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GhostOfClayton

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  1. GhostOfClayton
    Prof Brian 'All the guys want to be him, all the girls want to be with him' Cox
     
    I mentioned in my last blog that the excellent Stargazing Live program started on the BBC on Monday night. It was a treat for us all. For the comedy fans, there was both the towering genius that is Dara O�Briain, and the much underrated Andy Nyman. For pretty much everyone, there was Prof Brian �All the guys want to be him, all the girls want to be with him� Cox. For fans of people who have 'the right stuff', present via comm-link was the chiselled and craggy all-American hero Capt Eugene Cernan, veteran of several Apollo missions, and the last man to set foot on the Moon (that we know about, eh, conspiracy theorists?)
     

    Capt Gene 'Right Stuff' Cernan
     
    Rounding off the team was Liz Bonnin (who surely must adorn the bedroom walls of many pre-pubescent nerdy-boy) reporting on the SALT telescope in South Africa.
     

    Liz "Nerdy-boys'-dream” Bonnin
     
    They were joined on the couch by the handsome Dr 'Boy-Next-Door' Kevin Fong, and the very easy-on-the-eye Dr Lucy Green. Are all astronomers good looking, or do the BBC just choose beautiful people to appear on our screens? I remember having quite a crush on Heather Couper when I was a pre-pubescent nerdy-boy, so maybe they are. If I ever get to own a telescope, will I become good-looking?
     

    Dr Lucy 'Easy-on-the-eye' Green
     
    As an aside, Prof Brian Cox is also beautifully, refreshingly and relentlessly intolerant of woolly thinking. I would love to be that intolerant of woolly thinking, but out of politeness and professionalism, I often have to tolerate it, and it pains me to do so.
     

    Dr kevin 'Boy-next-door' Fong
     
    I digress. I heard on the radio yesterday afternoon that live stargazing events were to be held around the country, and there was one only twenty minutes� drive from Aquis-of-the-Romans. I had to go. So myself and Mrs OfClayton headed out to the Visitor Centre at the foot of the mighty Pons Abus. We were not the only ones. The place was heaving . . and very, very dark. After briefly pausing to watch the weather being presented by the North of England�s premier comedy weatherman, giving a rare outside broadcast, we hit the sea of telescopes that had been set up on the grass beside the centre, all pointing at a different bit of the firmament, gloriously cloud free and twinkling with infinite majesty on this particular evening. I immediately joined the queue to look at Jupiter through a Dobsonian reflector (see, I know the lingo!) the size of a dustbin. Perfect view! The bands across the planet were clearly visible, as were the four principle Jovian satellites (Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa). I briefly looked up to see a BBC film crew bearing down on the telescope�s owner.
    �What are we looking at here?� asked the reporter.
    �Jupiter�s moons�, replied the astronomer.
    �OK. Could you two stage a conversation?� he indicated me. �Ask what you�re looking at, that kind of thing.�
    �Righto!�, I said. My whole life is an act. I could do this. They started filming, and I looked into the eyepiece. After a considered pause, I said, �Wow! Is that Jupiter?�, with a degree of enacted naivety.
    �Yes,� the (strangely not as good looking as a TV astronomer) telescope�s owner said. �You should be able to see the dark bands across its surface.�
    �I can,� I replied. �And there are some bright points of light either side of it. What are those?� That�s when it hit me. I was playing the part of the casual visitor beautifully, but people I know would be watching. They would be nudging each other saying, �That�s thickee OfClayton. He doesn�t even know about Jupiter�s moons. Ha, ha!�
    The thought comes too late to stop myself saying something to the effect of, �Jupiter has moons?� Oh, God! Horrid realisation that this may be more than a local BBC fiim crew, they may be national. This may go out on Stargazing Live. It may be going out as we speak. Is it also on BBC America? The BBC World Service? I could already be a global laughing stock. �EXTRA, EXTRA, the Chicago news vendor would shout across the city. �THIS JUST IN. GHOSTOFCLAYON THICK AS SHIT�.
    Anyway, to cut a long story short, I watched the local news later. I was on, but only as part of a sweeping shot that got the back of my head looking into a telescope. They did, however, show a vox-pop interview with the woman who had been behind me in that queue. She was far better looking than me!
  2. GhostOfClayton
    The Grand National was run this weekend. For those who don't know about it, it is the biggest horse race in Europe.
     
    The reason I mentioned it in my blog is that something caught my ear this time, and that was when, after the race, the BBC commentator said, ". . . there were no fatalities this year", in a tone that indicated a degree of pleasant surprise. Think about it; it's worthy of a mention that no-one died in this one off, 10 minute sporting event. That's like a football commentator saying, "and eight or fewer of the players died during the match . . . how good was that?"
     
    I'm not complaining. I just thought it was worthy of comment.
  3. GhostOfClayton

    Bashing the Bishop

    By GhostOfClayton,

    Bashing the Bishop
     
    What do you think to the title? Bit rude? Bit adult? Hey, I can do blogs that�re �edgy�. In fact, there are those in the world that will almost certainly find the following down right offensive. There are those who say it�s high time I did a controversial blog. So here goes:
     
    It may have passed the rest of the world by, but the Church of England had a vote recently on whether or not they should allow women to be ordained as bishops. In the end, they voted against, some people were delighted, some people were devastated, the world kept turning, and now the big news is tomorrow�s fish �n� chip paper. No one�s that bothered any more, now that a few days have passed. I know what you�re thinking. GhostOfClayton is some kind of Arch-Atheist, and that will have made his blood boil with sheer frustrated anger. Firstly, I don�t see myself as an atheist. Richard Dawkins is an atheist. He has that same degree of fervour and passionate belief that religious people have. He�s religious about atheism. I�m not. Normally religion has no impact whatsoever on my life, and I try not to have an opinion on it. It seems to offer some benefit to religious individuals (though it seems to have been pretty disastrous for mankind), so who am I to poke my nose into their affairs? So why am I blogging about it, if I care so little? Is it because they rejected women as bishops? No. My personal morality, as a good egalitarian, is that we�re all equal, and that we should all have the same opportunities in life regardless of our age, gender, beliefs, sexual orientation, skin colour, etc., etc. However, that�s just my personal morality. My personal morality also tells me that I shouldn�t try and project my personal morality on anyone else. If they want to take an institutionally non-inclusive position, that�s their business, much as it�s their business if they hold somewhat disconcerting views about gay people.
     
    However, what the whole lady-bish episode did highlight to me was a significant hole in the inclusivity of our age old British democratic system. Did you know that 26 seats in the House of Lords are reserved exclusively for Church of England bishops? Part of every UK resident�s life, whatever their religious belief, is still controlled by the Church of England. And to add insult to this anachronistic injury, the Church of England has just proved that it isn�t fit to exercise any kind of constitutional power, due to its institutional misogyny. Now�s the time to imagine my blood boiling with sheer frustrated anger. No other body has this automatic right to power (it�s just possible that this statement isn�t true, but if you want to read a blogger that checks their facts, good luck finding one � for the purposes of this blog, it�s an absolute truth).
     
    Anyway, we don�t live in a perfect world, and one angry blogger with an optimistic total of three readers (who probably don�t agree with him anyway) isn�t going to change that one iota. My personal morality should possibly keep its gob shut and get on with its own business. It�s nice to have an occasional rant, though.
     
    PS If you�re not sure why the title of this blog is rude/adult, Google it. You may want to check over your shoulder to see who�s about before you start typing, though.
  4. GhostOfClayton

    Gogglebox

    By GhostOfClayton,

    When I’m away, I rarely get the opportunity to enjoy any telly. Partly because it’s quite tricky to get hold of UK TV channels when abroad, but even when I’m in the UK, I don’t have the time. I know I shouldn’t, but I do tend to over indulge when I get back. It’s like coming in from the cold and wrapping yourself in the warming comfort of an old, familiar duvet. There’s been a bit of talk on other blogs about what’s on the telly, so I thought it might be a nice idea to make a list of the Top 10 TV programmes I’m enjoying this particular time I’ve fallen off the TV waggon. So here we go. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
     
    NB I’ve done them in a sort of reverse order to allow them to build to a crescendo.
     

    10. Click
    This is the BBC’s flagship technology programme. However, UK technology geeks would be forgiven for not even knowing it exists, tucked away as it is on BBC News 24’s daytime schedules. Perhaps they think it doesn’t matter when it goes out, because tech-heads will be watching it on catch-up anyway. Anyway, I like it because its apparent low budget means that it cuts to the chase, rather than cluttering up its on-screen time with competitions, prizes and reading out live tweets from people whose attention is divided between the show, and their iPhone (and hence whose opinions are worthless).
     

    9. Big Bang Theory
    This is the first of two US imports I’ve chosen, that air as part of E4’s ‘Quite Big Thursday’ (the other being ‘Brooklyn 99’; see next item). Believe it or not, there are people in this world who have never seen an episode of Big Bang Theory. My heart goes out to them. They truly do not know what they’re missing. As an aside, an Admin Assistant in one of the places I sometimes work looks like Penny, and so it’s a happy day for me when I go there.
     

    8. Brooklyn 99
    This one snuck up without fanfare. As mentioned above, this comes as part of E4’s ‘Quite Big Thursday’. The trouble with E4’s ‘Quite Big Thursday’ is that it’s littered with fairly lacklustre and formulaic US comedies that are only ‘quite’ funny. Something about this one, however, caught my eye, and after the first episode I was sold.
     

    7. Bear Grylls: Mission Survive
    This is a little like “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”, in that a load of celebs are taken into the jungle and made to do many things they’d sooner not do. There the comparison ends, however. IACGMOOH is hosted by those cheeky Tyneside Eric-and-Ernie-alikes Ant & Dec. Mission Survive is hosted by an unsympathetic ex-SAS survival expert who famously rehydrated himself by
    In IACGMOOH, you never get the impression anyone will actually die as a result of eating bugs or getting covered in rats. With Mission Survive, it’s always a puzzle how any of the celebs manage to still be alive at the end of the episode. The viewers vote off celebs in IACGMOOH, whereas in Mission Survive, Bear Grylls dispatches them humanely with a small hunting knife before their incompetence can kill anyone else (that’s not strictly true, but by the time you’ve watched the first couple of episodes, it wouldn’t surprise you). 
    6. Bear Grylls: The Island
    Once Bear Grylls has euthanised the last of the celebrities in Mission Survive, Channel 4 will segue him seamlessly into this particular offering. The premise is this: Bear Grylls leaves a group of a dozen or so overweight office workers on a small, swampy and dangerous, deserted island with no food, water, survival kit or training. He then goes back after eight weeks to see what became of them. You think I’m joking? I am not. Lord Of The Flies can’t hold a candle to the horrors of the last series. In series 2, the ante has been upped. There will be two islands and two groups; one of men, and one of women. Oh, the humanity!
     

    5. Raised By Wolves
    Every now and again, Channel 4 delivers up a new comedy that is like nothing that has ever come before it. ‘Father Ted’ and ‘The IT Crowd’ are obvious examples, and you may remember ‘The Comic Strip Presents’. The most recent to fit into that category is ‘Raised By Wolves’. Written by Caitlin and Caroline Moran, whose writing career doesn’t seem to have edged into TV before, this is the story of a very unusual West Midlands working class one-parent-family, and their sundry misadventures. Wow!
     
