1916 James Lovelock wins the day

Th magical wonder of Tuesday was a BBCi Player programme about James Lovelock, the man who invented a device to detect and measure CFC’s and with his family then undertook measurements when there was haze blocking the view he had as a child and this led to making a trip top the Antarctic to discover the extent of CFC’s in the world. His work led to others understanding the impact on the Ozone layer in the earth’s atmosphere and the international understanding that they had to eliminate CFC’s if humans are to be able to continue to live on this planet.

An invitation to assist US Space Exploration Scientists led him to develop his Gaia theory about the way living organisms have helped to protect the earth from the increasing heat of sun. The Space agency assembled the best minds to try and work out how to evaluate if there was life on Mars. James independently worked how to make the evaluation without going to Mars and his idea established that there was no life now. It was the study of the Martian atmosphere which led to develop his theory that through the process of natural selection living organism were creating and changing the atmosphere around the earth planet which sustained and developed human life. His ideas were immediately appreciated by some Christian leaders and New Age believers but met with considerable hostility on the part of the scientific establishment until he was able to demonstrate with the Daisy experiment that an organism can respond and adjust to the environment and in turn affect and which together with other examples substantially changed the view among scientists and others that one needs to looks at the planet as whole to full understand the interconnectivity and how revolutionary imbalances can cause irreversible changes such as the melting of the polar ice caps

In the first of three programmes about individualist creative scientists who have made profound discoveries James, who is ninety years of age explained how he became interested in sciences, discovered original scientific books in the basement of Balham public Library and decided to work on his own rather than within the institutions and laboratories of the scientific establishment. He remains one of the remarkable human beings of the generation before mine. His life and work confirmed our understanding that overall Creatives contribute more to society than those who follow conventional ways. However one as to be aware and take account of the potential downside.

The weather this weekend was most foul. Cold and wet but I did undertake work on the garage area under cover. Having repaired and sealed the brickwork above the garage door I completed the painting, pastel pink the brickwork, brilliant white the woodwork and pastel blue the door. I also commenced work on the side of the house which was further progressed on Monday, first cleaning off any fungus, then treating the areas with preventative and repairing and sealing, with the conditions unpleasant to work despite being undercover. Tuesday was also cold but brighter although rain during the day delayed work on the lower day room window. I was nearly able to complete the original task. What remains will take one half day session. In addition I propose to decorate the remaining area of garage floor with coloured side bands, more coloured gravel with a query on the remaining floor area. I will also do some work on the external toilet as well as on the bathroom which is in fact my next priority.

Having spent time on careful preparations and then on obtaining a good finish, at close inspection, as well as from a distance, I would rather leave and return than rush and regret.

I have photographs of working outside my former home three stories high, using a hired mobile scaffolding platform and then using my own self assembly unit which I purchased mail order and which had to tied to the property for safety reasons. I don’t like heights, avoiding standing at the edge of cliffs and building and getting up and working and then down again was one oft he achievements of my life as well as walking climbing a mountain in Scotland but which did involve some hands and knees sections. Nowadays getting up six and nine step ladders is something of an ordeal and requires care and I will be relieved when this part is over.

I had planed to spend the from Wednesday to Sunday at the cricket with the first 40 over game on Sunday, and as last week I will attend the opening day of game against Somerset, although going early to ensure a seat behind glass, unless it is raining hard and the start of play will be delayed. Durham must win the next game not to find themselves at the relegation end of the table with Yorkshire now some 40 ahead after two magnificent wins. Rain and bad light helped Durham to achieve a draw on Sunday when for most of the third day and morning of the fourth defeat seemed likely. My hope is the Will Smith does not go to pieces following the poor decision to field and his second innings duck. I was a little concerned about his admission that last year he had lacked the mental strength to undertake the captaincy and build long innings.

I enjoyed some TV football watching and listening over the last three days. The best game was Wigan at Arsenal where the away team scored three goals in ten minutes at the end of the game to win and the three points has secured their position in the Premiership while Arsenal’s feint hope of the Premier title vanished. Sunderland had a comfortable win against Burnley taking them to 13th and keeping Burnley the next favourite team to be relegated with Portsmouth already down, and Hull, who escaped last year, more likely than West Ham, who suffered defeat on Monday against Liverpool. Sunderland are at Hull on Saturday There are now only two teams with a chance of the fourth Champions League place next season, Spurs are in the driving seat and Man City. Spurs has bounced back after the brilliant Portsmouth win against them in the FA Cup semi final, while Man City lost against Manchester United at home by a last second goal, and which left United just one point behind Chelsea. Newcastle had a workmanlike win at Plymouth in a match shown on Sky and became the Champions with matches to spare. The trophy will be presented at their home tie with Roy Keane’s Ipswich on Saturday and when a will give them 101 points.

The most enjoyable occasion was the China Grand Prix which was won in an eventful rain affected run by Jenson Button, with Lewis Hamilton second. The outcome is that Jensen now heads the driver’s championship as Malaren the Constructors. The next should be in Spain with question marks over the problem of cancel flights, but with Madrid airport now clear the teams should be there by now en route to the Cataluña track.

I missed the start of Dr Who which has become a programme just for young people again with a peculiar performance as Churchill in wartime paving the way for the return of brightly coloured Daleks. I will peak in again if I have nothing else to do but it is no longer planned viewing. In contrast the second in the latest Foyle’s War series was exceptional if not sad with the subject of racism of the worst kind on the part of USAF military station in Britain which included corruption by a sergeant and murder by a major. Sam has settled herself in as the cook, housekeeper and bottle washing at the Hastings small hotel for the young man owner she met in London and who was shot by the assassin used on the attempt to kill Foyle and her. Staying at the hotel are three residents, the singe mother thrown out by her family because her child is from a relationship with a black serviceman who is also a jazz musician and who wants to her to marry and live with him in Harlem where he expects to be playing at the Cotton Club. She, is threatened by the sergeant who then helps to frame her fiancée for her murder, committed by the Major after she yielded to his advances to support their application to marry and for a visa, and she overheard his involvement in the planned robbery of the wages delivery. The complication in working out who had dun it was the former boyfriend of the girl, a professional boxer with promise who had become a conscience objector and face local prejudice as well as disappointment when the girl refused to place the child for adoption and marry him. In a touching finale he agreed to look after the baby girl until her father gained his discharge and could return for her. The second complication with the man and the young woman also staying at the hotel, who turned out to be a couple and behind the robbery of local business men they believed had profited from the war. The young man had lost an arm and experienced much horror in North Africa and he had been blackmailed into carryout the payroll robbery. There were several moving moments and the who murdered the girl remained a mystery until it was revealed. The only weak link was the willingness of the girl to yield to the pressure of Major.

On Tuesday night I decided to take a peek at Oceans 12 the middle of three capers with, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Daemon, Catherine Zeta Jones and Julia Roberts. This follows in a long line of sophisticated heist films where the criminals use technology and technique rob banks and the ultra rich and have a significantly higher quality of life that the international police. The films are gloss, absurd, immoral and fun if you have nothing better to do and nothing more engaging is available, but one should not spend additional money to see such nonsense at the cinema theatre.

I enjoyed my food which was makeshift given the decision not to attend he cricket. I overeat of course and have not weighed myself for a couple of weeks knowing what I will find. There was some fish, chicken wings one day and chicken breast wrapped in bacon on another plus curry, with bananas or rice pudding. I did not fancy the available strawberries. The grapes are thick skinned, small and not sweet and melons I like twice the price I usually pay.

My belief that the Liberal Democrats will sustain their recent surge in the polls and extend further it is going well. As predicted the agents for the Labour and Tories plus the media have turned on Mr Clegg and his party to find a weakness which will turn away the floating voter to them. Most of what they are doing is counterproductive and will be evident to the voters who watch the broadcasts. The more they attack the more the public will turn on them.

The BBC are holding debates between the front bench Ministers and Shadow Ministers of the Government and two major opposition parties. David Clark did well on Foreign Affairs but former Tory leader William Hague’s deputy did badly with the Lib Dems effectively answering everything. Similarly the Home Secretary and the Mr Huhne squeezed the Tories into third on Home Affairs. Labour sensing it might need the Lib Dems to continue in Government appears to make overtures to work together to keep the Tories, at a distance, while understandably the Tories are emphasising that a Lib Dem vote could keep Mr Brown in power, as a means to keep some of their traditional voters from switching. Mr Clegg sensing he is on a band wagon is stressing a plague on both your houses and so far, despite the efforts of the parties and the media, the public keep listening and supporting. I expect to se another surge of up to five points after the debate on Thursday, making him the poll leader and then further surge after the surge up to polling day. He could become the first Liberal Prime Minister for 100 years.

1911 Foyle's War and the Odessa scandal. Dr Who, Harry Potter and weekend sport

My recent dreams appear to underline failure in completing missions, usually into or out of places or not remembering where I have been or where I am going. I hope this a fear and not a forecast.

Sunday was a stop and go day with more stop than go. I stayed up until after 2.30 finishing writing and an unsettled night led to a late start in the morning, bleary eyed.

