Life on mars wallpaper from back to the future

Living near a city the size of Hull, one would expect there to be a plethora of wallpaper outlets with a multitude of designs to choose from. Not so.
Our local DIY store used to supply wallpaper that you could choose from a number of sample books, but apparently their supplier treat them like a third world country because they didn't buy enough, so now they have stopped supplying at all. That leaves a small independent trader on one of the city high streets, who has apparently closed early for Christmas, and the usual suspects who for commercial reasons I will refer to as Q & B and Basehome. Oh yes and a local cut price chain called B & M, who for commercial reasons I shall refer to as .............. oh bugger, I've said their real name now, too late.
No matter, all of these stock exactly the same wallpaper. There are currently three wallpapers available. Well okay, there are more than that, but to me they all look the same and fall into four categories, which are retro 1970 psychedelia, huge floral designs, Indian Restaurant flocks and the sort of thing your gran would have had in her front room in the 1970's. It was like walking onto the set of Life on Mars.
After an exhaustive search of all four potential wallpaper emporiums and an hour of deliberation we settled on something which was at best a compromise for our dining room. Why are wallpaper designs suddenly so stale and restrictive? Is it the financial recession? Is paint taking over as the wall covering of choice? Or is it a fashion thing, whereby "designers" are dictating what they think we should have on our walls?
In these modern times where we can manufacture objects on a 3D printer I think we have missed a trick. There must surely be a market for a large wallpaper roll printer on which we, the general public, can design and print our own wallpaper, to ensure we get a sensible design of what we want, and not what "they" want to sell us.
Dragons Den here I come.

How to shop for shoes in November when surrounded by Christmas shopping zombies.

Yesterday I had to take the girl child for new shoes and boots for school. This filled me with dread. During the summer I tried to buy some sensible shoes for myself. In any shoe shop there will be a ratio of around 16:1 womens shoes to mens shoes. The same applies to the clothing department. Do women have more feet than men? and do they really need 16 x the amount of sweaters, jeans and shirts? Clearly they do, because whilst I make do with two very thin wardrobes and four drawers my wife has two double sized wardrobes and 8 drawers. Anyway, in the quest for sensible mens shoes I visited several shops and eventually secured a pair, albeit in Amsterdam. I didn't travel overseas specifically, you understand, I just happened to be there and popped into that old British stalwart C & A (which we no longer have in the UK) and found a nice sensible pair of shoes. This cannot be done in the UK, or at least it couldn't during the summer, both Tescos and Asda have a good range of shoes now I no longer need them.

Anyway, I digress, the issue was shoes for the girl child. Girl child has grown out of her old shoes. Girl child has reached the age when she hovers between girls shoes and lady shoes in size. Head boss at school has strict guidelines as to what girl children may wear on their feet. This makes it almost impossible to buy shoes for the girl child. Girl child is at impressionable age where every shop she enters has something she simply must buy/wear/try on/discuss at length/drool over. This makes Dad man very impatient, particularly as a species known as "Christmas shopping Zombie" has descended upon the shopping centres. We will discuss christmas shopping zombies in detail later. After an hour of aimlessly perusing stores Dad man introduced girl child to a revolutionary concept known as Dad shopping. This involves going into the shop straight to the shoes and making an immediate assessment of suitable shoe availability. i.e is it black, is it shiny leather, does it have a flat heel and is it size 4. If the answer is no, then move on to the next shop. You have sixty seconds to decide. Using this simple formula we were able to visit around 16 shops within the remainder of two hour period allocated in my day as "Shoe shopping time." and we were able to secure said pair of boots and shoes for the princely sum of £35 total. Although I almost had a Sean* when I saw the price of one likely pair of boots at £129.99 (reduced) Luckily girl child decided she didn't like the zip up the back. This made Dad man happy, and daughter, at the tender age of 13 is now equipped with the understanding of shopping without being brainwashed by consumerism. This will make her future husband very happy. I can foresee a time in her later life buying a sofa suite in 30 seconds on the basis that it is wipe clean, comfortable and can seat six, without being hypnotised by the myriad of swirly patterns or her mind melting in chintz. 

And so onto the aforementioned Christmas Shopping Zombies. They were out in force yesterday, and earlier than usual. The CSZ do not move quickly. They are unable to make decisions, and move in huge packs, the basic CSZ comprising of an adult male, adult female and up to four little CSZ, the smaller ones admittedly being a little more animated than their parents. But the CSZ also come in mixed social groups, and can comprise of anything up to 15 females in a pack, or two or three mixed couples. What would appear to be the dominant male in any pack is immediately recognizable in that he will be carrying all the bags. He will also have the emptiest wallet and the biggest credit card bill. Even when they cease shopping to drink Costa Coffee, he will be readily identified as the one paying for the coffee, and by the red lines across his palms cause by carrying heavy plastic carriers all day. Is i beyond the wit of mankind to develop a bag that doesn't attempt to sever fingers? We can make them dolphin friendly, why can't we make them human friendly? At least one CSZ in any group will be taking orders from a command centre somewhere via a mobile phone. They will attempt to relay commands in an over animated and piercingly loud voice to others within the group. Their voice is in fact at such a volume that the phone is often unnecessary. Tarquin would be thrilled to open his surprise present on Christmas Day if a) it wasn't socks (again) and b)he hadn't overheard from the other side of the shopping centre that that was what he was getting. 
The CSZ once on the move, will move erratically and slowly, picking up goods at random, and as often as not, putting them down IN THE WRONG PLACE. They will circle, stop suddenly, repeat a route for no obvious reason, appear as if about to turn left then go right, and then go left, or suddenly walk backwards. All behaviours that we would not tolerate if we were driving. Yet we apologise to them when we suddenly bump into them or trip over them, or are poked in the eye by their umbrella (don't get me started on umbrellas) And being British, if they apologise first, we apologise right back at them. What I really want to do of course is punch them, very hard about the head until they fall over. And then hit them with a shovel. And then use the shovel to clear a path through the rest of the CSZ to get to the shoes. Having paid for only two hours parking I couldn't waste time, because in the weeks running up to Christmas, whilst the CSZ moves slowly, their partners in parking enforcement move like demented bees. Usain Bolt would have been put to shame by one keen parking enforcement official I saw, dashing from one car to another, checking each tyre was within the white lines and that the driver had paid the Bacon Tax.*
I foresee the CSZ problem getting worse, because last year nobody had any money and this year it seems we are coming out of the recession and have money to burn. And so they will be out more often and for longer spending cash and clogging up the shops so I can't. 
Happily I fall into the category of LMCS a different kind of shopper altogether. As a Last Minute Christmas Shopper I may appear to be rushing about on Christmas Eve in blind terror, but I'm not. I know exactly what I want, where it is and how much it costs, and I have the right money ion my wallet. Sadly, there is none left when I get there. So I will buy everyone unsuitable shoes.


Sean* - Sean Connery - Coronary (Hull Rhyming Slang - famous for not necessarily rhyming or being very good)
Bacon Tax.* Bacon Rind - James Hind. (Hull Rhyming Slang) James Hind was famous for Highway Robbery, although not as popular as Dick Turpin. 

Shakespeare. - Good fun but over rated.

I was never really into Shakespeare, but last night I sat through three productions of his plays, abbreviated mind you, but plays performed by local schools at Hull Truck Theatre. They were, in no particular order, Much ado about Nothing, The Tempest, and The Taming of the Shrew. If like me you have never really studied Shakespeare you will know little of the plots of these masterpieces, so having had the benefit I will summarise, thus:

Much Ado about Nothing was based in the 1960's, for reasons which didn't really become clear, yet the actors still spoke in Shakespearean English, which sort of put a weird slant on things. And it relied heavily on a 60's soundtrack. Very energetic performance though. I haven't a clue what it was about. Someone people got married at the end.