    4. Inside Number 9
    Back for a second series, this darkly comic (emphasis very much on the dark, rather than the comic) anthology of one-off dramas is written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, two of the powerhouse writing team that brought us the deeply disturbing ‘League of Gentlemen’. The only connection between these half-hour stories is that they all take place in Number 9, be it an ordinary house, a gothic mansion, a dressing room, or a rail couchette . . . oh, and there’s always a knock-you-sideways twist in the tale.
     

    3. Only Connect
    It only became apparent to me after watching ‘Only Connect’, but there live amongst us a race of super-intelligent alien entities, disguised as ordinary human beings. They created this quiz show to test their immeasurably superior intellects; to compete amongst themselves by performing mental feats so amazing to ordinary mortals as to make them nearly dizzy at the cerebral capacities involved. For humble men and women such as you or I, it is a feather in the cap to even understand the answers given, let alone come anywhere near providing one. It bills itself as ‘the toughest quiz show on TV’, and I see no reason to doubt that claim. It is hosted by Victoria Coren-Mitchell, who must surely be the sexiest woman on whatever planet she comes from.
     
    2. 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown
    Born of a one-off experiment by Channel 4, ‘8 Out Of 10 cats Does Countdown’ has shoehorned two very different shows together into one. ‘8 Out of 10 Cats’ was a long running panel show where comedians answer questions on statistics. Very funny, but just one of many similar panel shows. Countdown was a number and letter puzzles gameshow, shown midweek afternoons, and mainly watched by students, and retired people hoping that exercising their brain cells will stave off dementia. The format is simple, and it’s the longest running gameshow on the planet (interesting fact:
    Countdown was the first show on Channel 4). Anyway, surprisingly enough, you put these 2 ordinary shows together, and you get ab-sol-ute dynamite. The whole is so much bigger than the sum of its parts. Funniest thing on telly at the moment by a long chalk.
     
    1. Life on Mars
    I saved the best until last. OK, so this isn’t showing at the moment. I found the complete series 1 & 2 going cheap on iTunes, so I loaded it onto the iPhone to take away to Austria with me. I didn’t really get chance to watch it, so I’m catching up on it now. If I had to make a list of my top five TV shows of all time, this would probably be at the top. Gene Hunt is such an inspired creation, that Life on Mars would be at the top of the list on that character’s merit alone, but the rest is all superb too.
     
     
    Other highlights of my square-eyed habit are ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Banished’. My wife says I should watch the new ‘Poldark’, but I’ve already nailed my colours to ‘Banished’s flagpole, and there’s only room in my life for one Redcoat-based period drama. And anyway, I think she only watches it to see Aidan Turner’s six-pack.

  5. GhostOfClayton
    Warning: This blog contains a word that I’m not sure about, but may be a swear word. I don’t even know how to spell it, so you’re probably on safe ground.
     
    Welcome to GhostOfClayton’s Twice Fortnightly blog. Allow me to introduce myself to new bloggees (yeah, right!). I am a tour guide specialising in hiking tours of Hadrian’s Wall, and am widely regarded as the thinking woman’s man-totty. 50% of the previous statement is true, which should be a guide to how much of the following you should believe.
     
    Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
     
    How to reach the moon in 200 very easy steps
    Is getting your hair to the moon the same as ‘you’ reaching the moon? If not, how much of ‘you’ would have to reach the moon to say ‘you’ had reached the moon? Is a strawberry dead? These are the sort of philosophical questions that I won’t be touching with a barge pole this week. What they do do, is give me the opportunity to tell those of you who haven’t already heard about it, all about a really exciting endeavour that’s doing the news rounds at the moment. You see, a blog is a very powerful tool for good. I can use it to reach out to all of you (alright, both of you), and spread the word about how you can make the world a better place (arguably).
     
    I am referring to a little enterprise called Lunar Mission One. You can read all about it on their website (www.lunarmissionone.com), or you can hear it from my inexpert and opinionated self. The decision is yours. Ah . . . you’re still here . . . . good choice.
     
    You see, some boffins have taken it upon themselves to put a probe on the moon, and are funding this gargantuan project using kickstarter money. This is the on-line equivalent of sitting outside Marks & Spencers with a begging bowl and a bored dog, although the ends are considerably more worthy than four cans of super strength lager. So, what is my incentive to dedicate part of the OfClayton Fortunes to this very worthy venture? Well, at the cheaper end (three British pounds) you get “Our eternal thanks”. Nice, but as OfClayton Senior used to say, put eternal thanks in a bucket, and you’ve got an empty bucket. Part with more wonga, and the benefits steadily increase, through a subscription to the newsletter, membership of the ‘Missions Club’, and so on, until (at £60, you can ‘Reserve your place in space’). Yes, honestly. No doubt, you are now dreaming of the moment you place your boot print in the dusty Lunar regolith and say something hugely profound about the size of your step, before a bunny hopping tour of a cratered landscape, under the patient gaze of the blue marble that is Mother Earth.
     
    No. Put that right out of your head.
     
    ‘Reserving your place in space’ bags a few kilobytes on a USB stick (or similar) for you to write your digitised photo/message/symphony, etc., and that USB stick will live out eternity on the moon. At least until some far-future astronaut tries to plug it into his iPhone 42 and a ‘501 error’ is returned due to compatibility issues (even after he switches it off and back on again.)
     
    No, you will need to have to start shelling out much more before ‘Your place in space’ is realised. £200 will put you on the moon. Not all of you, granted. You will have to leave a small part of you behind. That small part will consist of everything that isn’t a single strand of your hair. But you will be on the moon for eternity.
     
    Do I sound cynical? I am not. This is fricking awesome stuff. I wish it well, and really hope it comes off. That’s why I’m blogging about it, to try and spread the word. Look, I’ve even put sensible tags at the top of this blog. My track record isn’t good for taking tags seriously, so that should tell you something. So, will I be investing? I’m still torn. My ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude to money is apparent to anyone who has followed my adventures so far. So, yes, it would be quite plausible if a few quid did ‘easy go’ towards this laudable enterprise. Trouble is, when you have an ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude to money, and you need some money to fulfil your duty to the second half of that attitude, you find that the money you gained from the former half already ‘easy went’ somewhere else.
     
    Sod it . . I can always sell a kidney. It’s not as if I’ll be taking it with me on my trip to the moon.
     
    The Moon on a Stick
    Looking at the above, it’s apparent that Mohamed won’t be going to the Mountain, figuratively speaking, anytime soon. So you know what you want? You want the Moon on a Stick. Ha Ha. A large group of people will recognise that catchphrase, albeit a Venn Diagrammatically discrete group from the group of people who read this (i.e. you). Hold onto that thought, though. Clarity will come later.
     
    As most (both) of you know, I spend an awful lot of time in planes, trains and automobiles. I used to listen to a huge amount of music to while away the hours, but fan that I am of good music, I did start to yearn for something a little more intellectually stimulating after Regina Spektor’s ‘The Calculation’ came round for the 6th time. It was then I started listening to Podcasts. Now, there are prolific podcasters, and high quality podcasters, but very few who manage to pull off both tricks at the same time. One podcaster who seems to achieve this with a reasonable degree of ease is a comedian called Richard Herring. He, along with his comedy partner of the time (a guy called Stewart Lee) were very big in the UK in the late 80s and early nineties, but then disappeared from the schedules to a degree. Stewart Lee is now back on the small screen now and again, but Richard Herring has eschewed the strict requirements of language/behaviour/taste imposed by big broadcasters, in favour of the more experimental (and un-censored) comedy vehicle that is the internet.
     
    Now for that moment of clarity I promised you earlier. A sort of catchphrase of Richard Herring’s when he and Stewart Lee were on the telly was, “You want the Moon on a stick.”
     
    You might think that the above two articles aren’t too closely related over and above the inclusion of the word ‘Moon’. Not so. You see Richard Herring is also using crowd funding to raise cash for comedy projects delivered over the internet, and I’d also like to use the power of the blog to spread the good word. www.richardherring.com is where to go to donate, or to find routes to all his free comedy material. It has my personal recommendation. It will make you laugh, and therefore make you happy.
     
    So which should you invest in? Furthering the knowledge of the human race, or furthering the happiness of the human race? That’s another one of those philosophical questions I won’t be touching with a barge pole.
  6. GhostOfClayton

    Auld Reekie

    By GhostOfClayton,

    I’ve just been through a course of treatment for premature ejaculation. I’m OK now, but for a while it was touch & go.
    <rimshot>
     
    Just getting in the mood, because I’m starting to fit jobs around our annual visit to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For as long as I can remember I’d heard tales of this legendary festival, and longed to go, but never did. I wasn’t really sure why, but if I’m honest I was probably a little over-awed by it. It is after all, the largest festival on the planet by a very, very considerable margin. It . . . is . . . HUGE. Absolutely city-wide, and during practically the whole month of August. Hundreds of venues host multiple shows each day, all day. There’s barely a pub in the city that doesn’t also have something going on, and if that weren’t enough, the streets are packed with street entertainers surrounded by crowds. The whole city is one long party for four weeks, starting before lunch each day, and pushing on well into the wee-small hours. The atmosphere is truly electric.
     
    Notoriously, however, even if you can find somewhere to stay, the price of accommodation in the city is hiked up during the Fringe Festival . . . and with so much going on, just where do you start? You can go and see people you’ve heard of, but that’s all very safe and predictable, and not really in the spirit of the Fringe (and it tends to be a bit pricey). The Fringe is all about those kind of shows you’d never see anywhere else. . . that just wouldn’t work outside the context of this avalanche of music/theatre/comedy/dance/arts. You need to see the nobodies, the ones yet to be jaded by wide-audience appeal. You want to be able to hear that Johnny Come-Lately’s sold out tour of mega-arenas is once again packing out the O2, and say with pride “I saw him in a 50-seat venue above a pub at the Edinburgh Fringe, and it only cost me a fiver”. In short, it’s all about taking the risk and seeing something different.
     
    Now you can see why I was a little intimidated by the prospect. But eventually, I bit the bullet and went for it. I was so glad I did, and have been every year since. So here’s my guide to enjoying the Edinburgh Fringe, without breaking the bank.
     
     
    Sunshine on Leith
     
    Do you remember bespectacled, sore-footed and overly-Scottish musical twins, The Proclaimers? They did a song called, and appeared in an excellently feel-good film called, ‘Sunshine on Leith’. Leith is the answer to your budget accommodation problems. There is an abundance of hotels, B&Bs, bunkhouses, etc. to cover all pockets. It’s easy to get to, just north of the City of Edinburgh, and served by myriad cheap and regular bus services. The place I use has a bus stop right outside, where every 10 minutes, a bus takes you into the city centre in just 20 minutes.
     
    There’s your accommodation sorted. Next question: How long should I stay? It’s a fair question. One thing is for absolutely certain, unless you have a bottomless bank account, and a time machine or an army of clones, you will undoubtedly leave without having seen the vast majority of what you wanted to see. So just plan to stay as long as you want your trip to last. I usually arrive early afternoon on a Friday and leave mid-afternoon on the following Monday. This year, I may go up on the Thursday.
     