I played a few rounds of Luxor Majong after failing to break the 50 win barrier at level three chess, having achieved my highest score to date of more than and having achieved 16.5 million points, it is my preferred game with seeking to break 17million. I then watched the second episode of the new series of Dr Who, belatedly did good work in the garage area outside but over a short period and then enjoyed a quick lunch of sausages and mash around 2.30 pm another short burst of research and writing, later undone and substantially rewritten, and then a little painting of areas where I not repaired or used a small tube of sealant to gauge how much I would need for a good job on the surround to the garage roof where leaks were causing the main problems my work was intending to remedy.

I watched most of the second F A CUP semi Final between Spurs and Tottenham, having also watched a large chunk of the first semi final between Chelsea and the Villa yesterday after watching the Grand National and listening to Sunderland’s and Newcastle’s games on two radio’s simultaneously.

This evening I enjoyed a medium size piece of steak (£2.71) with vegetables, some grapes and hot cross buns and coffee. Yesterday evening I made a four small egg Spanish style omelette with pieces of olives, prawns and salami and having finished off various salad items with a peppered mackerel earlier, with a banana, grapes which were not sweet and a couple of the hot cross buns. Later I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

There were two highlights on Sunday, a programme on the life of one of the great female jazz singers and piano players of all time Nina Simone and the first in the new series of Foyle’s War which dealt with one of the most horrendous aspects of the second World War when the allies agreed to repatriating any Russians within their territories who had fought with Germany against Russia. This was part of the Russian policy of returning to their direct control anyone who had fled their country or from captured territories who were known anti communists or negative about Stalin’s regime.

In this first episode of the seventh series of full length feature films with Michael Kitchen as Foyle, Honeysuckle Weeks as Samantha Stewart and Anthony Howell and DS Milner, the focus was the spread of the news among Russian POW’s in the UK that those who had been repatriated from their work camps in Yorkshire, taking home with them clothing and scarce food rations from kindly Yorkshire people, were machine gunned to death immediately upon arrival at the Port of Odessa

In the programme Foyle finds out that Churchill had agreed the exchange at Yalta for a stated 20000 British POW’s held in Eastern Germany and occupied territories, liberated by the Russians, and that the members of the administration knew what had happened, after being called in by his World War 1 commanding officer who now worked in the War Office, and asked to try and find an escaped Russian POW known to be in his area. Foyle undertook the mission after being persuaded to stay on as the police detective chief after the war ended until a replacement could be found.

My only source of background information to-date Wikipedia, refers to the book published by County Tolstoy in 1977 which claimed that the number of Russians returned without choice was in excess of 5 million although the allies refused to return millions from the Soviet occupied countries, notably Poland, who had fled when the Soviets arrived. Tolstoy is reported to have put the figure at substantially less but still in the millions. An estimated one million of those returned, according to the Soviet source, were executed or sent to labour camps for 25 years. About a third received shorter sentences or were exiled. A percentage were conscripted and sent to areas other than their homes and those allowed back were treated as inferior citizens.

In the film Samantha has gained a job with a local art painter who has taken a shine to a young Russian POW still only 17 years who has become a live in handyman. He proposes to make the young man his adopted son and heir after his biological son decides to stand as a Labour Member of Parliament. Sam then finds her employer shot to death a day after the son learns of his father’s intentions to change the Will. DI Milner, now in charge of his own service at Brighton suspects the young Russian who has taken flight and believed to be heading for London and the home of a White Russian known to help fellow citizens. Foyle calls at the house of the Artman without knowing any of this, including the involvement of Milner and the presence of Sam although the three had only recently attended the Christening of Milner’s child. They are both shocked at the way Milner reacts to their involvement, wanting to solve his first murder mystery on his own, but appearing to discount the five years of their previous association.

Foyle was on the trail of finding the escaped Russian POW, for his former Commanding officer after learning that another had committed suicide by throwing himself off a viaduct rather than return to Russia and that the two had been friendly with the Young Russian at the Artman‘s House and was likely to have turned to him for help. In this he is correct as the man on the run had persuaded his friend to steal housekeeping money in order to make his way to London to reach the home of an émigré leader. From what Sam says and what he had learned so far Foyle, who does not yet know about what happened at Odessa, does not believe the young Russian killed his employer and is therefore at odds with his former Sergeant.

There is another possible suspect-the brother of the head of a local military unit assigned to take into custody the young Russian. The brother has just been demobbed and calls at the home of the artist where six years before he had been promised that his job would be waiting for him on return. He is very angry when told there is now no job, and even angrier when he finds out why.

Foyle goes to London, taking Sam with him who is at a loose end having lost her job with the death of her employer, and he decides to stay on even when told that the missing POW has been captured and is on his way to Russia.

He visits his former commanding officer where he is given this information and no background and takes up the offer of staying at the club of his former military leader and invited to have dinner there later. They served at Passchendale in the war where again millions of men on both sides perished under the orders of the High command. This governed he subsequent life of both in contrasting ways.

Sam stays at the hotel where the escaped POW is known to have been captured after being placed their by the Émigré leader. The Émigré leader denies any knowledge of either Russian but his assistant appears to express concern when he learns that the man has been recaptured and is on his way back to Russia. Foyle keeps watch on the house and sees the leader talking to an individual who he later spots following him as he makes his way from the club to see Sam at her Hotel, the following morning. They are then pursued by this armed man who unintentionally shoots someone else at the hotel and Foyle and Sam go on the run and are saved by the assistant to the émigré leader who shoots the would be assassin. He says that has just found out that his boss had started to work for the Communists. Foyle demands the resignation of former commanding officer for having used the assassin in the attempt to kill him and Sam, to stop them revealing about the Odessa cover up. He also requires the freeing of the young POW back to Hastings as the price for keeping quiet about what has happened for the time being. It is then revealed that the artman was accidentally killed by the brother of the returning British serviceman when trying to take the young Russian into custody although we had suspected something of the nature arising from a scene in which the War Office chief explodes at what had happened at the artman house and earlier. A civil servant reminds that he was against calling in Foyle because of his known rebellious and singled minded nature.

As with the over 20 previous films during the seven years of the series it has an authenticity about wartime England that I can remember, the feel and the look of the time, and the acting is always of a high stand with credible storylines. It is also a salutary reminder of what Prime Ministers, including those in democratic countries with freedom of the press and allegedly open governments feel required to do in specific circumstances.

Credibility cannot be used to describe the storylines of Dr Who which had began my Sunday.

Having woken late and bleary eyed as mentioned, wanting to continue with writing of Babylon 5 and to work on the garage area but also wanting to catch up on television from yesterday and watch more today and I also procrastinated and played Luxor Majong, I delayed breakfast deciding on toast and then on Monday if the weather was fine walking to the local to try their bacon roll and coffee down from £1.50 at the hostelry visited last year before the Azda move to £1.19. Either before or after I would then cross the road for a haircut. In fact after setting up the i player on the lap top watch on the large screen Telly I enjoyed the first of the bacon steaks in one roll, the size of which is the equivalent of four slices!

Setting up the i player takes time and caused me to laugh at myself. When preparing to work on the outside of the house, I had moved the larger of the two folding chairs I take to the cricket in their carry bags or have used for picnics by the car, or attending concerts in the park or sea front, I had also used the smaller one at the Whitely Bay Jazz Festival last year. For a couple of minutes I could not remembered what had happened to the smaller chair, even considering that it had been stolen during a period when the garage door had been opened. I then remembered that I had been using the chair to set up the computer when attached tot eh large screen telly. I had then found the carry bag, a couple of days later, by accident, although I had kept half an eye on the look out. You daft man, I said, well words to the same effect.

The second episode of the 11 Doctor Who, The Beast Below has a scary start for young people. A Manhattan skyline passes by with each tower block named after the counties of England. It is a floating England in space. In a school room the class appears to be conducted by a motionless enamel head in a fairground type game booth. Pupils are being congratulated for their performances but the last child is given a zero and the head in the booth changes its face to show an angry expression. The boy goes to a lift and the girl says he must walk to London rather than take the lift because of the chastisement. He tries to take the lift but is prevented by a hooded man, resembling a figure of death, the boy enters the adjacent lift and the head in the lift changes from benign to hostile and floor of the lift opens and the boy falls into the fiery furnace which appears below. I imagine the kind of nightmare this will create for some children.

I believe it was at this point the introductory credits roll with Amy Pond at the open door of the Tardis in space because of an air bubble created by the Dr. They are to visit the travelling space country and the Doctor explains the rules about not being able to affect the normal life of where they visit. They see a girl crying quietly and the Doctor amends the governing orders with the exception of children crying.

They discover that in the reign of the 10th Queen Elizabeth, played by Sophie Okonedo, the earth planet reached the end of habitable life and all the countries built space craft to go in search of planets which could sustain the people. England left it late and discovered a huge space travelling creature, a whale which they capture and use as a platform for their space craft!