The Tempest, which starred my daughter Emma as Ariel was strictly old school Shakespeare, with the oldie language and costumes. She was very dynamic in her dancing, but what threw me is that whilst she was Ariel, so were fifteen or so other people. The spirit was omnipresent. I have no idea what it was about. Some people got married at the end.

Which brings me to the taming of the shrew, which was set in the roaring '20's, for reasons which didn't become clear. This included Groucho Marx and a poor mans Sammy Davis Junior, and a leading man who despite being a schoolboy looked about 30. Scenes of Domestic Violence were portrayed without warning. I have no idea what it was about. Some people got married at the end. 

It was thoroughly enjoyable, if you like that sort of thing, which normally I don't. What have I learnt form the experience? Well, I have always maintained that William Shakespeare was over-rated. He was after all nothing more than a soap opera scriptwriter of this day - had he been around today he would have been writing for Eastenders, and penning classic lines like "Get out of my pub," and "Sort it out!"

As it is, so far as I can fathom, he wrote short stories with a romance, usually with some hitch, that ended happily ever after with a wedding. Mills and Boon would have loved him.

Themed Garden

This time last year I had a bank of trees at the bottom of my garden. I say trees, but many of them where shrubs or bushes, the likes of blackthorn and hawthorn, and any other sort of sharp pointy thorn, along with ivy, and a couple or three stout trees, the name of which escapes me, but which I will call "a bloody nuisance." Every year these trees grow higher and higher shading the lawn and the roof mounted solar panels, and every autumn they drop leaves all over the garden. Which I then have to tidy up. Like I say, a bloody nuisance. So in the end they got hacked down, year on year until last year when I invested in a chain saw and spent many days off and weekends getting them all out. All except the biggest stumps. These were an even bigger nuisance than the trees. Getting out the root ball and stump of a mature tree is a major undertaking. These buggers refused to simply die off, they kept trying to regrow, and I was permanently pulling new growth right throughout the summer. I tried digging them out, but after going down a couple of feet I ran out of enthusiasm and energy, and so they remained until this week, when in a state of renewed vigour I dug even further down tot get the roots right out. I had considered explosives, heavy plant machinery, a stump grinder and prayer, but in the end it was pure physical labour needed to get to the (excuse me) root of the problem.
I now have the big stump out, but my garden looks like a World War one theme garden, with a trench system and mounds of earth to protect from incoming fire. The crater must be over four feet deep and at least five feet in diameter. It's as though a bomb went off in the garden. This will take much remedial work to put right, but one thing is for sure - no trees will be planted there again. Not in my lifetime anyway.
I now have sunshine on my lawn for the first time in 17 years - such a pity winter is coming.

Where has all the money gone?

Comedian Al Murray, the pub landlord, asked an important question when the economy crashed and the recession  began. "Where," he asked the bankers in his audience "is all the fucking money?" This is a good question.
Although only in my mid forties I can recall a time when I was paid cash wages in a little envelope. Folding pieces of paper and round bits of metal (generally round although fifty pences had corners - twenty pences hadn't been invented and thrupenny bits had been phased out) in due course times changed and I was paid directly into the bank, and I then had to cash a cheque to get cash money out of the bank. But it was still money.
Now however we are moving more and more into a cashless society. This is not because we have no money, although in the recession it feels like that, but because we no longer use cash. On  recent trip to "that London" in "Down South" this was brought home to me with a bump. In the North we still but round bits of metal into boxes to get a bit of paper to put inside the window of our car to prevent other people putting bits of paper on the outside of the car demanding that we send them coloured bits of paper with pictures of the Queen on them. Naturally I assumed the same happened in the south. Not so. Down in the wealthy south it is compulsory, if you own a car, to also own a mobile phone and it is a legal requirement, so it seems, to carry it at all times in order to pay for your parking by using the phone. Car parks do not have meters or any means to pay by cash. Indeed in one car park even my phone was redundant and I had to use a credit card to pay for the parking because the meter did not accept cash. What is that all about? Was it afraid of someone trying to pass a forged note or a dodgy Euro coin? What next? Will it demand a reference?
What if, like the dinosaur that I am, you were to leave home without a credit card or a mobile phone (as I often do) but needed to park the car? I would feel rather silly offering other people cash to pay for them to use their credit card to park my car for me. The world has certainly changed. In the old days a man with a limp and facial sores would charge you fivepence to park your car on an old bombsite, but you knew, providing any unexploded bopmbs didn't go off your car was safe for the day. Now you pay £25 (assuming you have a phone and a credit card) to park on an unmanned bit of tarmac knowing that when you come back some low life will have bust your window and stolen your phone charger. he knew you had one of course, because otherwise you wouldn't have been parked there. There will be some excellent CCTV footage of the crime taking place, but no chance of catching the bastard. In the old days the toothless ex-army war veteran would have just breathed his alcohol fumed breathe on the miscreant and frightened him away. Or hit him with a stick.
So, returning to the point from which I have digressed as usual, where has all the money gone? The truth is we don;t need it anymore, and it was never really there in the first place. Money is simple a promise to give something provided it isn't asked for. And the cash tokens we used to satisfy ourselves that the promise would be kept are now redundant, replaced by numbers on an Iphone.
But I for one can't help missing the solid feel of  a coin in my pocket, or the crispness of a fiver in my wallet, the slightly grubby working mans fold of notes in a wad, or the visual appeal of a breifcase stacked with a ransom demand. Somehow a balance on a computer screen just doesn't convey that happiness in quite the same way.

Where are the mens shoes please?

Is it just me or have mens shoes gone out of fashion? I've tried several shoe shops, plus that staple of sensible mens fashion "George" at ASDA, but all I can find is trainers and comfortable shoes that other men would like, if you catch my drift. I'm sorry but I refuse to wear silly crossover trainer shoes that have velcro fastners for five year olds and shout out to the world "I'm a lefty limp wristed office dwelling squeaky voice lisping shiny pants flower watering pinky homosexual and incapable of tying my own laces." The only shoes that are not softy shoes are safety boots. And I'm sorry, but unless you work on a building site that's even more Village People than the trainer shoes. Where are the proper mens shoes? I did manage to find a pair of simple black Oxfords, and a pair of brogues, but is that it? Go to the womens shoes department and you are faced with a thousand different styles, all of which are seemingly absolutely must haves. Ask my wife. She tries them all on. 
The same applies to mens clothes though. At the moment I find it almost impossible to buy anything I like. I can buy jeans, but cargoes, which I quite like seem to have disappeared. I'm not homophobic, I don't have any gay friends as such, but the jury is out on a few. Regardless, I find that when it comes to shirts, I can buy quite gayly patterned chequered shirts, the problem being they are indeed gayly patterned. Buying one would be like asking to be rogered. I can buy all sorts of shorts, shorts and T shirts all of which send out the wrong message. 
But what I need is the Gene Hunt collection. The sort of clothes and shoes that Jack Reagan wore. The sort of Terry McCann ensemble, that shouts I'm gonna punch you, hard, if you try it on. Not some flimsy thin cotton see through shirt and too tight pants, I don't want short sleeves that display my muscles, because I don't really have any. I have a punch that would take down a horse, but the muscles don't look good. And my knuckles don't look good afterwards either, because I'm not some sort of movie star I am a real person. What I want is real persons clothes. But all that the stores stock is trainers and sports wear. Which is pseudo ironic when it comes in XXXXL sizes.

It's over a month since I posted this and I still haven't bought new shoes. My soles are now so thin that if I stand on a penny I can tell you whether it's heads or tails. Roll on the Autumn fashions, because the summer range just ain't doing it for me.

Etiquette for the dead.

