Today, 21.12.2012, at 11.11 GMT, is the Winter Solstice where the earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun. Druids and pagans are among those who head to Stonehenge each December
to watch the sunrise on the shortest day of the year in the Northern
Hemisphere.
Druid
leader King Arthur Pendragon, Aldershot's most eccentric ex-soldier, will be
leading the celebrations. Apparently he will be making a "political
statement" which he hopes will be heard around the world:
"I
will be asking for an end to war, an end to economic slavery and, basically, a
cleaner, greener planet", announced the self-declared reincarnation
of King Arthur.
I don't
know why he is bothering because this year's solstice date also marks the
conclusion of the long count cycle of the Mayan calendar, which many people
believe indicates the end of the world.
Thousands
of believers have gathered in Mexico near ancient Mayan ruins, and in other
supposedly spiritual places around the world.
Panic-buying of candles has been reported in China's Sichuan province where police
have arrested almost 1,000 members of a Christian group which has predicted
that Friday will usher in three days of darkness.
A farmer in Hebei province, Liu has built
seven survival pods which can contain 14 people each. The pods, made of
fibreglass, float on water and can survive storms.
In
Russia, where sales of tinned goods and matches have surged, Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev has urged his countryfolk to remain calm.
Authorities in the French Pyrenees are preparing for an influx of believers to
the mountain Pic de Bugarach, where rumours have spread that UFOs will rescue
human gatherers.
So, with
that in mind, I thought I better fire out one more blog, just in case.
And all I
can say is:
I wish I
was back in Fuseta,
Not just
'cause the weather is better.
Wherever
you go, the pace is so slow
without
any bright lights or glitter.
I think I
could live in Fuseta,
I could
still send my blogging newsletter.
No hotels
or pubs, no taxis or bus
But WIFI
for the old internetter!
But I'm no
longer out in Fuseta
I'm back
in the Boro - much wetter.
The
heating is on, shorts and T-shirts are gone
and it's
long johns, pyjamas and sweater.
Can't
wait to go back to Fuseta,
I'm
becoming a bit of a "jetter".
Why stay
at home, working the loam?
When out
there it's startlingly cheaper.
So with
memories of sun in Fuseta.
It's back
to the dire English weather.
Return to
the grind and each night to unwind
Down the
Fox with "Original" bitter!
For those of you who have never been to Farnborough or have manged to erase it from your minds, here's a reminder of what it looks like:
Just looked out of the window and everything seems
stable - the sun is actually shining.
So looks like I'll have to do my Christmas shopping
after all!
I have been fishing during the day although the closest I have come to catching anything is this fearsome character:
Even the evenings have been nice and only a little bit chilly.
But today, Thursday, the 12th of our latest excursion to Portugal, for
the first time we have not experienced blue skies and sunshine but steady rain
and drizzle all day.
Hopefully the weather will improve tomorrow as it is Janice's birthday
and although already recognised as an OAP in the UK for the last 5 years,
tomorrow she will be officially an OAP in Portugal, entitling her, on
production of her passport, to half price rail travel.
In Fuseta rail travel is "the only way to travel" not least because it
does not have a local bus service nor, with the exception of the flat bottomed,
non-wheeled variety that ferries you to and from Ilha da Armona, any local taxi
service but does, for some inexplicable reason, have two railway stations not a
mile apart and on the same line.
By rail you can travel west to Olhao, Faro and onwards to Alberfuira
and Lagos or east to Tavira and Vila Real San Antonio where you can see across the
estuary to Spain.
You just have to take your life into your hands when getting on or off the train - no "Mind the Gap" announcement here.
It was to Tavira that we travelled to yesterday and, having failed miserably to
find a particular restaurant, we headed across the river and got lost in the
alleys and side streets before coming across a couple of English bars.
Following directions from the English locals we got lost again before the
Algarve's answer to Brentford's Archie Karachi tempted us into the Punjab
Palace Tandoori where we sampled chef Vindaloo Vic's delightful "Prato do Dia" of
Lamb Madras, Chicken Tikka Marsala, Tarka Dal, Pilau Rice and Naanwith complimentary popadoms and chutneys, at
the ridiculously reasonable cost of £7 a head.