She believes she has reigned for ten years but the doctor suggests she is now 300 years old to indicate the time they have travelled by slowly down the metabolism. It emerges she as with everyone else has to make a choice every five years between continuing the journey to find somewhere else to rebuild the nation or end the search with the complete self destruction of the community. At one point Amy is rendered unconscious and assessed by those who runs the Ark and has age of 1306. The two end up through waste disposal onto the giant mouth of the whale and get themselves out by making the creature sick. Given the choice of accepting the system or registering a protest, Amy presses the Forget button and the doctor expresses concern that she has been participating without making prior reference to him. He has encountered someone with a mind of her own and proposes to send her home. This upsets Amy who come on the journey despite being set to marry the man of her choice that very day. Worse is to follow when Amy creates a situation where the Doctor is faced with the choice of killing the last of the great space Whales or losing the population of the England before they can find a new home.

I was reminded that in Babylon 5, a million years after the death of Sheridan the entire population of Earth left to other planets because the sun had become too hot to live on earth. This was also the subject of one of the early black and white space films, the planet of the apes and such like. The Doctor decides to brain destroy the Whale so he will not feel the pain his experiencing from the burden of the task to which he has been imprisoned. It is at this point that Amy takes responsibility and presses the Abdication button which frees the Whale from direct control. She has two links for the decision. She notices that membrane from the whale which have become exposed act kindly towards children as does another last of his race, the Doctor, who cannot bare to see children cry. She gambles the pressing of the button, a system created by the Queen and her government within the Ark will not have the effect everyone has assumed. She is right and the Ark continues as before but at greater speed and the Doctor has been saved from having to make the creature brain dead

He recognises that Amy is a good ally and agrees after a hug, that is more than brotherly and sisterly, that she can continue in their exploration. He receives a telephone call which amazes Amy until the Doctor reminds that the Tardis is after all a police Telephone box! The call is from Winston Churchill as wartime Prime Minister. We are shown a clip in which he introduces the Doctor to his new secret weapons. It is a Darlek. Woo err. I thought we had seen the last of them, whatever next, the Cybermen?

Then there was the repeat showing of showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which I had on but paid only fleeting attention after the opening and I broadly remembered the story. It is time to confess that while I am full of admiration for the creator of Harry Potter who has become the wealthiest writer of all time and can understand the appeal of the books and the reinforcing films for ten to sixteen year olds in spirit, I have found individual films overlong, repetitive, and so complex that my mind wonders. I have not read any of the books which could be the difference and most readers view the films to see the re-enactment of their imagination.

The concept of humans from childhood having special powers which enables them to live in a different dimensions from the rest of us appeals and follows not just series such as Babylon 5, the 4400, Star Trek, the Men in Black and the X Men but the pre Christian belief in intervening Gods and post Christian stories of Angels, Devils, Witches and Wizards of varying degrees of goodness or harm. An inevitable aspect of the science fiction, pre and post Christian concepts is however benign the special powers there are always those who will misuse and has history has shown that almost all those with power become corrupted by their position which they then seek to maintain by fair means and then foul. The one good moment in the Order of the Phoenix is when Harry becomes uncertain of the extent to which the dark one is having an increasing influence on his thoughts and behaviour. The best moment in the film for me is when the Professor explains that we are all made up of good and bad feelings, motives and actions in terms of their intentions and outcomes and this understanding this and taking charge of ourselves is the key to having a life which we can look back on with satisfaction and facing death without a fear or a sense of being disappointed and unfulfilled, irrespective of its length and circumstances.

As with the Boat race between Oxford and Cambridge the Grand National was one of the great sporting events of my childhood and one where most people have a bet or enter a sweepstake. The nature of the race with some 30 large jumps, there used to be more, and a mixed field of professional jockeys with some amateurs has great appeal especially as it lasts like the boat race some 20 mins and involves two circuits of the track with famous jumps such as Beaches Brook, the Canal Turn and the Chair where horses and riders have sometimes found themselves in great peril. Usually the bookies clean up because almost all the entrants have a chance of winning or gaining a place with the bookmakers paying out on the first four finishers. This time a co favourite won with the other also gaining a place and the bookmakers are reported to have lost all the gains they made last year and more. There was an element of romance with the result because a previously calm and stone faced Tony McCoy champion jockey with 3000 winners over his twenty year career won at his 15th attempt, with the trainer the famous former rider Jonjo O’Neill, who also had won everything but never the Grand National. His horse is called Don’t Push it. My choice on the day, although I did not bet, was Black Apalachi which came second at a modest 14.1 with State of play 16,1 and the co favourite Big Fella Thanks fourth. Only ten other horses finished with the rest of the field falling or pulled up at 1,2,4,5,8,14(2).15,19(3), 20(3), 21 22(2) 23 24 26 27 28 29(3)th fences, that is 25 horses, including a horse named after Freddie Flintoff which he owns or is a part owner who pulled up at the 21st .

Sunderland have only won once away from home and usually lose which they did on Saturday although their present accumulation of points indicates they will not be involved in the relegations nightmare of the last few games. Newcastle continue to go from strength to strength with a win a home against struggling Blackpool and are now six point clear of second place West Brom with a game in hand. I was delighted that Portsmouth already relegated having lost 10 point after going into administration beat Spurs to reach the final of the FA Cup. They were lucky as Spurs has a good goal disallowed. The Villa who played well were not so lucky against Chelsea as they should have had a penalty missed by the referee before Chelsea score their first goal. I missed the US Masters where a Brit as doing well.

1897 Chocolate Heaven and Hell

I had intended to combine scrubbing an outside wall today, if the weather permitted, with writing an update about Babylon 5, but instead it will be about chocolate sweets and candy. The reason is a radio programme about the Fry’s Cadbury Schweppes factory at Keynsham, pronounced Cane-sham where workers have been made redundant twice in three years, first by Cadbury’s and now by Kraft

Because of World War II rationing which did not end until I had become a teenager and family poverty, it was only as a young man that I was able to enjoy as much chocolate as I wished and in those days I was very slim and active so consuming chocolate products did not have the effect it would have to day, although sometimes the craving becomes too strong I still indulge the experience of letting the bite into a chocolate bar or individual chocolate sweet, dissolve in the mouth, and then enjoy the nut, raisin or other centre, the toffee or caramel. The restrictions of childhood does mean that I have a mouth full of my own teeth, apart from the crown inserted earlier in the week.

I am yet to work out an order of enjoyment which I will work on as I write, so my first list includes Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut bars, Buttons, and the Crunchie Bars and the Curley Whirly, the Roses chocolate box with the long departed Montelimar, plus the Milk Tray Box (also Jelly Babies), Fry’s Cream bar and Turkish Delight; Foxes Just Brazils and (Glacier Mints and Fruits) Payne’s Poppets; Mars for the Mars Bar and Maltesers, the Milky Way and Bounty bars, the Galaxy chocolates, Minstrals and Revels, the Twix and the Snickers which used to be Marathon; Rowntree’s for the Yorkie bar, the After Eight Mint, the Aero, the Kit Kat, the Rollo and Smarties, Coffee crisp and the Lion Bar (also the Fruit and Wine Gums, the Pastilles, Jelly Tots, the Polo), Terry’s Chocolate Orange, Neapolitans and Old Gold. There are chocolate covered pea nuts and raisins and chocolate toffees. Other confectioneries includes the Nougat Bar and Liquorice sticks and whirls and the Pontefract Cake, and the Marshmallows, Lemon Sherbets. Having completed this list and the preliminary writing I remembered the Rolo and who can forget the Rolo and my favourite selection as a teenager, the Dairy Box and my present Favourite of Favourites which I shall name and drool over later.

Having undertaken the research over a day I have two problems. All the British companies, including the great Quaker trinity of Fry, Cadbury and Rowntree which came to dominate Somerton Keynsham, Birmingham and York, together with other firms such as Terry, Payne’s, Mackintosh and Fox have been munched and gobbled up by each other and then by international corporations, closing factories, making large numbers redundant, and transferring production to mainland Europe, France, Germany and especially Poland, with Nestle first and now Kraft dominating alongside the private family firm, still, of Mars. My exploration has revealed the nature of contemporary capitalism and the general decline of British manufacturing but also the startling information that much of the present world’s cocoa production comes from West Africa using child labour in slave conditions.

There are many things which happen in my day which do not provoke the need to produce a piece of writing open to anyone who wishes to read. I have an overall writing plan related to my main project work and I have some 200 boxes of papers, programmes, receipts and other others to work through, to make into sets and write commentaries where appropriate and when I have the time. However I constantly move away from the programme because of some unplanned event and on Wednesday when I went to the bathroom to prepare for a visit to the dentist to have the crown fitted and switched on the radio, my attention became concentrated on the BBC Radio Four programme about the history and demise of the J B Fry and Son chocolate Factory near Bristol in the West Country of England, near Bristol. After the dentist visit I returned to writing about Babylon 5, intending to make a piece about chocolate the nine hundredth completed work for MySpace and the one thousand nine hundred since commencing the Blogs some five years ago, but then the power of chocolate took hold and I devoted the greater part of yesterday to the subject, although a good couple of hours, in two spells was spent scrubbing an outside wall, clearing damaged plaster and working out how to repair and redecorate while continuing to garage the car overnight,

I first confirmed a statement in the programme that it was a member of he Fry family who used a process for making soap bars to make chocolate bars anywhere in the world at their Bristol factory although fellow Quakers, the Cadbury‘s followed two years later. I listened to the radio programme again, learning it is the first of three and I shall make a point of listening to the other two in the future.