    Next question: How much planning should I do? The first year, I planned everything right down to the last minute. Every show booked, and tickets purchased in advance. This gave us a number of problems:
    I had no idea just how big the festival was, and so how long it took to get between venues. We ended up running between shows on at least couple of occasions.
    I didn’t really factor in time for some evening meals (eating is Future OfClayton’s problem, obviously!)
    We didn’t have the opportunity to explore The Free Fringe – a sort of shadow Festival that operates on a ‘just turn up and pay what you think it was worth’ basis. This tends to be much cheaper than the main Fringe.
    You tend to become aware of good shows while you’re there. Bill-postings, talking to people in pubs, leaflets, that kind of thing.
    You don’t get the opportunity to use the half-price ticket booths. A good number of shows will release half price tickets on the morning of the show (if they have any left)
    There was little chance to stop and watch the many, many excellent street entertainers.
    We got to see a lot of shows, which meant we spent more money.

    Last year, I really did just turn up and did no planning whatsoever. This meant many of the shows we decided to see were sold out. So the key is to plan a few, but leave plenty of time to just spontaneously drop onto shows, especially the Free Fringe and the street entertainers, or shows where you see a poster and think – “ooh, that looks good”. On the subject of leaflets, when someone hands you a leaflet, take it and read it. It’s an excellent way of happening on a show that you didn’t know about. Quite often the person handing out the leaflets will be one of the artistes themselves, so they’re well worth getting into a conversation with.
     
    Meals? Obviously, you’re gonna need to eat out to a degree, and if you drop into a restaurant every night, then your cash will dwindle quickly. Here are my tips: We tend to choose accommodation where no breakfast is provided. That way, we can provide my own breakfast, and so save a bit there. We take a picnic lunch into the city, and eat it in one of Edinburgh’s many excellent public parks. I’ll recommend a couple of very good value eateries:
     
    The Mosque Kitchen (Corner of Nicholson Street and Nicholson Place)
    This is a remarkable place. It is exactly what it says it is – or started out that way; purely to serve a cheap meal of chicken and rice to those going to Friday Prayers. After 9/11, it threw open its doors to anyone and everyone. Now, you queue up, get a dirt cheap curry in a box, and sit at large tables with everyone else to eat it. It is located very close to many of the Fringe’s big venues, including The Gilded Balloon, Assembly George Square, The Pleasance Dome and the Udderbelly.
     
    Ali Bongo’s Cafe & Bistro (Teviot Place, opposite Bristo Square)
    Also conveniently located near the Udderbelly, Pleasance Dome and Gilded Balloon, this serves good Eastern Mediterranean cuisine at reasonable prices. It is far better than it looks from the outside, which has the added advantage of meaning you can usually get a table (often a problem during the Fringe)
     
    Drinks? Sorry, but beer is expensive in Edinburgh, especially at the big Fringe venues. However, the atmosphere in those big outdoor bars tends to be very enjoyable, especially on a warm, cloudless night. The Pleasance Courtyard, the Udderbelly, or the Gilded Balloon are the best. Either drink less, or account for the cost.
     
    How do I find my way around? This is a fair question, as the Fringe covers a large area of the city. If you have a Smartphone, they release an app for that year’s Fringe a few months in advance. This is by far the best way.
     
    I suppose my last piece of advice is, don’t fail to go just because you don’t really know what you’ll do when you get there. Once you’re in Edinburgh during the Festival Fringe, it will draw you lovingly in, surround you, and look after you. You WILL have a great time.
  7. GhostOfClayton
    Hello, and welcome to my blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
     
    The law of unintended consequences
    I was listening to Nigel Farage being interviewed on the radio this morning (the picture isn't him, by the way). For those who don’t know him, he’s the leader of a New-Kid-On-The-Block-Far-Right-We’re-Not-Racist-But-We-Have-To-Keep-Saying-We’re-Not-Racist political party in the UK. Now you won’t be surprised to learn that I don’t agree with very much he says. However, this morning I found myself agreeing with him. He has an aspiration to reduce immigration to the UK, and the figure that’s being bandied about is 50,000 per annum. He was being a little evasive when pressed about that target though, saying it was more of an aspiration than a hard and fast target to which UKIP should be held if ever they (God forbid!) get into power. I know what he meant though, he sees it as being more of a strategy, something that would influence the way they would govern. It would be the ‘spirit’ of what they do rather than some we-must-reach-50,000-at-all-costs-no-matter-how-we-do-it goal. He didn’t want this target to stop the ‘right’ people immigrating. This is fair enough. I don’t like hard-and-fast targets, because they tend to change the motivation of people. If you phone an IT support desk (for example) with a problem, sometimes you get the impression the operator is motivated to close your call, rather than provide the help you need. That’s because he or she is some poor sap working in a Hyderbad call centre, and how much money he gets to spend on feeding his or her family is directly dependant on how many calls he closes, rather than how much help he provides. I would be the same, and so would you. And these kinds of targets have caused as much harm as good within the National Health Service for exactly that reason. Staff are motivated to meet the targets, rather than being motivated to care and cure.
     
    My heart bleeds for them
    Mr Farage went on to say that he didn’t want to set a target because people are bored with them. That’s where I stopped agreeing with him. I’m frustrated by targets, but not bored. Go on, ask me what people ARE bored by. I’ll tell you. It’s just how often you hear rich people moaning about how bloody awful it is to be rich. Let me quote talented singer/songwriter Adele, talking about tax:
     
    "I'm mortified to have to pay 50%! I use the NHS, I can't use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are shit, and I've gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [my album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire."
     
    Let’s ignore the last phrase and hope it isn’t an early sign of a major psychotic episode on her part. Instead, let’s do the maths (translation for US readers: let’s do the math.) She had to pay 50% tax, and this totalled £4,000,000. Let me get may calculator out, so she had . . . clickety-click-click . . . £8,000,000 to start off with. (Concentrate; I know there are a lot of zeroes going on here, but bear with it). So let me just work out what she’s left with to spend . . . . erm . . . oh yes, £4,000,000. Is that all? I’m so sorry I doubted you, Adele. Your life must be really shit! Maybe we can have a whip-round for you. I’ll tell you what, I don’t pay much in the way of tax. Wanna swap incomes?
     
    But it’s the irony of what she’s saying that must be lost on her. Maybe if people like her started doing their bit for the society that made them multi-millionaires in the first place, the state schools would be a bit less shit.
     
    The other main gripe you’ll hear from rich people is “I may have lots of money, but I work hard for it”. It’s apparent to me that this statement is rarely, if ever, true – the more people earn, the less hard they work. What people are doing when they say this, is mistaking the concept of “working hard” for that of “working long hours”. The people who pick the vegetables that find their way on to your dinner plate? They work hard. A&E nurses work hard. Coal miners work hard. Sitting in an office on the top floor of a Canary Wharf tower holding a teleconference with the New York office until 10:00pm is unwelcome, inconvenient and irritating. It may even be stressful. Though, if you’re stressed by the prospect of losing your job and having to live out your life on what miserable few million pounds you can eke out of your stock portfolio, then you’re not seeing the bigger picture. My heart bleeds for you.
  8. GhostOfClayton
    Warning: This blog contains the word 'shit', and possibly other words like 'shit'. If you're not comfortable with reading the word 'shit (or other words similar to 'shit'), then I advise you not to read on, just in case you encounter the word 'shit'. You have been warned! (About the word 'shit').
     
    Hello everybody. Welcome to the GhostOfClayton Twice Fortnightly blog. Comfy? Off we go.
     
    Disco's here, dat goes der
    I genuinely doubt that anyone has followed this blog from its early incarnations, and who could blame them? After my long hiatus, I read a few back to help me get into the swing, and was quite disappointed by how amateurish ‘Past OfClayton’ sounded as he penned them (we shouldn’t expect too much from him. As I established in an earlier blog, that boy’s an idiot!) However, if by some strange quirk of fate, you have followed it from its early beginnings, you’ll know that I often spend New Year’s Eve in the club in the sleepy little village of Aquis of the Romans (at least ever since Mrs OfClayton put a stop to me working in sunnier climes over the festive period). This year will be no exception, but I will have a job to do.
     
    The Aquis of the Romans Residents’ Association have members who are always regaling the others with tales of the glory days of New Year’s Eves in the Club. How a disco would be held, and huge numbers of village residents would come along to party the dregs of the old year away, and celebrate the coming of the New Year. How so many people turned up, you could barely squeeze in the door. Halcyon days!
     
    So a few of the guys (mainly aging rockers such as yours truly) hatched a plan. We could beg, steal or borrow some disco equipment, each make up a playlist of suitably rockin’ tracks on our phones, plug the latter into the former, and “Hey, Presto!” a cheap disco. All washed down with cheap beer, and the Landlady’s Pie ‘n’ Peas (you can’t beat foods that are combined by use of an ‘n’ . . . . bangers ‘n’ mash, fish ‘n’ chips, etc.) The perfect evening.
     
    Task list:
    Beg/Steal/Borrow disco equipment. Done.
    Arrange food. Done.
    Print tickets and posters. Done.
    Get a list of popular disco tracks. Hmm. Problem.
     
    Any member of the zero-sized group of people who have followed this blog right from its humble beginnings will know that my taste in music isn’t all that suitable for use in a disco. Any of you care to help me out with requests?
     
    Forking Hell
    The trouble with being a tour guide is that no-one’s going to get rich off it. That means that alternative employment must be sought to bridge the gap when not doing it, and this year I have been lucky enough to secure a new position (albeit only up until January). It’s covering a health and safety position in a Warehouse during a busy period, and I have to say, I’m enjoying it very much. There are all sorts of very blokey things like huge articulated (unlike some of the drivers) lorries coming and going, forklifts buzzing about, and some really, really high racking (with associated really, really high trucks to reach those dizzy heights.) I have to wear hard hat, safety glasses, steel toe capped shoes, and a high viz jacket, because of all that danger. I love it. That’s why I hope no-one I work with ever reads this blog.
     
    You see, I am a fairly typical second child. OfClayton Major (my elder sister) has a very sensible, responsible, safety-minded personality, whereas OfClayton Minor (me) is much more of a risk-taker; not quite ‘Death or Glory’, but very much ‘Shit or Bust’. In short, not the sort of individual you’d want to keep you safe from, say, being impaled on the forks of a passing stacker truck. “It’ll be right”, is always my response whenever Mrs OfClayton relates her latest worry to me (telling me I shouldn’t be using chainsaws whilst up trees, and the like) . . . And yet here I am, still alive. So I must’ve been right all these years. Anyway, just to show what a day in my life is like, please have a look at this (surprisingly good) forklift training video – it’s in German with English subtitles.
     

  9. GhostOfClayton
    It's Monday, so it's time for my weekly blog, and this week, I have two stories to tell you all. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin . . . .
     
    Limericks
     
    I'm very fortunate that, no matter how bloody awful things get outside it, the stuff going on inside my skull is always pretty entertaining. When my mind is not otherwise occupied, it gets caught up with little tasks and trivia, and I can't seem to stop it. I don't want to seem like some kind of old letch, so I won't dwell on my recent, delighted realisation that, at the age of 64, (having not clapped eyes on her since 'The Good Life'), Felicity Kendal is still one outrageously hot lady.
     