My father passed away recently, a harrowing experience that fortunately I will only have to go through once. Although I am close to my father in law too, so maybe not. It is of course part of life's normal order that we should, at some point bury our parents. I buried my Dad many years ago on Withernsea beach, but of course he wasn't dead then.
It is perhaps part of the healing process that I can find some humour in the darkness. Dad always had a grin on his face, and the wrinkles around his eyes were not from the weariness of age, but from the laughter that filled his life, whatever the hardships thrown at him, so it is natural I suppose that I inherited some of that humour and attitude. So whilst the last two weeks or so have been awful, there have been moments to reminisce and remember the good times too.
Dad loved a joke, so he would have found it funny that on greeting the assembled congregation of friends and family Father Dominic, the Catholic priest conducting the requiem mass for Dad welcomed everyone to Martins' funeral - I am Martin, my Dad was Dennis, but he would have laughed out loud at the mistake. More than I did. I had to check my pulse to make sure I was still here. In his defence Father Dominic had dealt almost exclusively with me for the funeral arrangements, and I had just thrown in a few last minute changes, so he probably had me in mind instead of Dad. And he did have the decency to apologize for his gaffe.
Anyhow, having given that little introduction the matter of funeral etiquette is the topic of today's blog.  
I have acted as pall bearer once before - one of the hardest jobs in the world if it is one of your own, but something that in my mind simply MUST be done. We look after our own ought to be our family motto. (It isn't, Ultra Pergere is the family motto - meaning "To advance further") But we do look after our own. I carried the coffin of my nephew Kai Dennis who died in infancy, sharing that emotional burden with his Dad , my brother David. Carrying a featherweight coffin, knowing that a life has been snubbed out within two weeks was a heavy burden. Carrying your Dad is no easier, but the emotions are different I suppose. David who is serving in the RAF has service values, so it was natural he would want to shoulder the burden too, but what threw me was the rest of the family. My older brother Andrew stepped in, along with my nephews, Roger and Richard, but what raised a few eyebrows was when my sister Sheila also took a handle. The churchyard almost emptied of air as older relatives sharply inhaled. A woman, carrying a coffin? Well, why not? Tradition has it's place of course, but I was proud of my sister for having the guts to do it, Dad would have been proud too. It would have meant a lot to him. I'm not sure where in the book of decent etiquette we stand on that one, but it was right for us, and that's what counts.
I picked up Dads ashes today from the funeral directors. This raises another set of questions as to etiquette. Should the ashes go in the car boot? That seemed disrespectful and wrong to me, so I sat him on the back seat, and put the seat belt around him. Then there was the question of where to take him. My youngest sister asked why I had left the ashes in the car when I visited mum, but mum gave the impression she didn't want he ashes in the house. So he came home with me. But then comes the question of where to keep him? I know he wanted his ashes scattering on the River Humber where in life he loved to go fishing, but until then he has to stay somewhere. What does etiquette and convention dictate? Leaving him in the garage or shed seems disrespectful and tasteless, but setting up a shrine in the house seems excessive. I settled for placing him in the front room alongside the fireplace, but my wife is uneasy even with that. He looks quite smart in a red velvet bag, covering a black plastic container. He's certainly lost a few pounds since last Thursday too.
In a few days time of course it wont be a problem, I'll get the family together and we'll scatter the ashes in accordance with his wishes on the river. But until then I hope I'm doing the right thing, because nowhere is there any guide to what to do with the ashes of a dead parent.

God recalls all humans manufactured dawn of time to present day for modification.

For some years now the motor industry has had a system in place where if a car or component on a car develops a safety issue they can recall the model or batch concerned for replacement or modification of the affected part. This has saved many lives. It is a good thing.
I wonder however if God the creator has a similar system in place. Recent events cause me to believe this may now be necessary. I am not talking about things like heart or brains, which are no longer fit for purpose as they wear out before the rest of us does these days with our advances in modern medicine. We can hardly blame God for extending our life span beyond the warantee period.
No the problem lies in a malfunction I discovered on my 1968 male model body. It is of average mileage and in reasonable condition, but probably in need of a tune up, however I suspect the fault I experienced could be replicated in other models of any age or sex.
Those of a nervous disposition may chose to stop reading now. But then you'll be at risk if this happens to you. It would seem that due to a design flaw, under certain conditions, such as eating salad dressed in hot chilli pepper sauce (Yes, I know, I have unusual tastes) it is possible to sneeze and hiccup at the same time. This involuntarily forces small pieces of red hot chilli coated lettuce into the nasal membrane, where the result is somewhat spectacularly painful.
Over the years I have been sprayed with CS gas, Pava Spray and various other noxious irritants. Believe me this is worse. Unable to see due to the gallons of water gushing from my eyes, and struggling to breathe because of further sneezing triggered by the irritant and more hiccups every time I tried to draw breath I genuinely thought my number was up. And the burning pain was beyond description in a family Blog. At one point I paid serious consideration to taking my nose off with a blunt axe to try and relieve it. Trying to douse the fire by snorting water up my nose throw a straw didn't help matters, if anything it just spread the flames further. My wife returned home from work to find me apparently having some sort of religious seizure whilst waterboarding myself in the kitchen sink. The words "God help me," bubbling through the suds of fairy liquid must have come as a shock . With drinking straws on the worktop and me flushed, sweaty and foaming at the mouth she probably thought I'd downed a kilo of heroin. Perhaps I should have emptied the washing up bowl first, but it was an emergency.
What are the odds of such a hiccup/sneeze backfire I wonder? Whatever they are it is too high a risk. God should recall all humans and fit them with some sort of blowback control valve. Perhaps hiccups could be diverted via the backside. A few uncontrollable farts must be less embarrassing than drowning in your own washing up, and definitely less painful.

I want to beleive

UFO's don't exist. Or rather they do, but only in the sense that hey are Unidentified Flying Objects rather than little green men visiting from outer space. UFO's obvioulsy do exist, but only because we can't identify them. Once we do they are simple aircraft weather balloons or chinese lanterns, or whatever we identify them as. Stand on a motorway bridge and try to identify the cars going by. In the sea of Nissans, Toyotas, Fords, Vauxhalls and Citroens there will undoubtedly be something you can't identify. The latest Kia, or a Chrysler. This of course does not mean that Kias don't exist, of course they do, it just means you can't identify it. You can describe it as some strange car, but only someone in the know can tell you which car it is.  But just because you can't identify it doesn't mean you doubt the existence of cars, right? Same with UFO's. And when you see something really odd like a Bristol, an Alvis or a Bugatti, it blows you mind. But it's still only a car.

Whilst I would like to believe that aliens from other solar systems are visiting, evidence strongly suggests otherwise, as proven by recent events. As I type, cosmonauts are attempting to fix a leak in the ammonia filled cooling system that protects the solar electric supply on the space station. This we are being told is damage caused by a meteor strike. We are not talking about  huge ball of flaming rock either, the damage could have been caused by something as small as a pin head. A minute piece of space debris travelling at speed could, at any time, pierce the shell of the space station damaging it and potentially killing all those on board. This of course means that interstellar travel would be highly dangerous, and arguably impossible. The space station orbits the earth at just a few hundred miles up. Cosmically speaking this is just outside the front door. And stepping out the door has been enough to take major damage. So, if we were to travel across our own solar system, the equivalent of strolling around our front garden, the odds of being hit increase dramatically. And consider this - we are simply strolling. Or possibly, because we are mere infants in this space exploration lark, merely crawling on all fours. Any aliens visiting from other galaxies would have to be travelling at tremendous speeds to cross the interstellar distances involved within their own lifespans, so their craft must surely be like pepperpots within a few streets on the cosmic scale. It just couldn't be done.

Consider the situation with the volcanic ash cloud a year or so back. They reckoned that an aircraft entering the ash cloud at cruise speed of around 300 mph would be stripped of it's paintwork in no time, and the engines would fail as ash glassified in the inlets. Travelling through the depths of space with all manner of flotsam, jetsam and detritus surely the same applies? And no self respecting alien is going to turn up on a strange new planet with tarnished paintwork and a knackered engine when the nearest starship repair centre is several thousand light years away. They wouldn't be seen dead in it - although naturally they would if it had been struck by meteors.

