By The Sea

Greetings fellow plebs - oh yes, we are all in this together...

Just back from a pilgrimage to the holy land, or Yorkshire as it's more commonly known. To be exact, the East Riding of Yorkshire and a little village called Hempholme. It's so small that the speed limit signs are in Roman numerals!  Hang on, that's not right is it? The village was so old fashioned the speed limit signs were in Roman numerals...or should it be Viking glyphs?

Mrs B and I were accompanied on our journey of enlightenment by Miss Twillets and her two beagles, Serge and Lottie.

The basic idea of the trip was a chance to recharge our batteries and to visit parts of the country that had remained untouched by the Gurus influence thus far. This meant trips to Bridlington, Scarborough and Flamborough Head to name but a few.

Our base of operations and temporary ashram was a cottage on a farm in the aforementioned hamlet of Hempholme, which for those with map reading skills is four miles north west of Brandesburton. The cottage was called River View and the reason for this became apparent as we stood in our bedroom window looking out at the magnificent view of...drum roll...a grass field.

We did cross over the river en route to the cottage and I guess if we had stood on the roof we might have glimpsed it over the hedge at the end of the grass field.

The accommodation was all we needed, a simple little palace with plenty of room to sacrifice the odd battle of Pinot in the evening.  Mrs B and I were given the bedroom which contained a four poster bed...not at all comfortable but very useful for other purposes. Nothing to do with handcuffs you mucky minded swine...handy for Mrs B to knot her wool around as she laid in bed knitting bed jackets for the elderly and infirm of Filey and environs.

The grounds of the cottage were plagued with rabbits and everywhere you went there were signs of their activity in fact there were so many rabbit droppings it looked there had been an explosion in a current factory. Serge decided that he quite liked to eat them, I suppose to him they were a sort of canine aperitif  - he wolfed them down in the same way Mrs B hoovers up olives.

On our first full day we decided to visit Bridlington as we knew that they had a dog friendly beach. The weather was beautiful and as we set off for what would turn into a ninety minute emotional roller coaster, we were able to let the beagles off their leads and watch as they playfully rolled in the sand.

Sadly Serge decided that all of this rolling and running about was thirsty work and with a stomach full of rabbit droppings he decided he needed a drink so he ran through tidal pools scooping up copious amounts of sea water in the style of a very small blue whale...he then discovered the decaying claw from a dead crab and decided that one more morsel of seafood would finish his meal nicely.

Now, it didn't take too long before Serge had a very sad expression on his face, and then the real fun began. Great steaming gushes of green watery poo were ejaculated from his rear end sending all of us into fits of laughter which only made Serge feel even worse and he decided to throw up too!

The ejaculated liquid from both ends disappeared quite quickly into the sand and all that remained were semi digested rabbit droppings.

After a while the poor dog started to look a little better and Lottie, who had kept well away from all of this mess, decided she should come and give her brother some moral support. Sadly, as she passed by his rear end, he exploded once more and sent a stream of green liquid over her head and back.

At this point Mrs B and Miss Twillets both wet themselves but again the sand was there to mop up any evidence of their incontinence.

During the course of the week we would return to various beaches and each time we did, Serge drank sea water and became very sick. So the old maxim is true, you can take a dog to water but horses don't like New Tricks or perhaps they just don't like Water(man).

I did manage to take a few rather artful photographs during the journey and eventually we managed to visit quite a stretch of coastline from Scarborough down to Withernsea.

I find walking along the seashore very restful and I also enjoy picking up the odd stone which I can put in my beautifully manicured garden here on the hill - on this trip I not only located some nice stones but a few old fossils too. The old fossils were shopping in Morrisons.

Now fully recharged, I am back at work and looking forward to my next mini safari which will see Mrs B and I return to the Norfolk coast in November - I think we shall need long socks and a scarf.

I hope you are all well and looking forward to whatever life holds in store, I suppose you will all be out shopping for Christmas - well it is only eight weeks or so away. I can hardly wait!

Here are some pictures for you to admire...

Intrepid Explorers Lunch in Scarborough

Withernsea

Withernsea - Coastal Erosion

Rock

Fossil - Not Found in Morrison!

Fraisthorpe Beach

Flamborough

Flamborough

Another Rock

Star Trek

The title of todays message from on high gives the Junior Partner ample warning, and for the rest of the universe if you don't like Star Trek you better head elsewhere at warp factor 9.

I have been a fan of Star Trek since I began watching in 1969 and was hooked from the get go.

In those early days as I watched those episodes and was introduced to Captain Kirk, Mr Spock and the rest of the crew, all of whom would become such iconic characters, I didn't give much thought as to why it appealed so much. It was adventures in space, it was exotic aliens, it was escapism.

