, errr, nothing (attempts to turn his head away)

Mrs C: Come here, let me see... you're wearing an earring...

Crofty: No it's err, Avast There!..., ooops, that just slipped out, ouch!

Mrs C: You're forty six years old, you look ridiculous, you had that ear pierced when you were seventeen and a punk, not when you were forty odd and a prat!

Crofty: That's Pirate, P-I-R-A-T-E Oh, err, ARRRRRRRR....sorry....ouch!

Mrs C: Anyway, isn't that one of my earrings?

Crofty: Errr, weren't they the special bargain pair?

Mrs C: How do you mean

Crofty: Weren't they the two dollar earrings?

Mrs C: Two dollars, what are you on about?

Crofty: You know, one dollar for each ear, a Buck an Ear....gettit?... Buccaneer! ....Ouch, Ow, Ouch, Sorry, I couldn't help it

Mrs C: And you can take that bottle of rum out of the trolley too...

Crofty: ...That's grog (ducks just in time)

Mrs C: (Catches eye of equally long suffering wife of middle aged man, each tuts and raises eyebrows)
Honestly, they get to forty and start regresssing

Scurvy Wench, Sorry Woman 1: I know, I sometimes think the ones who get a tattoo and motorbike are easier

Mrs C: I wouldn't mind if he looked like Johnny Depp

Woman 1: I know (both sigh wistfully)

Fade to (pirate) black

The Defence of Old England

2009-09-16T19:13:00.006Z

There has been much hand wringing about the English Defence League and their cack-handed attempts to defend an English cultural heritage that is deemed, somehow, to be at risk. I do think though, we are getting ourselves in a lather in the wrong place.

From what I've seen the EDL are merely the latest manifestation of an English culture that likes a bellyfull of beer, maybe a football match, but definitely a good old scrap. All of this, by and large, comes along loosely packaged with some woolly thinking on the right-wing political side of things. And of course the right wing extremists are only too glad to have foot soldiers eager to hitch their cart to a horse that guarantees them a bit of a ruck.

Add into the mix groups of young men who feel their way of life really is being undermined and their freedom to worship in a particular way threatened, and you have a cocktail that is bound to have a bit of a kick to it. But I don't think we should be too worried - like many cultural clashes, the reality is far more complex than something that can be sorted out with bricks, stones and fists.

First of all let's look at the culture the EDL are trying to defend.They talk about the 'islamification' of England, claiming that mosques in our towns are eroding our predominantly Christian culture. So where are the EDL when the dust has settled? Certainly not joining forces with local Christian communities to raise a new church hall; because that all-English christian culture simply isn't there.

So where do you go to find what English culture is really like in 2009?

Our parents were of the generation that still mistrusted immigrant communities in the UK, and my generation was raised hearing phrases that spoke of 'them', but as time passed 'they' became real people as second generation immigrants were educated and entered the work place. Where communities remained isolated it was, by and large, poorer communities with higher numbers of people out of work - this is true of both predominantly white and non-white communities.

In work we share the common goals of whichever organisation we work for and in the process learn how our varying cultures and faiths are worked out in practice during our daily lives. We don't often fall out over things, we are just different - but the thing is we aren't that different. We moan together about prices, we compare notes on the successes and failings of our children and we sometimes share recipes as we compare our lunches. Then on Friday some of us go to the mosque, or on Sunday to church - or maybe neither. Most of us socialise at the weekend, see family or play sport, then on Monday morning we compare our weekends together.

Work acts as a multi-cultural catalyst - we have the culture of our organisation to share and hold in common whilst retaining our own cultural differences and comparing with each other how they affect our shared work culture.

Maybe I'm painting too rosy a picture of multiculturalism - the point is for many of us that multiculturalism isn't a threatening idea or socialogical concept thrust upon us by well meaning politicians. keen on community cohesion, it is the natural result of being together. I accept that maybe people like me are an exception: at ease among others, eager to share and meet new people.

Where that sharing does take place, whether in work, school, university or elsewhere we don't generally fight over our differences; we grow and share, building a new culture that still retains the bits we are proud of from the old one, but also collecting and adding other bits - new words and new food, for example, but still retaining the essential values and spirit that are the true heart of England. The true values of our country are the same whether you go to Mosque, Temple Synagogue or Chapel.

I do worry that with fewer people working at the moment, there are not the opportunities for natural cultural sharing, and I accept that economic deprivation and disaffection among workless young people makes a breeding ground for extremists of any sort. But that is not the same thing as this cultural erosion that the EDL are so worried about.

I also wonder where people for whom social sharing is not natural and easy, can learn and experience other's culture. I don't see much of that going on on Facebook for example - these so called social networking sites seem generally little more that a gossip shop for pre-existing friends or way of passing time with trivial games. I don't see many cultural boundaries being stretched in the same way that natural social exchange in the workplace does.

So what of the future?

My instinct and experience is that we have far more to gain by sharing culture we are proud of and comparing and contrasting it with others' culture. History is littered with examples to demonstrate the benefit; and history is also cratered with examples where cultural difference has been allowed to develop into fighting.

So for my part I'll carry on encouraging people to share and I hope you do too. If there are waggons being hitched to horses, you'll find me sat in the one with people sharing their food, their music and their culture during the journey.

(By the way, you've probably guessed that I chose the image of British miners because once they are covered in coal dust you can barely tell what colour they are. The irony is that, browsing for a suitable image, I found it a web site supporting the BNP - I'll not dignify them with a link.)

More Northern Cultural Experience - Does Karaoke Replace The Singalong?

2009-09-07T19:31:00.005Z

We visited the Isle of Skye in May and happened across a harbour front pub, The Pier Hotel, a real seafaring fisherman's pub overlooking Portree harbour. The clientèle still wore their fishy working clothes and in the corner a duo, two men in their seventies, played fiddle and accordian, both great musicians whipping up a storm with tunes everyone knew and loved. The heaving throng joined in with the slower wistful Scottish ballads and whooped to the faster dance tunes, jigging in the tight packed space. This was one of those holiday highlights where you feel you've got to the heart of a community and experienced something authentic of their culture.

Back in Oldham I reflected on how once again the Northern mill towns had been deprived of any kind of culture with a heritage going back centuries - no Robbie Burns for us. Our forebears migrated from the country for work brought by the booming cotton economy. They sacrificed their various cultures for an all new mill based community, based on leisure activities graciously provided by mill owners - the working mens' clubs and brass bands, for example.

My grandparents loved a sing-along at church social functions, where they sang songs of the musical hall or war time ditties. Then in the seventies they taught us, their grandchildren the words of the old songs and told us that these new loud songs would never catch on - "you won't be singing them round the piano in twenty years time" they used to tell us.

And they were right weren't they?

On Saturday we had a night out in a pub with a bit of a dubious reputation in Oldham - the sort of place you can be sure of a fight with your pint - there was a karaoke night. Mrs C and I joined a rowdy group of her colleagues for, rumour had it, was one of the best nights out around.

The start did not auger well, the place was shabby and the red faced hardened drinkers looked like they'd been in since they'd left work some considerable time before. Then the place filled up and by 10.30h was buzzing with young people and old, most of them knew each other, some had uncles, aunts and parents in the pub too.

The karaoke was indeed great fun with singers falling into two distinct camps: the wannabe diva and the drink addled trier. I preferred the triers, the ones who took on a challenge and failed to meet it, the ones where you heard the first bars of the song and said, "OMG he's not trying that one is he?!"

My favourite was Bert, dressed in what looked like the sweater he had for Christmas, in 1990, bright red face, legs that refused to keep him in one position for long; Bert belted out Robbie Williams' Angels with all the big-stage enthusiasm of Robbie himself, only three bars behind the rest of the song (that's Bert pictured above).

The thing was, nobody cared because we were all joining in with Bert, or with Terry who slaughtered Oasis's Wonderwall this was our community singing: tunes we all knew and loved that resonated with us. They might not have had a heritage traceable back through the annals of time but this was a culture in the making - I think my Gran would have been proud, even if she couldn't have said so for having to eat her words.

Grim Up North - Not Romantic, Grim

2009-08-21T18:07:00.007Z

I've written about my grandparents' post-cotton working lives before, but recently the reality of their post-war poverty was pulled into sharp focus, it was far from the quaint Lowryesque pictures I had in mind, and I realised that despite knowing the facts of my heritage, I was still guilty of romanticising it into a 'grim-up-North-where-there's-muck-etc' kitchen sink drama.

Fifty years ago this month my parents were married in the tiny Edge Lane Methodist Chapel tucked between rows of terraced houses in the back streets of Oldham, long since swept away in the slum clearances of the sixties. As we celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary, I asked my mum to describe her wedding day, anticipating tales of make-up, hair and the sort of girly preparations 19yr old brides might make.

She told us how, on the morning of her wedding, she walked in the rain to the Public Baths on Shaw Rd for a bath. This was special - a bath was normally taken in front of the open fire in a shared enamel tub. After bathing cheek by jowl with other neighbours, she walked home, calling in at the corner shop to buy a pie and mash lunch for relatives newly arrived after a full morning's bus journey from Sheffield. Only after delivering the pie and mash was she free to do her own hair and make-up before the car arrived to drive twice round the block before dropping her off at the tiny chapel at the end of the street.

My dad remembers how he arrived late, with a hangover, and was confronted by my maternal Great Grandfather - their first meeting. The older man eyed my father up and down, grunted and passed judgement on the future husband of his Granddaughter "He'll do" he said.

The black and white photographs of the day tell their own story. The clothes are great: only my dad had a new suit, all the other men wore 'the suit' - the only formal piece of clothing most of them owned, and kept mothballed in the back of a wardrobe for long periods for events such as these. The older men were staunch in their refusal to remove the headgear that marked them out as working men - not the modern Moss Bros rented top hat jobs, the men wore flat caps with their double breasted suits.

It was when we were flicking through the album I had my reality check - I was gently chuckling at the flat capped men, and commenting on how we'd just nip to Matalan for a seventy quid suit made by some poor sod in Asia these days, and noting how Primark age photos would consequently have that bland look that comes from everyone buying the same cheap clothes with the money they have, rather than saving older clothes and reusing them.

I asked whether my Mum and Dad missed the days when life was simpler and at an easier pace. Not a bit of it. Because of course it wasn't simpler - my mum didn't choose to walk in the rain for a bath on her wedding day, nor choose to have to go and buy lunch for the guests. They had no indoor bathroom nor toilet, nor fresh food in the house. And the houses weren't later demolished in some kind of wanton destruction - they were unfit to be lived in, and while we might not liked the estates they built in the sixties to replace them, there was nothing romantic about them. My Grandparents were glad to get out.

So no Lowry romantic Northern idyll for me then.

Khyam Petworth Tent and Excelsior Annex Review

2009-08-03T18:59:00.010Z

We're selling our Khyam Petworth tent and the Excelsior Annex that goes with it (but also fits other Khyam tents), so I thought I'd do the decent thing by explaining to anyone who visits the Ebay auction, why we are selling it and what we really think of it.

The thing with tents is that no matter how good they are - and this one is good - they are only any use if they are the right tent for you, and this one isn't. We've camped in it for a total of fourteen nights and it it is a lovely space to live in, especially with the Annex as the kitchen area. It is big - I mean over 5 metres by 3 metres, and almost 2.5 metres tall - it is a lovely airy space. And there lies the problem. Lovely and airy is a great thing for camping throughout June, July and August when you can sit out in the evening watching the stars with a glass of wine.

If, however, you want to camp in the Highlands of Scotland (or the Isle of Skye, like we did) in early May, it is not the right tent. The bedrooms are snug, like most inner tents in most tents, it is in their nature to be snug; but with that huge airy space to heat, even with the sown in ground sheet and the additional layer of the footprint groundsheet, it is just not warm enough.

So, all that said, who would I recommend this tent to.

It is a great summer tent for a couple who like lots of headroom and wouldn't mind a bit of space to entertain a couple of friends, without the annex it's great for a weekend, with the annex it's superb for a trip of a week or more.
It is big enough for a small family, especially with the annex; and the Khyam Quick-Erect system really works (once you get your head round the method, the video is a good way of doing that), so if you want something large that's easy to get up, this could be right for you.
The annex is a worthwhile investment for anyone who already has the Petworth, Motordome Excelsior or Longleat tents, it is easily large enough to use as both a kitchen and porch area, meaning you have even more living space on a longer trip.

My other concern with Khyam tents has been the trade-off between Quick-Erect system and frame strength, because it has aluminum poles and plastic folding joints. I was partly reassured by talking to other owners who agreed that it was a compromise, but one worth accepting. The frame is not as strong as say a geodesic type structure and you do get the odd bent pole (we did when taking the tent down on Skye a gale blew up) but because it is an accepted risk the poles are really easy to replace - secured into the folding joints with an effective push-button system - and they are not expensive to replace with genuine parts either (which we did, just in case you are wondering!).

So, there you have it it. It is a great tent so long as you remember what it is good for. We will be camping in Scotland in spring again but in our Vango Diablo which is geodesic, and has a complete inner tent over the whole tent area, but guess what? It ain't half hot in summer in it - so there you go, horses for courses.

Folk and Roots Music - Whose Roots Exactly?

2009-07-29T20:32:00.004Z

My mate and famous science fiction author Tony Ballantyne prompted this post with his own writing about the Valeta; not some form of motor scooter, nor a type of ice cream dessert but a dance popular among working class people who had their entertainment in Working Mens' Clubs up and down the country.

Tony and I are fans of folk music, or roots music as it has come to be known among the middle classes who like to associate themselves with whichever tradition they find most appealing sat in the audience at Cropredy or Cambridge Folk Festival.

But listen to the Copper Family speak about how they passed songs from generation to generation through times when they were truly out of fashion, before the current revival of interest in 'folk' music, and you begin to understand how cultural heritage really works. Their motivation for passing on songs was rooted in a mortal fear of their heritage dying out: the songs said something about what made them the people they are. So when popular culture scorned their songs they persisted, not of some desire that they should become universally popular, but out of a desire that their heritage should be preserved.

So, what's my musical heritage? Despite my own love of acoustic music, sea shanties and Bellowhead, I can claim no heritage from it. If I am to follow the example of the Copper family and trace a line back, in order to preserve the tradition of my forebears, I must anchor my ship to the memories of Edge Lane Methodist Church Hall and the sound of feet scratching and swishing across the salted hall floor as dancers joined in songs made famous in Oldhams Adelphi Music Hall. Songs that made Gracie Fields famous, or the songs of George Formby, the songs that helped people forget the stress of life in Post-War England. And as I sit here writing I can hear the communal singing and can join in as I sing along too, the memories resonating in a way that prove the point.