I have been having doubts about whether we ever even landed on Mars ever since I saw a documentary that pointed out several inconsistencies in the film footage, but now this new understanding convinces me. No spacecraft we can conceive could make the journey without risk of being bombarded by tiny little meteorites that would destroy it. Another factor that convinces me is that we are told that Apollo rockets used less computing power than a pocket calculator. Well my home PC is far more advanced than the 1960's computer technology, but it crashes with monotonous frequency, and to be honest I wouldn't trust it to speak my weight, never mind navigate to the moon and back. The Americans must have faked the whole thing to convince the Russians they had superior technology, thus securing world peace - of a sort.

And yet..... I still want to believe that life exists outside our little blue and green globe. If it doesn't then the rest of the universe makes no sense - what is it there for? Aliens must have superior technology to protect their spacecraft with some sort of anti gravity meteor proof shield  to allow them to travel cross the universe freely. And when we, a supposedly intelligent life form, still buries it's rubbish in a hole in the ground, makes TV documentaries about the most inadequate members of society for it's own entertainment and burns oil in little explosions to make chariots go around there is no hope at all for the future, unless we gain outside help, or evolve into something better quickly.

So, here's my theory. Life does exist on other planets, they have visited here and they are guiding us and ready to save us from ourselves. They may have already made contact, and that is why the familiar face of the alien grey is slowly being drip fed into popular sci-fi culture, to prepare us for the official announcement. They are almost certainly pointing us towards technological advancements. Lets' face it, we have had thousands of years of evolution in which we have achieved the wheel and fire, and very little else - agriculture and rudimentary medicine and music perhaps. Then within just a couple of centuries we come up with the steam engine, internal combustion, electricity, computers, microwave ovens, X rays, chips, DVD players space travel, Ryan Air, telephone, television, rock and roll and the internet. And lets be honest we just don't have the intellect for any of that. Take away electricity and within a month we would all be on the same level as monkeys again, or at best plunged back into the dark ages. Most of the Jeremy Kyle audience are still there, proof if need be that man has not evolved to the point of flying to the moon. No, there is more going on than we are aware of, and I for one will be watching the night skies more closely from now on.

I want to believe.

Greenpeace needs recycling.

I like to think of myself as a normal sort of person (despite my warped sense of humour) I recycle as much stuff as I reasonably can, and like most parents I run around the house after the rest of the family closing doors and turning lights off. I hate seeing food go to waste and will happily eat stuff well past it's best before date rather than throw it in the bin. As long as it is roughly the same colour as it's meant to be, doesn't smell too bad and isn't growing larger than it ought to be with a fur coat then it's edible. I save old bits of scrap wood and metal, in case they come in handy. I have solar panels on my roof to make my own electric and I have a water butt in the garden to collect rainwater for the garden. I think I do my bit.

I refuse therefore to be bullied into caring for the planet. So far as I can tell it's much bigger and older than me, and it has survived pretty well on it's own.

Charities however think differently. Greenpeace keep sending me emails begging for money. According to Greenpeace evil corporations are exploiting our planet drilling for oil in the polar regions and doing massive environmental damage. This is killing polar bears and melting the ice caps. Apparently.
Greenpeace beleive they can save the polar caps from melting if I pay them enough money. They will save the lives of many cute polar bears.

Well let's just think about this shall we. I don't buy the cute polar bear image - they are vicious bastards who kill for fun. And they are all left handed, which is just sinister. Had they said penguins they might have been in with a chance. Any animal that evolves to such a degree that it can only survive in a specialist environment just wasn't thinking about survival when it evolved. So polar bears have what's coming to them. Or do they? By my reckoning, they have 50,000 years in which to evolve into something that likes it warmer and with less snow. And then they'll have to evolve back again.

Secondly, if I pay Greenpeace money, they will drive in cars to an airport, then fly out to somewhere near the polar regions before getting on diesel burning boats to go and disrupt oil drilling operations which they say are responsible for the melting ice caps. But surely their flights will contribute to the global warming they say man is causing, thus further weakening the fragile planet? And I hardly think that setting up a protest camp outside the doors of BP, Shell and Mobil will have any real effect. The oilmen will go fully prepared for the elements, knowing they have a tough job to do. The sandal wearing hippy hypocrites will have to do the same, burning lots of fossil fuel to keep themselves warm. And they won't be able to do what the Inuits do and wear seal skin and polar bear fur, because that's cruel to the nice animals. 

Thirdly,let's look at the science of it all. The earth has a wobble in it's axis, this is what gives us winter and summer. We now know that the earth is on a tilting elliptical spiralling orbit, gravitational pulls from other orbiting bodies affect our orbit to a greater or lesser degree each time we meet. This maximizes, or minimizes the wobbling tilt of the earth, and when these forces are multiplied as two or more of the orbiting masses co-incide we get an ice age. That ice will then gradually melt until weather cycles, and the above forces shove us into another cycle of ice age. Global warming is not caused by mankind, it is a naturally occurring event, and nothing Greenpeace or anyone else can do will avert it.  We are due another ice age in around 50,000 years time. Greenpeace really need to start thinking about how we are going to survive that, and start working with the global corporations and scientists  not thwarting them as they try to make the best of the limited resources our planet has.

So on this issue at least, don;t give to Greenpeace, save your money, spend it on a big block Chevy and burn as much fossil fuel as you like, because you only have one lifetime to enjoy it. And 49,930 years or so after you've gone you won't need to worry about global warming, the ice caps or polar bears.

FOOTNOTE: Did I mention, by the way that just two of the fleet of four North sea Ferries operating from Hull put put out more CO2 pollution each year than every car in the UK combined? I'm still going to Amsterdam on my holidays on the ferry though. It's too wet to drive. Bloody global warming.

Difficulty making both ends meat

There has been much in the media in recent weeks about the presence of horse meat in our burgers, mince and other processed foods. This does not concern me unduly. The French have always eaten horsemeat, and other than smelling of garlic is doesn't seem to have done them any harm.
On it's heels comes the news that ASDA SmartPrice corned beef might contain vets drugs.
This doesn't concern me either, as I rarely eat corned beef, and if I do it just means I'll get a decent nights sleep for a change. Probably.
It might concern me if my children were likely to eat drug contaminated meat, although this is as likely as an honest politician. The girl child appears top have turned into a vegetarian. I don't know why, but I suppose i have to live with it. The boy child is much more frustrating. He will eat processed chicken nuggets, made from reconstituted chicken and mechanically recovered crap pressed into loose chunks with bits of pork, fat and the lips and tongues etc, then covered in breadcrumbs so it looks nice. But he resolutely refuses to eat fresh chicken breast.
Even more frustrating is his stance over sausages. These are loosely speaking made of meat, the origin of which is debatable, breadcrumbs, spices and in some cases wood shavings. He will happily eat the middle of the sausages, but will not eat the ends. I have explained that the ends are exactly the same as the middle but to no avail. I have explained that the ends are entirely arbitrary, in that up until someone (or these days a machine) twists the sausages into separate links, that part of the sausage is exactly the same as the rest of the sausage. Does he understand this? Yes. Does he agree this is the case? No. Would it matter then if the people at Walls and Richmond filled the ends with wood pulp? After all, in the current recession they must be finding it as hard of the rest of us in making both ends meat.

You couldn't make it up.