I then looked up the history of chocolate using Wikipedia where it is said that the word entered the English language from Spain and central America with is roots debated but with the origins of the cocoa bean brought first back to Europe by Christopher Columbus and then introduced to Europeans as a drink by Spanish Friars. The indigenous Americans made the drink with vanilla, chile pepper and achiote and the Europeans got rid of the pepper, the vanilla and achiote replacing with milk and sugar and other additives to first create the chocolate drink we know today.

Just as we have had gin and ale houses, milk and coffee drinking bars, the first chocolate drinking house is known to have opened in London in 1657. It was not until 170 years later that solid chocolate was developed first in Turin and then in Switzerland, but credit for the first chocolate bar as we have come to know it goes to Joseph Fry in1847 and then the Cadbury brothers in1849.
A Swiss candle maker is credited with creating the first milk chocolates in 1857 with the help of a neighbour, the then baby food manufacturer Nestle and Rodolphe Lindt invented the process which ensured that the liquid is evenly blended.

While coffee production continues in Central and Southern America, two thirds of world’s cocoa is produced in West Africa with half of this in the Ivory Coast.

The problem is that the Cocoa Bean is a traded good on the futures market with prices fluctuating from £500 to £3000 a ton and with 90% of trade pure speculative buying and selling and ten percent the actual cocoa bean used for manufacturing chocolate products. The consequence is that the actual growers are adolescents in conditions Europeans and North Americans must regard as slavery.. This aspect requires further attention and will govern my future approach to chocolate eating.

It was 50 years from when the Fry’s started making chocolate to selling the first chocolate bar on a factory produced scale. The chocolate Cream Bar was first made in 1867. It is sometime since I purchased a bar of that dark chocolate with peppermint cream and one of my problems in writing and wanting to establish some order of personal delight is the urge to engage in a shopping spree and tasting. It will be resisted but will require a great effort

In 1873 the Fry firm created the Easter Egg and in 1914 Turkish Delight which I have continued to enjoy in the form of wafer thins, chocolate covered, similar to the after dinner mint. Some 220 products were placed on the market by the company.

It was in 1919 that the great merger took place with fellow Quaker Cadbury’s and a giant factory was created on a Greenfield site at Somerdale, Keynsham. Keynsham is a name familiar to Radio Luxembourg listeners of my generation because of the Horace Batchelor Infra Draw betting system advertised on the station and where the name Keynsham was spelt out letter by letter, because the proper pronunciation is Cane-sham!

Somerdale factory had its own railway station with long twelve coach trains bringing in the factory staff from North Somerset towns and villages, over 5000 in its hey day, becoming the home of the Cadbury Fruit and Nut Bar. While I have always enjoyed the Cadbury‘s milk and plain chocolate bars and the all Hazel nut bar, it is the Fruit and Almond Nut which remains my favourite with the chocolate melting in the mouth leaving the fruit and nuts to be enjoyed separately. The programme revealed that when one interviewee went for a job, the Personnel Manager asked if he had a church character, a reference from the pastor or priest of his church. He was not asked for a school reference. Others speak of being in heaven working with chocolate in a family friendly atmosphere. However post World War 2 the factory shrunk in size to 1500 as modern production methods were created and by 2007 then Cadbury’s announced the closure of the factory the workforce was only 500. 400 were involved in the Kraft closure this year with production moving to Poland.

My interest in the Fry family was first created in the early 1960’s and had nothing to do with chocolate, as in 1962 I was asked to write an essay on the influence of voluntary bodies on Penal reform by the then Reader of Criminology at Nuffield College. The occasion remains vivid in my memory because my effort was hopeless compared to that of my tutorial partner, who admittedly already had a first class degree and was rightly praised for his well researched summary of involvements and conclusions. While for many people the experience of presenting work alongside someone of the highest academic standards could have been demoralising, it helped create my understanding and personal striving for the need to establish as much fact as possible before attempting any analysis and reaching of conclusions. This has created problems when placed in a position to make a decision affecting others without any let alone all the relevant information.

Elizabeth Fry made her name as a penal reformer before the chocolate bar was invented. She was the major driving force to make prison conditions more humane and since 2002 her portrait is on the back of the British £5 note. She grew up with responsibility taking charge for her father of the younger children when her mother died when she was twelve years old. Miss Elizabeth Gurney was part of the Barclay family. At the age of 18 years she was deeply moved by the preaching of a visiting Quaker and as a consequence commenced to take an interest in the welfare of the sick and the poor, and she started a Sunday School to teach children to read. She met Joseph Fry who was a tea merchant banker and a Quaker when she was 20 years old and she bore him 11 children between 1801 and 1822 with one daughter writing a history of the Parishes of East and West Ham published in 1888. Her husband was the third son of the original chocolate maker.

Invited to visit Newgate she was shocked at the conditions of the women prisoners and their children, and would not just visit but stayed nights with them inviting her well connected friends to join her. She subsequently founded a prison school and for the reformation of the women prisoners and her British Ladies Society is generally agreed as constituting the first nationwide women’s organisation in Britain. She was the first woman to present evidence to Parliament. She took up a campaign to abolish capital punishment, established a night shelter for the homeless in London and instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society after a visit to the resort. She also set up a training school for nurses which inspired Florence Nightingale to take a team of her trainees to the help soldiers wounded in the Crimean war. She was by any standards are remarkable person.

The amalgamation between Fry’s and Cadbury not only made business sense in post World 1 UK but created a giant factory organisation of the highest order and a model of social responsibility and treatment of employees. The Cadbury family had not only created the village of Bournville, which has to be viewed alongside that of Port Sunlight in the Wirral, the other great factory based community founded by the Lever brothers, but pursued a programme of worker’s rights and amenities with staff canteens and sports grounds, including a fishing lake and outdoor swimming pool, followed by an indoor pool and boating lake, works committees, and education facilities as well as savings and pension plans. They then extended their philanthropic interests setting up the Birmingham Civic Society in 1918, donating a country Park and a Hospital. The family had the foresight to create Trusts and foundations independent of the commercial chocolate making company. Bournville Village Trust was formed in 1900 and is now responsible for 7800 homes on 1000 acres with 100 acres of parks and open spaces. The famous Bournville Plain chocolate is now made in France.

The brothers were the official providers of chocolate and cocoa to Queen Victoria. The family supplied troops with books and chocolate throughout the first World War

Cadbury’s are known for their Dairy Milk chocolate bars and sold all over the world including the USA where it is made by the Hershey Company. My Impression is that all went well until it became an International company as Cadbury Schweppes. The company was fined £1 million in 2007 due to its products from its Herefordshire Factory being at risk of infection with Salmonella and £30 million was spent on decontaminating the factory. Later that year there was a further recall because a printing mistake at the Keynsham factory resulted in the omission of the nut allergy labels from one of series of Bars.

There was also public outcries when attempts were made to replace the cocoa butter with vegetable oils such as palm oil. I suspect the motivation for the change was cost and to by-pass the instability of the cocoa futures market. I would like to think that there was concern about child slave labour. However under pressure the company reverted to the use of cocoa butter as in he USA it would not have been possible to brand the product as chocolate. There have been further problems at the increasingly widespread manufacturing practice of reducing the size of content while keeping the same price.

Cadbury’s have been responsible for several imaginative advertising campaigns with the glass and a half of milk in every half pound and being a Fruit and Nutcase. There has also been the James Bond type Milk Tray Man. The firm has also tried various rebranding campaigns with less success. For several years production has been in France, Poland and Ireland as well as the UK. In the UK in addition to Milk, Whole nut and Fruit and Nut bars we have become familiar with chocolate caramel and Turkish delight bars and Crunchie Bits as well as Button and Giant Buttons.

The Milk Tray selection was introduced in 1915, called trays because the chocolates sold loose were packed in trays for delivery to the merchants and in 1916 the half pound purple box and then in 1924 the one pound weight box quickly became the best seller in the UK with over 8 million boxes currently in the UK alone. There are two other Cadbury chocolate products which I have enjoyed. The first is the gold and red packaged Crunchie bar with a thin layer of chocolate covering a chunky honeycombed sugar centre. The bar size has varied over the years. The other product is the Curley Wurly comprising two entwined strips of chocolate covered soft caramel. Yum Yum.

It will be interesting to see what Kraft will do with the Cadbury brands and its UK factory at Bournville where the number of employees has already been reduced by three quarters. As mentioned the Keynsham has been lost to Poland and Kraft are reported to want to make a profit by selling the large land holding for housing development. Kraft are an international giant known in the UK more for Cheese products such as Cracker Barrel, Parmesan, Philadelphia and Dairylea, but also for Biscuits, Pretzels Crisps and Crackers, and for Pickles, Salad dressings and Barbecue Sauce, for Cafe Hag and Maxell House coffee, and Pizzas and Jell-0, Macaroni and peanuts and Starbucks. In addition to making Toblerone they have already taken over Terry‘s Chocolate Orange and Chocolates and closed the York factory.

They do not only but companies but they also sell them with Birds Custard, Birds Eye, Del Monte, Shredded Wheat, and Vegemite catching my attention among a list of forty, plus ten brands which have been discontinued altogether.