     
    No. . . such blokey banter is not appropraite here, and I shall say no more on the subject. A much more sutable topic here is what was passing through my mind whilst doing the washing up the other day. I found myself composing a Roman Limerick. However, by time I was rinsing the suds away, I was struggling to think of a last line, so I'm throwing it open to the Congniscenti that I know call by here. Suggestions please:
     
    A young lass of the Corieltavi,
    Sold her virtue for 20 denari,
    A Centurion bought it,
    and said, "who'd've thought it!",
    Blah-DI-blah-blah . . di blah-blah . . . di blah-blah.
     
    By the way, I'm aware of the proper plural form of 'Denarius', but that doesn't scan!
     
    Next week, Pompeiian Haiku!
     
     
    I said at the beginning of the thread that I had two stories to tell, and those of you who've been counting will know that you still have another one owing. So here it is:
     
     
    Limes
     
    The reason I'm spending so much time on UNRV is that my current task involves putting together a proposal for an 8-day walking holiday along the German-Raetian Limes, along similar lines to our Hadrian's Wall tour. Am I using UNRV for research? No. The trouble is, at the early stages of this sort of job, it's all done on the computer. "Why is that a problem?", I hear you ask. The problem is that my computer, like most nowadays, is connected to the internet, and (to quote Dave Gorman) the internet contains everything in the whole world, ever. I don't know about you, but I find 'everything in the whole world, ever' a bit of a distraction. Hence my far-too-frequent visits to this fine website, when I should be researching. I should be identifying the best 'section' of the 550km trail (my section needing to be walkable by the average hiker in 6 days), based on: scenic quality, historical value, access to accomodation and transport, length and height gain of individual days, etc. etc. . . . and I soon found out just how rusty my German was (it's been 3 years since I lead a tour in a German speaking country), when I discovered just how little information there is to be had in English.
     
    So, if anyone has any real-life experiences of this fascinating Roman border, it would be great to hear from them. Call me! We'll do lunch.
     
     
    Couple more things to add:
     
    1. 85 more shopping days to The Eagle of the Ninth (if I keep reporting this figure every week, it's bound to be wrong!)
     
    2. For the nostalgic among you, my Asterix book of the week is "Asterix and the Laurel Wreath".
     

  10. GhostOfClayton

    Ssshhh!

    By GhostOfClayton,

    Hello everyone, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton ‘once-again-it’s-turned-out-to-be-less-frequent-than-twice-fortnightly’ blog.
     
    The litmus test of a civilised society
    Very little is new at OfClayton Towers (though that isn’t an excuse). The main thing is that Mrs OfClayton has started a new job. She is now working in a library, and she enjoys it very much. I must admit it sounds quite interesting, helping people research projects / interests and the like. Trouble is, libraries are very much an endangered species in the UK at the moment. I [would] like to think of myself as a liberal intellectual, and a good socialist, so you’d think I would be throwing up my hands in horror at the actual and threatened loss of so many libraries. These institutions are iconic of a civilised society, surely. Trouble is, visitor numbers are dropping. Clientele seem to consist solely of Eastern Europeans who use the computers to Skype back to the family, elderly readers who’ve used libraries all their lives (understandably, numbers will dwindle in this category), and middle class parents taking their children, in a futile attempt to buck the trend. This is disheartening. It smacks of a litmus test of our modern western society that is starting to show an unappetising colour.
     
    However, (you knew there’d be a however, didn’t you?) the more I think about it, the more I think waving the white flag might not be quite the societal disaster that my heart thinks it would be. I was a regular in the library when I was a kid and these days I do have to do an awful lot of research, but even I don’t visit the library very often at all,. People aren’t using the libraries because it’s easier and quicker to get on the internet. Yes, that’s a gross oversimplification, and there are loads of little down sides to losing a library service. But how long before the numbers dwindle to almost zero? It’s depressing (or is it?)
     
    Once again, this blog has failed to come to a conclusion. No trends being bucked there, then.
     
    The future of this blog
    Just a note about the immediate future of this blog. On Friday night, I’ll be heading out to Austria, so there’ll definitely not be a blog the following Thursday. My colleague works out there as a ski rep in the winter sports season, and he thinks there just might be a hint of a whisper of a chance of some absence cover work going. I’ve no idea how long it will last, if it happens at all, so you’ll have to watch this space. If I come back, I’ll blog. Ciao for now.
  11. GhostOfClayton
    Hello all, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice-fortnightly blog. Little warning: some of it may contain �adult themes�, but all in a proper, medical context.
     
    A letter arrived on the doormat here at OfClayton Towers last week, and I recognised it straight away. It had a cute little anthropomorphised blood drop (who I understand to be called Billy) on the back, and I have had one of these every three months for about the last five or six years. It was the notification that the time had arrived for me to do my bit for society, roll up my sleeves, and give blood.

    This all started due to the tragic death of a colleague. Not a close colleague � I didn't know him. I can't even remember his name, if I'm honest. However, I do remember he was quite young, and that he died as a result of injuries sustained in an accident. A huge quantity of blood was used by the medical team in an attempt to save his life, but sadly they were unsuccessful.
     
    Following his funeral, those colleagues that did know him better than myself decided it would be a fitting tribute to recruit as many new blood donors as possible. This sounded fitting to me as well, and so I put my name forward. Have you ever given blood? If not, here's how you go about it:
     
    The first step is to answer the many questions on the form, which includes such gems as "Have you had oral or anal sex with a man?" (only men need answer this one) or "Have you had sex with a man that has had anal or oral sex with another man" (no-one is exempt from answering this one!) They also ask about your movements abroad, and get quite specific about the countries/dates.
     
    Anyway, assuming you haven�t had anal/oral sex with a man, or shared a needle with same in a drug den, then you can proceed to the next stage. You hand the form to the nurse, who confirms your name/address/date of birth, pricks your finger, and squeezes a drop of your blood into a test tube of liquid. Like a medieval test for witchcraft, if it sinks, you�re OK, otherwise you�re out on your ear.
     
    Next step, lay on your back to have your blood pressure taken (after confirming your name/address/date of birth once again!) If that's OK, they . . . I don�t know what to call it . . Hoover your arm with a wet plastic Hoover, before inserting a needle with the bore of a Volvo exhaust into your vein. Then you wait while your life force drains into a plastic bag, imagining what would happen if no-one took it out, and it just kept on draining and draining, slowly but surely emptying your body until you lost the fight with consciousness, knowing you'd never wake up again . . . . that's the kind of thing I think about, anyway.
     
    So far, it's been fine. A nurse has always been around to remove the drainpipe from my arm, and use industrial adhesive to stick some kind of dressing over the wound. There then follows a very carefully timed lie down, sit up, swing your legs over, and back to the waiting area for orange squash and a biscuit . . . and a little sticker to say what a brave boy I�ve been.
     
    So why do I do it. What makes the experience make me feel so good? Is it because I'm doing my 'bit' for society? Is it because the nurses there invariably have . . . well, let's just say they make the rockin' world go round, if you follow my meaning? No, none of that. It's just so I can feel smug and superior for the rest of the day. A lovely, lovely feeling.
  12. GhostOfClayton

    Bah, Humbug!

    By GhostOfClayton,

    Well here we are once again, that annual midwinter dog and pony show they call Christmas. Bloody hell! And that was swearing. I make no apology, and I will swear later as well.
     
    It�s already a matter of record that I lament Christmas getting ever-earlier (I blogged about it a few weeks ago . . . where were you?), so that�s the first reason for me to curse. Apart from that, I�m not religious, I probably have anti-capitalist tendencies, and don�t have kids, I rarely drink, I�m still on that perpetual diet I went on earlier this year, and I�m also unfortunate enough to spend most of any given winter quite far up the northern hemisphere. I long for the days when I used to spend the festive period in the Mediterranean sun. Now I spend it with rain, wind, snow, fog, ice, etc. Can you think of any more things people look forward to at Christmas that haven�t been dismissed by my previous statements. What�s that? Peace and good will to all men? I try and do that all year . . . what kind of miserable shit is only ever good to people for a fortnight every year? (I said I would swear again, didn�t I?)
     
    Christmas lights? I have to admit that Christmas lights can be breathtakingly beautiful (they can also be breathtakingly tacky, but we won�t go there), but once I started to understand the concept of a carbon footprint, they kind of lost their appeal. And does anyone like shopping in December? Or the ever increasing war of escalation where people buy each other slightly more expensive presents every year. In the words of the great Sheldon Cooper, �You haven�t given me a present, you�ve given me an obligation.�
     
    Turkey? Seriously, does anyone ever eat turkey outside of Christmas (and Thanksgiving if you live in the good old U S of A) ? I doubt it. As meats go, it�s pretty ordinary, isn�t it?
     
    Spending time with your family? I will spend Christmas Day with one of the the belligerent and numerous OfClayton nice/nephew tribes. They�re nice kids, and fun to be with for about an hour. After that, the fun wears a bit thin, especially when the excitement of Christmas renders them uncontrollable. I dread the day when they become too tall to steer by placing a hand on top of their heads, and turning.
     
    Anyway, I�ve got to go. My ex-business partner has put three appointments in my diary for later tonight. Don�t know what that�s all about . . . . So I�ll leave you with details of what�s in my iPhone Christmas playlist:
     
    Thea Gilmore � That�ll be Christmas
    The Darkness � Don�t Let the Bells End
    Jona Lewie � Stop the Cavalry
    The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl � Fairy Tale of New York
    Greg Lake - I believe in Father Christmas
    The Pretenders - 2000 Miles
    Hurts - All I want for Christmas is New Year�s Day (Don�t judge me on this one, it was a freebie from Apple)
    Kylie � Santa Baby (also a freebie)
     
    Care to share your Christmas favourites?
  13. GhostOfClayton

    Quantum jump

    By GhostOfClayton,

    I�ll start with a seemingly random series of stuff that�s happened (or is going to happen) to me, and then explain their relevance.
     
    Number 1. I spent much of December sitting behind a desk. The downside is apparent to anyone who has to sit behind a desk. The upside is that I got paid for it, and so am now the proud owner of some money.
     
    Number 2. Every Christmas, Kindle have an event called The 12 Days of Kindle. This involves reducing the price of many great titles to (usually) 99p. A title called �How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog� caught my eye, and I�ve been reading it with interest. It taught me one thing: There are two types of people, those who don�t know what quantum physics does, and don�t understand how it does it, and those who DO know what quantum physics does, and don�t understand how it does it. Thanks to the book, I�m moving from the former camp to the latter. I will hasten to point out that I�m not some scientific genius (though I did get a Physics A-level). The concepts are not beyond any reasonably scholarly person. Read it � you�ll see what I mean.
     
    Number 3 � The Radio Times hit the doormat of OfClayton Towers yesterday. On the cover was a big picture of Professor Brian �all the men want to be him, all the women want to be with him� Cox, advertising the upcoming �Stargazing Live� TV event. They did this a while back. Very good telly. Very interesting. Made me want to get involved.
     
    Number 4 � I�ve been watching a few episodes of the wonderfully funny Frasier. Classic comedy. US TV at its best.
     
    Number 5 - I live in the sleepy little village of Aquis-of-the-Romans, which is inconveniently located at the arse end of nowhere!
     
