In Hastings you’ll never go wrong!

Thank goodness the Scottish debate is over!

The Welsh Bard summed it up admirably:

North of the Forth and the Clyde,
Scotland was asked to decide ....
Now with this answer, Salmond the Chancer,
Finds all of his dreams are denied.

And I'm one of many who hails
The news that the Yes campaign fails
As many have figured a Yes might have triggered
Some similar nonsense in Wales!

The Rushmoor in Bloom awards were held last week and I was again rewarded with a Silver Gilt. Considering the number of weeks I have spent away from Farnborough this year I thought I did rather well!

Last weekend we visited the Hastings Seafood and Wine Festival - well mostly the beer and music tent!

The weekend is best described by the Welsh Bard in his latest ode:

In Hastings, it pays to be choosy

When you’re in search of a pub…

Better to find a Jacuzzi,

And spend the weekend in the tub!

And when you’re out pulling the birds,

Beware of examples like this!

And the wi-fi is only for nerds,

Much better to stay on the piss!

 

Then, when you’ve exhausted the barrel,

In need of a bop and a song,

Who better than lovely Miss Carroll…

In Hastings you’ll never go wrong!

We first met Liane Carroll 20 years ago when we bought our first caravan in Hastings. After performing at Pissaro's Jazz Bar one Sunday lunchtime, she joined us at the bar. Janice and Liane drank champagne all afternoon getting very drunk. At around 6pm Roger, her husband, walked in to collect her and drive to London where she was playing at the 606 club!

Since those early days she has become one of the leading UK jazz vocalists and plays regularly at Ronnie Scotts and the 606 club and at Jazz Festivals all over the world.

Here she is playing where she likes to most, in her home town of Hastings.

Off to Fuzeta on Tuesday - Hey Ho!

Sir Gerald Rides Again

My old mate Sir Gerald is at it again! 

get HAMPSHIRE 

Sep 03, 2014 10:47

By Pete Bryant 

Aldershot MP Sir Gerald Howarth said he worked "to protect the constituency from Joanna Lumley's ill-conceived campaign".

Sir Gerald Howarth

Aldershot's MP has said he stands "firmly and squarely" behind controversial comments regarding immigration that he made to a constituent.

Sir Gerald Howarth was reported to have said in an email that he believed Enoch Powell, the late author of a notoriously anti-immigration speech from 1968, was correct in his views. 

Many of his constituents have benefited from immigration, with ex-Gurkhas and their families being allowed to settle in the UK in 2009 following a campaign led by Joanna Lumley. 

Despite this, the MP this week told the News & Mail that he would continue to voice his thoughts on the issue and that it was "pretty disgraceful" to suggest that he should stop for fear of causing offence.

Despite his office having received some "pretty unpleasant calls from people without British accents" in the aftermath of his comments, he said: "Someone has got to stand up and say something. I work really hard to protect the constituency from Joanna Lumley's ill-conceived campaign. There are a large number of my constituents that are offended that their country has been changed in a way they have not been consulted on."

Powell's speech, delivered in Birmingham, warned of violence and "rivers of blood" if non-white immigrants were not deported.

It has been described as a low point in race relations in the latter half of the 20th century, and Powell was immediately sacked from the Conservative shadow cabinet.

'Massive immigration concern' 

Sir Gerald's leaked comments were regarding the recent revelations about the governing boards of schools in Birmingham being infiltrated by Islamic extremists - something he described as a "tragedy" and a "betrayal by the state".

Sir Gerald's constituency of Aldershot has one of the highest rates of immigrants in the UK. The 2011 Census showed that 7.8% of the population in Aldershot were Nepalese and 5.4% in Farnborough.

Last week it was revealed that net immigration into the UK had increased, despite government targets to reduce it.

The proportion of children born to foreign-born mothers in Rushmoor also rose from 27.5% to 29.1% from 2012 to 2013.

The rate is higher than in neighbouring local authorities Surrey Heath (21.5%), Hart (6.7%), Guildford (26.6%) and Waverley (17.7%).

Asked if he felt that representing constituents who may feel they are the subject of his condemnation meant he should tone down his comments, Sir Gerald said: "Most of them don't speak English so they wouldn't understand them anyway.

I have excellent relations with the ex-Gurkha organisations. The young ex-Gurkhas are not the problem. The problem is the elderly who do not speak English and do not understand our customs. It's not fair on them. It's not in their interests that immigration should continue to be such a cause for concern.

I stand firmly and squarely behind what I said. There is massive concern in the country about immigration.

We've a crowded island. Look at the traffic jams everywhere and the demand for property.

These are serious issues that deserve serious discussion."

Say what you mean, Sir Gerald! 

Here's  what Sir Douglas thinks:



Hey Ho!

Another one bites the dust!

"Long time, no blog", but with the relatively good summer most of our time has been spent at Selsey relaxing in the sun and generally doing not much at all!

I have however spent a lot of time researching the history of The Fox Inn and surrounding area for thefoxfarnborough.co.uk which will be related in due course. 

But, with another birthday fast approaching and the big Seven-Oh looming ever closer, I felt the urge to put fingers to keyboard once again.

Any plans that I might have been hatching for staging a big 70th birthday celebration at the same venue as my last big party have already been shattered.