The Terry Family established their business in 1823 and with Rowntree had made York in a chocolate capital city. Fortunately it remains a walled city on a river with its Minster and quaint shopping area to make it a tourist favourite and a nightmare to drive and out. In fairness to Kraft, Forte, Colgate-Palmolive United Biscuits and Phillip Morris had all bought and then sold the factory since the end of the second world war. The factory is presently owned by a company who want to continue some form of chocolate business. The first application for planning permission was declined by the local the Council. Because of its location next the York Race Course there has been much interest proposing the site for clearance and development. In 2005 the local Member of Parliament explained that sugar cost 10% more in the UK than the rest of Europe and was three times higher in Europe than in the USA. I have enjoyed Terry’s chocolate bars but never been a Chocolate orange fan.

Overshadowing Terry’s in York was the third Quaker chocolate dynasty of Joseph Rowntree and now owned by Nestle. Production commenced in the city centre factory in 1862, relocating to a site north of the city in 1906 and joining with Mackintosh, the toffee manufacturer in 1969. Mackintosh had taken of the Norwich based Caley Chocolate company from Uniliver in 1932 and they started production for the Quality Street brand in 1936, for Rolo 1938, Carmac 1959 and Toffee Crisp 1963. I love the Rolo pronounced Roll-Oh especially as it is currently made at Fawden on Tyneside, I also have enjoyed the Rolo Ice cream. I am not sure who originally made the chocolate covered peanut and raisin but I can eat bags of both at the same sitting. Another long time favourite is the After Eight Mints where the factory is in Castleford West Yorkshire and in Germany

Large tins of the Quality Street mixture still appear at Christmas Time and are rivals of Cadbury Roses and Celebrations. I bought the large tins one year for the staff of the residential home where my mother was resident as she approached her 100th birthday and of course kept one tin of reach for myself! My favourite Quality Streets include the purple one, the brazil nut with caramel in purple wrapper, now a hazelnut. The Hazel nut Cracknell in the red wrapper, is also no more, as it the Hazel nut Eclair . I like the Chocolate Noisette Pate in a green triangle and the Toffee Penny as well as the Coconut Eclair. In the Cadbury Roses I loved the no longer produced Montelimar, the Praline Moment, the Coffee cream, the Turkish Delight and the Bournville tiny slab of dark, all discontinued although the Bournville can be found in Heroes. I like the Hazel Whirl and Hazel in caramel I have also eaten my share of Rollo’s in the past and was unaware of their background and manufacture in Norwich along with Yorkie and the Easter Egg until Nestle closed the plant in 1994 after a 100 years of operation and with the loss of 900 jobs.

Joseph Rowntree lived for 89 years and made his family business into one of the most important in the UK. Aged 14 he visited Ireland with his father and witnessed the impact of the potato famine. This changed his perspective on life and his company was one of the first to provided an occupational pension. He married again after the death of first wife a cousin Emma Seebohm and they had six children one of whom became Lord Seebohm Rowntree who chaired the report into the organisation and training of the personal social services in 1960’s. I once had the bedroom next to him and his wife at the Randolph Oxford. Discovering this only when we had to leave our rooms in he middle of the night because of a fire alarm. His father created a foundation to research the causes of social problems such as poverty, poor housing and other forms of social exclusion. The Housing Trust also provides care homes for the elderly and disabled. There is a charitable trust working for Quaker ideals including international peace and justice. The Reform Trust supports progressive politics and supports the Liberal Party. Rowntree donated half his personal fortune to provide the Trusts with their ongoing income. A school was built in 1942, a parkland created as a memorial to those members of the company who died in the first World War.

When I stay at the central Croydon Travel Lodge the building is over overlooked by the Nestle Tower a fact which the busy Railway station proudly announces that Croydon has become the home of the company in the UK It is also the home of the Home Office immigration services. All those confectionary jobs handed to Poland and for a time the Polish population appeared to have emigrated here!

Now for the Nestle Rowntree Mackintosh products. There was a year back, not so long ago when I spent some £50 on Kit Kat trying to put in a successful bid for an item several times the value of the purchases. I failed but eat a lot of Kit Kat!. The wafer finger bar was first produced in 1935. The name is believed to be taken from a political club in the eighteen century. It is also the name of the Christopher Isherwood Club in Berlin made more famous by the musical Cabaret. There are now over 100 variations of the traditional bar in various flavours and shapes. I do like the chunky single bar but Cucumber flavour, Caramel and salt, Pumpkin, Pepper, Soy Sauce, and apple vinegar as favoured in Japan, I think not.

Another established favourite is the Smarties chocolate beans, created in 1939 and re-branded as just Smarties in 1977. Those made at York are now made in Germany while the largest production unit is in Canada. Until 2006 chemical dies were used to create the colourings but these have been removed because of concerns on children’s health. I believe those with an orange chocolate or coffee flavour are no longer made. In the USA M and Ms are the equivalent. The cylindrical cardboard tube with a coloured plastic cap is the British standard although they also appears in boxes and other packaging as will as in chocolate bars, eggs and ice cream.

The Coffee Crisp was first made in Canada in 1938 although he main ingredients are wafers and a chocolate coating with coffee flavouring. There is a small amount of actual coffee. I have also enjoyed the Lion Bar which is a chocolate coated bar of wafer, caramel and crisps cereal. This is late comer from 1977.

What has become the most famous is the Yorkie bar, a chunky bar aimed at men and at one time it was branded as not for girls. In 2006 a for girls version was produced wrapped in pink. Although not a chocolate, Rowntree’s Wine Gums and Fruit Pastille were much loved in my teens and since. I still use the Nestle Rowntree Polo Mint to this day and I am sucking one now.

I grew up in Wallington and a couple of miles away at Waddon on the road to Croydon was the Payne’s Poppets factory and where one of my cousins, a former Prisoner of War and his wife worked for a time. Payne’s was taken over by Fox’s Confection famous for its Glacier Mints and fruits and also Just Brazils. In 1969 the Leicester based company was acquired by Mackintoshes before they merged with Rowntree. When Nestle bought Rowntree Mackintosh they sold the brand and site to Northern Foods and in turn they sold the company to Big Bear Ltd in 2003. It is surprising that no one ahs brought the Chocolate Merry Go Round selection.

The one company which has not been a part of part of the British Quaker Trinity is the Mars Corporation formed in 1911 in Washington State in the USA and about which I gained some knowledge during an International Management Course attended in the mid 1980’s where one of the same seminar group was a research Director with one of its subsidiaries. That I got to know some information was remarkable given the general secrecy of this private owned company run by three aging brothers at that time. One died in 1999 and family has moved into fourth generation control since the retirement of the remaining two, with the development of non family day to day management with over a dozen manufacturing sites throughout the USA. There is a British Branch based at Slough. Mars is responsible for some of the great chocolate treats in my life, The Mars Bar, of course but also Maltesers, Bounty, Galaxy, Milky Way, Minstrels and Revels, Twix and Snickers which used to be Marathon, which brings me nicely to my tops of the pops selection box by the widest margin possible Celebrations because it includes mini versions of Mars, Bounty, Snickers, Twix, Topic, Maltesers, Galaxy caramels and Milk Way. I could eat a boxful now. I must find out where they get their cocoa butter. The Mars Group remains the International standard bearer for effective management.

1392 Nineteen hours

6am. Having risen three times, discontented but familiar waking dreams, I rise sleepily and play games for 35 minutes with continuing a chess winning streak, level two, to 35 games and Keeping my short run of Hearts at 21% , alternative over the week with 20% but not lower, then work on the overnight Blog before concentrating on the in tray and decide to write the day as the hours which is the basic construction of the work which governs my life now.

7am. Continued writing and then stop for coffee and two toasts. I am satisfied with the rewrite.

8am The writing is almost done but I break to put out the wheelie bin and to water those plants under cover and which do not get rain. I consider getting a water barrel for one of the corners nearest the house. That would be an environmentally friendly decision and could add to savings when I arrange the water meter good. As a consequence of watering there is water down one sleeve so I need to change the jackets I tend to wear in house saving shirts for when I go out. It is a damp cold morning which lowers spirits.

9am. I have commenced some work. Last night I had a horrendous time with the printer as four cartridges had to be changed in three separate instances and this led to some not being recognised and other issues which was frustrating and irritating. I complete a Culture 2008 set and upload and print the Blog and decided on another coffee before tackling the communications in tray. The spirit is low and I am already physically tired from being up so early.

10am. Spirits raised by listening to Andrew Marr's Start of the Week on BBC 4because of the contribution of two writers. I miss the first part of the programme where the conversation appears to have been about the long of Iranian middle class culture. I first listen to an English liberal environmentalist who has written a story about an American from Wyoming, born on the freeway, spending his youth with cattle and horses and then goes into oil drilling as his father and grandfather had done only to die with a small reference in the local paper along with three others and leads the author to investigate what happened and his life, and to create what is said to be a powerful work reproducing the speech and thought patterns of the community, a good feat for an English woman

What attracts my attention is the description of once open wild landscape which is now said to take only half a day to cross because the rest has given way to intense drilling for oil and gas such is the U.S response to the real global challenge with is not in fact global warming but the demand for energy. The programme stops at this point to continue the literary discussion. I switch off mentally to consider the irony, the horrendous poetically justice of western capitalism so intent on expanding markets to increase profits and destroy communism that it had created new monster economies which will quickly subordinate those economies which do not have their own energy resources to meet domestic demand.