    So, how are these all connected? Well, seeing Frasier (who has a nice refractor telescope, seemingly only ever used to observe people in neighbouring apartment blocks), made me realise how much I�ve always wanted a telescope. And now Stargazing Live is due on our TV screens just at the time when I have some money in my pocket. Bad timing! I should seriously consider using that money to buy food, water, a roof over my head, brake pads for the GhostMobile, etc. etc. However, I still find myself pricing up telescopes, and looking up at the un-light-polluted night sky above Aquis-of-the-Romans wondering about the bejewelled firmament that could be just a couple of lenses and a mirror away.
     
    What has that to do with Quantum Physics? I hear you ask. Well, in order to explain, I�ll have to teach you something about quantum physics. This is why I mentioned I had an A-level in Physics earlier. It wasn�t to blow my own trumpet, far from it. It was to highlight the fact that I�m in no position to teach even classical physics, let alone quantum physics. But I will, anyway (what a rebel!) One of the enigmas in quantum physics is that particles like photons, electrons, etc, behave like a wave and as a particle. These are mutually exclusive, but they happen. Go figure! The upshot of this is that, if you take, say, a photon and send it somewhere, it can take any number of different routes to get there. It doesn�t just take one of them, it takes them all, though some of them are more probable than others, and plotting just how probable creates something that behaves like a wave. I didn�t state that very well, and any respectable physicist would sneer, but it will do for the purposes of this blog.
     
    Because of this, and other incongruous aspects of quantum physics, there have been many attempts to interpret why there is this seemingly so counter-intuitive behaviour at the microscopic level. One such interpretation is known as the Many Worlds interpretation. We�ve all seen the Star Trek episode where Evil Spock arrives from a parallel universe (you can tell he�s evil, because he has a goatee beard!) The physics underpinning parallel universes is this Many Worlds Interpretation. We�ve said that our photon could take any number of possible routes � countless quadrillions of them. In the MWI, the photon takes all of them, but each one seeds a new future (or parallel universe, if you will). Now imagine how many photons there have been in the whole universe since the dawn of time. How many times they have branched into these countless quadrillions of new universes, and each of those new universes instantly branching into countless quadrillions of new universes. Yikes!
     
    Anyway, I reflected on this, and found myself thinking thus. In the multiverse (the term coined for the collected whole of all these universes), there must be incalculable numbers of GhostOfClaytons, who think �sod it!�, and blow all their money on a telescope they can ill afford. Given just how many of them there are (countless quadrillions), surely I would be forgiven for taking the plunge, wouldn�t I?
  14. GhostOfClayton

    Dangerous!

    By GhostOfClayton,

    Happy New 2015!
     
    Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
     
    It’s traditional at this time of year to have a sort of review of the past year, outlining key events and so on. Since I did bugger-all of any worth whatsoever in 2014, I won’t waste your time. Instead, I’ll tell you what I’d like to achieve in 2015.
     
    As ever, for those that don’t really know me (which is all of you – this blog is kept strictly a secret from anyone I actually interact with, just in case they laugh at me), some context will be required before I tell you my dreams and goals for this year.
     
    When Young OfClayton (That’s me. Pay attention!) hadn’t had the joy and ambition ground away out of him by life, he went to college, full of dreams and aspirations for a bright future (what a gullible and naive git he was). His first year at college was utterly wasted because most of the time he should have spent learning stuff was actually spent playing snooker. Anyway, through what must’ve been divine intervention, he actually passed his exams and his coursework and was accepted for a second year on the course. The course was a sandwich course, and the second year was spent working. This was good for Young OfClayton, because your evenings and weekends are your own, and nobody gives a shit if you waste them on non-productive pursuits. The third year saw Young OfClayton back at college, with a very different attitude to the waste-of-space that barely scraped through his first year. Things would change this year; no more would I waste my time playing snooker. And true to my word, I didn’t. Instead, I wasted my time playing ‘Elite’.
     
    I feel I must explain what Elite is, though I’m sure 90% of my audience are familiar with it. It was a video game played on the BBC Micro. It was the original and seminal space trading game, in which you played the pilot of a spaceship. The aim (unsurprisingly) was to fly around and shoot things. It was a really, really playable game that you could easily become totally immersed in. The graphics were ground-breaking, the universe it existed in was believable, the action was thick and fast. It was . . . just . . . totally . . . frickin . . . awesome. And I played it a LOT.
     
    As an aside, there is now a new game called ‘Elite: Dangerous’. This is effectively the same game, by the same people, but brought up to date. If the ‘white-lines-plotted-on-black’ of Elite was awesome, can you imagine how awesome it is when displayed using 21st century computer graphics? Mere words just cannot do it justice. It is the Mona Lisa, The Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven’s Vth, Grand Unified Field Theory. It is a thing of unrivalled joy and beauty to behold.
     
    So, what are my hopes and dreams for 2015? Basically, I aspire to spend every hour not spent sleeping or pissing, playing that game. However, I know deep down in my soul that this ambition is never meant to be. Mrs OfClayton won’t let me. I haven’t asked her, but I know she would never allow it; what sane woman would? Instead I shall have to squander my time fulfilling my responsibilities to my wife and household, earning the respect of my community, and being a productive member of society. What a waste!
  15. GhostOfClayton
    Hello all. Welcome to the GhostOfClayton Twice Fortnightly blog. You OK? Let’s do this thing.
     
    WARNING: There is no bad language in this blog entry whatsoever. So if you were looking for some, then tough sh*t.
     
    Poltergeist?
    Prepare yourselves, dear readers, for a strange and terrible tale of spine-tingling supernatural events, that will chill your blood to the very bone.
     
    There have been some mysterious goings-on at OfClayton Towers these past few years. An unquiet spirit walks its dusty hallways. I’ve never actually witnessed this ghostly spectre, but I know it must be there because of the unnerving evidence it leaves behind it. What is this evidence? It leaves a used tea bag in the spoon rest on the kitchen top, by the kettle. Now I know that a sceptic will be saying that these could easily have been left by Mrs OfClayton or myself, but I have proof to the contrary: You see, the kitchen bin is only three paces away (I’ve counted them), and which mortal is so lazy as to be unwilling to walk three paces to the bin with a used tea bag? Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever’s left (no matter how improbable) must be the truth. . . So it can only be a ghost.
     
    Unsettling as this spectral presence is to me, I still smile when I think of it. You see, every time the phantom goes back to leave its next tea bag, it must be taken aback to find that the previous tea bag has mysteriously vanished from the spoon rest. It must think that the tea-bag has been spirited away to the bin by the Little Magic Tea Bag Pixie.
     
    . . . from which I can segue neatly to . . .
    Another bucket list item well and truly ticked off. For my 50th Birthday, Mrs OfClayton bought me a voucher for a ‘Forest Segway Experience’. I cashed the voucher in on Saturday and spent a very exciting hour whizzing around in Dalby Forest on a Segway. Statistically, you’re not likely to have been on a Segway before, and so I have one piece of advice for you. DO IT. I really enjoyed it. A great feeling, and very easy to pick up how the controls work. Are you still here?
  16. GhostOfClayton
    Warning: In this blog, I do use the word ‘Bitch’ more than once. I’m not a misogynist.
     
    Welcome to GhostOfClayton’s Twice Fortnightly blog. Allow me to introduce myself to new bloggees. I’m a bitch, I’m a mother, I’m a child, I’m a lover, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint. Yes, I stole that. It’s a lyric from Meredith Brooks’ very catchy track, ‘Bitch’. She goes on to say, “I’m your hell, I’m your dream, I’m nothing in-between. You know you wouldn’t want it any other way.” I always feel that the long-suffering Mr Brooks probably would want it another way. Especially after the first 10 years of marriage. She sounds quite high-maintenance to me.
     
    Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
     
    Bah, Humbug!
    Well here we are once again, that annual midwinter dog and pony show they call Christmas . . . hang on a minute . . . I’m getting déjà vu here . . . that’s right, I already did a blog all about Christmas. I shall just refer you to it. You can find it here. That’s saved me a good few minutes of my life. For those interested, I used it to go and get a cup of coffee.
     
    I love the Java jive, and it loves me
    Mrs OfClayton has started to make me tea, if ever she puts the kettle on (reading that back, it sounded a little snide. It wasn’t meant to be. We don’t have any fixed system, or keep records, but I reckon we are about fair and equitable when it comes to making a hot beverage). The reason for that is that she has recently got it into her head that I drink too much coffee when I’m not tour-guiding. Little does she know, but I probably drink too much coffee when I am tour-guiding. I don’t smoke, don’t take any non-prescription drugs, drink alcohol only very occasionally, and am on an almost permanent diet, so coffee is my only vice. Surely it’s OK to indulge one chemical addiction, isn’t it?
     
    I’ve already mentioned in a previous blog that I need to have paid work to keep the wolf from the door during the off-season. I’m reminded of the winter when I was given a job with a project team that were helping to implement a computer system for a large pharmaceutical manufacturing site. The team had been relocated into a portakabin some way outside the main office block, and thus isolated from the drinks dispenser. The portakabin was ordered by a guy called Ken, and so became referred to as The Kendyhouse. Anyway, it was a particularly bleak and gusty winter that year. The winds did their best to ensure that what little coffee was left in your cup after carrying it to the Kendyhouse, was tepid at best. Not a happy situation for caffeine addicts like myself and the contract programmers on the team (contract programmers need it to stimulate creativity, I think). The project manager relented, and bought in a filter machine for us, which sat on a filing cabinet right next to my desk. This meant that I barely had to lift one arse-cheek off my chair in order to refill my coffee mug. Happy situation for me, if not my body.
     
    My body was to get more bad news when a new contract programmer arrived about a week or so after the filter machine; you see, he had come to us from Taylors of Harrogate. For those not aware of this company, they are one of the leading suppliers of teas and coffees in the UK, and are positioned quite ‘up’ market. Now, whilst working at Taylors of Harrogate, this contract programmer had acquired (by fair means or foul, I don’t know, but I do know he didn’t pay for them) a large amount of their premium after dinner filter coffee ‘Hot Lava Java’, a dark, rich, aromatic, and highly caffeinated coffee, which he gladly donated to the cause.
     
    So there I was, drinking mug after mug of very strong coffee. I didn’t feel any medical detriment at all, if I’m honest. The only real detriment was to my conscience. I felt guilty that I was probably chemically abusing my body in ways that I daren’t look up on the internet. I wasn’t on my own either. I sat opposite a bright young lad with a prestigious honours degree in geology, who’d been brought in to do low-level paper-pushing at some obscenely low pay grade. He too was feeling the twinges of guilt, and so (after a particularly heavy coffee session one Friday) we decided that we would give up coffee.
     
    Ooooh!
     
     
    Bad move.
     
     
    I will now describe the symptoms that plagued me following the withdrawal of my drug of choice:

    Headache. A persistent, gripping pain like a tightening band all around my head, just above the eyes. If you’ve ever seen a Vincent Price film called ‘The Abominable Dr. Phibes’? ? That’s how it felt. Co-codamol wouldn’t touch it.
    Violent mood swings.
    Sleeplessness.
    Twitches.
    Shooting pains up the arms.
    Unable to concentrate.