So, do I put my money where my mouth is and next time Tony and I get together, he with his accordian, I with my guitar, do we knock out a Valeta tune before launching into a technically more complex but authentic version of 'Leaning On a Lampost'?

Or do we check the latest Bellowhead album for a song we both like (and can play)?

I'll let you know... "Turned our nice again..."

Elsa's Duck Eggs - Devon's Delight!

2009-07-27T21:31:00.007Z

I know I go on a bit about food and the various merits of animal welfare and such, but our last Devon camping trip had an unexpected bonus. As well as the usual pay-as-you-go-through-countryside-that-by-all-rights-should-be-free trips, we fell across the ultimate example of how food should be reared.

The quacking from the other side of the hedge at Barley Meadow C&CC site should have been a clue that there were ducks, but we were so busy with new found enthusiasm for cloud spotting (of which more another day) it took till late in the week to pop round the corner to Higher Fingle Farm for a dozen eggs.

Not only did we get our eggs but also an invitation to visit and learn about the organic farming of Neville and Rona Amiss, and the work of their daughter Elsa in rearing a flock of egg-laying ducks to become suppliers of high quality produce to Waitrose, Duchy Originals and other high-end retailers. That coupled with Neville's enthusiasm and intelligent approach to producing food in a way that is not only sympathetic to animals (before the killing them bit, Lisa) but also sympathetic to the environment, made this the most worthwhile (and cheapest) trip out on our holiday.

The trials that Elsa, Rona and Neville have gone through for their food to be acceptable to retailers was a fascinating insight in to the way that regulation aimed at satifying food hygiene and health and safety actually make it difficult to produce good food.

Talk about tail wagging the dog!

They are currently waiting to hear whether they have been sucessful with a grant application to help them purchase an egg washer - it's like a dishwasher but more careful - the current machine, that we saw in action, is a bit like a galvanised bucket that gently jiggles the eggs around in the water, but judging by the pile of broken eggs by the kitchen door, it's not always succesful.

Best for me was the discovery that Neville has his own small registered abbatoir on site which answered one of my biggest concerns about meat production - the transporting of animals miles from their home to, what amounts to, a killing factory. Neville's humane treatment means the animals are dispatched on-site quickly and kindly (if you can kill something kindly - I think you can).

Neville and Rona's philosophy and vision runs through everything they do like streaks through bacon; chatting to the people who actually produce food really does make the link between our plate and the field - if you get the chance to visit Higher Fingle farm - or any other friendly organic farmer - do take the opportunity; it will make you think differently about your food. Particularly the paying more and eating less bit - organic meat and food is expensive, no question, but we don't need to eat meat every day.

You can find out more about Higher Fingle Farm Here, or have a look at Elsa's Eggy Blog here - oh, by the way did I mention that Elsa is 11yrs old, and will be probably the only pupil to have her own flock of ducks and her own growing business when she starts senior school in September.

Now, here's my dilemma. Back in Oldham should I order some of Elsa's lovely eggs and incur the food miles all the way from Devon?

I think I can stand the guilt.

Me and My Walnut - Crofty's Trip to the Doctor

2009-07-12T18:28:00.006Z

When I was a nurse, twenty or so years ago, I never found it difficult to remember the shape of the prostate gland - a walnut shaped gland sitting just below the bladder - but its position, snuggly nestled up there out of reach, has only just recently mattered. Being 'just below the bladder' makes it vey awkward for a medical practioner to examine. Actually that's not true; it is remarkably easy for a medical practioner to examine, it is only awkward for the patient.

I have for a while had symptoms that are, shall we say, inconvenient in a man of my age. The symptoms are to do with the frequency one has to pee, and also the speed of response required when one discovers the need to pee. In short - and I use the word carefully - you need to go NOW!

These symptoms are usually reserved for men who are a little older and who don't have to worry about things like meetings or giving presentations; and what's more, these symptoms have been slightly worrying given that one of the causes might be Prostate Cancer.

So I went to the doctor. It took only a simple blood test to determine it wasn't cancer, so on to the expert Mr Sharma - a urological consultant. Anticipating a considerable wait and the usual NHS multi-visit format I contacted the new fangled call centre for my appointment. The young lady apologised that the earliest appointment she could offer was Saturday - this Saturday? I asked, incredulously, astonished not only at the speed but the fact that I wouldn't have to explain any absence from work.

The appointment wasn't in hospital but in a lovely old victorian house, the waiting room was full of men, each glancing at the other wondering which bit of plumbing they were there with. An older man had obviously been asked to bring a specimin, but perhaps had not been told what size of specimin; the jar on his lap looked heavy and full, and looked large enough to hold a couple of litres - he had my admiration.

A short time later my turn came and I was again pleased. I was subjected to a barrage of tests there and then - no wait, nor repeat visit. These included an ultrasound scan (almost a banker for a further appointment weeks ahead) and a peeing test that would have delighted me as a schoolboy (just pee in the funnel Mr C, no, not from there!). After only a half hour I emerged with a diagnosis, a prescription and a renewed faith in the NHS.

During conversation with the excellent Mr Sharma (have you tried making conversation with a guy who has his finger up your...never mind) he explained that this excellent standard of service was arrived at by allowing medical staff to run it. Sounds odd doesn't it? But it seems the sorts of service we are used to - for example the barrage of repeat visits I anticipated over weeks and weeks for tests and such - is designed by people interested in processes rather than patients.

By putting patients at the centre of the thing you get a service that is, hardly surprisingly, good for people.

The worrying thing is that Mr S was eager that I should pass on my feedback to the Oldham PCT, he said it in a way that made me think that the service was possibly at risk. So I shall send a link to this post to them with my blessing.

Oh, before I go, just in case any of you are worrying about the prospect of a future prostate examination - it's not that bad; not something I would personally choose to indulge in as a leisure activity mind, but who am I to judge.

EMI

2009-07-07T21:33:00.007Z

The last time anyone asked me the question 'What do you think of EMI?' was when the Sex Pistols fell out with their label and left nobody in any doubt what they thought of them.

I didn't like the Sex Pistols, I thought they were posturing prats who did punk no good. I was with them though on their rant against the commercialisation of the music industry.

So why do I mention that now, when I've been casting a critical eye over EMI's new music website?

My review is in the context of how I access music on the web: I like LastFM - I use more or less all of their facilities and have come to view them as an impartial partner in my music browsing. And this is my problem with the EMI site - there's just too much of EMI on it. The new website is too steeped in the brand to make the it comfortable to use for on-line music browsing.

If that all sounds a bit obvious I'll try to explain.

The web developers have worked hard to make this site look cool and have given it bite and immediacy with a high standard of news stories, videos and the cool spinny album selector on the home page. All that that amounts to though is little more than window dressing. Because the site is so heavily branded it isn't as comfortable a place to be as an 'independent' music interest site like Last FM where the user is allowed to find their own way, whether or not that results in a decision to buy music.

When you visit the EMI site you are already in their shop, so to speak: music searches bring up a list of mainly EMI artists, and in the test searches I made, little else - particularly when using the 'find similar artists' function. The Artists section of the site is interesting, just to see who is on the label, I just can't think of a reason why anyone would want to browse who is on a particular label in that way.

Perhaps I'm not the target audience for this site - I hope not because there's obviously an awful lot of money and development gone into it. Maybe the audience is people who are ready to buy music and not just browsing. That being the case, it's a nice place to shop - but I'm not sure that is what EMI want; after all why else would you add the 'playlist' facility if you weren't expecting people to customise the site and keep returning?

So, do I like it? For my purposes, no I don't. I'll stick to Last FM and other places that let me wander around the music world and decide what to buy in my own time and my own way.

Ironically one search that did bring up a degree of success was, ironically, The Sex Pistols

Crofty Eschews Tesco for Local Northumbrian Holiday Heroes

2009-06-29T21:24:00.010Z

Fresh back from a week's camping at Bellingham just over the top of Hadrian's wall in Northumbria, I thought I'd share my holiday heroes.

Determined to avoid Tesco and contribute to the local economy we sought out local food producers (and purveyors of excellent gardening and music in the process).

So here are my local heroes, starting with food:

Kielder Organic Meats: This farm literally next door to the Camping and Caravanning Club site at Bellingham does exactly what it says on the tin. They produce pork, beef and lamb of the highest quality possible, butchering it on site and selling from their farm door shop.

If you have any consideration about animal welfare it's worth going to see their happy rare breed sheep, pigs and cattle contentedly allowed to roam and grow unenhanced by artificial accelerants. They couldn't be happier apart from being offered the unlikely - and unsustainable - option of survival.

Ridley's Fish and Game: We sought out this local dealer tucked away on the uninviting Acomb Industrial Estateindustrial unit, and it was worth the effort. Mr Ridley is knowledgable and passionate about food; and was eager to promote the benefits of local business - I'll bet Terry Leahy's ears were burning when we'd finished our grumpy-old-man-rant that listed the number of small businesses run out of town by Tesco's arrival, including local food producers initially invited in to the Tesco web only to be trapped and forced out of business by the unreasonable demands of the food giant.

The barbecued Mackerel plucked from the sea that morning, and the Rabbit stew the following day were just perfect, and all the better for knowing where they came from.
OK, that's food, now on to music.

All over Bellingham were posters advertising Bellingham All Acoustic Club (or BAA Club - gettit?...Baa, rural England, sheep?). Not only that but during our week away Rod Clements, ace guitarist, ex-Lindisfarne (the group that were so good they named an island after them), was playing their small hotel based venue. It was touch and go whether we got a place - we had to put our names on a list - but went and were welcomed to the sort of folky club that deserves encouragement. On the bill with Rod were Clockwork a group of young adults from a Hexham school playing traditional music with energy and obvious enjoyment that said more about the real future of live music than any of the wannabe celebs queuing to prance before a panel of experts with an eye on a commodity rather than art.

Also on the bill were the club's founders: Landermason. Paul Mason and Fiona Lander are a fairly well known duo who play an impressive range of instruments and styles - Paul's guitar playing is the sort that wants you to stick your guitar on the campfire and not bother again, he's that clever.

Rod Clements himself is one of the UK's, not unsung, but undersung, songwriters. He writes well observed bluesy songs about real life with a lovely turn of phrase that can be both challenging and emotionally charged. His guitar playing is superb ranking him among the UK's best slide guitarists, and his solo performance is warm, witty and a great evening's entertainment - check him out if you can.

(Oh, and just to get geeky for a minute, is one of the very few people to be playing a 1970s Harmony Sovereign guitar like me)

Finally, on to our top tourist destination.

The Garden Station: Another 'does what it says on the tin' highlight. At the former Langley Station on the old disused Hexham rail line is a garden created between station platforms that would have once bustled with local travellers. Now set in mature woodland it is a delightful garden that has that 'nature-just-restrained' feel. But more than that, the whole site breathes peace and oneness (sorry if that's a bit hippy-dippy), but the station has been converted into a vegetarian cafe with excellent meals created by the CordonVert chef and current garden custodian Mike Winstanley.

The station no longer bustles but oozes peace and tranquility, making it the perfect setting for a range of creative courses on gardening, poetry, art and much more.

So eschew Tesco, forget National Trust and their pestering for membership: seek out the small and support them.

Why I Will Never Be a Great Poet

2009-06-16T19:14:00.003Z

I've really enjoyed the BBC series on poetry this spring, the programmes featuring Simon Armitage on Gawain and the Green Knight; Sheila Hancock on her favourite poets and most recently Cerys Matthews have all been lovely viewing, not least because they've reacquainted me with some poems I'd forgotten.

Sheila Hancock read Philip Larkin's Poem - The Mower, a beautiful sad little poem and exhortation to general niceness. Here it is:

The Mower
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

I too was once moved to write about a not dissimilar experience with a hedgehog. For those of you who do not remember the 'Hedgehog Blog Post' Click here to be reminded why my response to events such as these will never qualify me to be a true artist.

All Is Not Equal Under The Skye

2009-06-01T21:19:00.010Z

Skye is a beautiful place, a far away wild mountainous island where it's still possible to believe - despite a bridge to the mainland - that you have left the UK for another land where people have Viking blood and no telly. It is a place of enormous skies, towering mountain vistas and roads that go for tens of miles to only one place.

We camped at the Loch Greshornish Camping and Caravanning Club site, in May, and learnt that a small island, sitting almost at the Northwesterly corner of our land, gets whipped by the spinning outer edges of the weather with pole twisting, canvas flapping force at times.

The Camping and Caravanning Club franchise has recently been bought by Dave and Nicky - English comer-inners to Skye who bought the farmhouse, croft and existing campsite two years ago. Since taking on the C and CC mantle they have had their work cut out - as well as bringing the place up to standard they must manage the substantial tract of land with sheep, ducks, chickens and long-horn Highland cattle they inherited with the land.

Chatting to people on site who knew it before it's apparent Dave and Nicky have done a lot of work - hard standing for caravanners, new roads, and greatly improved facilities - new toilets and showers to name a couple. But stood up to my elbows in suds in the outdoor washing up hut listening to the conversations , a noticeable divide is apparent in opinion on the site. There seems to be two camps (sorry!): those who need cosmetic improvement and those whose needs are simply functional.

Take the outdoor washing-up area. An electric light might be a nice thing to have, one day; but it doesn't go dark until ten o'clock on Skye - but you should just have one, right, everyone want to wash up in the dark after ten pm, don't they? That seemed to be the illogical stance of one of the site's detractors.

Others complained about the poor quality of the joinery inside the shower block, the door handles admittedly looked like they had been there since they were salvaged from a house in the 1970s; but they worked, everything worked. It was just a bit tatty and very much a work in progress. Work that means 12 hours a day for Dave and Nicky.

So who are in these two camps? Those who seem to need things to look nice, by and large, seem to be caravanners and motor home owners who have not been tent campers. They compare this site unfavourably to the regimented sounding, highly efficient Caravan Club sites; whilst tent campers and carvanners who have gone soft (sorry again) seem much more tolerant of this lovely loch side site, realising that there is more than enough beauty on Skye without having to rely on the inside of the toilet door for it.

If you are considering camping on Skye do go to the site at Loch Greshornish and stay with Dave and Nicky where they will for this year, be run ragged by their C and CC mentor while he drills them in the ways of the club. Eat Nicky's eggs for breakfast less than an hour after she has collected them from beneath clucking hens and quacking ducks. Join them in a lock side walk as the sun sets and chat about the life changing decision they made to come to Skye, and understand why it is worth the hard work when they end their day with that lochside stroll rather than watch The Apprentice on telly.

This site will get better, the new owners have the drive and vision to make it work, but I sort of hope it doesn't get too smart and snazzy. Skye isn't like that - the Crofters Hebridean life was always about surviving against the elements with the resources around you, not stamping your impression on the landscape insisting you have your way - I doubt you'd succeed much in any case.