The second writer, also a musician, comes from India and is attempting to redefine and progress his cultural identity from the post colonial position of the past decades into the new India which is re-establishing its ancient history and making constructive use of the colonial legacy. He conjured what is likely to remain the best concept for many a day The Empire writes back.

On a different note, I receive invitations to order Mediterranean and Asian meals for home delivery about once a week. This time it was from Danaroso in Fredericke Street, over a mile away whereas I have over half a dozen take away and deliverers of meals 100 to 150 yards away. I have to spend over £9 to get free delivery. It is wasteful marketing but suggests desperation through overprovision at a time when everyone is looking at ways to save money. Later going through the box I come across another offer of the delivery of Chinese food, also from Fredericke Street.

11am Progress is slow even with a second cup of coffee. I am reminded of when I worked in an office for most of the day and hated having to tackle the delay my own personal in-tray, although I had full control over the amount of the and nature of its content, as the decision to allocate work, including the incoming communications was mine.

I had quickly learnt that in a situation where politicians expected you to know everything of relevance to their interests there were three methods for ensuring that you were not caught out. The first was to quickly read through the morning papers, the Journal and the Northern Echo and two evening papers, the Newcastle Chronicle and the Shields Gazette. I also had delivered to my home the Sunderland Echo. I could have asked someone else to go through the papers for me, but I knew better than anyone else what issues would be of interest to Councillors and what issues might be raised by colleagues in other departments of the local authority, together to those issues which were of other importance. I had also learnt the value of keeping one eye on the hatches, matches and dispatches.

The second method was to see all the incoming post and copies of all Headquarters' post sent out by management. I had learnt the need to do this from the first head I had worked for although she went further and insisted on receiving copies of the notes required on all phone calls and which because she was away a lot from holding a national position she would work through a pile of 1000 messages at a time. I did not open the post myself and the preliminary allocation was made by administration, and after a couple of years or so it was rare for me to alter the allocations and I tried to avoid doing so as we kept a record of everything received and when and to whom it was allocated. This was important to avoid accusations that communications had been received and then lost but it was more important that I knew what everyone was doing and could reallocated if it became important to do so. The post trolley was then available for the rest of management to see what had come in and where allocated if they wished, and to collect, or have collected their individual in-coming mails. An additional copy of all outgoing mail was collated and then circulated to the senior management in rotation. No one could complain that that they were not kept informed. This was additional to the weekly Monday morning meeting to review the activities of the week ahead or the circulation of the weekly activities sheet in which we all listed our planned engagements. In addition to knowing who would be in the office and who would not, it ensured that we had one appropriate representative at every political and officer meeting when required or when we believe it was in the interests of our service to have representation. It also helped to avoid duplicating representation. The third method was keep a register of all formal complaints received throughout the department. This indicated the brief nature of the complaint, when it was received, who was investigating and responding and when the matter was dealt with. Any anonymous list was circulated to the Committee each month so Councillors could raise an issue if they wished although this rarely happened and most approached the officer dealing with the matter if the complainant raised concerns with individual councillors. I saw all replies where I had not asked to receive the draft and accompanying papers. Most of colleagues around the country did not pay similar attention to detail and some immediately passed on anything directed at them or arranged for their secretary or deputy to do so when they were absent from the department and relied on briefings when they returned to the office, or subordinate colleagues decided they should be briefed. The majority of these individuals failed to survive long although some did by concentrating on being loved, visiting their empire in much the same way royalty visits and responding to the enquiries of Councillors in such manner that they appeared to support everyone and every interest, so that when things went wrong there was always someone else to blame.

However this hands on approach meant that I had an active in tray which I would sort into priorities but then try and work through on a daily basis in so far as information was immediately available and did not have to be obtained from others. I was much happier when I was able to concentrate on one issue at a time rather than juggling through the wide variety of issue covering the interests of residential, day care, domiciliary and fieldwork, policy, finance, personnel and other administration issues and any of the client interests divided broadly between children, the elderly, mental and physical disabilities. It still amazes that I and others managed to overcome the handicap of being trained and working in only one aspect of a service jumping overnight into taking responsibility for one aspect and not another. I still prefer concentrating on one subject rather than going through an in tray which now covers only the range of personal, household, work and personal interest activities.

12 noon. I have sent a text for a new cheque book for the first time. I have sent my subscription and a support donation to the Calne, Wiltshire Heritage centre and advised of the death of my mother whose grandfather left the town in the 1865, three months after the deaths of his father and his mother to join a British Arm regiment the 29th of Foot. I also telephone to enquire why my subscription as a Friend of redeveloped Tyneside Cinema has not arrived. This reminds that yesterday evening there was an excellent programme about Television cities, an edition about Tyneside on TV and film. This included shots from the four Catherine Cookson films with scenes at Marsden Beach, Rocks and Grotto, including of before part of the arched rock became so dangerous that it had to be blown up. There was film and photos of the early days when the Grotto was developed into a living and working structure. There were shots of the Tyne Bridge, the Gateshead Car park and other scenes from Get Carter, including the final beach scene which the local council subsequently made into a naturist beach until local opposition made using the beach impossible. It was also one According to the film footage it was also one of the most inappropriate locations for such a beach in the North East. There was also the history of the two ships converted into a night club, two because the first was taken to Glasgow as an expansion while now 25 years later the lease of the second is not being renewed. I decide on an early lunch with the main course a stir fry using the rest of the shoulder of lamb. I have set aside until later in the month renewal of the House insurances.

1pm. I enjoyed making and eating the stir fry which contained the lamb, an onion and a yellow pepper, the remains of the tout mange and a good portion of the bean sprouts with sufficient left for another fry later in the week, noodles and chilli sauce. I watched Bargain Hunt and the news headlines which gave the impression that the Prime Minister Gordon aims to impose his authority on his Parliamentary colleagues through insisting on the change from detention without charge from 28 to 42 days in restricted circumstances involving reference to Parliament. It will be interesting to see how this works out now that the Members have returned to Westminster after visiting their constituencies.

Yves St Laurent has died at 71, another contemporary reminds me to make the most of the hours. There is a good piece in the Sun on line about the 14 year of winner of Britain's Got Talent where it is revealed that he was advised by Simon to redo the semi final routine after rehearsing new one. This confirms the extent to which the final show was controlled and possibly the outcome. The bank has Text back to confirm that new cheque book will be issued. I am impressed with that. The cost of my text 3p compared to 32p for a postage stamp. Ericksson is sacked by Man City which suggests that Mr Grant of Chelsea may be on his way there in the Merry Go Round, although the subsequent front runner is said to be Mr Hughes of Blackburn. The Sun also has a provocative headline that Kate Moss has lost her panties; that is her half a million a year contract with Agent Provocative underwear to a Brazilian socialite aged 17 years and with a ring through her nose. She has also lost contracts to Burberry and Yves St Laurent, The Sun tells her not to mind the loss of income in excess of 1.5 million a year as she can be expected to get the Coke contract. Ha Ha.

2pm Whereas the news is all about the credit crunch with the Bradford and Bingley showing a loss over the first quarter it shares falls again from 74 to 65 pence having been £4 a year ago, I received yet another invitation for a new special Credit Card. I took a break and did the washing up and then as it looked as if the Spring bulbs had dried out I commenced to cut away the dead growth but found that some water had crept in from table top spillages so the task could not be completed. I will leave sorting out the bulbs into their types later but given the increase in containers I envisage an additional supply in for next season. That is optimism.

3pm I have written before of the importance of having attended a Henley International Senior Management course in the mid 1980's and I continue to receive the annual invitation to Alumni member's annual garden party day which used to take place during Henley regatta week although as boat trips on the river Thames are mentioned this suggests a different time. There is Music on the Lawn, Tombola on the Terrace, a Pimms Bar, Strawberries and Cream, with a BBQ or Fish and Chips available noon until 3 and traditional cream scones tea available. There are the usual activities available of swimming, badminton, tennis, squash, boule and croquet and a number of activities for children including the Smartie Artie Magic and Puppet Show. The serious aspect of the newsletter is that the College has decided to become part of the University of Reading as its Henley Business School although the change will require approval of the Charity Commissioners and the Privy Council. I was also impressed to see that the chairs of the 23 branches of the International Alumni Association also had a meeting at the college, including from Malta. The black Tie annual Alumni Ball is to be held in October with tickets £100 and the evening aiming to raise £25000 for the Scholarship Fund. I was never actively involved in that world but my former involvement has become part of the fog of the past which I am now clearing.