It really is beyond belief. The BBC news last night reported the story of a school which has banned it's dinner ladies from selling triangular shaped flapjack after a child had to be sent home when another child threw a slice of flapjack at his eye causing him an injury. Well actually he probably just threw it in his general direction, I doubt he would have ballistic accuracy with a slice of flapjack, whatever it's shape. I will point out at this point that the child made a full recovery. In other words he was just a bit upset.
I would consider this a freak accident, and would not rearrange the menu simply to prevent the highly unlikely event being repeated. But just look a the probabilities. A triangle has three points and three sides. The chances of being struck by a point are equal to the chances of being struck by a side. The school has been told to serve only square or rectangular pieces of flapjack. These have four corners and four sides. So whilst the chances of being hit by a corner remain the same at 50/50, the chances of being hit by a corner are 33% higher when compared with a triangle. And I would doubt the ballistic accuracy of a square of flapjack is any worse than that if a triangular piece.
Of course what the school has failed to take into account is the devious nature of school children. What will prevent them, left with their cutlery, from cutting the square of flapjack diagonally across and thus arming them with not one, but two triangular pieces of lethal flapjack? The consequences are unthinkable.
And if triangular flapjack is such a safety hazard within the school canteen, then surely wedges of quiche and slices of all sorts of pie should be outlawed too?
You really couldn't make this up. It's Health and Safety gone mad etc etc........
Of course those of a certain age will know of the real danger in school canteens - chocolate crunch with pink custard. This stuff really was dangerous. If Teflon is the slipperiest substance known to man then chocolate crunch is definitely the hardest. If the local council could only get hold of the recipe they could solve the pothole problem in an instance. Attempting to eat this stuff was nigh on impossible. An entire generation of dentists were able to retire early as a result of the inclusion of chocolate crunch onto the school meals menu. Hitting it with the sharp edge of a spoon would, when around 3 1/2 tonnes of pressure per square inch had been applied, result in the stuff shattering, with pieces flying everywhere. Many a child would go home with shrapnel wounds when chocolate crunch had been on the menu. People born in the mid sixties proudly show off their scars. Soaking the stuff in the accompanying pink custard after turning it upside down helped a little but not much. All that happened then was that the stricken child would go home with a simulated gunshot wound with unsightly creamy white stains around it, because the pink was a mere illusion, it always dried creamy white. It was a different time of course, before Yogurt and Lettuce were invented, but it was part of what out the backbone in British kids. So, let them eat triangular flapjack. Otherwise they will all grow up without the nerve to ever try a Vindaloo, or a late night Kebab. And the world will be a darker place without that.
  

Now I really don't understand money - budget review.

As I admitted in my previous post, I don't understand money. And I sure as hell don't understand the budget.
We have had three years of austerity, with pay freezes in the public sector, redundancies, cost efficiency measures, pay cuts, tax rises, pension benefits reduced and we will all have to work longer. But this, we are told is for the greater good, as we will bounce out of recession in no time and be richer in wealth and experience. However despite all the savings the Government still borrowed £21 billion last year and £20 billion the year before (in rough terms - give or take a million, and when you're talking in billions what does a million here or there matter? Ask the CPS) Even with all those savings and all that money borrowed growth is at a standstill and inflation is rising.
Despite being in debt, and in a recession we continue to give away millions in foreign aid. This is so that African clan leaders and warloads can buy more guns and new Mercedes, and spend a very small percentage of what we send on buying a well, or building a school out of corrugated tin. It wouldn't be so bad if they spent the money on British guns, but they don't, they buy Chinese copies of the excellent Russian AK-47. So UK Plc doesn;t benefit at all from this, other than we get a nice warm glow from helping save ungrateful nations from their own stupidity in order that they can grow up and become terrorists to fight against us. But I digress.
We fell into this recession, if memory serves, because a bunch of greedy Americans loaned money to people to buy houses who had no hope of ever paying the money back. This caused soem American banks to collapse, which in turn, for reasons I am not able to fully grasp, caused Northern Rock, a UK bank to also collapse. And then caused lots of other financial institutions to have collywobbles of their own until suddenly it was my problem, even though I don't own a bank. I am in the happy position where whilst I have very little money, I owe very little money too, so I could manage reasonably well without a bank at all. So, in a nutshell, lending money to people who can't pay it back is not a good idea. Obviously you should only loan money to rich people, who can pay it back. But then, they don't need to borrow it because they are rich.
Anyhow, it would seem that the Chancellors plan to get the economy moving is that he will borrow £21 billion again this year. He will then use this to help people who can't afford the deposit to buy a house, to buy a house. This will be in the form of some sort of loan, which if they can't afford a mortgage, they will have no hope of paying back. Sound familiar?
Elsewhere in the budget, a political master stroke, Mr Osbourne announces he will not increase the duty in fuel that he had planned for the Autumn. We are supposed to be grateful for this. 'I am cancelling this September's fuel duty increase altogether,' said Osborne. 'Fuel is now 13p cheaper than it would have been,' he claimed. Well there's a convenient conversion back to imperial measures for a start. Yes it's 13p a gallon cheaper, but only 3p a litre which is what it is sold in. 3p doesn't sound as impressive as 13 p though does it?And don't forget that's not 3p a litre coming OFF the price, that's the removal of a 3p per litre increase he had previously threatened. So, If I threaten to punch him in the face, but then say I've changed my mind, does that make it all okay?
The only other striking bit of news in the budget was a reduction in the price of a pint of beer by 1p. Wow! With beer costing on average £3 a pint in pubs that is really something to drink to. Actually he missed a trick there, becasue had he converted it to litres it's more than twice as much at 2.1 pence per litre. So, for example, if you are a raging alcoholic and drink 10 pints of beer every day, that will save you £36.50 a year, enough to buy another 12 pints, and one for yourself darling. If on the other hand, like me, you enjoy a nice glass of red wine at home you save nothing. Or if you have the occasional pint after walking 30 miles in the beautiful rural North Yorkshire moors, at a nice country pub, assuming it hasn't closed down because of the recession, it will save you only about 5 pence a year. Which is more than the 3p a litre you'll have not saved on the reduction in the fuel duty that never was in the first place.
The final bit of budget news I caught was that we will now be able to earn £10000 before paying any tax at all. Unless you are a mulitnational company in which case it will remain as it was £100,000 million.
Of course what George should have done is gone down to "Cash for Gold" with the nations gold reserves and flogged them - but too late, seems like the preceding Labour Government already did that.

I don't understand money, but I've worked out how to fund war heroes care.

I don't understand money, possibly because I have never had enough of it to be on close terms. I know money only as a fleeting acquaintance. For example a recent £3000 endowment policy matured, and remained within my bank account for about an hour before it paid off my credit card balance and for some urgent repairs on my car. They say money talks, but mine barely has time to learn the local dialect before it is saying goodbye.
I follow the basics of finance, in that there are 100 pennies to the pound, and six zeros behind a million, and 9 behind a billion (unless you are American, they seem to follow their own rules)
I can even follow basic interest rates in that 2% interest means you get £102 a year back for every £100 invested. What I can't quite follow is negative interest, the idea that the bank would charge me to look after my money, so that for every £100 I invest I get £98 back. A financial dumb dumb I may be, but at that point shoving it under the mattress seems a better option. Particularly as I have a safe built into the house which I could throw the mattress on top of. Of course having cash around the house is not a good idea in these dark times. Anything over a couple of hundred quid and you are likely to mistaken for a drugs baron money laundering his ill gotten gains, because we live pretty much in a cashless society otherwise. I rarely have more than £30 in my wallet, and being a working married man it is usually less than that.
What I can't comprehend however is other peoples attitude to money.