Is This The Best Boy's Day Out Ever?.. Trains, Beer and Food

2009-05-12T18:57:00.007Z

The tour of station bars on the Leeds rail line, made famous by Oz Clarke and James May in their Drink To Britain series may possibly be the best blokes day out ever. It has it all (excepting sport perhaps), real ale, great hearty food and nostalgic bars packed with enough railway memorabilia to entertain for hours.

The journey for the St John The Baptist Church, Hey posse started at Stalybridge station with good intentions. On my part an intention to make copious notes of beers sampled and passing observations of each station and journey. My notes, at the end of the trip that took in Huddersfield station (twice), Dewsbury and finally the Railway Hotel at Greenfield consisted of the following: Stalybridge - 1/2 pint of Viaduct Gold, lovely!

Like I said, good intentions.

So don't expect this to be an erudite exposition on real ale and heritage rolling stock. Thank goodness there was sufficient planning ability among our group of builders, teachers, authors, retired company directors, police officers (retired military and serving) to realise the importance of the dynamic between food and real ale. Like this:

"Let's eat at Huddersfield, they have the best food."
"Yes, but lets eat on the way back, otherwise we'll get stuck at Dewsbury: they have the best beer."

And so it was, the best buffet bar is Stalybridge, without a doubt with it's maze-like collection of warm rooms that ooze nostalgic hellos and farewells. The best all rounder is Huddersfield where you could easily spend a whole evening, with a meal and music, on one of the many nights they have live bands.

The best beer is definitely at The West Riding, Dewsbury where, even though I've enjoyed it many times before, Timothy Taylor's Landlord excelled itself...we would have got stuck there too, had we not been more than ready for the fabulous fish and chips at Huddersfield. I guess the souvenir tee-shirts that state 'I missed the train at Dewsbury' are very popular.

The Huddersfield bar, The Head Of Steam, served up Cod, battered just enough to just see the white of the fish, chunky chips with skin on, and mushy peas, that we were sober enough (just) to appreciate above run of the mill food that could have been served up to us - it were lovely!

You'll be pleased to know that over tea, what with us being a church outing, we discussed some of those headier intellectually taxing subjects that thinking men ought to.

For example: in a fight between a shark and a tiger, who would win?

(this was silly, it would obviously be the shark every time - all he has to do is taunt the tiger into swimming out to sea for the scrap and stay out of his way until he drowned. Even if we allow evolution a place in the argument, to allow the shark to get on land and be beaten up by the tiger, it can only at best end in a stalemate because the evolutionary trend would be for the tigers to get smart and evolve into creatures who could rise above the tiger's taunts and not go in the water in the first place, so by the time evolution provided the sharks with legs, the tigers wouldn't want to fight them....just saying Tony.)

There was more...when we got onto a railway trivia quiz, it flushed out the real trainspotters, there were a few surprises there, I can tell you!

Anyway, finally we ended the night in the excellent and local (within 40 minutes walking distance from home) The Railway Pub, Greenfield, where there was plenty more real ale (don't ask me what we drank, I haven't a clue, I remember it being good though)

So, not a classic CAMRA day out - no real ale review with all it's expert ramblings on hops and malt, nor a railway buff's collection of train references nor (do they really do this?) numbers in little books. But it was a grand day out!

Helmsley Walled Garden - A Yorkshire Treat

2009-05-06T21:08:00.010Z

Yorkshire Dales National Park was the perfect destination for our first camping trip of 2009, and in that single long weekend we took in thousands of years of history. From the ruined Cistercian Abbey at Byland and Carthusian Priory at Mount Grace. Each is in its own oasis of tranquility that anchors you to the peace and solitude that brought those seeking spiritual quiet millenia ago. Then there was the far from ruined, truly thriving Benedictine community and Catholic college at Ampleforth with its stunning, soaring church.

But each of these tourist destinations has advantages over the one I'd like to share with you. To find any of the major National Trust or English Heritage sites you simply follow the brown signs. Don't expect to see brown signs though for Helmsley Walled Garden; this jewel of restoration wasn't sufficiently restored before the rules for signage in National Parks changed. The Helmsleyteam learnt they couldn't have signs and therefore miss out on the passing visitors who rely on signs to choose places worth visiting; and that is a shame.

Helmsley boasts an orchard of beautifully trained apple trees - old English varieties, the ones you won't get in Sainsburys - and a collection of Clematis that demonstrates why of all climbing flowers they are rightly the most popular. The gardens are a treat for anyone with a passing interest in horticulture - the white framed green houses backing on to the warm worn brick walls are testament to the skill of the gardeners that raise sufficient vegetables to keep the excellent vegetarian Cafe, The Vinery, in business.

And incidentally, even if you don't want to visit the garden, the cafe alone is worth going out of your way to for lunch.

Best of all though, wandering around, I couldn't help but have that lovely safe and warm feeling that you associate with childhood pleasures. I couldn't place it at first, but it finally came to me. It was the slow measured pace of an enclosed world, that relies on the rythmn of the seasons. It was really relaxing - that and the fact it reminded me of watching The Herbs and Hectors House as a child.

So how do you find it?

Take the B1257 for Stokesley and then look for the next car park (they are allowed to have signs apparently), once you've parked simply resist the tempation to pop into the nearby bakery for a curd tart and follow the hand made signs to the garden.

I've Set Sarah Off Again!

2009-04-25T18:05:00.005Z

I walked into a right royal rant at Sarah's house this morning. Her dad was reading this week's edition of The Week magazine - he and I often chew the fat over his excellent coffee while discussing the week's woes.

I've reproduced the cover here to show you what set her going; and after she had vented her spleen, we had a reasoned conversation that she agreed to let me reproduce on her blog 'News From The Nick'.

Click here to see what she said.

Watchmen - Crofty Discovers the Graphic Novel

2009-04-14T15:18:00.006Z

Sometimes people do you a favour without realising it. That happened to me when Linda at USUnlocked changed her mind about the way she wanted me to help her test her excellent shopping website. Rather than allot me a ten dollar voucher to spend at will, she selected a specific product to buy, so she could make sure the site did what it was supposed to.

I knew I was getting a book called Watchmen, I didn't know I was getting probably the world's most famous graphic novel. The bright yellow book slapped me awake as soon as I unwrapped it, and although I'd not heard of the book (go on say it, I must have been living in a vacuum!) I immediately recognised the DC Comic artwork of my childhood. But this was anything but childish.

I saw past the comics of my youth, to gritty gripping artwork, each frame demanding that you examine every facial expression; scan each half torn image of a poster and read the headline of each luridly drawn newspaper for clues and meaning.

The more I read, the more I appreciated the narrative as well as the artwork. In a regular novel you can, if you like, write sentence after sentence, wringing every last detail from the scene in your head onto the page. If you make films, you can let the action unfold in real time as each scene unfolds; but this tight punchy medium demands you choose a millisecond of time to represent the developing frame of a scene, and choose thirty or so words, from all the words in the world, to fit a speech bubble, and represent the depth and intensity of the mood and action.

That is the gift that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have in spades.

Their doom laden tale draws you into its pages and grips you as you gather up each casually dropped hint. And that's not all: the narrative is driven along by supporting text - excerpts from books, or crime reports - and even there the symbiosis between the text and look of the book is vital. The supporting documents look like they are supposed to, so they drive the plot along, keeping you in the moment, rather than taking you out of it like a cheesy B Movie scenes going 'five years earlier' or 'ten years later'.

All in all this is a real treat for the senses, it does not let you rest for a second and is rightly placed at the top of the worlds best fiction. Let the literary purists sniff - if the purpose of literature and art is to reach into you and twang your emotions, then this is art and literature at its best.

Finally, call me devoid of up-to-the-minute culture, but I didn't know, until a colleague saw the book in my briefcase, that they were making a film of this. I won't be going to see it, I'll be busy seeking out my next graphic novel to read. I'm hooked!

A Compliment for Sarah Policelady

2009-04-04T18:56:00.005Z

Thank you to Sylvie at Fuel My Blog for her compliment to Sarah Police Lady today. Sarah's blog is blog of the day on the excellent blogging networking site. I rang to tell her the good news her dad answered the phone and promised he would pass on the good news, not without commenting:

"Don't expect too much, she's just finished nights and is out on the pop tonight!"

Anyway, these fickle young people might not need accolades, but I appreciate it and seeing as how I do the work - aside from the risking-life-and-limb-to-protect-the-public stuff that she does - I'll enjoy it!

Actually, I sort of hope she doesn't log on to see for herself, she'll kill me when she sees the photo I used on FMB...which isn't her of course.

Crofty Takes the P*ss

2009-03-30T21:00:00.005Z

Our dog is old. He remains small, cute and loveable, but is in equal measures smelly and increasingly infirm. The vet thinks he might have Cushings disease which, dissapointingly, is nothing to do with him turning into a vampire. To start the process of confirming the diagnosis he needs a urine test - our excellent vet Ian won't do a blood test until he has ruled out some of the cheaper-to-discover other things; this is one of the things I like about our vet, he won't rip you off.

On the way out of the surgery Ian hands me a small vial and cheerily says, "Just drop it off at the surgery when you've got the sample." That is all he says. He doesn't offer handy suggestions on 'piss gathering in dogs whose little todger is barely four inches from the floor.'

So, attempt number one. First thing Saturday morning I open the patio doors. Max, always eager for that blissful morning release we all enjoy, approaches the pot containing Clematis Nelly Moser. As he cocks his leg I am there ready and poised with a plastic breakfast bowl; but Max is too good for me. As I dive beneath him with the bowl he looks back startled (sorry I forgot to mention he is deaf as a post too). He stops peeing and trots on giving me a look of bafflement. There then starts a game of 'Dad chasing Max armed with a plastic breakfast bowl' around the patio - only I tire of the game fairly rapidly saying "Bollocks to it then". Of course as soon as I have uttered the fateful words, Max releases a gusing flow that must have lasted about thirty seconds, all of the time eyeing me and the bowl with suspicion.

Still, I have a plan: Max always pees on plastic carrier bags whenever he sees one on our walk. He also has a sense of humour and pees on anything placed temporarily outside to be returned indoors later - meaning I must wash it thoroughly. He particularly likes to pee on houseplants put outside for watering.

Here is the plan: I stand a house plant on a carrier bag so the pee will run onto the bag and I can tip it in the vial. Sure enough he approaches the plant and cocks his leg peeing beautifully up the side of the pot. The piss myseriously seeps away into some sort of pissy black hole - it is nowhere to be seen, let alone poured.

I sulk and wonder whether this is the sort of amusing anecdote that vets talk about, "Do you know what I told one of our clients today...next time I'm going to tell him to tape a bag over it, that'll be worth a laugh..."

So, Saturday afternoon Mrs C and I adopt a cooperative approach. He always behaves for his mum; so Mrs C takes him on the lead to a nearby park; we take him in the car because he doesn't walk far now. She sets off walking, I lurk behind, stalking with the plastic dish. He approaches a post, lifts his little leggy and releases a stream which I catch in the plastic bowl succesfully.

We congratulate ourselves for the succesful piss collection and then look up to see anxious parents guiding their tots away from the playground apperatus nearest the fence where we were gloating over our specimin.

Anyway, by that time the vet was shut so we proudly stored our little piss-pot in the fridge next to the skimmed milk...where you could hardly tell the difference (that little aside was for anyone on a diet, like me).

So now we wait for Ian the Vet's call for the next stage.

The Latest From Sarah Policelady - Domestic Violence

2009-03-23T21:29:00.005Z

I was round at Sarah's dad's last Saturday morning. You may remember Sarah, my young friend who is a Police Officer. Over the as usual, excellent coffee I listened to her having what amounted to a mini-rant combined with a surprising crisis of confidence.

Risking Sarah's wrath for the sake of art - well blogging at any rate - I convinced her that she should engage in another cathartic jotting down of her experience.

Follow this link to read Sarah's account of tackling Domestic Violence.

The Fundamental Misunderstanding - A Sad Story About Sex By Crofty

2009-03-16T19:39:00.007Z

"Hi Julie, you don't mind me driving while we're talking do you? Yes, of course I'm hands free. I feel such an idiot so I've just got to get home and explain to them, how it's all been a misunderstanding. It's Graham I feel sorry for, but then you know how things have been. I mean, he's just been so weird these last few months, what with his 'problem', then spending all that time in the study on the internet.

"I was happier when I thought it was porn, although of course I started worrying then that it was me that was the problem. What? Of course I know that it was him now, but you know what women are like, we blame ourselves, don't we?"

"That was how I fell upon what he was really looking at - the chemicals - if only the silly man had talked to me, instead of his stupid pig ignorant pride. He should spend sometime being a woman for God's sake, then he'd learn about pride. I mean, how many things do we women get wrong with our fannies or tits, I seemed to have spent half my life on a couch in my doctor's with my legs wide open!"

"Stop laughing, you know what I mean. Anyway, as soon as there's something wrong with their cock, they take it as an assault on their fundamental manhood and go all broody. Still, I suppose it's cheaper than a Harley Davidson. Jenny Grove's husband couldn't get it up, she let him have a Harley on a promise, and now he's getting it on with a leather clad YMCA biker boy plumber from Partington."

"I'm serious, at least Graham was trying, in his own way to get help. What? Oh yes, sorry I didn't explain that bit did I? I thought he'd become some sort of religious zealot and was buying chemicals to make a bomb. So I had a moral dilemma for all of about two minutes, then realised I was never going to be one of those strong silent women who support the cause. So I shopped him to the terrorist hot line."

"Yes, really. They were really nice, offered me somewhere to go, said they'd look after everything. Then this morning on the Today programme there was this thing about Hydrogen Sulphide and how they think it can help get a man a hard-on. Then it came flying at me and hit me slap bang in the face....stop it! You know what I mean. The poor darling was trying to make his own DIY Viagra with a schoolboy chemistry set."

"What?...Oh, very funny, you must have been waiting weeks to use that one...yes I see what you did...Ardour, only with an aitch, very funny."

"Anyway, I'm just pullling into our street now. Oh my God, they don't do things by halves do they, there's about fifteen Police cars and an ambul...oh shit, you don't think? No, of course not, they'd have an ambulance just in case. Don't suppose they can take chances if they think there's a bomb or something. Oh God, oh God...they've taped off the street, I'm parking here and running down to the house - are you OK to stay on with me? Great."

"Still there? I'm jogging down...Hang on Julie, I'm being stopped by some schoolboy in a uniform... you oaf, I live here... get your hands off me you little...."