4pm The first In-Tray going though was completed before four so I decided to see what was on TV while I sorted material suitable for set work from, material which was then junked, (the major amount), and from that held in trolley trays for possible future reference and that which still required some action. Yesterday I watched part of the Sign of the Four the Sherlock Holmes mystery and today I was able to see the rest while continuing to work completing some developments sets, start one for Durham Cricket some registration cards for a political record
5pm A cup of tea and slices of smoked salmon with lemon on Hovis bread before going to post the DVD's and the letter to the Calne Heritage centre. It is a fine evening but I had to drag myself up and out and decided against taking the rucksack for a supermarket visit I watch a familiar episode of PD James Inspector Dalglesh. I will go sometime tomorrow for rolls for Wednesday's quarter final at Chester Le Street. I forgot to mention yesterday day that Durham won the four day county game at Sussex in three days after a disastrous when they were 15 runs for wickets in reply to Sussex first Innings of over 200, however there was then a partnership of 200 between Smith and Blenkenstein, each getting a century. A Steve Harmison Hat Trick helped to reduce the Sussex second Innings to 212 which left Durham with just over 100 runs to win which they were able to achieve with difficulty thus bringing their second win of the season and a move to mid table with one or two game sin hand over those above, the position could improve again this weekend.

6 pm A glass of red wine and a small dish of peanuts. Among continuing work activities was the preparation a new composite ream of coloured cards. The standard ream is 250 with five colours but I also have older reams of single colours pastel shades, making a total of seven colours which I interspersed one of each colour to create a master ream of 500 which is used to stick on materials such as tickets, cut outs from used food packaging, notes, cuts out from newspapers which means something in terms of my day or days past. Of course this kind of montage making is old hat in terms of contemporary art, except that what I do represents my past in a considered way as well as my present. The Baltic is hold a SMART Arts course to help people understand what contemporary art is all about.

7pm The World's Got Talent. Piers Morgan has taken over the world as no sooner is his stint on Britain's Got talent finished does the American version appear on our screens this weekend where he is also one of the judges and then tonight he is hosting a collection of clips from the world wide programmes from Russia, Israel, Norway and lots from the USA. Some of the judges comments in the recent series are better understood as it is evident that many of the acts this season have followed on from those in other countries which featured last year. I eat a prepared small pasta dish with broccoli for tea

8 pm Ice cream and some work confidential.
9pm-11pm This is England Channel 4 film was being a shown on a day when yet another teenager is reported to have died in London from multiple stab wounds although in this instance a man twice her age rather than another teenager has been arrested. The death is but one of a succession of young lives brutally ends over the past two years and is symptomatic of a streak in English culture which has been there for generations and which boils over every few years or so and which is beyond sticking plaster political remedies and where punitive and custodial measures only enhance status and reinforce positioning within the under culture.

The film is an accurate portrayal of skin head, racist, football hooligan mentality and culture and contains an outstanding performance from a boy who was fourteen years of age Thomas Turgoose playing a twelve year old whose father was killed in the Falklands War and who is bullied at school. On such a day when he has been in a fight and given corporal punishment at school, he comes across and gang of older youths, including a mixed race lad and someone who is educationally disabled. They adopt the boy into the gang. He is given a skin head hair cut, a check shirt and braces and his mother is persuaded to buy him boots. The gang leader has a regular girl friend as does the mixed race lad and other girls associate themselves with the gang including a girl who appears to be much older than Thomas because of the extreme difference in heights as he is of small build and she is tall. She initiates him into a boy girl relationship and become his official girl friend. She is called Smell for Michelle.

Although the group drink and smoke they are relative harmless and offer Thomas considerable emotional support especially when they find out about the death of his dad. However everything changes when the former leader of the group returns from prison having done the time for a crime committed by the present gang leader and where we subsequently learn he had slept one night with the girl friend when she was only sixteen and drunk.
It is not evident the extent to which Combo (Stephen Graham) was already a violent man holding extreme right wing national front beliefs before going to prison but once out of prison he sets on taking over the gang and Thomas is one of those who join him and is taken to a National Front meeting held at a secret location. In response to the incitement of the meeting the new gang raid a shop run by an Asian. One member defecates on the floor and leaves the owner terrorised and humiliated, and warned they will return whenever they feel like for cigarettes, drink and sweets.

The film climax follows the rejection of Combo by the girl friend of the former gang leader and unfortunately the person he next encounters is the mixed race lad and his girl friend. He is persuaded to leave the girl to go home on her own while he goes for dope for the new group but then all the anger and frustration of the recent rejection, and the earlier rejections of his life comes to the fore and he explodes battering the mixed race lad to death and turns on his other friends including Thomas. This is the turning point for Thomas and the audience is left believing that the relationship with his mother has returned to that before the death of his father and that he is rejecting the extremes of the life recently experienced. However this films deals with reality of their lives and we know he will be very lucky if he is able to break away into a different life, given the neighbourhood where they live and the school he attends. The boy's mother died of cancer during the making of the film and she was only able to see a small portion before her death. The firm maker dedicated the film to her and Thomas received a most promising newcomer award. The film was shot on estates in Nottingham and in Grimsby, the actual home town of Thomas. Because of overt racism, the violence and the language. the film was given an eighteen rating which meant that Thomas and teenagers in general were unable to see the film at public performance. Three Councils, two in London decided to overturn the rating to enable local teenagers to view the film, although how far they would influenced in a positive way is questionable.
11.11.30 pm note making. Half sandwich supper.

11.40pm- 1.30 am Play Hearts then confidential Correspondence and MySpace

1375 A concert in Rome, Reality TV, some politics and the History of Mr Poly

Friday May 14th 2008 became an unexpectedly enjoyable day. The morning commenced late with very fine drizzle outside which aptly expressed my state after the exertions of the previous afternoon. The main problem was from bending at the knee rather than bending down and underlined the lack of exercise and the onset of physical old age, which I will have to counter. I know some things are or become irreversible but it is important to try. When late in the afternoon I walked to the supermarket there was a noticeable stiffness in my thighs and I had intended to have a hot bath but forgot to turn on the water heater. Perhaps tomorrow,?

I begin with a WOW event. I did not visit the Circus Maximus on foot during my brief visits to Rome separated by over three decades although the area was pointed out on an organised coach visit after the Millennium. The Circus Maximus was the first and biggest circus area which can be ignored by the casual visitor with limited time because it is such a vast open area but I had not grasped the number which can be accommodated with 250000 in the days of the Caesars with a similar number having a mor distant view from the surrounding hills. When Italy won the World Cup in 2006 it was estimated that nearly three quarters of a million people packed the area in celebration. Last year Genesis were the group chosen to give a free concert and over half a million people attended with a giant stage and super structure. It was an amazing event now captured on video/DVD. I have several records by Phil Collins and have seen perform live at Newcastle City Hall as well as enjoyed his film career. It is always good to see that an old un can still do it.

I missed Britain's got talent on Saturday and waited until tonight for the re run and for someone who could become the series winner produced another WOW from my lips. This time is was a twelve year old girl with an extraordinary mature deep embryonic operatic voice. I did not note her name. She attended the Birmingham Britain's got talent and has a mum who is an hairdresser and a father who is a Health and Safety Officer. The girl admitted she practiced for hours in her bedroom with her parents giving her encouragement. It sounded as if her singing teacher school may have suggested she should enter the competition. She was both excited and then nervous and I predict that one day she will sing at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan and Milan and anywhere else she chooses to if that is what he decides is to be her destiny.

The second American Idol saw the obvious become reality and David Cook and David Aucheleta will contest the final next week seeing Seyesha Mercardo placed third but with over million votes recorded all three can record and know they will sell a million albums. All three returned to their home states and towns in trips organised by the local Fox broadcasting to an adoration level which has reached hysterical proportions as only the USA can do. This is not a criticism. When Americans are enthusiastic boy they are enthusiastic and there is a unity of purpose which is remarkable given the diversity of ethnic origins, cultures, religions and non religions and extremes of political and social viewpoints. It is understandable and a pity that the accumulated energy is sometimes misdirected.

The main purpose of the visit to the supermarket was for new razors but I went to see what there was in gardening pots and discovered some very expensive black containers some rounded shaped other squared which are pleasing to the eye and the ideal size for the window ledge The four square ones were placed on the window ledge outside the working window with geraniums. and the five rounded were used for the upright fuchsia's and placed on the day room window ledge and the table. I had a sufficient mix of potting compost to complete this task. However I had also been unable resist some wicker hanging baskets with a sacking liner which will require further investment in plants and some compost, which I will leave to next discount Wednesday, although it is tempting to go beforehand.

Friday is traditional fish eating day for but I had forgotten to defrost so during the day I separated the bream and also cut the salmon and tuna slices from the fish platter and will have one half tomorrow. Later I defrosted prawns to go with a salad. Today I had had salmon steaks in tomato sauce from an inexpensive flat tin which was part of the day's enjoyment and this evening peppered steak with vegetables followed by apple strudel and ice cream. I must remember to note the wine before the bottle ends.