    It was the worst 15 minutes of my life.
     
    I jest, of course. I lasted until Saturday afternoon, when I had a cup of tea (people say there’s more caffeine in tea than coffee. Look them square in the eye and make sure they know that they’re talking bullshit.) By Saturday evening, I’d had a cup of Nescafe, just to ease the symptoms, you understand. More on Sunday. By Monday I was back to square one.
     
    I have vowed never to give up coffee again. It was a bitch!
  17. GhostOfClayton
    If you remember, last time I left you on a cliff-hanger: Did I go to Bottom Pub with the crowd, or did I respect my 25 year old ban, and stay away? Sorry, you�ll have to wait until next time for the answer to that. I have something topical to discuss this week. That is to say, it was topical when I wrote it. Subsequently, the UNRV website fell into its long coma. It�s no longer topical, but you can read it anyway:-
     
    I�m not sure just how much this news has filtered into other countries, or even if the problem extends to mainland Europe, but there was only one story in the media in the UK of late (at the time of writing), and that is the Horsemeat Scandal. Apparently, criminal gangs have been infiltrating the meat supply chain, and supplying horsemeat instead of beef. This has been happening on a scale that is quite dizzying. You have to admire the sheer logistical effort that allows them to supply that quantity of any meat, let alone whilst seemingly remaining �under the radar� for quite a long time. I can�t help thinking that if they were capable of using these management skills in legitimate business, they could really make some serious money.
     
    The horsemeat tended to find its way into ready meals with a high minced beef content (or claim to have a high minced beef content); burgers, lasagne, that kind of thing, and seemingly no food giant or supermarket was immune. Huge amounts of food was removed from shelves. So much that it makes you wonder where all the beef that would normally be produced to go into these foods had actually gone.
     
    Now that is a terrible thing, and I�ve told you about it, and that�s as far as I want to go with the scandal itself. It�s the reaction of Joe Public that bemused me. They were horrified. Not horrified that they could no longer have any confidence that what they thought they were eating wasn�t what they were actually eating (which is what they should be truly horrified about). No . . . what really horrified them deep down to their very core was the thought that they might have eaten horsemeat. Now I know that my ample frame is testament to the fact that I�m not a picky eater, so I may not be best qualified to sympathise with that reaction. I have eaten horse, in a very pleasant little bistro in Nice�s Vielle Ville. It was very tasty. Very lean, slightly sweeter than beef; on the whole, not a low quality meat. In fact, I remember as a poor student regularly going down to the supermarket and buying a stack of 30 �value� burgers for a pound. I would have been delighted had I known there was anything in there as high quality as horsemeat.
     
     
    It�s not all black and white
     
    Looking at the title of this section, you might guess (or hope?) that maybe I�m about to blog about the latest �chick-*or*� bestseller, �50 Shades of Grey�. I am not. Don�t get me wrong, I have many insightful, amusing, controversial, and no doubt down-right risqu� things to say about �50 Shades�. But that is not the subject of this particular blog. I am only prepared to blog about �50 Shades� on request; so if you�d like me to cover that particular Magnum Opus, just ask, and I will. No, the subject of this blog section (�blog-ette� if you will, or maybe �blogella�) is the good old Black and White Minstrels. For those too young or too foreign to know about the Black and White Minstrels, they were a sort of song and dance troupe, popular in the sixties and seventies, consisting of men who would �black up�, but then give themselves huge white mouths (like a clown�s mouth may be red) and round white eyes. There may have been more than one dance-troupe, I don�t know . . . it may have been a . . . what�s the word? . .. �genre� of entertainment (that�s not the word!) There may have been huge gangs of these men roaming around the piers of England, offering post-bingo entertainment to holidaymakers. Anyway, their numbers are irrelevant to this blog. The key point is that you don�t see them anymore. At some stage it became racially insensitive to �black-up� for reasons of entertainment (soldiers attempting a night raid on a Taliban stronghold would still be fine). �That�s all well and good,� you say. �That�s cultural progress.� �Black people were probably never threatened or insulted by this sort of thing, but where racial intolerance is concerned it pays to err on the safe side.� And I would tend to agree . . . anything that helps me stay out of fights scores highly in my book. But that raises a question: What about that most ancient and venerable of thespian institutions, the Pantomime Dame. Surely if blacking-up for entertainment is racist, then dragging up for entertainment must be Trans-genderist, mustn�t it? And yet we not only tolerate it, we love it . . . take our kids to see it and everything. I dressed up as one once � had the time of my life. This whole blog was leading up to that one question, and I don�t even care about the answer. If there�s any real truth, it�s that this motley isle has a baffling culture where nothing makes sense if you try to analyse it. I, for one, intend to sit back and enjoy the ride.
     
    �Oh, no you don�t!�
     
    Oh yes I do.
  18. GhostOfClayton
    Incidentally, the title of this blog refers not to some drunken adolescent, but the frittering away of one's formative years. It's a phrase often associated with the game of snooker, and is certainly true in my case. more on that later.
     
    A stroke of luck
    The day of the Royal Wedding found me staying just outside the oldest town in Britain (which is Colchester). Over breakfast, we'd had the telly on, and inevitably it was wall-to-wall coverage of the lead up to the big 'I do'. This seemed to whet Mrs ofClayton's appetite a little, and she subsequently decided she'd like stay in and watch the ceremony itself. Now, I can't stay in on a sunny day just to watch people get hitched, so I opted to go for a little stroll around the environs to find the nearest bus route into town, and set off along the road. Glancing casually to my left I noticed, set back from the road a few metres behind a sparse hedge, a notice on a kissing gate. Such things do interest me, as these signs usually relate to land with concessionary access, especially whn not accompanied by a right-of-way sign (which this one wasn't). Closer inspection revealed the legend "Gosbecks Archeaological Park. Dogs must be kept on a lead" along with a picture of someone metal-detecting behind a large red cross. Hmmm . . my curiosity is piqued, even though nothing revealed itself beyond the kissing gate other than a very large grassy field and some cows. No further information on the gate, either. What was the archaeology in question? Why was it so special that it rated its own park? How could I ignore that? So, through the kissing gate I went, and onwards following what looked like a slightly worn path in the grass. This lead to the other end of the (quite sizable) field where I found . . . . another big field! Not to be discouraged, I pressed on through this field. It was similarly lacking in anything that could be deemed archaeological. At the far end of this field, I reached a lane. Here, I got the first inkling that I may be onto something. Just across the lane was a small rough area of land that could, with a certain degree of optimism, be called a car park, and beside this car park was a display board showing map of 'Gosbecks Archaeological Park'. Two labels on this map drew my eye instantly: 'Site of Roman Theatre', and 'Site of Roman Temple'. Obviously, these would just be bits of field unidentifiable from any other bit of field, but I had to go and stand in those bits of field anyway. Following my mental memory of the map I pressed on into Gosbecks Archaeological Park and eventually hit the 'Site of Roman Theatre'. To my joy, this wasn't just another bit of field, but a large bit of field that had been carefully mown, and marked out with the outlines of a medium-sized Roman theatre. Not only that, but an interpretation board had been placed next to it with a picture of how the theatre may have looked, details of its construction, and all sorts of pertanant and well-presented archeological information. Not only that, but the same was true about the 'Site of Roman Temple', only this could more accurately be described as a 'Site of Roman Temple Complex', being much larger, and containing the outline not only of the temple, but also the surrounding porticus and ditches. And all I went out to find was a bus stop!
     

     
     
    Why not in America?
     
    Monday saw the conclusion of the World Snooker Championships 2011. Interested? Why not? If you're not interested in religion, they will call you an 'atheist'. They have a word for it! Why, then, is there no word for people who have no interest in snooker? Or telephony? Or oceanography? Or Roman Archaeology? . . . The list is endless. And yet they have a word for people who have no interest in religion. I'm sure some would say that a religious belief is such an all-encompassing belief, permeating the believer's life, thoughts and behaviours, such that in no way can it be compared to a mere hobby/sport/game. They may be right. Religious beliefs do tend to be written through a religious person's life like 'Scarborough' through a stick of rock. But to suggest that this level of passion can only be felt for a deity is to belittle the passion and fantaticism that can clearly be felt for (say) Manchester United in some individuals. As an independant and impartial outsider to both football and religion, I see no difference between those who forsake all else for their God, and those who forsake all else for their team.
     
    Anyway, I digress. I wanted to talk about snooker, rather than philosophise about systems of belief. So, 'abilliardists' need read no further. As I was saying, Monday was the final of the Snooker World Championships. Given half a chance, I could cheerfully let whole days of my life drift away watching snooker, so have made the decision that I would only watch the last day of the World Championships, and all other tournaments would (reluctantly) have to pass me by completely. A huge sacrifice, given that I was trading the game I love dearly (but not religiously) for a more constructive and worthwhile life. Anyway, something struck me while I was watching this very exciting final. Why is it that snooker has never taken off in the USA? They play an awful lot of pool, as have I in my time, and snooker is a sort of bigger, better version of pool. Not only played on a much bigger table, but a much more strategic game that can deliver some breathtaking twists and turns. Right up their street, I would've thought. So, if anyone from that side of the Atlantic can cast some light on this, please comment below . . I'd love to hear your thoughts.
  19. GhostOfClayton
    Warning: The following blog contains strong language, and scenes of a sexual nature.
     
    But first up, more from the iPod:
     
    2-4-6-8 Motorway � Tom Robinson
    Woo Hoo � The 5-6-7-8�s (Weird coincidence, given the previous track?)
    Up the Junction � Squeeze
    This Town Ain�t Big Enough � Sparks
    Summer (the First Time) � Bobby Goldsboro
     
    I love "Summer (The First Time)", maybe because it's every man's fantasy first time, eh lads? Mrs Robinson, and all that . . . YOU know what I mean. Whereas, the reality . . . .
     
    Maybe I should compare and contrast Bobby Goldsboro's 'First Time' to my own experience.
     
    Oh! NOW you're listening, are you? Last blog, I recounted the dramatic demise of two WWII bobber crews; heroes who died whilst bravely defending our skies against tyranny. Not one single comment was posted in response to that, but I offer to spill the beans about one of my most intimate secrets, and suddenly your ears are pricking up! Shame on you!
     
    Where was I? Oh yes. If Mr Goldsboro were to sing about yours truly breaking his duck, the first verse would be about an (ultimately futile) battle between a youth and a bra clasp. Not a bra like the black and lacy, well-filled bras that had previously wobbled their way through my adolescent fantasies. Oh no, none of that. This light-grey veteran of many a hot wash was going nowhere, no matter how desperate my inexpert fumbles. (Nowadays, of course, I can undo a bra with a mere flick of the fingers and twist of the wrist! Honestly!)
     
    Moving on. You would've thought that, with Mother Nature's most beautiful of unions, having been perfected and evolved over eons, hitting the target would be a mere formality. Far from it. On this occasion success could only be had with much manhandling (and tutting).
     