Over the course of the next 40 years I retained that sense of boyhood exhilaration when it came to Star Trek and followed the development of the series into feature films and then the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. In 2009 we saw the latest phase in the Star Trek canon with the movie directed by J.J Abrams. I am eagerly awaiting the next movie.

I can't think of any other tv series that has shared such a longevity or that has won a place in the hearts of so many across the generations.

Trekkies or Trekkers, each loyal to the whole but equally drawn to one facet. For my generation I think there can only be Kirk, Spock, McCoy et al although I did enjoy Picard and Data.

Talking about Trek today seems to be the culmination of a few events this week...the deaths of Biff Elliot and William Windom and the anniversary of the births of Persis Khambatta and of Gene Roddenberry all occurring within a few days of each other.

I know that 99.9% of you will not have heard of Biff Elliot or Persis Khambatta and maybe even William Windom although he was a fine character actor with a cv which includes great movies like To Kill A Mockingbird and he played Doc Hazlitt in Murder, She Wrote.

Roddenberry was the creator of Star Trek, a decorated WW2 pilot and a police officer, he became a writer for tv in the 1950's - the time when television was really taking off.

Don't worry, I'm not going to describe the whole process that led to Star Trek arriving on the screen but the man himself was clever in that he wrote what he described to executives as Wagon Train to the stars but in reality he was writing clever little morality tales all wrapped up in science fiction.

Roddenberry gave us a future with no poverty or famine, he gave us equality in sex and race and he hardly ever mentioned religion. In hindsight I do begin to consider how much of my humanist nature was nurtured by Gene Roddenberry and his idealism?

I will admit to the fact that I have often quoted lines from Star Trek during funerals.

But I digress, Biff Elliot and William Windom guest starred in two of my favourite episodes in the original series, The Devil In The Dark and The Doomsday Machine.

The Devil In The Dark introduced us to the Horta, a silicon based life form desperate to protect the eggs it has laid and is nurturing. Injured, the creature is treated by Doctor McCoy who initially protests "I'm a doctor, not a  bricklayer!" After he successfully completes the operation he turns to Kirk and exclaims "By golly, Jim, I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day!"

In The Doomsday Machine, Windom plays Commodore Matt Decker, a man haunted by the loss of his crew and consumed by his Ahab like obsession with finding their killer. It is a superb performance by Windom and it remains a great favourite of mine.

William Windom as Matt Decker

Persis Khambatta was an Indian actress best known for playing Lieutenant Ilia in Star Trek:The Motion Picture. In that film she appears shaven headed, the love interest for Captain Will Decker played by Stephen Collins. Will Decker is the son of Matt Decker.

Persis Khambatta as Lt Ilia

All of these little threads, all of these events but what is the point of drawing them to your attention?

Well, it gives me a chance to say to you all...

"A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away"

Gene Roddenberry (1921 - 1991)

and finally

Casting Stones

Any Guru worth his salt will be ready willing and able to steal from other sources to back up his own position, and as I am very adept at this you will not be surprised to hear me use a phrase from the gospel of John. I don't know his last name, it was probably not Smith, McEnroe or Bon Jovi, perhaps he was just known as John, one of those men who follow that mobile carpenters shop around the middle east.

John wrote in his diary about this other guru whose name escapes me completely...anyway the fellow had the knack of saying the right thing at the right time and John and some of his mates were there to scribble it down and save it for posterity enabling the whole world to know what some fellow was doing all those years ago.

Jesus Christ!

Sorry, I just remembered his name, it was Jesus Christ!

The story I'm talking about is the one where Jesus Christ! was on his way back from the Olympics, which had been staged in Greece that year, when he and his band of merry men called into a drive through felafel stand and spotted a crowd gathering around a young attractive lady. The crowd were all carrying rocks and Jesus Christ! thought to himself I better see if I can do something newsworthy - "come on chaps, get your note books out, this is going to be good" he said as he threw his felafel aside and strode towards to crowd.

You see, Jesus Christ! was a clever man, he knew there were very few reasons for a crowd to gather with rocks, eliminating the possibility of a Cliff Richard concert he decided that the young attractive lady must be the source of the crowds ferment.

He asked what was happening and was told that the young attractive lady was actually a young attractive boy from the Philippines and he had tricked several local men into some hanky panky.

Jesus Christ! walked to the centre of the crowd and held up his hands demanding silence and he said to the gathered masses, "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone."

Nothing happened until suddenly a rock came hurtling out of the crowd and struck the young attractive ladyboy on the temple. "Jesus Christ!" shouted Jesus Christ!..."who threw that rock?"