I watched Distant Drums yesterday, a vehicles for Gary Cooper as a backwoodsman fighting an uprising in the Florida jungle and trying to rescue is half Indian son. Today I watched the History of Mr Polly, the H D Wells amoral tale of Polly as he progresses from an inability to work for others until he is left a princely sum by his father and gets married to a cousin and opens a shop. He soon tires of both although given the poverty of the time he behaviour was rightly condemned by society. John Mills portrays the character as a weak, harmless romantic, who ends up accept a job as a thatched covered Inn on a river bank with a punt ferry punt in pre car Victorian England. The challenge is the a criminal thug relative of the Innkeeper, a good woman looking after the child of his sister and of the thug. But like all bullies he in such films justice prevails and by good fortune because he is wearing a pair of Mr Polly's trousers, when Polly returns to find out how is former wife is getting on, he finds that she has been declared a widow and is enjoying life having turned the first floor of their former home above the shop into a tea room which she is running successfully with one of her sisters. He returns to his rural idyll with a cleared conscience. Oh if life was really like that!

As anticipated the political talk was on the fight back of Prime Minister Brown after being attacked by about everyone from the Opposition parties and the media, to sections of his own party and one suspects members of his own Cabinet. All talk of Cabinet reshuffle appears to have temporarily ended as he cannot risk creating a rivals and rebellion leaders. The truth was revealed by Ms Diane Abbot who after being part of the downfall of Tony Blair and years of public carping criticism has been extraordinarily uncritical of Gordon Brown, especially on the issue of the General Election that was not and the 10 pence tax abolition. Last night she admitted that there was no one who could take over and command support within the party or the country, so the factions will jockey for position and influence and plot the succession if as must be anticipated the party loses the next election. It is possible for parties in mid government to regain the initiative and public support but the political mood has changed from concentrating around the centre and there is a move to the extremes in England especially with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland having the safety valve of their own forms of Parliament and self government. England is left with a large cosmopolitan population in its capital and other cities and some town which is alien to the population who enjoy the country shows and rural pursuits and how we operate our Parliament, administration and judicial system. We actually liked as well as were good at running an empire which covered a quarter of the people on the planet, of ruling the high seas and of coming through as victors in two world wars. We are now part of a very different world and power economy where others have taken over our role and the basis of our economic fortune, and yet there is something in the native British character which adapts, has the drive and the initiative to remain powerful and rich. It is this quality which he post Thatcher governments squandered until Tony Blair and which I though Gordon Brown was up to. There were signs in during the crisis which arose upon appointment a year ago and over the past week that he has the strength of personal will and political purpose to survive and win through but he cannot afford a third mistake. The political hope is that energy and food prices will bottom out for time to make rank and file support fear the Conservative alternative, or for the Conservatives slip up or for forces within their party to attempt to push the leader in a different direction from that being taken. Equally there is a risk that Labour back benchers on the traditional left as well as the pro Blairites will create such havoc behind the scenes which will spill out as usual and destroy the last chance saloon position. Thursday's late night political review was an extraordinary mixture with Bruce Forsythe and Les Denise and Lord Levy. The theme was the need for political decorum and good manners something which the political classes jettisoned two decades ago and can never be recaptured. Unlike Wales, Scotland and Ireland, England in its present form is doomed and that will be the legacy of the last decade of government.

1374 The Patio and some TV

My body is tired from a day of unusual physical activity and my brain is numb. I want to write but I allow myself to be distracted. The cause of this condition was not a long walk or prolonged activity but a solid day of giving the small patio and garage areas a thorough pre summer clean and planting. There was time ton watch a film Distant Drums I think but I retain some images, to catch up with missed viewing, Waking the Dead a two parter and Doctor Who, some cricket and the midday and late night political programmes which merit further comment. I also did a work sort out, knowing that I fallen way behind the achieved target of the previous two months but may at least manage an average of 100 new work sets a months for the last three, which is the lowest number planned for the remaining year.

First however more about the patio and garage area which was in two parts. The main part was to nearly completing the planting; nearly because I bought more plants than containers and may acquire some more from a visit to Asda later as I need some new razor blades as the set I acquired last time has been a disaster and is scrape with the consequences of cuts. First before than some toast having gulped coffee which brings indigestion. Usually I write later into the night and correct and rewrite first thing mornings, but it is already 10.40 the following morning so I rely more on memory than usual and on getting what I want say right first go and an order of significance to me.

I created the base of the patio (when) with red textured flagstones separated by redee, purplish tinged grey chippings cover the whole area and a concrete ridge which has the effect of surface water moving towards the first of two outside open grill drain points, with the second the other side of the back door and which takes water from the kitchen sink and the washing machine as well as the. garage roof. (I have allowed the toast to harden so am liberal with the spread to compensate which reminds of the two submarine mariners Tyrone Power and Dana Andrews as they returned from a tour under the waves and ordered, fresh milk, fresh vegetables, fruit and lashings of butter in quantities which would have been regarded as obscene in the UK as we survived on powdered milk without tropical or Mediterranean fruits and vegetables.)

I have four giant pottery tubs. (I must create a 101 photo album) of a redee bluee mauve. The first has my pride and joy a large nameless evergreen which has more than doubled in size since it was rescued from its neglected condition while the house was attempted to be sold over a year. Its base has become tree like divided into two with a present height of 62 inches and a spread approaching 47 inches. The second evergreen was of smaller size but the differential has increase so that it is about half the size of the other but with a similar spread and wider leaves, but has remained sickly and requires constant attention but again looks amazing given its inherited parlous state.

The two other plantings in the big container tell a different story. I bought the Hydrangea Blue Lace cap lat into the its season June October because of the unusual nature of its flowers, but they have never reproduced in the same way since and I have promised to find out more about the plant which I have kept in partial shade and well watered, and which in theory should grow in height and width. The failure this season and tis mine and mine alone is the most expensive of the purchases a standard Fuchsia Red Tyrol acquired for £14.98 and provide a magnificent feast of continuous colour until the autumn. Alas although I did read the instructions and had planned to move into the garage covered area, I forgot and the late spring frosts may have killed the plant although there are some slight signs of life towards the base. I have transferred to a small pot contained and replaced with a new Evergreen, an Aucuba Crontonfolia, a bushy plant with large leaves of bright green and bold golden yellow variegations. It should also teach 60 inches with a 48 inch spread.

I now have five hanging baskets, two inherited and three acquired. The inherited are attractive to look at, located adjacent to each other on house and side wall with attractive metal brackets. The three new ones ate of green plastic and came full of flowering red and mauve trailing petunias last year. These baskets hang from the cross wood guttering which marks the end of the garage on inserted hooks from which was previously hung a large green canvass awning which when dropped full length obscured the garage area from view as well as from raid and wind. It is now used from the an end hook up to cover the wheelie bun and the redundant refrigerator. More on the garage area later,

This year I have change the colour scheme of two of the green plastic baskets to yellow, with trailing Petunias Surfinia Victorian Yellow and which also contain one Chrysanthemum Firecracker. The three other baskets are packed with Surfinia Double Purpose Petunia.

I have three bronze coloured metal window ledge containers each with carrying handles and one of these is packed with Snapdragons La Bella Yellow and the other two with Upright Fuchsia Winston Churchill red and mauve.

This leaves my other pots and one long plastic blue contained which forms the end of large white garden tabled with sits under the garage roof and when I sometime eat a meal or sit and work in whatever space is free. I have a mixture of pots and plants. I have green pots with green pottery sauces although some are green or blue plastic and three posts of different sizes but of similar contemporary design of white stone with geometric glass like inserts. In one of these I have I am trying a Perennial Lupin Gallery White. I am also trying a Celosia Venezuela with mauve feathery flowers which are already bringing colour to the table along with the peaking Chrysanthemum. The long smoky blue container is full of yellow snap dragons, the peaking Chrysanths and training Petunia which should as last year hang over the container and table end. I have a large upright Geranium Tango Neon Purple in addition to a tray of other uprights Bullseye Cherry where I need more pots to fit on the window ledge. Two pot geraniums survived from last year and two of the smaller ones are already potted and on the table. I also have three other survivors of last year. One post is full of green shoots some six inches in height but what are they ? And there are two other plants from two years ago whose name is on the tip of my tongue but which a quick look at a photo gardening book failed to identify.

Yesterday's work including scrubbing the flagstone, removing weather debris from the chippings and then cleaning out the fridge to make into a store and then cleaning out one of the drains. The spring bulb collection was sorted and put under the table for the greenery to dry and decay. Need to clean and attend to the side of the garage where I have a shelf with plates and goblets and then the frame of pictures. The floor requires a good scrubs but I will defer repainting until next year or the year after as although the blue has faded, the surplus paint from my former home should last until then. I will leave this until later or tomorrow as I want to make progress elsewhere.

I was able catch up the TV as the audio driver arrived although I had difficulty working out how to run and need to ring back the agents who have proved to be exceptionally helpful. I still have reservations about this series of Dr Who but its simple message that violence begets violence was well scripted and acted. Waking the Dead was also interesting with theme of the power of beliefs and guilt when the demons of darkest fears within are released. In this instance white man's corruption of the ancient Navaho culture. However as with the series so far the underlying issue was the relationship between father and estranged drug taking son, whose death from an overdose is announced as the programme ends after Trevor Eve has brought some comfort to the son of the principle murder victim. It was also semi final night when David Cook stole the march on David Aucheleta and both at the expense of Seyesha Mercardo although I thought she put up a great fight. I will leave the politics until tomorrow