Hitting the headlines today is the story of two senior employees with the Crown Prosecution Service. They are apparently being investigated in a fraud case for up to £1 million expenses claimed for taxi fares. This is a staggering amount. I would assume that this has accrued over a number of years, but how? Has nobody noticed this? 1/2 a million each in taxi fares couldn't go unnoticed even over five years. And surely the accountants do an annual review, the Inland Revenue must look at the figures, and Mr CPS Limited can;t have failed to notice the money leeching from the public funds. Lets' say then that this must have happened with the last financial year to have gone unnoticed at the last review. Allowing these guys two weeks leave there are 50 working weeks to keep things simple. £1/2 a million over 50 weeks is £10,000 a week. Excuse me? I bought a 4 year old Vauxhall Vectra a few years back for less than half of that, and can run it for a year on a couple of grand including insurance. That allows one hell of a parking budget and still gives change out of £10000. I could pay a chauffeur a handsome £30000 a year to drive me around and still only spend £40000 a year. So in one month I could have bought a decent car paid for it's running costs. In two or three months I could have bought and paid for a brand new executive car and been chauffeur driven whilst a private masseur attended to my every need. Yet these guys were claiming that much for black cabs and nobody noticed? I can only assume they were being driven by his holiness The Stig in a gold plated special edition Bugatti Veyron.

It beggers belief that public money can be squandered unnoticed by other public officials in this way and yet we force our war heroes to sell their homes to pay for their care in their twilight years. Because the other news that caught my eye this week was the story of a WW2 RAF fighter pilot, who was decorated for many deeds of bravery and had an enviable 19 kills to his score sheet during the hostilities with Germany, is being forced to sell his medals to raise the estimated £120,000 he needs to pay for his care home. This is an absolute disgrace. We owe our lives and freedom to "the few" and those who battled in the theater of war so that we might enjoy those freedoms. The medals we present them with are mere bits of stamped metal but their rarity and what they stand for makes them value able beyond words to the recipients and their fallen comrades, their families and those who understand what they went through. That they can be sold to the highest bidder, some faceless collector who doesn't deserve them is abhorrent  That the ex serviceman should have to consider that option in his twilight years is a national disgrace.
So how about this for a suggestion. We currently have 2.5 million unemployed in receipt of benefits. This week we should deduct £1 from each of their benefit payments and fund the care of this war hero and others like him. £2.5 million could be raised just like that. A proportion of those 2.5 million, the genuinely unemployed minority would, I am sure, willingly donate a pound. The remainder are being funded by the workers and have their rights and freedoms funded by the surviving war heroes and others who gave their lives and endured hardships so they wouldn't have to, so a pound is the least they can give. And if, next week another war hero finds himself in the same position, we should do the same again. Because I'd be happier with a pound of my taxes supporting the genuinely needy than some drug taking alcoholic fat lazy scumbag on a council estate. And heroes should be buried with their medals, or pass them on to their families - lest we forget.
In essence it would seem we can spend public money on taxis for able bodied bureaucrats without anyone worrying, but we can't pay for a care home for retired disabled ex-servicemen.

Work harder to earn less.

As a kid I was encouraged to work hard to get on in life. My dad wasn't bothered what career I went into, whether it was emptying the bins or something more lowly, like an MP. Actually, he'd have probably disowned me if I had become an MP. The point was though, that hard work earned success, and success lead to a better lifestyle, and higher income.
However, the austerity measures have left me increasingly doubtful of Dads wisdom. Casual overtime used to be paid at time and a half, now it is time and a third. Working on a day off used to be double time, but now it's time and a half. So, work harder and you can still earn more, but less than you could.
So far so good. But today I got my tax code notice. Bad news is always buried in the good, and if something looks too good to be true it usually is. Too bloody true. On the face of it I can now earn an extra £1330 without paying tax. However, the tax bandings have been revised, which takes back a good proportion of that, meaning that I now pay 40% tax on the £530 basic pay that goes over the threshold. Following this so far? Basically I pay no tax on more money, the same amount of tax on just as much money but more tax on less money.
And then there is the question of overtime. If I have understood this correctly any overtime I work now will be taxed at the 40% rate which means that I will be earning £3.50 an hour LESS on overtime than I am on standard time. This wouldn't be so bad if mine was a job where overtime can be avoided, but it isn't. It's often an operational necessity to work overtime.
So, basically the harder I work, the more tax I pay and the less I earn. Meanwhile, some people don't work at all and had their benefits increased last year. Go figure!

Gale force winds save the economy

For many years gales have been measured using numbers, with Gale Force 10 being the strongest, and Gale Force 1 hardly worth a mention. Gale Force 1, so far as I can tell, is a breeze. Whilst we think of a force 10 as likely to take our roof off.
But has the "Force" scale gone out of fashion? We hardly hear of it on the weather forecast these days. Now we get Amber warnings, and if it gets really bad, I p[resume we will get a red warning. Which is all very nice, but the people with wind turbines will be very disappointed to get months and months of green warnings.
And even when the wind gets up really high, as it has done in the last few days around here, the little arrows on the weather map mean nothing to real people. 13 with a directional arrow? What is that about? Is it mph, kph or something else?
What I need is a windspeed indicator which warns, in no uncertain terms that my fence is about to fall over. A clear indicator that the solar panel is about to be blown off the summerhouse roof. And how this will affect my bank balance.
So, I am pleased to report I have the solution. It is rather localised I'm afraid, but in general terms the wind which blew through last Thursday rated £100 on the damage scale. That's on a DIY basis obviously. If I had a tradesman in to repair the damage it could easily have rated £300 to £400.
This compares favourably with the storm several years ago which rated at a DIY score of £300 and that was sharing the costs with the neighbour. Mind you, the shared fence very nearly took out his front room windows, so it could have been even higher.
The problem with this scale of course is that it can only be applied AFTER the event. Rather like the weather forecast, which spends the first five minutes telling us about the weather that has already happened. I know about the weather that happened, I was in it. Just warn us about the weather to come thanks. Specifically the local weather. the very local weather. The weather that will knock my fence down, block my driveway, burn me, make me wet, or freeze me.

I've just realized that I have turned into the archetypal Brit, talking about the weather because he has nothing else interesting to say. Well, to quote Stan Laurel - "A lot of weather we've been having lately."

Am I alone in thinking that wind is just part of life and to get on with fixing the damage it has caused? It's an act of God, or one of the Gods, that's for sure. But can I claim on my insurance for high winds? People claim for floods, and that is just weather, after all. Perhaps I'm missing out here. Wind certainly makes money for my local fencing supplier. It has probably kept his business going through the austerity measures. Maybe I should get on that gravy train too.

Roman Sunset - a short story by Martin Thorp

Okay, instead of my usual drivel here's a short story I've written which I've entitled "Roman Sunset" although I'll probably think of a better on later. Read and digest, if you enjoy I'd appreciate any comments. If you don't enjoy I'd still appreciate your comments. Just not as much. I know it's probably a bit rough around the edges and might have the odd typo and spelling mistake, but is the plot idea any good that's the question?

ROMAN SUNSET a short story by Martin Thorp

I’d overstretched myself, and I knew it. I ought to admit it to myself, I am not as young as I once was, and with failing health I shouldn’t push myself so hard. But then, I’d rather die alone here and now on the moors, than a few months older in a sterile hospital bed surrounded by two faced family, covertly bickering about the will.

I seemed to have been walking for days, and every step now was an effort. It was my own fault though. I loved walking in Yorkshire, and a rare day off on a warm late autumn Wednesday had been too good a chance to pass over. To be honest, every day could be a day off, I was well over due for retirement, but retire to what? Everyday the same, watching Jeremey Kyle, Top Gear and Emmerdale, slurping soup and waiting for God to come and claim my tarnished soul. No, that wasn’t for me, so I kept up my job although on reduced hours now. There’s only so much a man in his late sixties riddled with cancer can do, and I was increasingly aware that subtly my responsibilities were being taken on by the younger fitter members of staff. They didn’t know about the cancer of course, I kept that to myself. They all assumed that as a reasonably well off widower I just kept working for the company, that I didn’t want to spend my days alone. Far from the truth, it wasn’t loneliness that I feared, but boredom, and the infinity that lay ahead once my ageing body surrendered, leaving my healthy alert mind trapped.