"Julie, stay on won't you, I want you to hear all this, I'm nearly at the door...No! I live here and you have no right to...can you believe the cheek of that bastard, I hope you are getting this Julie, OK I'm in the house.... ... ... Oh...My...God..."

"Shit oh shit oh shit oh shit...Julie? There's blood ...What? No, I'm his wife, where is he?...Oh no, Graham! Graham! No!.."

"What do you mean you thought he was going to shoot you? He's never even fired a gun, let alone had one in the house. He what? Just turned around and you thought?...How could you possibly think...Oh no, you don't mean...oh no, please no."

"Where is he? Is he in here? Get off me, this is my house and my kitch...Oh God Graham...please no..."

"Thank you officer, I just never expected to see...no of course, I shouldn't have barged past like that. But couldn't they have zipped up the, what do you call it? Yes, what a horrible phrase - body bag. What do you mean it wouldn't zip up? Oh, I see."

You Can Take The Man Out Of Oldham But...

2009-03-05T20:09:00.007Z

We don't get out much round here, so when I had to go to London for a meeting the other day, it was an event. Not least when I found out that travelling with an executive level colleague meant we got to go First Class - I have never travelled First Class before, in fact I don't think I've ever done anything First Class before!

Picking up the menu from the nicely laid table my executive colleague asked,
"What are you having for breakfast?",
I replied,
"I'll probably just get an egg McMuffin or summat when we get there, it's bound to be dear on the train."
"No, silly" she said, "It's all included."

But even then it took a short interrogation of the waitress before me and my other non-executive, yokel colleague actually believed it; and then in a style that truly betrayed our class, we continued:

"Right then, we'll have one of everything"
And then in an aside, my fellow yokel added,
"And I'll be taking some stuff for the kids too..."

What a lovely way to travel, well done Virgin Trains. The journey from Manchester to Euston took just two hours. The new Pendolino train was fast and smooth, the first class service was, well, first class: free food, free paper and as much lovely coffee as you wanted (and before you say it, yes I know it's not free really, but it felt it because work was paying!)

Anyway, if I was self employed, I'd certainly consider it worth paying, if only because at the end of the journey we didn't feel like you'd actually travelled all that way.

We were fresh and rested, ready to do business - and that's what we did, partly thanks to Mr Branson and his posh train.

The Room of Lost Love

2009-03-01T17:58:00.007Z

Collecting the latest results of Amazon's dreaded one-click ordering at weekend, a wave of sadness enveloped me as I realised that the mail collection office was actually Oldham's room of lost loves.

The young man passed my parcel through the hatch, and as I reached in I spied rows of pigeon holes stuffed with envelopes, many of them patterned with hearts and coloured deep red.

"What are all those?" I asked,
"Oh, they're all the cards that nobody has come to collect 'cos they had the wrong postage on them." he replied.
"Isn't that sad" I ventured,
"Dunno, you wouldn't catch me coming to collect a card that needed paying for."

So all those embryonic loves, those heartfelt yearnings remain lying there in the dark, for the want of a few pennies. And what of the emotion that was poured into those envelopes? The hope that accompanied the lustful longings? Somewhere someone is crying into their pillow wondering why they have been spurned, ignorant that their fate lay in one simple mistake of misjudging the size (of the envelope - before you get any smutty ideas).

I considered whether I'd risk a gamble of a few pence and a possible wasted journey to see what mysteries the left mail office had for me. I decided I definitely would. Yes, the young man was rather hard-hearted, if you ask me.

Then I realised where I'd heard his accent before, yes, that was it. He was from Barnsley or near by, where they must have a very large Room of Lost Love.

The Slaithwaite Moonraker Chippy Incident

2009-02-22T18:55:00.004Z

We took a trip just over the border from Oldham to Yorkshire yesterday evening, not something that comes easily, you know. We went to experience the Moonraking festival at Slaithwaite.

Each year the villagers of Slaithwaite (they say Slawitt - don't ask me why) celebrate the nineteenth century triumph of local smugglers over the customs and excise officers of the day. The story is quite simple: the smugglers were caught raking barrels of illicit liquor from the reeds on the canal bank; the quick thinking chaps claimed to believe that the reflection of the moon on the water was in fact the real thing, the moon having fallen in the water. They were merely raking the moon out in order to return it to its rightful place.

The customs and excise officers who believed the tale left them to it. Thus was born the Moonraking festival and its glorious winter procession of paper lanterns through the streets.

The streets were teeming with people and the cold winter wind had whipped up a bit of an appetite among me, Mrs C and her mum; so I joined the queue that snaked out of the Captains Table chippy - a nautical name, I know, but I put it down to its proximity to the canal - I suppose narrow boats have captains too.

After an age, I reached the front of the queue and spake my order:
"Two lots of fish and chips, and a fish on its own, to eat now please. Oh, and a buttered muffin."
"A what?"
The queue hushed, and I swear people in streets outside stopped what they were doing. I stood my ground,
"A buttered muffin, please."
"You, mean a teacake."

At this stage I'm sure I heard an Enrico Moriconni tune play in the distance. Mothers pulled their children closer, shopkeepers pulled down the shutters and the undertaker with his tape measure whistled cheefully.

"I whipped my poncho to one side, stuck a cheroot between my teeth and met the challenging stare of the assistant with what I hoped was a Clint Eastwood look. Then I remembered Mrs C and her mum stood in the cold outside, and sighed.

"Yes, a teacake please."

The world relaxed and we stood outside eating our food with greasy fingers, happy with glistening chip fat lips while we watched the lovely winter spectacle.

But it was a close thing; it's not safe over that border you know... it was a muffin though.

Here's a photo of one of the fantastic giant lanterns in the parade. I know it's a bit blurry - I'm sure someone, Lisa, will have something technical to say about light, shutter speed and movement, but you get the idea.

The Ferrari of Coffee from The Coffee Bean Shop, Only Slower

2009-02-05T21:33:00.005Z

I was really excited about the prospect of a coffee sample from The Coffee Bean Shop. I've recently reacquainted myself with good coffee - and they do sell good coffee, really good coffee that meets all my Fairtrade standards too. I bought myself a little stove-top espresso maker for Christmas and have been investigating different brands of Espresso since.

So when I saw my little package of coffee in the mail box, I eagerly ripped open the package. The aroma that seeped through the little brown paper package was mouthwatering. I scanned the label and noticed that I'd have to dust off a cafetiere - no problem. Then my heart sank.

It was like being given a Ferrari only to be told it had been fitted with a speed limiter set at 30mph: DECAFFEINATED.

Still, a review is a review, so three jugs later I can report that everything about this coffee oozes quality: the aroma, the flavour and the description on the website. But as Mrs C and I took mouthful after mouthful of the excellent quality brew we both shared the same expression that said:

"It's nice, really nice...it's just that, well....there's something missing."

No matter how good the Swiss Water Decaffeination process you can't get away from the fact that the caffeine pretty much makes the coffee.

So back to my little Bialetta Brika stove top espresso pot for me. But I think I might be tempted to see what the full power version of Coffee Bean Shop coffee is like - it promises to be pretty damn good.

Things That Snow Teaches Us

2009-02-03T20:08:00.006Z

I am not one of those who bemoan the fact that the UK grinds to a halt when we get a bit of snow. No, I understand how the unpredictability of our weather makes it uneconomical to spend millions of pounds on equipment that would keep us all going through the few days a year when we experience what others in colder climes have all Winter.

The disadvantage with not getting snow that often is that we forget what to do or, having got so used to being without it, try to carry on as if it wasn't there.

Lesson 1: take my car. Six months ago I'd have described it as my new car; but now in the middle of winter, I found I had neglected to read the bit of the handbook entitled 'Driving In Snow', so I didn't turn off the Traction Control when I found myself in blizzard conditions yesterday. Still as the car skidded towards a dry stone wall - that looked quite picturesque bedecked with the white stuff - I did learn that there is a handy little orange light with a picture of a car skidding to let you know you are, well, skidding. Handy that.

Anyway, the car stopped before we hit the wall, and I read the handy book - thought it defeats me why you'd want to turn off the traction control at the time you need most traction.

Lesson 2: About neighbours. In the category of 'carrying on as if it wasn't there' are many of my neighbours. We live at the top of a steep hill which when covered with snow is slippy. You can tell it's slippy just by looking at it. You can tell even more by the cars sliding sideways and backwards as they struggle to grip the gradient. So why do my neighbours insist on even starting the climb as the other cars slew towards them.

Lesson 3: Community Spirit.Perhaps it's the security of having your car as near home as possible, safely on your driveway which incidentally is clear of snow and thoroughly gritted with the council's grit out of the yellow grit bin. Of course their snowy adaptation doesn't extend to any sort of community spirited spreading of grit on the roadway or footpath to help out their neighbours. But then there isn't any grit left for the road - it's all on their drives.

Anyway, this last flush has beaten all of them. A good eight inches is covering our garden and it looks lovely as I walk down to where my car is parked a couple of safe streets away.

Lesson 4: Community Spirit 2. So bring on the chaos I say. What's the problem with a couple of days in the year where we actually have to walk somewhere? The walk from my car to our house took me thirty minutes tonight; not because it was so tough but because I bumped into neighbours I hadn't spoken to for ages (the nice ones, not the other sort). It was great.

P.S. Thanks to Lisa for the picture from her Flickr account.

John Martyn Is Dead

2009-01-31T20:09:00.002Z

Anyone who has seen John Martyn over the last few years knew that he would probably shuffle off this mortal coil earlier than had he lived the life of a trappist monk. And there is the irony of so many great artists: the disolution, the hedonism - call it what you will - is what gave the edge to the art.

The other side of it for me is that John Martyn has been the sound track to so many bits of my life. His variety of his styles has meant there has never been a time or mood without a song to suit it. In fact his many metamorphoses have often coincided with my own.

He has never been an apologist for his life alcohol abuse and in fact in a recent, not yet aired, interview was positively ebullient about his suspicion that his body was running out of its capacity to contain him. You can't help but smile when you listen to his matter of fact irascible good-humouredness.

I'm not one for mawkish sentimentality, nor wearing my heart on my sleeve. Whenever I feel like that I slip a John Martyn record on - he's far too good at doing it for me. But if blogging is about anything, it is about jotting down a note or two about those moments that matter. And John Martyn's dying matters to me.

If you are not familiar with his music have a look at this 2007 interview and then work backwards from there - I couldn't begin to recommend a favourite track - I have so many, just go and explore.

Has the BBC Lost Its Way?

2009-01-26T08:28:00.004Z

It started with the furore over the BBC's refusal to air the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for people suffering in Gaza - the BBC fell over itself to avoid the slightest whiff of bias. The only thing is they did what many bureacracy bound organisations end up doing - tied themselves in so tight a knot that they do nothing. So the suffering continues.

Then, last night the Beeb broadcast A ShortStay in Switzerland the moving true story of Dr Ann Turner who, in 2006, took her own life in a Switzerland clinic, before a cruel degenerative disease left her trapped, unable to carry out the act for herself.

For millions of people Julie Walters' performance resonated deeply sending waves of conflicting emotion crashing into each other. It certainly did for us. Then at the end of the programme when people felt at their most emotionally raw and exposed the Beeb offered a helpline.

Here is the list of people who may have been affected by the issues raised in the programme:

- anyone caring for someone with a degenerative disease
- anyone caring for someone with a terminal illness
- anyone who has cared for someone with a terminal illness until they died
- anyone suffering from any of the above and considering suicide as an option
- anyone suffering from any of the above and unable to face suicide as an option.

To meet the needs of all those people, the BBC offered only one helpline. It related to the single rare condition that Ann Turner suffered from: Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Were the BBC frightened that they might be seen to support the case of suicide? Were they paralysed into, again, doing nothing to help people in need? Has the BBC lost its balls?

If you are affected by any of the above, this organisation gives a view on ending life voluntarily, or if you just want to talk to someone about your situation click here.

That's all it needed, BBC.

Too Much Porn?

2009-01-20T19:59:00.004Z

Have you seen Wordle? It's a superb way of seeing the most common words in a piece of text expressed graphically. But no matter which way I configure my Wordle there's one word that is far too prominent - Porn. So this is my last porn related post until it looks smaller.

In fact this won't last long - it's quite a small one.

At Christmas lots of people in our office had a Wii, so the office talk is about Wii Fit, Wii Guitar Hero and Wii Movie Maker. With my temporary focus on the porn world I had a big flash today. And one that caused me to laugh out loud as myriad images appeared before my eyes.

I leave the rest to your imagination as you think of all those middle aged, slightly overweight people playing....wait for it....

Wii Porn

The Home For Retired Porn Stars

2009-01-14T15:07:00.004Z

I couldn't help but repeat 'Should Be in Bed, he's Rambling's' comment on my last post. It made me laugh out loud. You may recall that I was drawing a parallel between the attempts of the porn industry to make themselves seem more innocuous and the world of greyhound racing with its by-product of unwanted greyhounds needing re-homing.

'Should Be' wrote the following:

'I kinda like the idea of rehoming aged pornstsrs though, purely as some sort of moral duty for the entertainment they have given before the teeth sagged and the implants fell out. It can be such a clinical decision when selecting a rescue dog: not that one - too big: Nope - he'd eat the cat: she doesn't match the curtains.... How would one decide which retiree of the pornographic industry met the unique domestic requirements of each household?
Well she's still housetrained but we can't have Miss Leopardskin 1973, we'd never find her on the sofa...'

I laughed almost as much as when I discovered that some aged (male) porn stars actually find work as 'stunt-cocks' to carry out the ejaculatory act when the worn out real stars can't manage it.

But as for what really happens to retired porn stars, I wonder whether they wouldn't find a welcome home at the Gimcrack Hospital under the gentle ministrations of Nurse Myra. Or perhaps there are already homes for them, perhaps there is one near you subtly disguised as a common or garden retirement home...only it's not bingo they play in the afternoons.

What would it be called though? St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, or what about good old St Nicholas, the patron saint of sex workers?

In any case you can click here if you can rehome one....err, sorry a greyhound I mean.

Sex and Money

2009-01-08T19:51:00.006Z

Oh what joy. Finally the day has arrived when I can write a post that truly justifies the two key words most likely to get a raft of hits to my blog: sex and money.

And what a delightfully astute move by the US porn industry to demand, in the manner of the US car industry, a government injection to shore up its limp prospects (oh, there's more to come). Astute, not because porn stars are likely to receive a hand job, sorry, hand-out from sympathetic government sponsors but because where else could they get pan-global marketing coverage like they have received.

I mean, they've been begging for it - the chance to claim a useful role for society: cheering people up when things are going down. Albeit, in the manner of drugs or alcohol, the cheeriness is only short-lived (or perhaps short lasting). So here it was, on a plate, a golden opportunity to market an industry that otherwise struggles to advertise in the mass media.

