The Bloggler

And so that was Christmas ( Well, not like the ones we used to know) And what have we done? (not a lot, thanks to Covid 19) Another  Year Over ( Thankfully) And a new one just begun And so that was Christmas I hope you had fun  ( In the Tier 3 and 4 zones?) The near and the dear one The old and the young Well, that was Christmas Have a Happy New Year! Let's hope it's a good one Without any   fear! (of hospitalisation, mental illness, unemployment, financial problems, etc.) So, having survived 2020 and with a vaccination coming to you soon, count your blessings on this New Year’s Eve, celebrate with whoever you can, and get into McCartney’s mindset..... The mood is right, the spirits up, we're here tonight, and that's enough! Or at least Abba’s.... May we all have our hopes, our will to try If we don't we might as well lay down and die You and I.   And now, a song dedication to China and the UK Government (sing it Elton)....

I love Christmas music. It’s an essential part of Christmas for me.  When I hear Christmas songs, they always bring back a special memory or feeling associated with Christmases past.   But why do I like Christmas songs so much?  I think the nostalgia factor (which is  huge at Christmas) has a lot to do with it. It’s said that the nostalgia you feel listening to your favourite Christmas tunes has a neurological effect in which the brain's pleasure circuit is stimulated, releasing dopamine and serotonin (which are responsible for those happy feelings).  Also I suppose, its because of the the nostalgia effect that the classic Christmas songs always seem to win out over the more recent songs. That said, I always look forward to new artists/bands having a go at releasing Christmas singles to create the nostalgia of tomorrow. Also, according to Mic.com,  one of the main reasons we love Christmas songs is due to the ‘exposure effect’. It h...

Celebrity culture fascinates me.   It’s not that I follow celebrities.  I haven’t the time or inclination.  In fact my lack of knowledge of who’s who is very much lacking and a considerable disadvantage when having a social conversation with young people and competing in pub quizzes.   But celebrities are in our faces constantly, promoting themselves and endorsing products.  And many people follow their lives, listen to what they say and buy the products they advertise.  (No-one has ever seen David Beckham in H&M jeans and yet, amazingly, some will buy jeans from H&M just because he advertises them.)     My fascination with celebrities is how they ‘celebritize’ and what drives them.   I recently read author Stevie Turner’s blog post on ‘ how to become a celebrity ’ (reflecting on the advantage of being well known in order to get a book published) and it inspired me to examine my own thoughts about what makes a celebrity...

    I am struggling with the amount of Covid-19 news and information I am bombarded with every day.  I don’t mean because I can’t absorb it.  I mean because I don’t want to.  It’s driving me mad! I am constantly being told about infection rates, death rates, tiers, vaccines, bla bla bla.  And when it’s not on the radio, telly or social media, we talk about it.  It’s depressing.  It’s toxic. And the fact that I can do very little about the situation anyway apart from avoid people, wear a face nappy and wonder at the ineptitude of the Government and many people, makes it doubly depressing. With everything running at such a fast pace, facts, theories and studies are being churned out and interpreted - often very badly- by ‘covidized’ journalists.  One would think Covid-19 is the only major story in the news media today. The internet and social media has pressured me into thinking that I should constantly be checking what’s happening and that any...

If you’re like me, many of your daily conversations revolve around the Pandemic. Wading through the latest Covid news and related doom and gloom just isn’t good for you, well for me at least.   So, on Sunday night my wife and I watched some distracting comfort TV in the shape of the latest UK series of ‘I’m a Celebrity get me out of here’.  This series is different in that it taking place in Gwrych Castle in North Wales instead of the usual Aussie jungle due to Covid-19 restrictions.  If anybody doesn’t know, the show involves a group of celebrities living together in extreme conditions with few creature comforts. Each member undertakes challenges to secure additional food and treats for the group, and to avoid being voted out by viewers during their stay.  In the final episode, following nominations, the winners are crowned as "King or Queen".  What isn’t different is that it features mainly ‘c-list’ celebrities of which I know only half.  Although I’...

