Nuns on Bikes

When you have a minute, look at the following catalogue entry for a recent motorbike sale at Cheffins

http://www.cheffins.co.uk/lot/-562043-vintage-0

I think whoever typed the entry was having a bit of a laugh when he described the Nun who owned the machine as from the Church of the Immaculate contraption.  Wonderful

Spike Island

For all you latent Stone Roses fans,  I have had four days filming this last month on the film in production called 'Spike Island'  This is based on a so-called legendary gig by the Manchester rock band Stone Roses, in May 1990 on Spike Island.  This is an island in the Mersey Estuary just off Widnes.

I am afraid I had never heard of this legendary concert, and I wouldn't recognise a Stone Roses song if it jumped up and bit me, however four days filming in Bolton, Salford and Stockport has been good fun.  Whether I will be spotted in the final cut remains to be seen.

The cast and crew can be seen at  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1827579/

I was in a few scenes with the lovely Lesley Manville and the up and coming Elliot Tittensor (Shameless)

Currently it won't be released until next year.

Surprise

Had an amazing surprise Friday just gone,  a telephone call from a ex shipmate from 40 years ago.  Steve was a Steward on m.v.Rowanmore during the three trip I did on her back in 1971 / 1972.  I have been absolutely knocked out by his memory and his recollections of those three trips.

I kept lists of other officers I sailed with, now this may sound awfully snobby and elitist, but I didn't keep track of the many and amazing crew lads.  I have been trying to recall as much as possible of that time,  for Rowanmore was without doubt the happiest ship of all the ones in which I sailed.  I am currently making pencil notes and will publish the Rowanmore papers fairly shortly.

Meanwhile a couple of photographs I have found.  The first one is Albert, the ships cat.  He was rescued from the water after a couple of young thugs threw him into the sea from a great height,  while we were docked in La Guaira, Venezuela.  At great risk one of the lads managed to get him out of the water onto a floating pallet by the stern. He was a very young cat at the time.  I seem to remember the 'Old Man'  Capt David Houghton, threatened us all with a good flogging if we brought the cat aboard his ship.  Later that night it was the Old Man himself who took pity on Albert and brought him aboard.

 Albert sat on my Radar, blocking the view as usual.

This is another picture of Rowanmore, docked in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  If the scene looks familiar, that complex was used in a couple of scenes of the James Bond movie - Dr No.

Lets pause for a few moments and picture the wonderful Ursula Undress (sic) in that  bikini, emerging from the waves.....................................................

Guilty

Feeling a little guilty this morning because this is the second day that I haven't taken Jay the Autistic Spaniel for a walk.  The reason is the ground is really quite dangerous to walk on at present.  We have had so much cold weather and yesterday it rained for a short time onto frozen ground, leaving everywhere treacherous.  With my tin hips and dodgy back I am being a bit of a wimp and not chancing it.

Jay the Autistic Spaniel loving the cold weather 

My Friend Val getting very brave with the horses.

I'm pleased with the picture of Val and the foals,  She is a little unsure of the creatures (and rightly so) but the foals which are around 10 months old, are starting to get more confident around people, and actually approach for a stroke.  They may be approaching on the chance of getting a carrot or a mint.  They are all Cobs, so generally they are steady and trustworthy animals, quite how they have coped with the cold with no rugs or overnight shelter is fascinating

Rossendale Free Press

The area where I live is known as Rossendale,  It Mainly covers the towns of Rawtenstall, Haslingden and Bacup and is situated about 10 miles north of Bury, in East Lancashire.  For well over 100 years the local paper, The Rossendale Free Press (note the 'Free'  means free from political persuasion and not free of charge) has been keeping the local populace up to date with local news and events.  A couple of years ago, the owner's sold out to a large group who, I believe, own the Manchester Evening News.  Since then the standard of journalism has fallen almost on a weekly basis.  

This last week they have, in my estimation, sunk beneath the waves.  The owner's should think about changing the name of the Paper to "The Greengrocers Weekly"  (and I purposely left out the apostrophe in Greengrocers)

What a desperately sad sight. To think, so-called journalists, Editors and Proof Readers have allowed the following to be printed and sold to the public.....Little wonder youth of today haven't a clue where (were, wear) to put an apostrophe,  Their (there) use English makes me cringe.  Finally, as I'm having a moan,  how on Earth has the word 'have'  become 'of ' ?   I'm not even going to mention 'of ' and 'off '

Aaaaaaargh!

Post Christmas Ride

Please note this should have been published on 27th or 28th December.  I managed to get it into drafts instead of into the right place....I blame my age!

Had a ride out today, the weather being fairly mild.  We couldn't get to the Trough of Bowland and all the adjacent road were closed for some sort of running race....Why they have to shut roads and Cock up loads of people for that sort of nonsense beats me but heigh ho....To cap things off, the cafes at Glasson Dock,  the Station Cafe at Carnforth, and the Bacon Butty Van at Devil's Bridge were all shut.

What is the World coming to?  These places all purport to be Tourist destinations....I was bloody glad I hadn't travelled too far, and after a cuppa at a poorly manned Little Chef,  (The lads I was out with wanted food and were having to wait 35 minutes to be served) I was home about the time they were fed.

Happy New Year

Where have the last couple of weeks gone?  Ah well I'm back now and just read the following on somebodies Face-ache account,  Class it as my "Thought of the Day"  for anybody over the age of 40.

Checking out at the supermarket recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. I apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days“.

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations“.

She was right about one thing–our generation didn’t have the green thing in “Our” day. So what did we have back then? After some reflection and soul-searching on “Our” day, here’s what I remembered we did have….

Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 2000 Watts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Wales. In the kitchen, we blended & stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a water fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?