Did they want or expect a multi-billion dollar? Did they heck. What they wanted was the opportunity for top porn artistes to talk about their art in mock serious terms to con the public at large that actually the industry has professional standards. Would you have believed that so called respectable papers would publish the fact that for only $19.95 a month you could have unfettered access to watch people 'doing it' live.

So, what's the harm in a few sad sods spending hard earned dollars sitting with spunky tissues before their screens?

Well perhaps there is a rather more sinister motive behind this marketing coup. Whilst the world's mass media raises a rueful smile and chuckles over the fun to be had with puns, the rather darker underbelly of this exploitative industry sits smugly in the knowledge that the public at large sees their business as a little more benign than they did yesterday .

For they do have something to hide. A bit like how a night at the dogs - greyhound racing - doesn't display the cruel fate of the unsuccessful hounds. The champagne face of porn doesn't broadcast the cheaper end of the market where age and/or consent is less important.

Sarah Policelady Is Back Again

2009-01-01T11:45:00.002Z

Some of you may remember my friend Sarah - a UK Police Officer who, for a while, had a blog over at Word Press. I was in their house last week and persuaded her that we, the public, are genuinely interested in what it is like dealing with life at its edges.

Here is her most recent post on the blog that I am looking after for her.

I commend it to you.

Crofty's New Year Message - The Song Remains The Same

2009-01-01T01:17:00.001Z

Hootenanny's finished and it's time for bed. There's only one thing left to do: the Crofty New Year Message, same as it ever was...

Try telling anyone, as they are liberally splashing Hugo Boss over their manly chest or donning a posh frock (not necessarily the same person you understand) that New Year is a stupid celebration and they look at you like you have just told them you are off to join a commune of some strange religious sect. Now that it's all over I will explain why I have never quite understood the need to draw an arbitrary line in the sand of time and call it a new year. For that is all it is: an administrative necessity to have a beginning and an end of the so called year. I understand why it is convenient to have one but why celebrate it?.. nothing changes.

At least Christmas, Eid or Divali have some sort of symbolism, even if you don't believe the in the spirituality that goes with them; but new year is a nothing. If we are going to celebrate it we might as well celebrate it in April when at least the accountants have something to be pleased about.

For many people this idea of taking stock of the previous twelve months and looking forward to the next is anathema. The time to take stock is when it is right for you. That is why so many new year resolutions fail: people are forced into resolving when their hearts are not in it. When you really want to do something do it; make a plan, find your motivation for achieving it and go for it. Away with this clap trap.

And by way of a cheery note on which to end; did you know that the early hours of new year morning are the most common time for suicide. Surprised? You shouldn't be when thousands of people who have had a shit year and another shit one to come are forced to reflect on the fact.

Happy New Year!

The Wizard Of Oz - It's a Pantomime...Oh No It Isn't

2008-12-22T22:11:00.003Z

We took a trip to The Lowry Theatre to see The Wizard of Oz this weekend. Each year at about this time the Lowry do a show, usually a classic kids' favourite like the W of O. So, not unreasonably, the assembled throng expected a panto.

The assembled throng were wrong. What they got was a straight lift of the Wizard of Oz from the film - starring Lorna Luft, Judy Garland's mum, as the Wicked Witch of the West. And I say straight lift, because that was what it was. This confused the audience who had dressed up in costume for the occasion and bought 'light-up' wands with them for the dark parts of the show.

It confused me too. Do you boo or don't you boo? You see in a panto there is interaction, so when after being bood the Wicked Witch of the West just got on with her next line without raising an eyebrow, the audience simply didn't know what to make of it.

A pity really, this was a really good show. Not a panto though; which we all would have rather liked.

The evening was saved though by the Grandma, Daughter, Grandaughter (approximate ages 35y, 20y and 5y) sat beside me. Each had that indomitable Salford pedigree that made them doggedly determined to have an interactive experience. They must have spent months, no years, learning the entire script of the film and they hooted and howled the lines along with the cast. And their enjoyment seemed to be enhanced by the contents of the innocuous looking soft drink bottles that were passed between the two adults at regular intervals.

The youngest of their party was named Lewis. Someone sat in front made the mistake of speaking a little too loudly when they said,
"It must have been where she was conceived..."
Their partner added
"What the Scottish Island?"
And in true Mancunian style, the young lass's mum responded
"Nah Luv, the store in the Trafford Centre - John Lewis, I used to work there."

Now that's entertainment!

What's In Your Christmas List?

2008-12-14T20:06:00.006Z

You know how you casually scribble things in your diary so you don't forget them?

As we get nearer Christmas the jobs mount up. So I found myself having to visit Asda on the way home last week.

Here is what was written in my diary:

Vodka
Pogo Stick
Dog Treats
Toilet Cleaner

I think I'll package it as an exercise for a creative writing course - feel free to blog your scenario suggestions.

Why I Knew I'd Love My 9 Bar

2008-12-06T22:33:00.005Z

I knew, even before I tasted it, that I'd love the Wholebake 9 Bar. The sample in the post was accompanied by a letter from Wholebake. The twenty or so people employed in North Wales bake - and it is bake rather than make or produce - the delicious carob topped, seed bar; but what convinced me wasn't the fabulous tasty delight of the thing but rather that I liked them, the bakers.

This is important because when I sat down to give a serious appraisal of 9Bar I found myself thinking the packaging dull and the chances of it competing with Kit Kat or Mars bar to be slim. That was when I realised that the key was in the letter - this is a snack for people who think food is more than a means of providing your body with the means to go on. 9 Bar is for people who care about where their food comes from; care who makes it and care about what they are putting in to themselves.

So, if 9 Bar is a little bit harder to find than the brightly coloured confections near the tills, look a bit harder, it is worth the effort.

It is also perhaps worth noting that Wholebake can also make you a bespoke snack, branded to your own requirement. I quite like the sound of 'Crofty Crunch'. I also thought that, seeing as Fuel My Blog have arranged these reviews, they might like 'Fuel for Your Blog' bar.

Gosh I'm good, I should be in marketing!

The Ice Man Cometh - To A Party Near You

2008-12-02T16:39:00.005Z

I have written before about my admiration for the skills of the advertiser, so when I discovered I had a relative in what must be one of marketings biggest challenges, I just had to go and investigate.

The relative in question sells ice: party ice; he sells ice for a firm that well, makes it. Apparently there are only three leading brands of ice in Europe and his firm makes all of them - which in turn raises its own questions but let's not get distracted.

I was initially aghast to discover that such a product even exists, until I was put in my place by our Australian relative who said that any self respecting Antipodean would not be seen dead without their cool box packed almost to the brim with party ice into which are plunged 'tubes 'o lager' - apparently you wouldn't want a warm beer. I did try to correct her but she was immovable on this point.

Anyway, I set to wondering how the varying brands of ice compete with each other, and to be honest, I ended up a little disappointed. The principle seems to be: 'It's just ice, buy it if you like'.

Still, it didn't stop my imagination running riot when it came to the potential plethora of ways in which you could reward your loyal staff at Christmas. You could give them all vouchers - for Iceland; or what about taking them to a show - High School Musical, On Ice of course. Or what about the different musical tracks you could play in the factory: Cold as Ice, by Foreigner for example.

Then it hit me - the obvious marketing niche. The North Pole is constantly whining on about how it is melting, so why not simply sell them some fresh ice to replace it. And with the scale of this global warming it's obviously a growing market, you could ship the stuff out by the ton - even better, fly it out there: it would be quicker so wouldn't melt as much.

Here's a thing: I wonder whether the excellent people at Fuel My Blog might like to approach the company for product reviews by our esteemed team of reviewers?

Just in case you think I'm not taking this seriously enough and in the process doing my relative an injustice, here's a link to their website so you know which variety of ice to buy in the supermarket. Just don't be disappointed when you get it home to find you have a bag of water.

Approved By The World Blog Council

2008-11-28T20:34:00.003Z

All this time and I didn't realise that I should have applied for approval from the World Blog Council before writing a word. Still, it's sorted now and I have to say I'm flattered by their kind words. And, as I submitted in my application to the council, I feel it my duty as a Blogger from Oldham to get some sort of council approval, I'm guessing that Oldhamers are more likely to pay attention to the WBC than they do to the dear old Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council.

Mind you judging by the decisions of Oldham Council over the years - including a multi million pound shopping centre build in the seventies, never fully occupied and then knocked down twenty years later; a Police Station built the wrong way round (or is that an urban myth); and a swimming pool a tile's width too short for proper competitions to be held there - the committees of our local council use similar decision making processes to the WBC.

So they're not completely bad then!

Where Art and Toiletry Meet - The King of Shaves Azor

2008-11-26T19:59:00.013Z

The new razor from King of Shaves, the Azor has clean lines and sleek styling that young men who care about the look of the stuff on their bathroom shelves will love. The sort of young gun who might have a constant stream of nubile conquests casting a critical eye over the contents of their male grooming kits in a morning.

So, who better to review this upstart competitor to Gillette's Mach 3 razor range than Crofty: middle aged, bearded with one partner of 22 years.

It would be wrong however, to assume that I am a stranger to a razor; whilst I am bearded, I am not completely hirsute and therefore a good razor to apply accurately at carefully designated facial landmarks is essential. And the Azor more than fits the bill. The blade width is the same as a Mach 3 yet the actual blade case itself is slighty narrower making for an easier passage around my rugged countenance; and it's light enough to not feel like you are shaving with a 110v hand drill - unlike some of the newer Gillette offerings.

What I love most though about this razor, is the combination of its good looks with simple innovation. Why does something that is simply intended to remove hair from your face have to have technology that requires batteries and springs when Turkish barbers can achieve it with one simple sharp blade? And this is what makes the Azor an ace: it is simple.

It looks good because of its dedication to function - not in spite of it. Every element is designed to do something, from the innovative fork design to the non - clogging head (nattily titled 'open architecture' - but we know what non - clogging means!).

Here's another thing: faces are not flat. Obvious I know, but it took years for razor manufacturers to realise that a hinged blade would work better around facial contours. But, blade units with hinges and springs are very expensive, Gillette's Mach 3 in Boots today are £11.48 for 8, but if, like the clever King of Shave Azor, you put a simple hinge in the actual razor the price of blades is less: £9.49 for 8.

Just to be sure though, and in the interests of impartial web journalism, I asked the two younger male members of the Crofty Clan to try it out. Usually you are lucky to get a morning grunt from them both; but after leaving the Azor on the bathroom shelf as if it were mine, I knew it would only be moments before they tried it out.

Sure enough only hours later the trap was sprung. Here are the unsolicited testimonials of our two young bucks:

"That new razor of yours is cool dad, it's really easy to shave with." and

"I'm having that razor of yours dad, you'll have to get another."

Finally, and by way of a post script, I think these Endurium coated blades might actually live up to their promise of lasting longer. I found the Azor on the side of the bath the other day - and you know what that means - the blade, so far seems to have lost non of its edge.

Well done Will King I say!

Crofty's Nearly Back

2008-11-23T10:34:00.006Z

The last few weeks have been some of the hardest but most worthwhile. In short, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we have been seeing off a loved one to the great beyond.It was a privilege to share in those last days despite the emotional toll.

I am not a great one for emotion, as many chaps aren't. But I keep getting ambushed:

Eddie Reader did it, for one. Do you remember her album The First of a Million Kisses? There I was minding my own business when I couldn't help but muse on the number of tender moments in the fifty eight year partnership that we have just seen the end of - at least in this life.

Then it was Tesco; having shopped for the dear old thing during his long illness, I was taken by surprise when I found one of his shopping lists in his tiny cramped writing in my pocket - that was an inconvenient moment in the bean aisle.

Still, move on we must and will. So, in answer to the anxious e-mails from the excellent Fuel My Blog team: yes, I have my stylish King of Shaves Razor and my tasty 9Bars and will be immersing myself in their offered qualities so to write a review shortly.

See you all soon.

Not Gone - So Don't Forget Me!

2008-11-08T16:48:00.002Z

When I mentioned in my last post that time is at a premium for La Famille Croft I was rather underastating the situation.

While the world goes through seismic shifts in the USA and Congo we have our own micro cosmic mirror as an era comes to an inevitable end. I am not one for baring our collective soul in cyber space - which is a shame really, for there is much to write about - suffice it to say that our time is taken up with supporting a loved one along the last stretch of a rocky path.

I'll be back soon.

What To Do With Time on Your Hands

2008-10-14T19:43:00.011Z

As regular readers will have spotted by the reduction in frequency of my posts, time is at a premium recently. So with a week of relative ease - well a week away from work at any rate - I have lighted upon a few things I have neglected.

I have sharpened all the knives in the kitchen - a task I enjoy and, for the boy scouts among us, a topic of great interest. There are many fascinating methods of achieving razor like sharpness, I prefer the DMT Diamond sharpening system myself, with its angle guide for those of us whose free hand angle maintenance is not sufficiently confident.
I have baked bread using the time consuming, flavour developing, old fashioned, sponge method rather than the 'speed is everything so chuck a ton of yeast in it' bread machine method.Yum!
We are cooking properly for every meal. This really is a luxury; I hoyed off to Sainsurys and picked up a copy of Delicious magazine. You are always spoilt for choice with Delicious, with more than enough recipes - if you have the time. Usually we avoid the magazine like the plague because it just makes you feel guilty as you chuck a jar of pasta sauce in with the mince on an average work day.
If the weather picks up, I am going to dig up part of our middle lawn to make a raised veg bed. We had to give up the allotment because we didn't have the time; but with a bed just outside the patio door we should to at least be able sow garlic this autumn, and then perhaps some beetroot and other easy crops next year.

And here is where, with the smoothness of a Radio 2 DJ, I move onto Catherine's kind comments over at her New Zealand based blog. You see she flattered me by recommending my blog among her favourites. Why is this relevant to my week off? Because the other thing I've been doing is catching up on my blog reading, so, by return, I can recommend some of my current favourites too:

Adventures of an Urban Cowgirl: This, together with my second choice, was one of the first blogs I read. It's the engagingly written account of a woman who moved to New Zealand. Like all the best blogs, it's the writing that does it.
Blunt By Name: Bill Blunt is an institution and his wry look at life through the spectacles of an aged, enbittered hack make this an enjoyable read (especially if you need to know a decent Wetherspoons near you)
Occupied Country: a fellow Mancunian with a great taste in music and always great pictures
Mr Woppit: Takes life seriously; in his own words - Emptying the nose of life into the handkerchief of derision
Mystic Veg: What I'd like to be able to do in the garden and more, from a fellow Oldhamer (a displaced one that is)
The Toy Cupboard: I like blogs that take a different twist on blogging. This is one of those, and my next choice is another. The Toy Cupboard features, well, a cupboard of childhood toys, memories and anecdotes - makes you feel warm all over (that is assuming your childhood memories haven't cost you thousands in therapy bills).
Diary of a 70s Teen: Exactly what it says - read it and remember what you were doing when...
Olga The Travelling Bra: An uplifting travel blog, great fun!