Well stuffed we wandered back across the river and stumbled on the restaurant where we originally planned to have lunch and then came across Tavira Municipal
Museum which was hosting two exhibitions:
The first, "FOTOGRAFAR. ANDRADE FAMILY LOOKS ON TAVIRA, reflecting
the views of four generations of photographers of the same family, the
Andrades, images of Tavira and it's inhabitants and incorporating the history
and evolution of photography techniques and equipment from the start of the
20th century to the current day. And jolly interesting it was too!
The second "MANIMAE - THE RADIANT DAYS" an
exhibition-reflection on the sustainability of territories, species and human
societies, which, frankly passed well over my head and appeared to be various
collections of alabaster plaster covered rubber gloves.
There was, however, a blank
canvas and a selection of crayons and felt tips for visitors to add their own creation.
As you are well aware by now, I didn't get where I am today by passing over an
opportunity and left my own little masterpiece.
"Cultured out" we returned early to the railway station, stopping
on the way to purchase a pound of homemade sausages from the English "talho" to remedy my
sausage withdrawal symptoms.
No visit to Tavira is complete without a troll round the local Lidls emporium
which is situated next to the station and even more tatty than it's Blackwater
sister. However It never fails to come up trumps and just when we thought we'd forgotten
all about 60's soap powders, it gave us:
Must
sign off now and open another £1 litre bottle of red hoping
that the weather will be kind to Janice tomorrow and leave you with a little toon to conjure up memories of our youth in the 60's.
We
have now been in Portugal for 5 days and at last have settled in to the pace
and way of life in Fuseta. To say that it is laid back is an understatement
and, as the Young Allotmenteer so accurately declared on his return from a stay
here in September, "You just can't spend money in Fuseta!".
For
example, a glass of draft Sagres or Super Bock is 0.70p in the quayside bars
and bottle of eminently drinkable red or white wine from the local shop is
£1.00 for a litre! So reassuring to know that my current Internet employers are
paying me 12½ litres of red per hour to update one of their websites.
Eating
out is also ridiculously cheap in the local bars, cafes and restaurants. A new
establishment, O Buda, has opened since our last visit serving a daily dish of
meat or fish with starter, sweet, coffee and a beer or glass of sangria or wine
for £7.00 a head!
The
weather is much better than we envisaged, sunny every day so far with
temperatures of around 16C - 20C during the day and just a little chilly without
being really cold at night.
The
weekend before we flew out, complete with hangover and Delhi belly after a
night out with The Young Allotmenteer, last month's birthday boy Digger and
respective other halves, we returned to Ipswich for the first time since my
mother died in 2010, to stay with my old friend Mike Harrison and his wife Dawn
on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
We
had a great weekend, celebrating Mike's big day in true Ipswich tradition, (i.e.
loads of beer), on the Friday night and continuing where we had left off on the
Saturday night.
In
between times, we met up for lunch with another old friend David Kindred and
his wife Anne. Mike, David, Anne and I were colleagues at the East Anglian
Daily Times for a couple of hectic years in the late sixties.
David,
who was a news photographer, was best man at our wedding in 1968 and since we
left Ipswich in 1971 our meetings have been few and far between.
Here's
a reminder of what we looked like in those days:
What
a couple of Likely Lads!
I'll
leave you to decide who was Rodney and who was Terry, but here's clip to remind
you of life in the 60's.
Must
sign off now and read a few more chapters of "The Brentford Triangle",
the second novel in the nine book "Brentford Trilogy" featuring the exploits of John Omally & his bicycle Marchant, Jim Pooley, Professor Slocombe, Neville the part-time barman, Norman Hartnell (not to be confused with Norman Hartnell) et al, set in the Flying Swan and the Butts Estate
allotments, written in the 80's and 90's by English humourist Robert Rankin, in
the Flann O'Brien mould.
They
were recommended to me by one of my faithful Bloggers, to whom I extend my
thanks, and are inventive, entertaining and very funny.
Here's
a snippet from the "Brentford Triangle":
"There was something very odd about
Camelus bactrimus, the Common Egyptian camel. Norman squatted on his haunches
in his rented garage upon the Butts Estate and stared at the brute. There was
definitely something very very odd about it. Certainly it was a camel far from
home and had been called into its present existence by means which were totally
inexplicable, even to the best educated camel this side of the Sahara, but this
did not explain its overwhelming oddness. Norman dug a finger into his nose and
ruminated upon exactly what that very very oddness might be.