The Old Courthouse in Cove, scene of my 50th birthday party some 18 years ago has been acquired by the Fred Cohen organisation and turned into a Tesco Express.

Originally called The Anchor, it had The Alma immediately next to it and The Tradesman Arms opposite.

In those days a pub crawl in Cove could be successfully completed by covering less than 50 yards - a few pints warm up in The Tradesmans, followed by a 25 yard stumble across the main road to the Alma for 3 or 4 more and finally a 20 yard crawl to The Anchor until throwing out time. The Alma was demolished to make way for the car park of the Old Courthouse.

Like it or not inns and public houses are part of the English heritage and it is such a shame that so many of these historic buildings are disappearing from our cities, towns and villages.

It would appear that many old inns and pubs are not listed buildings giving the breweries carte blanche to carry out tasteless "re-modelling" of the interiors and the addition of hideously ugly appendages, whenever the mood takes them thus totally destroying the character of the building. And, when the novelty wears off and the local customers have been driven away by the ridiculous hike in the price of a pint, the building is sold off for redevelopment.

The price of a pint is a subject close to my heart - why should there be such a huge variance in price between one pub and another in the same area? The Welsh Bard and I often exchange texts on the subject of where we are and a particularly low or high pint price.

On the Oldies last trip to Oxford we graced three new establishments with our presence, one of which was The Head of the River in which the price of a pint of bitter (London Pride) was £3.95. Fortunately it was John G's round and he was not amused!

We were constantly hassled for a food order so drank up swiftly, walked a few hundred yards up the road towards the city centre and entered The Honey Pot where I paid nearly a pound less a pint. Once again, John G was not amused. 

I suppose at the end of the day "you pay your money and you take your chance" and if a landlord/brewery just wants to milk the tourists and have no local or return trade it's their choice.

Personally I don't like getting ripped off and, in The Head of River, had I been on my own, would have left the pint on the bar and gone somewhere else without paying!

However, the public house is not the only English institution in decline.

Manchester United, for so long at the top of British soccer is in total disarray. Invincible at home in the Premiership and rarely dropping a point away under Sir Alex Ferguson, things started to go rapidly downhill with the brief appearance of David Moyes and have reached an all time low since the arrival of the Louis van Gaal.

Here's what The Welsh Bard had to say about their last defeat:

Schadenfreude, moi?

In Milton Keynes there's crazy scenes -
The locals are excited:

Four nil their team has whipped the ‘cream’,
And Donned the damned United

Though Milton Keynes is full of beans,
Van Gaal feels so deflated:
The Glazers know he’ll have to go
And Moyes must be elated.

The honeymoon must end quite soon -
Success was so elusive
They’ve scarcely scored, the fans are bored,
And more and more abusive.

But here they’re mad, it’s looking bad,
They’re more and more splenetic…
So nurse, the screens, to Milton Keynes
Deliver anaesthetic.

A few weeks ago we returned to "God's Own County" and spent a most enjoyable weekend in Ipswich. We stayed in the Stoke area of Ipswich which is where my mother used to live as a child. I spent many days during the school holidays at my grandmother's house in Felaw Street which we got to by taking a rowing boat ferry across the water to avoid having to get a bus into town and another one to get out to the house.

Stoke is the old area of Ipswich close to the docks and is well described in this article my good friend (and best man) David Kindred:

www.kindred-spirit.co.uk/blog/life-over-stoke-in-ipswich

It was a weekend of nostalgia and reminiscing. As well as walking around the area and the docklands, we met up with David and his wife Anne and with my oldest chum Ian and his wife Jennifer who I had not seen for many years. I was born five doors away from and six weeks after Ian. We grew up and went to primary & grammar school together, although he was a year above me because of the cut off dates.

Together with Pete Talman, our performances of The Beatle's songs, accompanied by Dave Spiller on piano, were infamous around the Methodist Church youth club scene in the sixties!

My grandmother's house, long demolished and now a grassed play area, was next to The Steamboat Tavern which was on the waterfront. It originally also housed the ticket office for the riverboat to Felixstowe and it was here, nearly 60 years earlier, that my step granddad, Thomas Bruce, had given me my first mouthful of beer.

Tommy, you have got a lot to answer for!

Amazingly the pub has survived and whilst talking to the landlady about my family background and looking at the old pictures on the wall I discovered a photo of what appears to be celebration or an outing, possibly VE day. On further investigation I spotted Thomas Bruce in the front row (Seated far left) and my uncle Sid standing at the back. The landlady kindly gave me a copy of the photo. 

Apart from the landlady it was a mans pub in those days and heaven forbid if you went out without a shirt, tie, button hole and a hat!

The dockland area is no longer a working dock and has been cleaned up, redeveloped and renamed "The Waterfront Complex" with trendy bars and restaurants. Sadly all that remains to remind you of the old days are the railway lines and the empty, deteriorating mills and grain stores, although the character of most of the original buildings like the chandlers stores and the Customs House, has been retained.

It was to the Docks, sorry The Waterfront Complex, that we had to stumble in search of somewhere to eat on the Sunday evening, having been seriously over-served in the Steamboat Tavern. The only place open was the Pizza Express where I was charged nearly £7 for a bottle of warm Peroni.

DON'T START ME OFF!

Here's the other Tommy Bruce from 1960:


Good Grief ! I bought that single.

Hey Ho!