Relaxing

2008-10-08T19:45:00.005Z

Readers who know me, and who have a particular talent for visualisation, might want to steel themselves for the following account of relaxation and work at not imagining the scene in any detail.

Trying to soothe away the incessant chatter in my head, I remembered a relaxation technique I had found useful before; it is particularly good if, like me, you live in a frenetic household where distractions abound and the chances of drifting off into any form of meditation are slim to none.

The idea is that you simply notice the sounds around you, so lying in a warm foamy bath with the water lapping round my shoulders I closed my eyes and listened. You start off with the sounds closest to you: the gentle crackle of bubbles popping over the surface of the water; then the sound of breath slowly drawing in and out through my nose - a sort of hiss as I inspire and a broader deeper sound as I expire. Next. as I extended my awareness away from my warm pool, I noticed the plip, plip, plip of water in the toilet cistern and the pinging of expanding water pipes as hot water coursed through the radiators.

As I slipped lower into the deep water so only my head was above the soothing suds, I heard the gentle murmour of conversation against the muted sounds of early evening television. Even those normally urgent sounds seemed relaxing as I noticed that I couldn't make out the content of the conversation, just the general tone.

I heard the front door open and mused that T had returned from the gym, sure enough moments later came the dulled whine of the hand blender as he whizzed up his protein shake. I smiled to myself as the waves of mundane family life washed over me - it was good that the things that sometimes can make up a hectic family life were now the backdrop to a lovely deep relaxation.

I allowed my mind to drift out of the house. There were fireworks in the distance - what were they for? A special birthday? or just for the fun of them perhaps. Cars passed nearby with a sigh as I lazily submerged my head and enjoyed the altered muting of sounds, and drifted wondering when to bring my reverie to a gentle close...

Bang, Bang, Bang!

"Jeez, dad. 'Ave you died in there? How long you gonna be, I'm bursting - hurry up"

My heart tried to climb out of my throat, as I tried to climb out of the bath, depositing most of the watery contents onto the bathroom floor.

Deep breaths - in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out...

By way of a post script, I was hypnotised yesterday by Georgia - now that was relaxing I recommend it.

Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a Miele Vacuum My Friends All Have Dysons etc...

2008-09-19T19:10:00.007Z

I have a friend who writes for God Is In The TV he gets CDs to review and gig tickets so that he can give his considered opinion on them. I know I'm of a certain age but I do rather like to think of myself as still cutting edge so was sort of flattered to be invited to be a reviewer too. However, I was not invited to review the work of the latest indie band nor a performance poet; I was invited to write about a vacuum cleaner.

I suppose I set myself up for this really when I railed against our Dyson and its refusal to die a dignified death. The arrival of a Miele S5211 to test and write about has done little to cure us of our Dyson; in fact it has made it worse. The Miele is very pretty, sleek even - you might consider leaving it out in the lounge for people to see, rather than hide it away like an ugly child - which is what you do with the dreadful grey and yellow monstrosity.

But, in the interests of fairness I had better try to be acerbic and witty like a proper reviewer - but do you know what? I can't; the Miele 5211 is lovely, it emits a gentle hiss rather than an angry roar as it goes about it's business. And the metaphor of cars isn't lost either - it is definitely a Mercedes: quiet, refined, understated and efficient - it oozes German efficiency.

We've had it for just over a week now and have asked it to perform on the tiled floor in our kitchen, on three different types of carpet and in the car (did I ever tell you about the time when I performed on three... never mind). And it has done exactly what we have asked it too. The perfectly pivoted head goes around every obstacle we offer it and the easy to use single control offers suction options that are suitable for just about everything.

So what are the down sides?

I suppose if you are to be picky it is a bagged cleaner rather than unbagged but Matt at Miele tells me that the seals on bagless cleaners are not that good so if hepa filtration (oh, now I'm getting geeky - just think allergies) is important to you a bagged cleaner is better. And yes I did try to whip the bag out and put it back again; and yes it was easier (although inevitably more expensive) than doing all the clip things on the Dyson before bashing it on the inside of the wheelie bin to get the muck out before disappearing in a cloud of unpleasant dust.

The only other small point, if the development folk are reading, is from Mrs C who has bad wrists. The bit you hold on to could do with a kinder ergonomically designed grippy thing to make it easier manipulate. Still Mrs C would rather have this one because she says I've never done so much vaccing since we got it!

Give me the gentle hum and soothing hiss of the Miele over the Pepperami roar of the Dyson any day. If I get to keep it a bit longer I'll let you know how it continues to perform - this could turn into a cleaning product themed blog, that would be fun!

A Beery Epiphany In The Imagined Village

2008-09-14T15:03:00.009Z

I had an epiphany in a taxi home on Friday night after a number of pints of Boddington's beer. The beer wasn't to blame though; this epiphany had been gestating since I discovered the Imagined Village project. It features artistes like Paul Weller, Billy Bragg and Martin Carthy and seeks to rework English traditional songs in a modern idiom.

'Hasn't that been done before by people like Fairport Convention?' I hear you ask not unreasonably. And the answer is no, not really. In the past folk songs have been given a modern musical treatment but leaving any modern interpretation of context and meaning to the listener.

In the imagined village, centuries old songs of poverty, hardship and oppression are transformed. I've thought for some time that Billy Bragg was about the closest thing we have to a modern folk writer, so I wasn't surprised by his version of Hard Times of Old England where he brilliantly sets farmers' struggles to eke a living beneath the yoke of the oppresor - Tesco. But it wasn't Billy Bragg that caused my epiphany, it was something Benjamin Zephania said.

He was talking about what holds communities together and gives a sense of oneness - and of course, gives birth to songs that come from the heart of a nation. He was pointing out that The Imagined Village contains musicians with very diverse origins yet it is their common shared experiences of living in the UK that binds them, despite their differences or backgrounds.

Sat in the taxi on Friday me and the driver chatted amiably about the weather, the price of diesel, the goings-on at Oldham Council and about how Latics were playing at the start of the current season (he actually knew rather more than me about that one). Then we got on to how the town had changed over the last twenty years or so and whether we thought much had changed since the Oldham riots a few years ago.

That was when I had my epiphany in his taxi - this was what Benjamin Zephania was on about. Despite the driver being a dark skinned Muslim with a long black beard, we had more in common than we did not. Then it struck me - if we had compared him with someone from Alaska say, someone whom vice presidential candidate Sarah Pallin might want to appeal to perhaps, a white middle class blue collar worker maybe - someone, on paper at least, like me; who would we have said I had more in common with?

It's not the difference, that makes the difference is it?

Maps and Music: Why Stuart Maconie is Better Than Musical Sat Nav

2008-09-07T18:38:00.009Z

The other week there as a bit of a sat nav spat over the quality of sat nav mapping compared to Ordnance Survey maps. Apparently sat nav, is a bit poor when it comes to taking in the full richness of the environment you are passing through and I must say, I think they had a point. I am one for the meandering path with many an interesting diversion on route, rather than the crow-fly route that considers anything other than the direct path, a distraction.

Since the demise of Andy Kershaw, I had, until recently, been a bit lost in the 'off the beaten track' areas of the musical world. Radio 2 and most of the commercial music world is much like sat nav - it takes you along the safe well trodden paths. Then I started to listen to the Radcliffe and Maconie show each evening and discovered a witty mix of banter and music that, whilst staying pretty much on the A and B roads, does take the odd detour. This was promising.

Then I discovered Maconie's BBC 6 Music show The Freak Zone. I have found my Cedric Robinson to guide me through the Morecambe Bay of music's rarely explored regions. What is great though, is that some of the places McConie takes you are places you had been before but forgotten about. A bit like St Ives in Cornwall: you went there as a kid but only discovered its true delights many years later when you returned for a mucky weekend as an adult.

This weekend for example - not that it was a mucky one - we went from a Stan Tracey track I had never heard: Starless and Bible Black to the track of the same name I hadn't heard in years by King Crimson. Both left me breathless and wanting to dig out the whole King Crimson collection from under the stairs (something that really would require me to get my breath back before attempting). And then there was an unmentioned link between a fabulous Brian Eno track and King Crimson - my first guitar hero Robert Fripp, played with both of them.

So, my musical life is once again whole, I can enjoy a weekly musical journey into unfamiliar reaches without the need for a degree in musical geography to prevent me getting lost. Thank you Stuart Maconie.

I'd Give It a Minute or Two, If I Were You...

2008-08-29T21:18:00.003Z

Thinking about camping and the minor inconveniences made me think about the other occasions when we are forced in to rubbing shoulders with people we don't know particularly well. It made me wonder whether there was an etiquette that might save the embarrassment that comes with doing private things in public.

I had cause to think following our most recent trip at the Camping and Caravanning Club site at Rhandimrwyn in Wales. I had a particularly bad attack of wobbly tummy (readers of a gentle disposition might want to turn away here). and sat in a cubicle I heard a chap enter the Gents and after taking a lungful of the air, struggle to stifle a retch. Fearing I was the cause of his nausea I hid until it was safe to emerge undetected.

Fortunately the C&CC toilets were their usual excellent standard and so I was quite comfortable sitting reflecting on how a life among working men has made this sort of incident unnecessary. There is a sort of culture among men, particularly from the manual trades, that breeds toilet etiquette. Some of you will already know what I am talking about. The sort of thing that causes a colleague to say, as you pass in the doorway of the Gents', "I'd give it a minute or two if I were you son..."

And there it is, a perfect expression of etiquette: the one not wishing to burden the other with the dreadful smell he has left behind.

But is it that simple? Experience shows that it is not always easy to gauge the quality of the fug you leave behind.

I think there is a gap in the market for some sort of guide, coupled with an indicator device to be left on the toilet door. I can see it now: a single fingered clock with ten minute segments to indicate the length of interval required before it is advisable to enter.

On the inside door of each cubicle we could have a guide that helps the inexperienced sitter determine what interval to recommend. For example, whether you can actually smell your own, is a good guide to severity; whether there is any thickening of the atmosphere is another; and whether you feel lightheaded is a good indication of toxicity.

Yes, watch the next series of Dragon's Den and I might just be there making a pitch to Sir Alan.

Oh You Take the High Road etc...

2008-08-02T19:58:00.009Z

I don't care what anyone says, you can't beat a camping holiday. There is just something special about camping that makes up for the inconvenience of shared showers, shared toilets and/or mud outside your front door for a few days. Outside our front door last week, almost literally, was Loch Lomond - the Camping and Caravan Club site at Luss goes right down to the shore of the Loch and it is lovely.

What is best though is the privilege of being by the loch before the coach loads of old ladies bearing carrier bags from Edinburgh Woollen Mills, when there are the best views of the loch - the views you see when the dog has dragged you out of your sleeping bag at 7.15, when the mist is still on the water and it is perfectly still.

For these views I even forgave the site for having traffic howling past on the A82. If we are to compare C And C sites around the loch I think that its position wins hands down over the site at Milarrochy Bay on the Eastern shore. What made it even sweeter though was when strolling along the beach of an evening, we were sharing these views with the patrons of the Lodge on Loch Lomond, a hotel whose car park was packed with high end BMWs, a few Porsche Carreras and a Ferrari 350M and many of whose clientele were well heeled Americans who thought the beach was exclusively theirs:

"Hi there, we are staying here, are you here for the day?"
"No we are staying here too"
"Oh, which room are you in ?"
"Ours goes right down to the shore..."

To be fair, by this time they'd sussed that our clothing designers were more Primarni and Ebay than Dolce Gabbana, but still, I think they thought we were quaint when they stopped to consider that we might not be entirely serious. And in any case, I challenge them to say they had a better time than we did.

Further along the loch shore, just beyond the boundaries of our site, lived a chap who played the bagpipes. To hear the sound of his evening practice drift across the loch was just enough to forgive Scotland for the other pipers you might hear hanging around the tourist locations in clan tartan with a cap held out hopefully to the passers by. Try as I might I couldn't stop the hairs on the back of my neck standing up when I heard the skirl of the pipes; it was all I could do to stop myself shouting 'Freedom!' in a loud voice with an accent somewhere between Glasgow and Melbourne.

The Death of Common Sense

2008-07-15T18:05:00.005Z

I've not had a rant for a while, but Sainsbury's were out of FHM last weekend so I ended up with The Spectator instead. I should have known better...

Common sense is dead; but nobody murdered it. Common Sense died of old age and neglect, its body found after the police broke the door of its flat down after everyone thought they had seen it regularly but for months, years maybe, just not noticed its absence. Then when no one was looking, they sneaked the body down the back stairs and carried on talking like Common Sense was still alive and kicking.

On Monday on the Today programme Sir Alan Steer, the government's education guru explained why he had felt it necessary to point out the glaringly obvious fact that children copy what they see adults doing. He posited that it therefore follows that adults must behave in a courteous and mannerly way if that is the behaviour they expect children to aspire to. Common sense? Obviously not, because anti social behaviour is rife and we, the adult world simply blame the 'youth of today' and seek solace in ASBOs.

In this weeks Spectator Rod Liddle outlined his support for David Cameron's espousal of good old fashioned common sense measures to encourage conformity to the new ideals, he suggests that by humiliating people we can change their behaviour in a positive manner: think stocks and public floggings. Common sense? Think again.

Common sense, to state the obvious, relies on a sense of commonality, a sense of a commonly held view or moral code by which to judge things. So how can we expect it to work when someone is named and shamed for anti social behaviour or a crime against the climate like owning a Porsche Cayenne when nobody actually cares because they don't know who these offenders are. There is no community of which they are part, ergo no humiliation.

So, next time you are tempted to respond in a positive way when a politician suggests something that seems common sense, just ask yourself among which group of people this suggestion fits with their commonly held moral and social belief; or does it just sound right?

I once gave evidence in Magistrates Court and under cross examination mentioned to their worships that it was common sense to believe that the bruises and cuts on the accused's wife's face and body were the result of his assaulting her, not as he suggested the result of her injuring herself during some sort of hysterical fit. I still remember thinking that the case was won as the Magistrates nodded in agreement with me. But only later did I understand the glance that the Clerk of the Court and two opposing solicitors shared that said that common sense, even if it still lived, had no place in a court of law.

Were they right? Of course they were, the only reliable commonly shared set of principles are those that we all truly do all hold in common and agree, as a society, to abide by.