Very
shortly it struck him with all the severity of a well-aimed half-brick. When he had been leading the thing away to his
secret hideout, it had occurred to him at the time just how easy it had been to
move. And he recalled that although he, an eight-stone weakling of the
pre-Atlas-course persuasion, had left distinctive tracks, the camel, a beasty
of eminently greater bulk, had left not a mark.
And now, there could be little doubt about
it, the camel's feet no longer reached the ground. In fact, the creature was
floating in open defiance of all the accepted laws of gravity, some eighteen
inches above the deck.
'Now that's what I would call odd,' said
Norman, startling the hovering ship of the desert and causing it to break wind
loudly - a thing which, in itself, might be tolerable in the sandblown reaches
of the Sahara, but which was no laughing matter in an eight-by-twelve lock-up
garage. 'Ye gods,' muttered Norman, covering his nose with a soot-stained
pullover sleeve."
Later tonight, at
10.00pm, we're off to Bar O'Farol for a late night blast of heavy rock from
Domingos e Amigos:
In the week where the BBC marks it's 90th anniversary in total disarray over how
it has dealt with child abuse allegations, both on air and off, the resignation
of director-general George Entwistle, with a controversial 12 month salary
pay-off of £450k, and the subsequent resignations of the director of news Helen
Broaden and her deputy I thought it a good time to look back at another notorious
period of the BBC's chequered history from the late 1950's and the early 1960's',
as documented by Peter Moore, owner of the current Radio Caroline station.
In the late fifties the cult of the 'teenager' began to
emerge with the appearance of American style 'teddy boys' copying role models
seen on American imported movies. With this came American music; rock and roll,
blues and rhythm & blues were copied and then modified by young British
artists. Opportunity for hearing such music on BBC radio was limited to a
Sunday afternoon review of the current charts and a Saturday morning programme,
'The Saturday Skiffle Club,' (later the Saturday Club after the skiffle craze
ended.) These 'shows' were hosted by established BBC presenters in the style of
a headmaster presiding over a schoolboys picnic.
The only other way to hear modern popular music was to
tune to Radio Luxembourg, the only cross border broadcaster to the UK that had
been able to restart operations after the war. The Luxembourg signal could only
reach the UK after dark when the propagation conditions changed. Even then it
faded in and out for long periods. This notwithstanding, Luxembourg was hugely
popular.
Station air time was block booked in fifteen minute or
half hour slots and taken up entirely by the major record labels of the day;
Decca, Capitol, E.M.I., Parlophone etc... Only their own signed and recorded
artists could expect any air play.
In the early sixties then, all was fairly comfortable for
the BBC with their state monopoly and Luxembourg with their commercial monopoly
and yet more and more talented British groups and artists were modifying and
Anglicising imported music and then developing their own song writing skills.
How could this music be put before the public.
At Radio Luxembourg he fared worse, station bosses
laughed heartily showing him the programme schedules block booked by the major
labels. Independents had no chance of air play at all. The answer? Give up his
artists and hope they could be signed by a major label. 'Well,' O'Rahilly told
the Luxembourg directors, 'If after managing my own artists I have to create my
own record label because nobody will record them and if I then find that no
radio station will play their music, it seems that the only thing now is to
have my own radio station.' Radio Luxembourg thought this hugely funny and
showed him the door.
Soon after, at a party, a girl told Ronan about the
station Voice of America which was operating at sea from the official USA
vessel the MV Courier. He
gleaned information about this operation from the US Embassy and also travelled
to visit Jack Kotschack, the owner of the marine station, Radio Nord and the
owners of Radio Veronica an efficiently run Dutch offshore radio station. Radio
law in the Netherlands was as restrictive as in the UK. In Holland as in
Britain the law of the land only extended as far as territorial waters, three
miles out from the coast. Beyond that lay international waters where there was
no law other than that defined by the flag states of ships. A ship registered
to Panama for example, whilst in international waters recognised Panamanian
law. If the law of the flag state had no objection to international marine
broadcasting then the ship could make broadcasts which were not illegal and
could not be stopped. Even Veronica was using precedent created by earlier
marine broadcasts made off the Danish and Swedish coasts. The UK however with
the young population created by the post war baby boom and with burgeoning
youth culture and a new pop industry had untapped potential.