Unrelated photo of Tandle Hill Country Park, Oldham So, we’re a couple of days into Lockdown 2.  And what’s different?  Not much as far as I can see.  It doesn’t seem like a lockdown.     Nearly everything is still open and there is traffic and people everywhere.   It’s business as usual without pubs and restaurants and a few ‘non-essential’ shops.   All that’s happened is that the Government has taken away our luxuries and stopped us having fun. When escaping your home, the most fun you can have inside with yourself or member of your household, is to browse the clothes, books and homeware etc. in your local supermarket, or you can visit the garden centre to look at stuff that has nothing to do with gardens.  I wouldn’t normally regard supermarkets as a fun day out (its a get in and straight out operation for me) but when boredom sets in on this scale you can understand the appeal.  The trouble is, the big supermarkets are so busy in L...

In the late 1960s, a man tried many times to escape from here - running for his life, often pursued by a huge hovering balloon across a sandy estuary. My wife and I chose to escape from our garden and four walls and the daily drudgery of Covid nonsense by coming to this wonderful place to enjoy probably the last of the summer sunshine. Of course, the prisoner was the character ‘No 6’ in 1960s TV series ‘The Prisoner’ played by Patrick McGoohan and the place is Portmeirion in North Wales. If you are not familiar with this wonderful TV series, it features a top government agent who angrily resigns his position and drives his sports car home.   He is gassed, awakes the next morning and opens the curtains to find himself in a mysterious isolated community known only as ‘The Village’.   It is a picturesque Italianate wonderland where the residents have numbers instead of names.   Number 2 is in charge, though he answers to an unseen superior. Our Prisoner is told: “...

  To be honest, I mainly set up this Blog for my own amusement and to exercise my brain in a creative way. It is a journal and collection of thoughts which I thought might just be of interest to some people in the blogging community.  I hoped that through it, I would come across other blog sites worth reading for my own amusement.   But it appears I am the only one who looks at it and there’s a limit to how often one can read and admire one’s own handiwork and so ‘hits’ are probably still in single figures.   I’ve realised that despite tagging, listing interests on Blogspot etc., no-one appears to know my Blog is out there.   Also, I have managed to discover only one or two other personal Blogs of any interest although I know there must be millions of good ones out there.   The only easily searchable blogs seem to be focussed on fashion, lifestyle, fitness, travel, DIY, music etc. most of which are irritating or irrelevant.   And when I used Blog...

This morning I went to Argos to pick up our new BBQ.  Its an American one which means it is made in China and will probably fall apart quite soon. I am scared of taking it out of the box as I know something will be bent, some parts will be missing, and the assembly instructions will be in Chinese.  One wonders why nothing is made here anymore. I have been trying to buy a new galvanised hand shovel for the garden because my 25 year old one is getting a bit sad but it seems no one in Britain can make such a simple product anymore. The Chinese, however, produce millions of very crude smaller painted wonky metal ones (available in all garden centres and ironmongers) but I am not so desperate yet. But it is difficult these days to avoid buying a good amount of Chinese crap because there is no alternative. I recently bought a Roberts DAB radio thinking it was made in Yorkshire and would work - but it broke just after the guarantee ran out. It turns out that although it is a Br...

As if Covid 19 isn’t dangerous enough, it seems there is another pandemic threatening to kill us all. It’s a deadly strain of ‘stupidity’. In America it has become known as the 'Pandumbic', after the ‘The Daily Show’ host Trevor Noah mocked President Trump’s inaction on the Coronavirus in a fake trailer for a terrifying movie called PANDUMBIC. It is described in the ‘Urban Dictionary’ as a condition contracted by: “An idiot, not necessarily, but typically of a younger age, who refuses to believe that COVID-19 is real and thereby exposes themselves and others to great harm. A paragon of Darwinian failure. A fucktard by any other name.” And I reckon it has infected over half the population of England and that the R rate is out of control. The scientific evidence is there for all to see in the News: the antisocial behaviour found in mass gatherings on Bournemouth beaches, the Yobbishness and mass demonstrations on city streets, football fans partying in Liverpool and...