    The line about seeing the sun set as a boy and watching it rise again as a man is very powerful and beautiful, and leaves a lasting impression of the significance of the previous night in Bobby Goldboro�s young life. In my particular case, I neither saw the sun set, nor rise again. The line would have to go, "the sun set over a pub in which a boy was drinking bitter, and rose again over a semi-detached house in which a man was hungover". Not that catchy, is it? And could I really call myself a man? A man would have spent the day reflecting on the joyous beauty of the act of love he had just experienced with a woman he honoured and respected with all his soul. The boy that was GhostOfClayton actually spent the day in childish, self-congratulatory "yes"es, and finding all his mates so he could brag about his conquest. What a twat!
     
    Lastly, so you know that I don't think of my 'partner in crime' as just a sort of sex object or maybe just someone that was prepared to let me 'do it' to them, I shall put your mind at rest. I'm not going to introduce you to her personally � she may be reading this blog. It's not very likely, but if she is, there are two things I'd like to say to her. Firstly, it really did mean something to me, despite all the stuff I've just said (I did blog about it 30 years later, didn't I?) Secondly, I hope that in the intervening time, you have treated yourself to a better bra.
     
    So . . . there you have it. Was your first time any better? And, yes. That question is by way of laying down the gauntlet to other bloggers.
  20. GhostOfClayton
    'Probably me', would be the answer to that question. On Wednesday night I was driving past a wood just outside the sleepy little village of Aquis-of-the-Romans. A movement just outside the field of my headlights caught my eye, and before I could react, a deer leaped out onto the road and in front of the car. Thud! . . and then a 'thud-thud' as it went under each of the right hand wheels. That gets the heart beating, let me tell you.
     
    What do you do after you've hit a deer? This is a different question from "what are you supposed to do after you've hit a deer?" What you're supposed to do is calmly pull to a halt where it is safe to do so. Ensure the carcass isn't causing a traffic hazard, and if it is, remove it to the side of the road. Then inspect your car for damage, only pulling away again when your car has been made up to a safe and drivable condition. What you actually do is to keep driving, wondering what you would do if you did stop and go back to the bloody corpse you have left behind. Consider how horrible it would be to have to touch said mass of fur and innards, let alone drag each individual bit (at this time, in your mind the deer is in at least two pieces, rent in twain by the wheels of your car). As you're thinking this, you're getting further and further away from the scene, and thus it's getting less and less likely you'll go back to encounter the horror that awaits.
     
    I did go back . . . eventually. I had to. My number plate was no longer attached to my car. I HAD to go back to firstly, save the cost of a new number plate, and secondly, hide the evidence that links the crime directly back to yours truly. Was it a crime? No. Deer are a wild animal, and as such you can pretty much do what you want to them. Deer, rats, etc. are all legally the same. Had it been a pheasant, then that would have been different. They share the same legal status as the local Lord of the Manor's favourite pet. If you run one down, you can't pop it in your boot and take it home for supper, (but, strangely, the guy in the car behind can do.)
     
    Back to the hapless Bambi. What did I find when I went back? Remarkably, nothing but my number plate! Somehow, despite the GhostMobile hitting, and then driving over it (at about 40mph), it still had enough life left in it to crawl away, presumably to expire peacefully in the woods.
     
    Damage to the GhostMobile? One quite large, fur covered, crack in the bumper, and removal of number plate.
     
    Damage to GhostOfClayton? Several long lacerations to my forearm while trying to re-attach the number plate (not as easy as you might think on a Honda Whateveritis).
     
    On the subject of cars
    Inspired by Ursus' last blog, I also would like to take this opportunity to drift nostalgically back to my late teens. As a newly qualified driver, I used to look at the Ford Capri with covetousness bordering on obsession. I passed one the other day � I haven't seen one in years � I'd still like to own one.
     

     
    If music be the food of love . . .
     
    Inspired by one of DocOfLove's previous blogs, where her taste in music was hinted at, I have decided to share my musical taste with you all.
     
    The way I usually listen to music is through my iPod. It's only an old 8GB device, but it still the vast majority of my music on there. My usual habit is to turn it on, hit 'shuffle', and see what comes along.
     
     
    If it's convenient, I'll make a note of the first half dozen or so tracks that appear in any given day. Who knows, someone may be introduced to some music they haven't heard, but do like. It's a bit like a dating agency, only I'll be introducing people and music that have never met before, but may eventually get married, have kids, and live happily ever after.
     
     
    Then again, they may decide that they're not for each other straight away, and agree not to date each other again. Who knows? Life's like that . . . it's a rollercoaster ride!
     
     
    So, here goes . . . is your safety bar in place? Yes? Anticipation is building as we ratchet steeply upwards for the first big drop . . .
     
     



    (a coincidence � Peter Gabriel was in DocOfLove�s list)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DLp-vE3AKg ' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>The Calculation by Regina Spektor
     
     
    More next week (or the week after if I'm away).
  21. GhostOfClayton
    HP Sauce � turns a sandwich into a manwich
    Now, I�m not one to do celebrity product endorsements (you have to be a celebrity to do that, for starters), and I�m certainly not in favour of the creeping product placement we seem to be experiencing nowadays. But I do like HP Sauce. Those who don�t know what HP Sauce is (this equates to no-one in the UK, and probably practically everyone anywhere else), are now asking �what is HP Sauce?� Basically, it�s the proprietary brand among a collection of products collectively called (very unimaginatively) brown sauce. I destroyed my last remaining tastebud back in 80s by eating too many hot curries, so I can�t tell the difference between them, but Mrs OfClayton says she prefers HP, so it is the HP bottle that adorns the breakfast table at OfClayton Towers. It has quite a strong and very savoury flavour that complements bacon butties (sandwiches), fried breakfasts, chips (fries, not crisps), etc. You pour a small amount straight from the bottle onto your food (or in a blob at the side), in the same way you would with ketchup. Culturally, it�s much more popular in the north of the country than the south � I don�t know why.
     

     
    �Why are you telling us this now?� is the next question you�ll surely be asking. I suppose it�s all to do with my new Mo. It�s coming along nicely now � in fact, it�s reached the stage where a small part of each meal can be �saved for later� in it (usually involuntarily). HP sauce are currently running an ad where the narrator says that any effort to grow facial hair MUST be applauded. I�ll be honest, I don�t feel like applauding mine. Far from it. It�s irritating me no end and, come the 1st December, it will be shaved off with great glee, never to return. The fact remains, that HP feel it should be applauded, hence the timing of my endorsement. HP Sauce . . . I love it!
     
    A footnote to is by way of a final question: Why don�t they have this in the US? Ever since I�ve been a more frequent visitor the good old US of A in recent years, I�ve had a good look around for it, without success. I can see why it wouldn�t suite European tastes, but I can�t help thinking it would suit the American palate right down to the ground. Someone�s missing a trick there, I reckon.
  22. GhostOfClayton
    You�ll be needing a little historical background for today�s story, so here goes.
     
    As the Allies started to gain the upper hand in World War II, they started to plan out their strategy for following a retreating army back to Berlin. Any wartime leader with any sense would dynamite bridges as they retreated over them, and the assumption was that the retreating Nazi army would do the same. So the stickiest problem for the Allies would be getting tanks in sufficient numbers across the Rhine. To this end, they fine-tuned a device that had been first designed to help with the D Day landings, namely the DD tank (or swimming tank). In order to perform this fine-tuning, and also to practice the actual crossing, they needed a river whose width, flow, river bed consistency, banks, etc. provided Rhine-like conditions, and they chose the lower River Trent. A base was set up just outside a small village, and the work began.
     

    A Valentine DD (Swimming) Tank being deployed
     
    From the age of 4 to the point where I married Mrs OfClayton and couldn�t afford to buy a house there, I lived in the village where that base had been, (though I hadn�t known anything about the base until recently - This was a shame, as my 8 year old self would have loved to have known that, especially as the remains of the base were a regular destination for my childhood wanderings). Even as a very young child, I had exploring feet. In those days, you were kicked out of the house after breakfast with no thought for your health, safety, destination, etc. Thoughts of you never crossed your parents� minds until hunger brought you back to the house some indeterminate time later. And me and my friends explored widely . . . though not as widely as we would have liked. The trouble with living on the banks of a significant river was that you only had 180 degrees of direction to explore, and setting out in an unplanned random direction, meant that half the time you ended up on the river bank with no further option than to explore up- or down-river. So, quite often, we�d end up at the floating tank base.
     
    The only thing remaining of that base was a large ramp made from concrete, and surfaced with railway sleepers, (used by the swimming tanks to get into the river), along with a concrete track leading to it from an old sand quarry. We never thought to question what it was. It was just �there�, and always had been. A great place to play. That is to say, it was a great place to play. Nowadays, the parents of any children found playing on a river bank unsupervised would be charged with whatever you get charged with if society deems you�re a neglectful parent with little or no concern to your child�s safety. All parents were like that back then . . and yet here I am, still alive!
     
    So the years passed, I grew up to be a man, and the time came (only recently) when I heard that my childhood haunt had this wonderful historic significance, and that a talk all about it was to be held by a historian in the village hall. It was a great talk. Very enlightening. I won�t bore you with the detail � you may not find it as interesting as I did. Afterwards, I noticed a small group of fellow residents of the sleepy little village of Aquis of the Romans, and went over to talk to them. �We�re all going to Bottom Pub,� they said. �Do you fancy coming along?� I did fancy coming along, but that left me with a small problem. Some explanations are necessary:
     
    Firstly, you need to know that the village in question sits on a large, steep escarpment, mostly at the top, but with quite a few houses at the bottom. There are two pubs, one at the top of the hill, and one at the bottom. Inevitably, the pub at the bottom became known as �Bottom Pub�. Strangely, the pub at the top was never called �Top Pub�. I don�t know why. In my youth, from when I started going to pubs, I would drink in Bottom Pub. For about five years, it was my �local�. Then, unexpectedly, I was banned. I know what you�re thinking. �GhostOfClayton is a bit of a wrong �un. It�s not surprising he was banned from a pub, the kind of things he no doubt got up to.� Allow me to defend myself. Late one Friday night, much like any other Friday night, myself and two of my friends decided not to take advantage of Bottom Pub�s somewhat flexible opening hours, and left to walk up the hill. Unbeknownst to us, soon after we left, some local low-life decided to bend the radio aerial on a car in the car park. The car in question belonged to a �gentleman� we used to refer to as Crab. He was a moderately successful local businessman in his late forties, who habitually walked sideways when drunk. . . which was very often indeed. An unlikable character who went on to hold the record in the local police station of the individual caught driving with the highest blood alcohol level. In short, just the sort of person that would end up getting their aerial bent outside a pub.
     
    Anyway, Crab left the pub soon afterwards and, finding his bent aerial, got a bit cross. With an anger fuelled by a long Friday night�s worth of beer, he got into his car and raced up the hill. The first three unfortunates he found was us and, assuming we were the culprits, he leapt out of the car and grabbed the nearest (me). Now, he wasn�t a big man, and I had a significant height and weight advantage over him, but he didn�t hesitate to tackle me because he had the advantage of wielding what can only be described as a home-made machete, which he proceeded to hold to my throat. Not only did he feel the need to make, or have made, (let�s not mince words here), a bloody big knife, but he also felt the need to carry it in his car, ready for just such an occasion! I told you he was unlikable, didn�t I?
     