So is common sense dead, or was it always a myth, like Father Christmas or the Bogie Man, just waiting for us to be mature enough to understand?

I Wish Meryl Streep Had Been in Cineworld the Other Night

2008-07-13T18:55:00.008Z

I sometimes feel sorry for artists and other creative people. They do their creative thing and then release it out into the world without really ever being conscious of the effect their work has on people. Just think of the lonely artists, convinced of the rightness of what they are doing, who die before their genius is recognised. I doubt Van Gogh, for example, is sat looking down with a smug expression saying "I told you I was good".

And even those who do get rave reviews must sometimes wish they could stand behind someone in a gallery and hear what they say about their painting, or perhaps hear someone stifle a sob or snort a mouthful of tea onto the pages of the book they are reading on the train.

The other night, as readers of my last post will know, we went to see Mamma Mia. I am fairly familiar with the British way of watching a film: sitting politely, being entertained and then leaving as soon as the lights come signifying the end. On Saturday night I experienced a different type of cinema going: people applauded as if the entertainers could hear them, they cheered in a way redolent of pantomime and danced in their seats (in fact I am sure that if one person had danced in the aisle it would have set off the whole cinema). Then at the end, when the lights came up nobody moved: they all stayed to enjoy the final songs that played over the credits, wanting to wring every last drop of enjoyment out of a fabulous night's entertainment.

What made it so special? I don't know whether it was the audience - a friend told me today that Bollywood films are often like this, with enthusiastic audiences who love to join in. I'm guessing there must be something in the film that helped us polite Brits lose our usual reserve. Perhaps it was witnessing Pierce Brosnan who clearly couldn't sing but didn't care - he just belted them out like any one of us at a karaoke night down the pub. Or perhaps it was the joyous irresistible temptation to sing along to any one of the myriad hits by Abba.

Yes, I would have loved Meryl to have been stood at the back to see what she and her co-stars had done.

Oh, and perhaps also so I could have introduced myself and told her I had loved her for twenty five years since she was The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Step Across the Gender Divide - But Tread Carefully

2008-07-11T18:18:00.008Z

I stopped worrying about gender roles years ago. I'm quite happy to be going to watch Mamma Mia tomorrow night which, I am told is as "...camp as a boy scout jamboree". I'll happily sing along to the songs that blighted my childhood, and I shan't worry about growing lady parts.

But sometimes I do worry whether this 'being in touch with my femininity' has gone a bit far. Take this week for example: watching Ten Years Younger I was discomfited to hear myself say, when top hairstylist Andrew Barton had performed his almost alchemical contradiction to the saw that you cannot make a silk purse from a sows ear, "Oooh that's a nice cut isn't it" and it was. But I do feel that perhaps it should have been Mrs C that said it whilst my role was confined to a glance over the top of my newspaper and non committal grunt that signified that whilst I was prepared to be a partner in watching these predominantly female targeted programmes, I wasn't set on it being an equal partnership.

Similarly, watching Gok Wan's Fashion Fix (again in another moment of marital mateyness) I was surprised to find myself astounded by the apparent preference, of an audience of 'normal women' for Gok's economical fashion fixes rather than clothes costing many thousands of pounds and designed by from some of the worlds best. I mean, even a brute like me could tell that the cloth in the frocks alone cost as much as my car.

But then there was light at the end of the tunnel and I stopped worrying about my masculinity. It seemed that I had missed the point entirely (huge sigh of relief); it was all about empowering women to reject the style stereotypes thrust on them by the fashion fascists and rather be influenced by them to do their own thing.

Gosh.

I think in future, I'll make sure there's a copy of The Grauniad to hide behind, just in case.

From A Spark To A Flame

2008-07-08T18:50:00.011Z

My last post was about our Scottish trip and this was going to be about our camping in North Yorkshire but then this happened. It's not entirely unrelated to our North Yorkshire camping in that it involves trout; it also involves fire. And some of you will be thinking by now that Crofty's record with fire is not a good one. You'd be right.

Let's start with the trout: lovely big ones from the trout farm at Pickering, excellent value from the farm shop and irresistible when barbecued, stuffed with parsley butter. Which is what we did last Sunday and it was gorgeous. Later that night when the barbecue was cold, I deposited it in the bin (which, just to set the scene, was at the side of the house alongside it's green companion bin, recycling box and bag full of recyclable paper and card).

Let's now cut to the morning when, after an undisturbed night's blissful repose, the Croft family breakfasted together.
"Can you smell smoke?" asked Mrs C.
"Yes, and quite strongly." I replied sipping at my morning tea before sauntering through the patio doors to sniff the air, noticing that the smell was stronger and then noticing that where the bins were was a pile of smouldering plastic welded to the driveway.

After a few well chosen words and my insistence that this could hardly be my fault (pointless really), we decided to seek the advice of the local Fire Station, after all we wouldn't want to come home to find that a stray spark had lodged in the rear dormer and then ignited the house would we? The Fireman was very nice and said he would create an incident log that would generate someone to pop along to check it out for us. What he didn't say was that the Fire Service seem to only have two grades of response: either 'we're coming' or 'we're not coming'.

Four minutes later the road was blocked by two huge red fire engines and a man was running up my drive with his dribbling hose in his hand. I explained, after he had spread most of the debris in a soggy mess over the rest of the drive, that they needn't have rushed and that I hoped I hadn't got them out of bed, something that didn't seem to endear me to them. A chap in a big white hat offered me a look through a device that looked a bit like one of those 1970s View Master things through which you could look at crap slides of London but in 3D. It wasn't one of those but rather a thermal imaging camera (illustrated right) that reassured us that all was cool at chez Croft.

Meanwhile a wellied fireman was idly scraping his boot through the debris and came across the only surviving identifiable item: one disposable barbecue. He looked down the drive to where his colleagues were clustered in a knot at the bottom of the drive; he mouthed the word 'barbecue' to them; they mouthed the word 'tosser' in reply. Then they left.

Just so you know, North Yorkshire was fab. Here are some pictures, including one of a responsible man with a firey engine.

You Are Welcome - But Don't Come to Close

2008-05-27T16:13:00.007Z

The Mull of Galloway, as I mentioned in my last post, is gently warmed by the Gulf Stream and therefore lends itself to gardens. Being enthusiastic gardeners and fans of Gardeners World we sought inspiration in the region's horticultural highlights. But, at least from my point of view, it turned into something more like social commentary.

Glenwhan is the garden of Tessa Knott who, with her husband in 1974, bought a chunk of Scotland over the phone without ever having seen it. They moved in to the dilapidated farm house with its herd of cattle and bleak moorland aspect and, whilst he set about making the place habitable and eking a living from the farm, Tess set about carving a 12 acre garden among the rock and bracken.

She is our sort of gardener - as you wonder around the fabulous collection of plants; between the lakes she created; and among the different habitats she has represented, you feel like she has continually asked permission of the landscape to share the space with her plants. Nowhere do you feel that she has unreasonably imposed her will on it.

You rather get the feeling that the landscape has inhabited her as opposed to the other way round. A feeling reinforced by the sight of her scratching around in the stony earth to remove weeds - a reassuring sight for gardeners also struggling in adverse conditions. Not only was she willing to scratch around but was also willing to stop, chat, give advice and find us a potted cutting of a particular shrub we liked.

Castle Kennedy is almost the antithesis to Tess's garden the grand formal grounds of the castle were once again hewn from Scotland's bulk but not with sensitivity to the surroundings but with the might of Field Marshall Viscount Stair who (rather cheekily in my view) used the soldiers under his command to blast his mark on the landscape. Of course in the intervening few hundred years the grounds are an undeniably attractive setting between the Black Loch and White Loch. The effect of a preference for a feudal societal system is topped off though by the feeling though that you are not invited to participate in the landscape, more that you are there under sufferance of the current Lord and Lady Stair and jolly well ought to realise it.

I know which I preferred!

Life in the Fast Lane - At Least That's How it Seems

2008-05-22T19:06:00.008Z

We're back from our week in Drummore, five miles from the Mull of Galloway in Scotland: no street lamps, barely any people and the sea metres from the front wall of our tiny fisherman's cottage. Bliss. But there's always coming back; and my goodness don't we do life quickly! It's taken me a week to regain speed after experiencing the pace and easy lilt of conversation that gently soothes you through your day rather than the machine gun chatter that whacks us through our city lives.

Dumfries and Galloway, or more specifically Wigtownshire, is the forgotten part of Scotland. As one local put it as he chatted whilst I bought a bottle of Robinson's Cordial - an act that took some fifteen minutes, not because the shop was busy, just that everyone had something to talk about at the till, and time to do it - he said, "Everyone gets to Carlisle and heads North for the 'real' Scotland; no one turns left. And by not doing so they miss out on this mellow stretch of land that is gently warmed by the Gulf Stream, giving it some of the loveliest gardens in the UK - more of that another day.

What this little finger of land - the Mull - also has, is a variety and richness of birdlife I have never seen before. I must have looked like a yokel: constantly pointing and dribbling as I saw another previously unrecognised bird (that is unrecognised by me - not a brand new species). But they just kept cropping up: Gannets performing their dramatic hunting dives 100metres from our front window, Razorbills bobbing in the bay, Sandwich Terns (which I was delighted to be able to identify - birders will understand), Guillemots (Black and Standard). I could go on, but at the risk of alienating my non anorak wearing readers I will desist, anyway it's not good for a man of my age to have his pulse racing like this.

Anyway, we are back amidst the concrete and steel and right slap bang back into the fray - I won't bore you with the details; suffice to say it is enough to prevent me from having time to write much at present, the long gaps between posts at the moment.

Rubbing Virtual Shoulders

2008-05-10T08:58:00.003Z

I love meeting people; I love rubbing shoulders with people from different backgrounds and with people who bring different things to life. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it is also why I love blogging. I have been in the virtual company of, and read about many different and interesting people.

After my discovery that I not only grew up alongside a fabulous artist but that I actually like his art - imagine growing up alongside Max Beckman! - my blog was visited by another artist, Katherine, who, had I not blogged, would have remained far away from my consciousness, on the far side of the world.

Mrs C and I are off to a far away place for a week: Scotland, Drummore to be precise. In the meantime, you can do worse than visit Katherine's blog in New Zealand where you can not only see her lovely interpretations of her native landscape but also learn some of the fascinating process of their creation.

See you all in a week or so.

I Wonder Whether Greatness Rubs Off

2008-05-06T21:17:00.004Z

Do you remember my post a while ago about famous and talented people with whom I have a tenuous connection? I had another one of those moments yesterday when, prompted by my mother, I Googled Jonathan Callan. The Callan family lived next door to us for twenty five years or so and Jonathan went off to London to 'do something in art'.

Frustrated by my parents' lack of knowledge about his progress, other than to say he seemed to be doing nicely - this is after having spoken to his mum and dad only last week, you understand - I Googled him.

I don't claim to be an art buff but the thing about art is that it rather relies on its ability for it to resonate with you for it to be succesful, hence some people don't get Tracy Emin's bed or don't dig Damien Hurst; but when I saw Jonathan's fanatstic work with old books I was blown away.

But whether or not I liked it or not, in art terms he is cool, that is to say he is red hot, not to put too fine a point on it, he is very famous.

He won't even remember me, but I am proud to add him to my list of people who I hope have rubbed a bit of their creativity or talent off on me as we have brushed past each other along life's way.

Our Dog: Not Big and Not Clever

2008-05-04T19:19:00.007Z

I've wrote about Max, our West Highland White Terrier, before; but this weekend I've been musing on the downward passage of life we must all eventually take and couldn't help but think that his age is starting to show. Not least when his instinct overcomes his ability. Take, for example his propensity for chasing aeroplanes; we live on the inbound flight path to Manchester Airport; a lot of planes fly over our house and Max takes exception to every single one of them. The sad thing is that I understand why this habit has persisted despite our every intervention. It's quite simple doggy psychology really: he sees the intruding plane; barks at it and chases it; it goes away - success that reinforces itself every time. Today though, he was awoken from his slumber by an invading plane and his head didn't come around quite as quickly as his legs so, as he chased it up the steps he tripped, banging his chin and dazing himself - not that that stopped him. It was a chink in his otherwise solid canine armour.

I know how he feels - not long ago I saw an officer of the law chasing a young rapscallion and pulled over in the car to help. Instinctively I sprinted after the thieving urchin only to be pulled up breathless and clutching my strained groin 100 yards on - the urchin glanced back, slowed and strolled on insouciantly - a chink in my already creaking armour.

I think that Max and I should stick to our strengths - as I'm writing I'm about to prod him with my toe to see if I can wake him to go to bed. I bet I struggle to wake him and I bet neither of us stop trying to do things that we really ought not.

I Wanna Be Like You Hoo Hoo

2008-04-25T20:50:00.008Z

Do you remember that song from Jungle Book sung by Louis Armstrong when the king of the monkeys tries to persuade Mowgli to tell him about fire? That is the sort of music we were enjoying over a picnic lunch on Friday at Harrogate Spring Show. Normally I'd have been reporting another example of Crofty's sad decline into his dotage; and you could be forgiven for thinking it, had you seen the scene: not a non-grey hair in sight, baskets and trolleys filled with all manner of horticultural miracles and a host of polite mature gardeners gathered around the bandstand to listen to the Yorkshire Post Trad Jazz Band.

And they themselves - the band - looked as though they might be part of some sort of leisure class put on to fill the time until death for the residents of Happy Valley Residential Home.

But it wasn't like that.

These grey haired over sixties couldn't half play: rythmn pulsed through them, setting many creaky hips jigging, flasks tapping and sandwich wrappers rustling as the crowd swayed and tried to resist the temptation to dance: well it wouldn't be polite.

The contrast between age and energy was even starker when the fabulous double bass player ceased his finger gymnastics for a break and sat down by us. He was suddenly transformed from a stunning musician into just another old man whose daughter fussed around him with his luncheon meat sandwiches, making sure he took his tablets and ensuring he was warm enough: coat buttoned up tight.

I wanna be like him....and I wish other people could have seen him before and after too, just so they think twice next time they make assumptions about the next old man or woman they see.

A Musical Triumph

2008-04-21T16:00:00.005Z

You should have been there; then at least there would have been around thirty people present to witness our musical offering last Saturday. I can only assume that there must have been something really good on telly; what else could have prevented the masses from coming?

Still, despite all the potential disasters, given that we had only practiced the whole set three times, I thought we pulled off our gig with remarkable aplomb. We wizzed through Sit Down by James (but a quirky folky arrangement with accordian, acoustic guitars and double bass - I'm not sure it was meant to be quirky, but quirky it was); made short work of Lindisfarne's Meet Me On the Corner; and similarly demolished a number of other popular songs and traditional tunes.