Now we have more time to watch TV, the quality and variety of terrestrial offerings and most cable channels seems to have gone right down the pan.  So much so that people seem to be falling over themselves to sign up for subscription streaming services, like Netflix and Britbox.  We (my wife and I) haven’t yet gone down that road.   This is because as an alternative to our telly package we are not convinced it will be enough, and as an extra, it is really quite expensive. I know, many people enjoy rewatching tv shows and drama series but I am not one of them. I am in my 60s and have forgotten many of them or (at least the plots) so if I did watch them again, it would be like watching them for the first time.   But the thing is, I know I have watched it and it just seems wrong to go back.   I want new stuff but frankly, some stuff I have seen advertised on Netflix is not floating my boat. So while we ponder and pontificate, I have been delving more ...

  Tandle Hill, Oldham Today was a good day!   For the first time since lockdown started, my wife and I were able to see our daughter who lives 28 miles away.   (It would have been a perfect day if we could have also seen our grandchildren and son-in-law but hopefully we will be allowed to do that soon.)   She came to meet up with us for a walk to Tandle Hill Country Park – one of her and our favourite local haunts. The park is a 48 hectare expanse of mixed woodland and grassland in Royton, Lancashire - just 5 minutes walk from our house away along a very pleasant country track. The weather was glorious: ultra bright sunshine and deep blue skies which only served to make the greenery even greener.     At the summit of Tandle Hill we gazed out over the Pennines uplands at towards the Yorkshire boundary, and over Rochdale, Oldham and the Manchester plain.   In the distance we could see Jordrell Bank radio telescope in 25 miles away to the sou...

  I choose not to be on Facebook or Instagram, but I am nevertheless inundated on my phone, computer, and TV with images and videos posted by celebrities or people who think they are celebrities.   In this Coronavirus era we are all looking for good news and support wherever we can find it on social media, but the efforts of some celebrities’ to inform and entertain us are certainly wasted on me. It irritates me when celebrities give me scientific advice, based on a clear misunderstanding or generalisation of the facts.   Some feel they have to remind us to stay indoors and some feel they are so special they can swan off to their second homes in Cornwall or wherever.    I heard about fantasy author Neil Gaiman, who flew 11,000 miles from New Zealand to London, via Los Angeles, then borrowed a friend’s car and drove 500 miles north to the Hebrides. And guess why.... to “give his wife (musician Amanda Palmer) some space”. I see models and f...

Whilst relaxing in our garden the other day, enjoying the fine spring weather, Lesley commented that how clean the air was, how blue the sky and how the quiet it was other than the sounds of the many varieties of birds that were visiting to taunt us with their freedom.   We also noticed how many bees there seemed to be buzzing around all parts of the garden.   At first this seems encouraging because in February, I read an article headed “Bumblebees’ decline points to mass extinction”.   The study it referred to stated that in Europe, bees are 17 percent less plentiful than they were in the early 20th century – this being due to global warming, over-farming, over-maintenance and the use of insecticides.   But thanks to the local Council not maintaining our local parks and road verges, our garden is bee central. I didn’t know but there are 24 species of bumblebees in the UK, the most common of which are the tree bumblebee, the red tailed bumblebee, the whit...

"Which country has the longest coastline?” “Which television characters are associated with Wimbledon?” “ Sniffled Rotten is an anagram of which famous cartoon character?” Oh no, you say, not another Quiz!  But be honest – you can’t resist having a guess You want to be right and you would like to discuss these questions in the pub, preferably with friends and with a drink in hand.    As the playwright James Graham said, "pub quizzes combine our two great loves: drinking and being right”. But, for the foreseeable, the pub quiz is out of bounds. Trapped at home by the plague, able to communicate only by a videoconferencing app, it seems the British public has quizzes on the brain. In fact I read it is now a global phenomenon and it’s easy to see why in the current covid lockdown era. It encourages us to talk to relatives and friends and interact over a bit of competitive fun without discussing that bloody virus and turning each other suicidal.   Al...