Cliff Richard put his hand up rather sheepishly and Jesus Christ! said "oh, it's you Cliff, that's OK then."

Another member of the crowd then spoke up and said to Jesus Christ!, "Are you trying to say that we can only throw stones at this person who has committed a sin if we ourselves have never committed a sin because if that is the case no-one would ever be able to throw any stones because there is not any man or woman or ladyboy alive in this village or in the wider world, except Cliff, who has lived a blameless life. To be human is to sin, so basically we should all put our rocks down and go about our business and try not to sin anymore?"

Jesus Christ! stared at the man for a long time and then threw a rock at his head.

Much of these facts didn't end up in the original draft of the bible but I have it on good authority from Cliff that this is what happened.

The moral is clear for all to see I hope, that is if you must open your mouth to speak make sure you don't annoy a guru.

Yesterday several people annoyed the Guru and as I was not near enough to throw rocks I just wrote a few words on Facebook. I would write more about this subject but I have just spotted the news headlines about Ian Brady and all of a sudden I have the temptation to delete all of the above and just join the queue of people who would willingly beat his brains out with anything that came to hand, rocks would be nice though.

The extreme prohibition against judging another without first judging ourselves might have to come second on this occasion to the even older bible lesson - an eye for an eye.

The story about Brady is complicated though because in a way it is a story that should not be printed unless it is really proven to be true. I think this is one time that the only story should have been 'Keith Bennett's body discovered'. That would be a story that would ease the final days of the life of Winnie Johnson, the mother who has fought so hard and so long to be able to lay her son to rest.

I hope this torture for her can have the ending we would hope and that we have not just seen a final cruel chapter written by Brady, aided by the modern day Johns.



Post Script....

Just one day later and the sad news is announced that Winnie Johnson has died. She never got the peace she deserved in life - no matter your belief system surely we can all believe she is at peace now.

Not A Day Goes By

This is exciting isn't it? The master is rediscovering his old touch and is reaching across the void of the internet on a more regular basis, to connect with his minions and acolytes.

It's a modern day resurrection and I feel the need to spread my message because like butter and manure this sort of magic is at its best when spread.

A daily dose - are we up for it?

I'm sure I can find some time in my busy schedule to share with you all, and time is the greatest gift that any man can give to another...but if Mr and Mrs Bayford want to share some of their £148 million with me I would be very grateful.

That must have been one of the best days of anyones life - realising that you would have the resources at your disposal to do all the things you would want to do in life - like buy Spain or Greece.

I buy my lottery tickets online and I love it when you get the email headed 'Good News About Your Ticket'. The last time I received such a notification I discovered the good news came to £2.90p - not quite life changing.

Post Olympic blues have come and gone, the Closing Ceremony (or as I prefer to call it Walking Dead:The Musical) was emotional but didn't have the same resonance as the Opening Ceremony but luckily, now the BBC have nothing live to broadcast, we will have a repeat of the Opening Ceremony on Saturday.

X Factor returns as well as Ant & Dec, Total Wipeout too - the creative teams are really earning their money!

I do wonder how many undiscovered talented singers there can be left in the country now, but I'm sure we will see there is no shortage of undiscovered untalented ones still left to humiliate.

On the subject of humiliation and the Olympics - did you see all the fuss about the report on the Olympics being 3,000 years old?

If you searched the internet or Twitter, you discovered a multitude of people questioning the maths of the claim - people who can turn on a computer but think it impossible for the Olympic Games to be 3,000 years old as it is only 2012!

And who said modern education wasn't up to much?

Some of the idiots were creationists so that sort of explains their lack of common sense.

Creationism isn't really that big a business in the UK but in America there seems to be no shortage of people who all agree the world was created by god but they do have slightly different takes on when and how it happened.

Young Earth creationists believe that the Earth was created within the last ten thousand years, they would say that the biblical account in Genesis is accurate. Some of them also agree with the calculations of Archbishop Ussher (1581 - 1656) who worked out that god started his creation on or about 23rd October, 4004 BC - it was a Sunday of course!

There are Old Earth Creationists too, including Gap Creationists who will tell you that god didn't actually make the planet and then populate it straightaway, he left it 'without form or void'  and then came back to it later, after a gap of indeterminate time, just found it all sort of desolate and decided to do it up - a bit like Grand Designs but this was a really grand design.

They would tell you that any fossils that predate their timeline must have been deposited by the devil.

Anyway, there are millions of these lunatics who have decided that scientific research is also the devils work and we should just give ourselves over to faith and the questionable mathematical skill of an Irish Bishop who basically read the Bible and added up all the ages of the kings and prophets and it came to about 4000 so that must be when the world was created.