"Tonight will be a night of popular songs, songs you might not recognise, and popular songs you might not recognise" we quipped. But I think the twenty odd assembled guests were pleasantly surprised - at least the ones who had their hearing aids in at any rate.

I still stand by my premise that this type of musical event ought to be commonplace: intimate gatherings with a group of local people and friends, with the musicians drawn from the people. Our performance was more than adequate and no one was left squirming in embarassment, in fact I think a number of the gathered mass actually enjoyed it.

Perhaps we can become the musical Oldham version of Blyth Spartans (I choose this team over Oldham Athletic for their reputation as doggedly determined against-the-odds football fighters - call me disloyal if you like). Meanwhile I had a wasted trip to Forsythe's music shop in Manchester to replace my snapped G string (insert snigger here) only to be sniffily told 'we don't do single strings and I doubt you'll find anyone else in Manchester who does'. I took his sniffy advise and ordered three of the beggars from Stringmail.co.uk - it hurt though, you know my attitude toward real shops, I would rather have had a chap find me some from a dusty drawer beneath the counter. A couple of the songs we did were by Bellowhead (that is my gratuitous way of justifying the image!) by the way, we are going seeing them tomorrow night at Bury Met to see how it should be done!

A Proud Sarah Police Lady

2008-04-12T18:18:00.004Z

Many of you will remember my friend Sarah Didsbury, a serving Police Officer, who for a time wrote a popular blog about her work. I agreed when, as happens with young people, life, love and other pursuits took precedence, to carry on posting occasionally if the whim took her.

On Saturday sat chatting, drinking coffee with her and her dad, an ex-sergeant himself, she was sharing her feelings following the memorial service for Michael Todd. Her dad, usually a critic of blogging and other such works of the devil, was keen for her to share her views so here they are: a new post from Sarah Police Lady.

The Association Principle

2008-04-07T20:32:00.007Z

The association principle explains how marketers latch on to success in order to bask in the glow and achieve more sales; hence you get celebrity endorsement and the like. There are places that have almost become brands in themselves - London, Paris, New York - and people's ears prick up when they hear talk of these cosmopolitan, glamorous locations. Then there is Oldham.

We are rather the opposite, when one of our own sons or daughters make good we are eager to cling to their coat tails as they disappear in a cloud of dust up or down the M62 away from the town - usually to one of those glamorous places. It's embarrassing though , it smacks of desperation even, when these people clearly want to disassociate themselves from those they left behind and we desperately chase after them claiming even the most tenuous association.

Take the composer William Walton: Oldham born and bred but as soon as his talent was out, he was off spending his days with his glamorous and clever peers; and did he return in his dotage? No, he finished his days in sunny Ischia. But for years we have treated various relatives of his like royalty as we invite them back to sit in state at various borough musical events and the like.

Another is the world famous glass artist Brian Clarke. When The Spindles shopping centre was designed he was the obvious choice to do the glass roof but not because he was conveniently placed in his studio down Retiro Street, no, because he was famous and had to be brought from London. I think we only saw him once when the thing was complete (which predictably featured images of Walton and his music) he was there for the opening, but once he'd got his cheque we didn't see him again.

But no matter how these notables shun their mill town heritage we still love to cling to them - has everything that has ever given us pride in our town got up and left?

Last Saturday we watched ITV 4 with excitement as boxer Choi Tseveenpurev bamboozled young Liverpudlian Derry Mathews with his unconventional boxing technique to take the WBU title from the choked youngster (his technique, if you are interested, seemed to me to simply consist of being tough as old boots, not minding being hit much and then hitting back very, very hard).

Why do I mention it? Because Mongolian born Choi is based in Oldham in fact he trains at Tara Leisure where my dad goes. And, yes you've guessed it, we are all very proud of him in Oldham, never mind that he was born many thousands of miles away - he's successful.

Oh, by the way, aren't you glad that I didn't mention the old joke that was on everyone's lips after they saw the photo of Choi... it wasn't? Oh, go on then.

Boxing promoter Frank Warren was in the dressing room talking to Choi before the fight and asked him where he was from. Choi replied "Oldham, Mr Warren" to which he replied....wait for it...."Wear the Fox Hat"

I thank you!

Keep Music Live...But Don't Expect Too Much!

2008-04-05T15:21:00.003Z

I have a sticker on my guitar case that loudly proclaims 'Keep Music Live'; it is a relic from the days when musicians thought that disco would be the nail in the coffin of live music (I really am that old). I mention it because the reason I haven't written for a week or so is that I have been practising, practising with two similarly aged friends for an evening when a small audience will sit expectantly for us to entertain them.

I am no longer worried that live music is doomed - it is clearly thriving - but I do worry that we are losing a certain type of live performance. Live music is rarely part of our lives any more, unless you go to church, but that was not always the case. Music was a regular part of every day life in homes and pubs, and I don't mean the paid for sort of turn you still get in pubs and clubs, I mean the sort that communities provided for themselves.

I suppose there is an extent to which this still exists in the brass band world and other organised musical groups but we do seem to lack the spontaneous sort of entertainment that comes from within.

Our own gathering will be a church social meeting and I can't help worrying that one of the reasons that this sort of music is dying out is that our expectations are set unrealistically high by what we hear around us; and what we hear around us are highly skilled musicians with studio production, polishing their already honed performances.

Consequently, when the quality is not as good as the professionals it narks me to see people wince at the odd wrong note or squirm in embarrassment because the version of a James Blunt song is not like the one they hear on the radio (and believe me it won't be!).

So what do we do? I suppose we encourage everyone to learn an instrument and play together in homes up and down the country. Alternatively (or additionally) ensure that when you do have a small amateur musical gathering everyone is liberally supplied with wine and/or beer - that should make it all sound much better.

In our case I dare say we'll be nipping in The Grapes before our ordeal - I mean performance - so perhaps we won't care in any case!

In the meantime: reach for your recorder today, Keep Music Live!

Beauty is in the Eye of the BehOldham (sorry!)

2008-03-24T10:53:00.007Z

There are people who constantly look for things to complain about and seek out only the bad and ugly in things; then there are people who look around them for the good and the beautiful - even where it isn't that obvious.

Those are the people I like.

Our town has had its detractors of late, and dear old Oldham is certainly not without its problems; but I get tired of the insidious dripping water torture of complaint that we read in our local paper. There should be a test before people are allowed to put pen to paper: is their aim positive and constructive or is their aim to cause disharmony and unhappiness? Don't get me wrong, I don't expect people to have a sunny disposition and shed light wherever they go, but I do like to hear at least the merest hint of a suggestion of a solution when someone snipes at something.

Anyway, I can feel this developing into a rant so, while we are on the subject of light (were we?), I was delighted to see the results of the latest Oldham Flickr Group meeting. For the uninitiated, Flickr is a photo sharing site, and the real experts band together in groups to develop their art. The Oldham group certainly seem to have the nack of finding beauty around them - more power to their lenses I say!

The glass bridge is a perfect example of just the sort of thing I mean. The bridge is at the heart of one of Oldham's rougher areas and it is tempting, when there, to be constantly looking over your shoulder or clinging tightly to your handbag rather than appreciating the architecture!

Eeeee He Were a Great Baker Our Dad...

2008-03-17T21:54:00.004Z

You can scoff, as Bill Blunt and I wax lyrical about the qualities - or lack of them - in the bread most of us buy. But it is true, the doughy pap that is served out by supermarkets as bread is a far cry from the wholesome low-yeast affair made from flour, fat, water and not much else, by the village baker.

Don't believe me? Ask Andrew Whitely the author of that excellent book 'Bread Matters' have a look at what really goes in your bread and you might consider changing where you buy it; or, like Bill and I, baking your own. It really worth the effort.

I'm grateful to Bill for inventing the 'Better Bread Blogger Award' to help further the campaign for real bread. My first awardees are The Village Manor Bakery at Waterhead for its superb traditional breads and the famous Barbakan Delicatessen in Chorlton for their outstanding range of traditional European breads.

Sack supermarket stodge - demand better bread...

right, where's my placard.

Another Opportunity to Demonstrate my Northern Credentials

2008-03-13T19:41:00.011Z

You couldn't have timed it better: just when I'd gone misty eyed writing about the corner shop and collecting me mam's Hovis, Lisa pointed out the appropriateness of the music from the old Hovis adds. The one where a young flat cap wearing bread boy pushes his sit-up-and-beg bike up the steeply cobbled street to the tune of the Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony. It couldn't be less Northern though if it tried - Dvorak's symphony was about the New World of the USA, rather than the North of England; and the steeply cobbled street they used in the advert was in Devon.

Anyway, with the warm strains of brass band music drifting across my imagination, we popped across to Blackpool to hear our Tom play in the North Western heats of the National Brass Band Championships. I have written about this event and its idiosyncrasies before so was a bit stuck for what to say, until this happened.

We have a new camera at work and it is necessary for me - no I consider my solemn duty - to borrow, I mean practice with it whenever the opportunity presents itself. So Sunday found me inside the Winter Gardens with our new Canon DS400. I had already spotted that flash photography was prohibited; nor, for similar reasons, was I intent on taking photographs when it would distract the players. I took a few pictures of the bizarre interior of the Spanish Ballroom - replete with its model hillside village to give the impression, I presume, of being in some sort of Spanish valley.

Poised to photograph Greenfield band as they came into the auditorium I shot a couple of tests to check the light but was approached by a timid mousey woman who, judging by her rosette, was an organiser. She pointed out that photography was prohibited; I pointed out that flash photography was prohibited which meant that I was OK. She withdrew.

Moments later I was tapped on the shoulder by a similarly rosetted man with a very stern beard. Now I, as you know, like a beard, but this one bristled with barely restrained indignation. We had a brisk exchange of views about what the programme stated about the restrictions on photography; but he had the rosette of authority and the humour of a traffic cop who, despite your pleas of mitigation reaches unfeelingly for his ticket book: he went immediately for the ultimate sanction.

"If you do not refrain from your photography I will have to ask you to leave the auditorium."

He drew out the word 'leave' with a dramatic flourish, until it was as long as his 'auditorium'. The devil on my shoulder confirmed with me that I really ought to call his bluff and refuse to budge. But just as I was on the verge of saying "well you had better get some help then..." I felt words like rivets drill into the back of my head from a seat half way down the hall:

"DON'T - YOU - DARE" they said, so I skulked muttering back to my seat, but not without my parting shot:

"Your type are the reason that brass bands are a minority interest" I said; and I meant it to sting.

But I had the last laugh in any case just look at the photos of the Winter Gardens I took without him knowing. Ha! (oh, and a few I took at stormy lunchtime too)

It is no wonder that many bands struggle to keep players interested when the people who maintain the brass bureaucracy are as stuffy as that silly sod. Thank goodness that one of the less healthy sides of brass banding persists in many bands to tempt the young to stay for the social life.

Thank goodness for beer - the saviour of banding!

Bucking the Tesco Trend

2008-03-08T16:09:00.003Z

Banksy's latest masterpiece resonated with me today after visiting the Village Manor Bakery in Waterhead (just off the A62 near the 82 bus terminus, if you are passing). At only one mile from a Tesco, this traditional bakery bucks the trend fantastically by creating fabulous bread, cakes and pies without resorting to the dreaded Chorleywood Baking process that industrial bakers use to make that doughy stuff they sell in supermarkets as bread.

Banksy may be having a pop at the whole plastic bag thing but, to my mind, it is all linked. I simply think back to the days of the corner shop when my mum sent me with a string bag to collect her bread: two uncut white and an uncut Hovis (please Mrs Day).

That childhood errand sums up the difference between the shopping experience then, when I would nip to the corner shop for cold meat, bread and cakes; cross the road to go the greengrocers and then nip up the road to Ashworth's butchers for a pound of skirt.

I do miss the ease and availability of local shopping as it was. And that isn't simply nostalgia but rather regret at the sort of world we had where people knew your name when you went in the shop (I hope it's not just me who can hear the theme tune from Cheers playing in the distance).

When I collected my Mother in Law's bread this morning, I couldn't help but notice that despite the queue out of the door (there is always a big queue) the staff still had time for the many older people who are known by name as they collected their own regular order. They also asked me how my Father in Law was getting on; I've only been in three or four times to collect his bread since he has been ill, but they remembered me.

That's service!

Things that Transcend Age

2008-03-04T16:30:00.005Z

You will be relieved to hear that I didn’t spill down the family dinner suit, so it was resplendent on Sunday when it performed Handel’s Messiah at a packed Albion Church; and I do mean packed: they had to shoehorn extra seats in between the Fairtrade biscuit stall (I’m sure there were other Fairtrade goods too but I only had eyes for the delicious stem ginger cookies) and the bar - actually it was the tea and coffee stall but it just seems right to talk about the bar when you go to a gig.

And there lies the connundrum, for I’m sure there were a few of you that raised an eyebrow when I described a performance of Handel’s Messiah as a gig, rather than a concert; but the only difference I can discern is one of age.

We were certainly among the youngest there: the hair on the assembled heads was predominantly grey; the Albion Church was built around 1890 and The Messiah itself is over 250 years old. So when does something stop becoming a gig?

It is certainly not about the effects the music has on you - the performance on Sunday left me breathless at times, certainly more so than some of the pallid large venue performances I have seen over the years. I think it is more a perception in the collective mind that considers certain types of music not sufficiently energetic, youthful nor vigourous enough to deserve the description of ’gig’.

Be honest how many of raised the other eyebrow when you heard me say that my pulse was set racing?

The Crofty Family Dinner Suit Weekend

2008-02-29T17:08:00.003Z

We only have one dinner suit in our family and it is owned and worn predominantly by my father. He is a denizen of Rotary dinners and a choir singer. I am not accustomed to bow tie dining so when it comes to it - like tonight- I have to borrow the suit.

We are off to a swanky awards ceremony at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, not because I am up for one, but because I nominated someone who is a finalist. All well and good - I have a new shirt and new shoes and the suit fresh back from the dry cleaners. All well and good but for one thing: the suit is also required to be in tip top condition for Sunday when it is performing Handel's Messiah in Ashton - U - Lyne.

Anyone who knows me will be considering the likelihood of my not spilling soup on the suit and concluding that it might be as well to check out the availability of 1hr-Dry Cleaners in Greater Manchester tomorrow or opt for a completely fluid-free meal

I'll let you know. In the meantime, if you are around Ashton Under Lyne on Sunday evening allow me to recommend the Oldham Choral Society performance of Handel's Messiah in the fabulous surroundings of what amounts to a United Reformed Cathedral: the Albion Church. The venue is a tribute to the times when rich Victorians were short of something to do with their money.

Come along and see the suit in all it's splendour - it will be the one that looks the cleanest!