    I don�t remember how, but we talked him down without harm to any of us, but we did. I think we agreed to hand over money to replace his bent aerial. One way or the other, we lived to see another Friday night. However, on that Friday night, on walking into the pub, we were instantly barred by the landlord, who had heard about the affray, and also judged us to be guilty. Other than being justifiably piqued at this miscarriage of justice, it didn�t bother me too much. There was, after all, another pub in the village. We drank there for a few years until I met the future Mrs OfClayton, and spent less time in the pub. The incident was largely forgotten (apart from a strange incident about 10 years later when Crab made a comment in my presence in the top pub implying he was apologising for wronging me), until the other day.
     
    Did I go to Bottom Pub or did I respect my ban and stay away?
     
    I�ll leave that one on a cliff-hanger, and fill you in next time.
  23. GhostOfClayton
    Over the August Bank Holiday, Wroxeter Roman City were holding a Gladiatorial Re-enactment event. Ever since the villa was built for the excellent �Rome Wasn�t Built in a Day�, I�ve been promising myself a re-visit, so Mrs. OfClayton and myself (recent English Heritage members) decided to take the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. How glad we were that we did!
     

     
    Despite a tiny bit of early drizzle, the weather cheered up leaving a dry afternoon for the fighting. I�d managed to squeeze in the audio tour in the morning, leaving the afternoon free to watch the games and visit the villa. A good crowd had built up by the time we reach the roped off area that was to act as the arena, and we found the best spot left was in that area of the onlookers that had been asked to support Londinium (in red) as opposed to the local boys from Viroconium (Wroxeter�s Roman name � playing in yellow).
     

     
    The head gladiator from Londinium took on the role as Master of Ceremonies. After a brief explanation of Gladiatorial Combat, and a word about his �troupe�, he taught the crowd how to appeal for clemency, and how to demand execution. He then introduced the Emperor Domitian and his party, the other gladiators, the Summa Rudis (referee), and finally the arena helpers (they had a Latin name, but it escapes me). However, just as the MC was about to announce the start of proceedings, there was a heckle from the crowd: �GET ON WITH IT�. The Gladiator was startled. Domitian�s Praetorian Guard rushed over. There was an angry exchange between him and the heckler; �ARE YOU AN ENGLISH HERITAGE MEMBER?� was heard, and �DO YOU WANNA MAKE SOMETHING OF IT?�. This resulted in the heckler climbing over the outer rope, and coming to the inner rope, eyeball-to-eyeball with the Praetorian Guard. We now saw he was a rough-looking youth, mouthing off at the Gladiator MC. The Praetorian finally snapped, dragged him over the inner rope, and to the floor, where him and MC Spartacus proceeded to give the youth a bloody good kicking, before dragging him over to Domitian to be �judged�.
     

     
    For the twin crimes of incitement to riot, and letting his English Heritage membership lapse, the youth (who by now had had the epithet �Chavicus� bestowed upon him) was sentenced to fight in the arena as a Damnatio. He was dragged away, still mouthing abuse.
     

     
    Back to the action. which kicked off with various one-on-one Gladiatorial combat (for those keeping score, Londinium were two up at the end of these). This was followed by a couple of runaway slaves having a go at each other. All were masterfully choreographed (plenty of Spartacus-style shield jumping), with some suitably gory make up, and concluded with one of the combatants getting their throats cut (resulting in a good spray of blood). The climax of the one-on-one combats was the bout between the two Gladiatrixes (Gladiatrices?) who were predictably known as "Amazon" and "Achillia".
     

     
    This was followed by a reenactment of the Battle of Philippi (though it was really just a gladiatorial two-on-two). Following the victory of the reds (Mark Anthony and Octavian), they subsequently went mano-a-mano with each other (reenacting the Battle of Actium, apparently). The result went the way of the historical record, and the �Mark Anthony� ended up with his throat cut.
     

     
    To end with, joy of joys, who should be lead trembling into the arena, but Chavicus. All defiance gone, he now just looked like a pathetic, knock-kneed and gangly adolescent in a tunic. He was given a spear (spiculum?), and faced his gladiatorial adversary, a sturdy looking fighter in a leather cuirass. At this point, he promptly wet himself, a yellow stream running down from his tunic between his legs. The effects team were to be applauded. To cut a long story short, Chavicus didn�t put up much of a fight, before ending up on his back. The gladiator promptly gouged his eyes out with a sword, and paraded them before the baying crowd. Domitian indicated that his time was up, and the now blinded and whimpering Chavicus had his throat cut, blood sprayed, and the crowd laughed themselves hoarse. Let that stand as a warning to any others with lapsed English Heritage membership!
     

     
    And yes, like every man in the place, I did consider signing up for gladiatorial reenactment. The swords . . . the glory . . . what a life! Sadly, there is now a damp smell coming from the guest wing at OfClayton Towers, and I can�t locate the source, so my life and resources for the near future will probably be used up in getting that sorted out.
     
    �Plumbituri te salutant!�
     
     
    PS There are many more photos of the day on the gallery.
  24. GhostOfClayton
    You may have noticed that I didn’t publish my twice weekly blog on Thursday. That’s for two reasons. The first (and probably most pertinent one) is that I had a blog up my sleeve saved in my e-mail drafts, and when I came to look for it, it had gone. Shame. It was a dang good one that explained what a ‘Snowclone’ and an ‘Oxford Comma’ are. The second reason is that, as a responsible blogger, I feel I should talk about the recent events in Paris. Such a weighty subject clearly deserves more of my attention and thought than I usually give to my blogs, hence the delay. You have my apologies (he said as if you cared about, or had even noticed, the delay.)
     
    Most importantly, I would like to use this opportunity (on behalf of all UNRV subscribers, I’m sure) to send a message of both sympathy and solidarity to our friends in the French Capital. Now to add my voice to the analysis.
     
    All the debate seems to centre around freedom of speech. That’s a no-brainer to most people; we should have it. And I agree. Simple. No argument to be had. Or is there? Do we have free speech in ‘The West’? imagine a line running between less controversial topics on the left, towards more controversial topics on the right. There was nothing political about my choice of left and right there, that’s how mathematicians arrange these types of axis – get over it! As we start our journey from left to right, we’re on pretty comfortable territory, “should the BBC be able to report negatively about a poorly performing government?” That’s the kind of question that most would answer “yes” to. Let’s press on. Should UKIP supporters be able to say “there are too many Eastern Europeans in east coast English cities?” Most people think political parties like UKIP or the British National Party, whilst not overtly racist, seem motivated by zenophobia, but few people would deny them the right to speak up. Let’s keep going on our journey. “In my opinion, there are too many people with dark skins living in London” says a BNP spokesman. That would be overtly racist, and respectable, right-thinking people would abhor it. Should he be allowed to say it? We have a law against incitement to racial or religious hatred in the UK, which Mr BNP may fall foul of if he chanted it repeatedly at a football ground, but if he just was overheard saying it to a couple of UKIP supporting friends in a pub, he probably would be OK. But should he be allowed to chant it repeatedly at a football ground? If he was prosecuted for doing so, isn’t that gagging him from giving his opinion? Suddenly, the world of free speech isn’t quite so clear cut, is it?
     
    Anyway, somewhere along the journey, we would come across the question “Should newspaper cartoonists be allowed to draw an image of the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH)?” There are plenty of very clever wordsmiths that could make you firmly believe this was in a grey area. I don’t think it is. I think it’s a pretty clear “Yes”. A very clever man once said, “Whilst I may not agree with what you say, I would defend to the death your right to say it.”
     
    To digress a little. These blogs have the option of attaching a little picture, and one way I could have stated that I stand clearly four-square with the Parisian cartoonists, and against the Jihadist types who committed the atrocity, was to use that opportunity to reprint one of the offending cartoons. That would show the extremists that they haven’t won. Trouble is, the collateral damage would be to the many, many ordinary Muslims, who would be offended by my behaviour. And I choose not to cause offence to respectable people whenever it can be avoided. I even put PBUH following the Profit Mohamed’s name (PBUH) when I mentioned him above, because I thought some of the respectable people who read this blog and happen to be Muslims, might be mildly pleased that I had. It’s a ‘respect for other people’ issue.
     
    So, my message for you is to respect other people. If we all did that, it wouldn’t be such a bad old world.
  25. GhostOfClayton
    Christmas is now behind us, and the time has come to put away the decorations at OfClayton Towers. It's also time to consider those in society whose Christmas has been a distressing time for one reason or another (we shouldn't consider those who have been determined to have a miserable Christmas because they're nothing but a Grinchy old Scrooge (like me, for example). I'm not really talking about the desperate masses in sub-Saharan Africa that Bob Geldof became so passionate about in the eighties; I like to inject a little humour into my blogs (you'd be forgiven if you hadn't noticed), and to do that against a background of such unimaginable suffering would be tasteless in the extreme. I'm really talking about those who have become trapped in a cycle of debt, for whom Christmas is one more expense they can really do without, inevitably leading them to borrow more and more money they stand little hope of repaying. Drink is obviously one way of allowing an individual undergoing such hardship to, at least, temporarily, forget their troubles. As Homer Simpson famously once said, "alcohol: The cause of, and solution to, all life problems." In England, the cost of alcohol will soon be subject to (it may be already, I don't know) a minimum price per unit. Now, I don't drink much, so I'm not really qualified to comment on this, but I've been watching those that do with interest. It quickly became clear that the civil liberties people were largely silent on the matter, only forming an opinion when prompted, and not really opting to be the nay-sayers in any TV debate on the subject. That role was predominantly filled by the drinks industry and supermarkets, who (firstly) stand to experience erosion of profits due to lost alcohol sales, and (secondly) have a duty to defend against any attempt at government control over their business. Strangely enough, none of those industry representatives said, "we'd make slightly less money", or "we cannot tolerate external controls over our businesses". They either said, "nanny state" or "although it's counter-intuitive in the extreme, minimum price per alcohol unit will inevitably lead everyone to drink more, and England to descend into anarchy". I'm only one man, but their words did sound quite hollow to me.
     
    Anyway, minimum alcohol pricing was not to be the subject of my blog today, and I apologise for meandering into that territory. The subject of my blog was debt, so let's get ourselves back on track. I don't know how predominantly this is happening in other countries, but I've noticed a disturbing trend in the UK recently. Once the 9 o'clock watershed is safely behind us, and all impressionable children have been removed from any room containing a TV by responsible parents, I've noticed that about every third advert is for either a casino/bingo/poker website, or for a company that will lend you money with obscene ease. I looked at the small print that flashes up quickly at the end of these loan company adverts. Anyone offering you a loan in the UK has to advertise their APR, or Annual Percentage Rate. Now, my bank will offer me a loan at 5.6% APR, and Wonga.com (the main culprit among these companies) charge an APR of 4214%. This is a staggering 753 times my bank's rate. You could probably get a better rate from your local neighbourhood loan shark. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the last big financial balls-up all about lending to people who can't pay?
     
    Still, we're all adults, and we should be able to make up our own minds about debt, gambling and alcohol. Let's face it, that's worked out really well for us so far . . . hasn't it? And we shouldn't criticise those businesses who deliberately target, and prey upon, the most vulnerable in our society, because, well, that's just business isn't it? And if they weren't doing it, someone else would . . . and that makes it OK. So, nothing needs changing, and everyone's going to have a happy new year. I'd bet a bottle of vodka on it.
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