I loved the solitude of the moors, the stretching silence punctuated only by the sounds of nature and the occasional whoosh of a distance car on the open roads. Sometimes it was so quiet the only sound would be my own breathing and my own footsteps as I shuffled, leaden footed, leaning heavily on my stick on the tougher gradients. And those gradients were getting tougher, even more so as I tired. I knew in my heart this would probably be my last chance to hike these parts, I was weakening by the day, and if the fat lady wasn’t singing she was certainly looking at the play list to see what might go down well. I’d stopped taking the medicines a month ago, they made me nauseous and dizzy, and they didn’t really work anyway. The end game was on, so here I was, making the best of it, an old man with a mission, to seal his memories, capture the past in photographs, so that when the family forced me into the hospice to die I would have a little book filled with Yorkshire in there with me.

I’d parked the car just after first light in Cropton Forest, in a small layby shielded by trees, marked as the Newtondale Forest Drive. That gave me a marvellous view down into the valley over the Goathland railway and the river Pickering, down into the wonderfully quaintly named Hole of Horcum and across to the Saltergate Inn, where I planned to have a relaxed lunch and a beer. I’d walked this area many a time in my youth, and was as familiar with it as the locals who were lucky enough to live with this landscape on their doorsteps, instead of the brick and concrete of the city I endured daily.

I hadn’t bothered to pack a map, going against the sensible hikers rules of course, and I didn’t have a compass either, but I wasn’t concerned. I knew the area well, and I was otherwise well prepared for anything the weather could throw at me. My rucksack was a huge but lightweight modern goretex job, a pale sage green with many Velcro and zip fastened pockets, containing food and water to last easily overnight with spare dry clothing, first aid kit, a kettle and stove, eating irons and the essential whistle, torch and matches. Plus of course, like any modern hiker and despite muy age, I had my tablet phone, with built in SatNav. I could work the essential functions on it, the phone, maps and email, but I’m sure it could do a lot more beyond the needs of an elderly technophobe. I had reached my IT ceiling many years back once DVD’s were invented.

It had been a cool but bright start to the day, but after a half hour hiking I had stripped down to shorts and a t shirt, the sweat top and cargo pants getting stuffed into the Bergen on top of the wet weather gear and sleeping bag inside. The walk down through the devils punchbowl which is the Hole of Horcum saw a sheen of perspiration glistening on my forehead, the rim of my saggy old beige bush hat soaking up the excess. I was breathing hard by the time I arrived at the Saltergate Inn only to find it obviously closed, the lower windows boarded over and the frontage festooned in scaffold tubes. I wasn’t desperate for a pint, but I do like to reward myself with one during and after a good hike. I knew there was a very welcoming pub down in Levisham, a picture postcard village down the other side of the Hole, but then I figured I wasn’t so very far from Goathland either. It was still before midday, so I decided I would push on along the A169, past Fylingdales and into Goathland, where several pubs ought to be open. The other driver of course was the chance to see Mallyan Spout again, and then planning my route in my head, I would return across Wheeldale Moor along the old Roman Road.

And so it had gone. I had a very refreshing pint of ale in Goathland, then dropped down the valley to Mallyan Spout where I dipped my feet in the icy cold water before replacing my boots, refreshed and ready for the return haul.  I spent a good quarter of an hour shooting the waterfall from all angles, the reliable Cannon DSLR making the best of the dappled sunlight playing off the shimmering water, deepening the shadows and highlighting the fairylight twinkles of the spray, rainbows dancing in a multihued green backdrop.  I’d considered taking a video camera with me, but decided against it. Video captures an event, like a news film, and without a lot of editing and buggering about it always looks amateur. No, for me, a still picture, well composed is far better at trapping a memory. If I’d been any good with a brush I’d have tried painting, but photography was second best.

I’d have liked to have continued on along the valley and out to Beck Hole, the pub there with its little wild bird garden was always a treat, but I knew I was pushing my luck, the air was starting to cool, the skies clouding over. If I had the chance, if I had another day, maybe I’d fit in that visit.

Hauling myself back up out of the valley was hard work, I had to steady myself more than once with my hands, and rely heavily on my stick. Reaching the top road again my heart was pounding, I could hear the blood rushing in my ears and the pain from the exertion of worn out muscles was agony. Reaching Hunt House road I stopped at the bench and slipped my cargoes and sweat shirt back on. The clear blue skies of the morning had now filled with low grey clouds, the moorland weather changeable as ever. I strode out towards the Youth Hostel, glad that the surface was now level for a while and that at least it had remained dry.

By the time I reached the branch off at Hunt House the air was decidedly moist and cool, and a thin mist was forming. I swung open the gate and started onto the Roman road. The road is a bit of a mystery, because although generally termed as Roman it is potentially much older. The Romans are credited with building many of Britain’s roads, famously long and straight and built to last, with a definite structure. More recent researchers argue that the Romans simply reconstructed existing roads improving what they found with better surfaces and engineering. Wheeldale Road however differs from the Roman design, they were gravel topped, whilst Wheeldale is paved with large stone slabs. It also deviates from the straight, direct route one would expect of roman roads. That it was built at all is a mystery in itself. What outposts must it have linked? I had always been fascinated by it. To me it symbolized the stubborn resolute of the Yorkshireman that farms the bleak moors. It was built just because it could be, because others said it couldn’t be done, so they proved them wrong. That’s my theory anyway. Some say it linked Malton to Whitby, but there must have been easier routes. Carrying the tonnes of stone slabs up onto the remote fells must have been a mammoth task.    

The mist had thickened to a fog now, and my peripheral vision had gone, the fog was deadening what little sound there was too. The remains of the Roman road though were easy enough to follow, and I knew that if I kept going I would reach Keys Beck, then Brown Howe Road which would take me through the edge of Cropton Forest and back to where my Rover was parked. The light was failing now too, it would be dark before I reached the car, but not a problem, it was tarmac once I hit Keys Beck and I couldn’t get lost on a single track road. I wouldn’t want to be out on the moor itself in the dark; that is asking for trouble.

I became aware of a shadow on the path ahead, the vague suggestion of another hiker moving slower than me, but travelling in the same direction. Other than a few locals in Goathland I had barely seen a soul all day. Midweek and late in the season few hikers ventured out on the moors, and only those like myself, caught out by age and an ambitious route were likely to be out so late in the day. I wondered if the hiker must be lost, but the lone figure seemed to be walking with purpose, albeit slowly, slower than my own agonizing pace. I was gaining slowly, and decided in the gloom that the figure must be that of an elderly woman, appearing short and wiry and wearing a skirt and a strange hat of some sort, a plume of feathers or something visible in fog.

Occasionally as visibility got worse the figure would disappear in the swirling cloud, only to reappear moments later, and each time I had the impression the figure had moved ahead again, as if running whilst concealed only to slow down as soon it cleared once more. I was definitely gaining though. I assumed the walker must be local, looking at the upright posture and the suggestion of old and seemingly obscure rural clothing, perhaps a farmer or shepherd. As the fog swirled clear once more I was startled to see I had suddenly caught up with the figure, and he had turned to face me, stopping and staring past me, no through me, as if unseeing, but seeking something. It was a man I saw, and he wore against all probability a Roman Centurions uniform, or what I supposed one to look like. What I had mistaken for a skirt was a leather and hide kilt, he wore long knee length socks and sturdy leather sandles with thick soles, and enclosed toes. A metallic breastplate covered a thick woollen shirt, and despite the increasing chill he was bare armed and bare legged. What I had taken to be a plume of flowers in a close fitting hat was a metal cap with a plume of burgundy brushes. The man had a wide bladed heavy looking sword in a sheaf on a broad leather belt. He looked muscular and weather tanned, his skin tone matching the leather of his outfit, as though he spent much of his time outdoors. He appeared in his late thirties, maybe early forties, the first signs of grey appearing in his dark brown hair.