This was the breakthrough O'Rahilly needed and he had
certain advantages to build from.
He was now mixing in the clubs and coffee bars of Soho
and Chelsea with the young sons of very wealthy people. With his upbringing,
large sums of money did not faze him. His family wholly owned the Irish port of
Greenore, an ideal place to quietly convert a ship into a floating radio
station.
On a fund raising trip to the USA he was captivated by a
photograph in Life magazine showing president John F. Kennedy's daughter
Caroline playing in the Oval Office of the White House and disrupting the
serious business of government. This was exactly the image he wanted for his
station. The name had to be Radio Caroline.
With finance in place, the ex ferry Fredericia was purchased and taken to
his family owned port Greenore for conversion. Radio studios were built on the
upper decks behind the ships bridge. In the hold were A.C. generators connected
to two 10KW medium wave (AM ) broadcast transmitters. The combined power from
these was fed to a tall aerial tower near the bow of the ship.
Renamed the MV Caroline
the ship headed for the British coast off Essex, from where it would cover
London and the South East.
On Easter Sunday 1964, with their words having been
pre-recorded since they were too nervous to broadcast live, Chris Moore and the
then unknown actor Simon Dee announced 'This is Radio Caroline on 199, your all
day music station.'
Then this record was played and dedicated to Ronan
O'Rahilly.
Caroline was on the air!
A couple of months
later Caroline was joined off the Essex coat by Radio Atlanta broadcasting from
the MV Mia Amigo. Within weeks the stations merged and the original ship the MV
Caroline sailed to Ramsey Bay becoming Radio Caroline North and the Mi Amigo
stayed off Frinton-on-Sea becoming Radio Caroline South.
Now O'Rahilly had almost all of
the UK plus Southern Ireland and substantial parts of the continent in range of
his transmitters.
With Caroline as the catalyst and
its audience of tens of millions, new music and youth fashion accelerated at
astonishing speed and hundreds of new bands achieved massive and sometimes
lasting success, a fact still not
forgotten to this day by the now ageing stars that it helped get
started:
"...... Radio Caroline was
an exciting part of all our lives and summed up the spirit of the times,
culturally and musically." Sir Paul McCartney
"For The Who, Radio Caroline was an angelic force ........without
Caroline we would not have sold a single record." Pete Townshend
"Radio Caroline was more
adventurous than most of the stations around, it championed bands like The
Kinks, who owe much of their early success to Radio Caroline." Ray
Davies
"Radio Caroline gave us our
start, my eternal thanks." Spencer Davis
"Did you ever wonder why so
much fantastic music came out of Britain starting in the 60s? Pirates did it.
The story of how they did it seems unbelievable, but it really happened. It
completely altered the course of rock n roll." Steve Van Zandt, Bruce
Springsteen's band
"Radio Caroline was a great
breakthrough in pop music radio - the one place you could hear the charts and
new releases you couldn't hear anywhere else." Noddy Holder
"We wrote the song 'Rock n
Roll' which included the lyric ' waiting all the time to find radio plays on
Caroline'. This ballad was a big part of remembering how important Radio
Caroline was to us. The fact that private radio stations played our songs and
that they included some of the best DJs prompted the government to give the country
top 40 stations." Francis Rossi, Status Quo.
"I had already started my
recording career when Caroline launched. I loved lazing in bed in the morning
listening to all my favourite records. It was amazing!" Sandie Shaw
"Tuning in to Radio Caroline
in the 60s was an integral part of keeping abreast with the chart action of the
day. For us recording artists, it not only kept us on our toes, but - upon
hearing some sparkling new release - made us even more determined to match or
surpass the musical standards being set!" Mike d'Abo, Manfred Mann.
" Everyone needs competition
to maintain quality and provide alternatives and Radio Caroline was just what
we needed in the 60's, being one of the first to do this in radio .." Joe
Brown
"If there had been no Radio
Caroline, there would have been no Wild Thing and no Troggs, plus many other
groups we still know today from the 60s. God bless all who sailed in her."
Reg Presley, The Troggs
By the end of 1964 Caroline had
more listeners than the three BBC networks combined.
The monopolies of the
BBC and Luxembourg were shattered and UK radio was changed forever.
As always, the BBC was totally out of touch with what their audience wanted. Nothing's changed there then!