At my age I like to think I have seen everything and nothing surprises me, but seeing a middle aged man in fancy dress on the moortops, miles from anywhere sent my brain reeling for a moment. Then explanations began top present themselves. Maybe he was a student and this was some sort of stunt? No, too old for a student. No, he must be an actor, they’ll be filming something and I’ve stumbled in across the set, there’ll be an angry director shouting at me any moment. It will be “Heartbeat” filming something, or maybe some period drama. Or maybe he’s just a crank? Whatever he was giving me the willies, looking straight through me like that.

I realised I had stopped walking and was leaning heavily on my stick again, my heart pounding from the exertion of walking, and of the sudden surreal experience. I had stopped maybe 30 feet from him, and still neither of us had spoken or acknowledged each other in any way. He seemed to be still scanning through me, looking beyond me and to either side, and I instinctively looked around to see who might be behind me. The camera man maybe? I felt I ought to say something and resorted to that reliable old English expression; “Good afternoon.”

The roman turned his head slightly, cocking his ear, as if struggling to hear me, yet there was not a sound to be heard other than my laboured breathing. The fog swirled, and he suddenly appeared to be more solid, the colours of his dress more vivid, and I realised with a start that he had been semi-transparent; the fog had been swirling through him until now. “Ego sum conscius vestri presenti,” he said. My language skills are poor at best, my Latin limited to the essentials I learned for sciences at school, but somehow I understood the gist of what he was saying. I know you’re there. “Ego fui questio vos.” I have been looking for you.

My mind reeled. I realised that whilst he was speaking his lips weren’t moving, although his facial expression showed puzzlement to match his sentiments. I then saw him start, and now he could see me, I could sense it, like he had been looking at one of those pictures with all the dots, and now suddenly saw the pattern. My body let me down then, the fatigue of walking, the pain, the cancer all conspired to collapse my legs and a sat with a bump onto a grassy tuft between the stones of the ancient road, the pain jarring up my back. “Who …..who are you?” It seemed a stupid thing to ask, but then it was a stupid situation, on the top of a moor with a ghostly figure dressed as a Roman centurion speaking ancient languages at me. Again he spoke, and again I understood not the words, as he spoke soundlessly, but the essence, the meaning became clear in my mind. “Vestri vicis has adveho, fatum specto in Olympus. Nos fui ut vado.” Your time is done, heaven is waiting. We must go now.

“I am a …..medic?” He spoke now in faltering English, as if he had had time to recalibrate and tune into my wavelength, and I wondered if he was hearing my words in his head as I heard his. I was faintly surprised to hear he had a vague Yorkshire accent, but then I realised he had spent a great deal of his own life in Yorkshire. I began to understand things without really knowing how I did, as if some collective knowledge was being downloaded into my brain, some sort of cosmic internet. “I am here to ease your path,” he said. He helped me to my feet and we walked a short distance to a dry stone wall, part of which had collapsed and I sat on the lowered section, taking off my rucksack and placing it on the ground besides me. I say I walked a short distance, the man, for I couldn’t comprehend him as anything else, but who I knew was some sort of spirit helped me along. I was in a lot of pain now, and I might have blacked out once or twice. I think he may have carried me in a firemans lift. I was passing in and out of consciousness, and I may have been hallucinating.

“Nos fui supervenio procul vestri electus locus.” He smiled and then translated himself, “I fall into my old ways,” he apologised, “We have arrived at your chosen place. The prodigium. The portal. Time is short. If you have affairs to finalise make your peace with the gods and the world now.”

The soldier, who I learned was called Marcus, explained as best as he could in his faltering English, and I understood, in that telepathic way that he was to be my spirit guide to whatever came next. I had many questions to ask, but seemed to know the answers without asking. That collective knowledge was really coming together now. And he was right, this was my chosen place, up on the high moors, in the clean clear air. I had decided long ago that if the choice were there I would die on my terms in my chosen place and not in some frigid sterile and godless hospital. I wasn’t a religious man and the time didn’t seem right to find religion even now, but it seemed right to me to go out in Gods beautiful country, admiring it to my last.

Time to make my peace with the world. I reached into my pocket and took out the tablet phone. No signal. No signal and no time. I should have said goodbye to my son, and now I felt selfish and ugly. My hand fell on my camera, and I considered, maybe I could leave one last photograph for posterity. I raised the camera and saw an icon of a sand timer filling the screen, the sands running out of the bottom. Marcus said gently “It is time.”

I felt a sudden loss of pressure and saw a sort of oily blackness seeping out of my body, a thick bloody tarlike substance, it had no real form, like a mist, but not like a mist, there as it leached into the ground but then melted away. And with it went the pain, the ugly cancer gone. I realised that I could breathe freely again, but at the same time knew I had no need. My body slumped and the last thing I saw was the fog clearing, it was bright again, the last rays of amber sun setting in a blaze of pinks and purples mimicking the heather moors below, and I was flying, soaring above the moors, a spirit free of pain and worry.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EPILOGUE

The policeman knocked on the door of the large detached house and was hustled in by the middle aged man who answered the door. “Have you found him?” he asked. The policeman nodded introducing himself, “PC Jackman, sir, from Grange End Police Station. I’m sorry, Mr Carter” he added, “I’m afraid I have bad news for you. The body of an elderly man was found on Wheeldale Moor earlier today. I believe this to be your father, he matches the description you gave us, and his car was found parked in Cropton Forest nearby. I am sorry, sir. You will need to formerly identify him of course, but I’m afraid there is little doubt.” Carter nodded “Thank you officer, you’ve all been very kind since he went missing.” Emotions running away with him, anger pushed forward, “Bloody old fool, going hiking alone at his age. I told him to go into the hospice, they would have taken care of him, but he wouldn’t listen. Always had to have his own way.”

The policeman explained that a formal identification would need to be carried out and did Carter feel up to it right away. Carter agreed, it may as well be done and over with, and after some arrangements were made by the telephone with North Yorkshire Police the officer organised transport and they set off. Little was said along the way, Carter and his wife sitting in dull silence throughout most of the hour long journey. As they entered the side wing of the mortuary and the curtains were pulled back Carter formerly identified his father’s body.

As they prepared to leave the officer handed Carter a carrier bag and a rucksack. “Your fathers things,” he explained, adding, “You’ll need to sign for them. There’s a camera here too, it was lying right besides him. I hope you understand sir, but we did have to look at the pictures he’d been taking, just to rule out any possibility of foul play you understand, make sure he was on his own, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, yes of course,” said Carter. “He was, of course, wasn’t he?”

“Oh yes,” said PC Jackman, “So far as we can tell. He was a talented photographer I must say, some incredible views of the moors. There was one shot that caused us some consternation though, do you mind if I show you? Some sort of double exposure I think, damned if I know how he’s done it. Must have been the last picture he took too.” He switched on the camera and flicked the review screen to show a picture of a handsome looking middle aged man, dressed as a roman soldier, his feet appearing a couple of inches above the surface of the Wheeldale Road, the figure semi-transparent, a slight ground level mist burning away over the heather and a brilliant pink and amber sunset stretching up into the clear deep blue sky overhead. “A cracking good shot,” said PC Jackman, “I always think a photo tells a story far better than a video can.”

THE END

The idea for the plot developed from my own experiences walking the moors. I too have often walked Wheeldale Moor, reputedly haunted by roman soldiers. Walking alone in the mist one late autumn evening I kept hearing someone coughing behind me, yet every time I checked there was nobody there, only a few scattered sheep. My overactive imagination had me meeting a ghost from the past. It turned out later that sheep have a very human sounding cough! Like the un-named character I too would rather die on my terms somewhere beautifully scenic and outdoors, with a glass of scotch than in some musty hospital ward. The only core difference being, if possible, I'd like my family around me, and for that day to be many years into the future.