With
the blue skies and sunshine of Paphos a distant memory, we closed the door on
the caravan for the final time of 2012 in torrential rain and winds on Sunday.
Wading
from the van to the car in our wellies we reflected on another great year at
Lesley culminating in our winning a runners up prize in the Best Kept Caravan
competition which is quite an achievement considering we lost just about all
our bedding plants and shrubs to the savage winds and salt spray during the
first week of June. Let's hope for a summer in 2013.
The
news is just as depressing as the weather and none more so than the controversies
surrounding the good old British Broadcasting Company. Leaving aside the horrendous
revelations and accusations surrounding the late Sir James
Wilson Vincent "Jimmy" Savile, OBE, KCSG, from a purely selfish point of view I am more angry about
the dramatic cuts planned for local radio services.
In common with most of my generation I was
brought up on radio and still remember sitting round the radio listening to
Paul Temple, Journey into Space, Educating Archie, the Billy Cotton Band Show and
of course The Goon Show in the mid 50's and later, once I was hooked on music, Saturday
Club with Brian Matthew, Pick of the Pops with Fluff Freeman and falling to
sleep every night to the in and out fadings of Radio Luxembourg.
I can still vividly remember laying in the
bath every Saturday morning after football listening to the Daddy of the Disc
Jockeys, Jack Jackson.
Later, in the 60's we use laze on the east
coast beaches listening to Radio Caroline and Radio London which were both just
off the Suffolk-Essex shore.
Now I
champion the cause of BBC local radio. It is far and away the best vehicle for
local
news, travel and weather and its locally themed chat shows, phone-ins and live
discussion of community issues. It offers listeners an interactive local
service that far surpasses that available in weekly local newspapers who are
only interested in their circulation, regional TV and on the internet. Local
radio stations, like local newspapers, are often the training ground for new journalists
who could end up working in national or international media.
The BBC are planning
to make drastic cuts across the corporation in a bid to save money. Of
course it’s our money they wish to save, the BBC belongs to every one of us
licence payers. The BBC is the envy of the world, the planet’s no.1 broadcaster
and it is ours and should be treasured. Those who run the BBC should be
of the understanding that they are simply looking after it for the benefit of
us and our children and our children’s children.
I
am a regular listener to BBC Radio Surrey and its sister station BBC Radio
Sussex when in Selsey. They have their own local early morning breakfast and early
evening drive time programs and at the weekends local sports commentaries and
updates from all around Surrey, Sussex and North East Hampshire. Most of the
rest of the time they have common programming but in the evening they join
forces with other regional BBC stations for a 50's, 60's and 70's music
show hosted by the excellent Roger "Twiggy" Day, of Radio Caroline
fame, with nightly studio guests from the world of pop and rock music. At the
weekend it's another stalwart from pirate radio, Kenny Everett's partner in
crime, Dave Cash.
Despite
the BBC reducing the annual cuts from £15m to £8m the whole identity of local
radio is in threat of becoming at best regional radio which totally defeats the
whole object. As an example Roger Day’s evening programme will vanish as
between 7pm and 10pm they are preparing to broadcast a single show across the
whole UK local radio network. Somebody tell me how this qualifies as local
radio. Aren't Radio1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc enough channels for national radio?
The BBC wishes to
apply a 20% of staff across the Local Radio network. In doing so they
will save less than 5% of operating costs. To give you some perspective,
local stations are staffed by on average 35 people and they produce around 4600
hours of programmes a year. In contrast, Radio 1’s Newsbeat is staffed by
52 people and produce easily less than a few hundred hours each year in the
form of news bulletins.
Doesn't seem like rocket science to me to work out where to make the cuts.
Now
I hear that one of the most experienced and entertaining BBC radio
presenters, so accurately described by a colleague of mine as a "Student
of Life", having fought through throat and mouth cancer and returned to BBC
Radio London, is losing all his weekday shows:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/01/danny-baker-bbc-show-axed How stupid is that. Cut out the middle management not the people who entertain us and really care about radio. Love him or hate him, Danny Baker is nothing but entertaining and a radio institution. Let the listeners decide want they want to listen to, not make unwanted program changes in a desperate attempt to justify their jobs.
Local radio must NOT be allowed to die.
Click
this link and sign the petition to Save
BBC Local Radio :