(long pause or gap)

Sorry about that but I have a most serendipitous happening to report. The door bell rang and it was Janet and Sandra, otherwise known as the JW's. This months Watchtower is headlined 'Miracles - Do They Really Happen?' Answers on a postcard please to Jehovah, The Watchtower, USA.

Actually as you read the article you realise we have a lot to look forward to - no hunger, the blind restored to sight and wheelchair makers will be going out of business left, right and centre. Hold on, if miracles are bad for the economy I can't see Vince Cable allowing them!

I decided to test the lady messengers from god and I asked when was the Earth created. I took for granted they did believe it was created and did not evolve otherwise they wouldn't be going door to door delivering Jehovah's message.

So, here we have the answer from an actual source in the hierarchy...

First of all we must not get confused with time issues. Although Genesis states that the earth was created in seven days that does not mean they were seven days of 24 hours. Their god could decide how long a day was and Sandra explained that for them this meant creation started 49,000 years ago. So, a day must equal 7,000 years I suppose.

She also said that we are still living through the final day of creation which started around 4000 BC (a touch of the Ussher creeping in here) so until the year 3000 we are still being created.

But hold on I said, I though on the seventh day the master builder rested!

Oh yes, a quick recalculation followed - now apparently man was created at the end of the sixth day. So let me see if I understand, god created man after about 42,000 years...talk about cowboy builders!

Anyway, I think it is clear to see that even those with insight into the miracle of creation are a little confused over the details.

Just one final question - who decided that a day was 7,000 years? No answer.

Well, I have wasted enough of my day on you, I have errands to run and then later this evening a trip to the theatre to see a touring production of Chicago (jazz hands at the ready).

Thank you for taking the time to immerse yourself in my Class and Razzle Dazzle - remember All I Care About is you, and as for the great creator, the ultimate Mr Cellophane - well he is sleeping on the job again so you have a nice day And All That Jazz.

An Act Of Worship

Greetings fellow travellers, bless you all for taking the time to tune your brain into my digital output. I can feel the surge and it makes me feel as full as a pair of rowers shorts.

Today, I joined the throng of faithful and devout worshippers, those who sacrifice their Sunday morning to pay homage at the altar of the one and only god. As I walked down the aisle I heard the strains of that most beautiful hymn - Celebration by Kool and The Gang.

You guessed it, I was in the temple of doom otherwise known as Tesco.

Everywhere you looked the uplifting effects of the Olympic Games were clear to see. Lots of smiling faces, the smell of sweat filled the air and hunky athletic men showed the world what a six pack really should look like as they paraded their majestic beer bellies in skin tight vest tops.

I was wearing a nice linen shirt and a pair of tailored shorts, my powerful white legs (very very white) supported my dash around the shopping synagogue as I secured a nice corn fed free range chicken, some fresh cauliflower (don't worry Miss Twillets, we have cheese sauce) and some carrot batons.

So swift was my journey through the lanes of this palace of purchasing pleasure, that I was on my marks at the checkout in a record time. If Mrs B had been with me, we would still have been looking for stuffing amongst the sauerkraut in the ever expanding Polish section.

Not that I have anything against the Polish having their own section, as a middle class man with some taste I can readily admit the fresh veg section is really only for me and my tribe, the majority of the competitors/worshippers manage to pass it by. And what a treat they missed today - multi coloured cauliflower! (I said don't worry Miss Twillets, it will all look the same when the cheese sauce gets to work).

So, there I was waiting for the starting beep of my final event, the culmination of years of training, this is what I had worked for - the moment of glory was upon me and as the young pasty faced boy reached his hand out for the first item I thought, this is it!

But then disaster struck - typical Team Tesco, he dropped the batons!

Oh well, better luck in four days when the next games are to be held in (drum roll)........Sainsbury's.

It has been a great two weeks, the Olympics have delivered on all levels and as I wrote last week, we didn't need to worry about medals and I really could not care less where we finished on the medal table.

For me it will be the memories of the Opening Ceremony, archery, canoe slalom, dancing horses and David Rudisha and Mo and Tom and John Inverdale and...well, it was all great. I cannot remember crying this much since they cancelled CSI Miami.

There was one moment that disturbed me though, a very offensive moment and totally against all that the Olympics stand for - it was when Meseret Defar of Ethiopia won the Women's 5'000 metres and in full view of the worlds media she reached inside her running kit and pulled out a picture of the Virgin Mary and started to pray...it was her faith that helped her win. I don't suppose she did any training then, just lots of praying. I know I'm being nasty and sniping at her faith but you'll get over it and if she is right and god is watching then she will win more races and I will be struck by a lighting bolt. It's a win win situation on so many levels!

The euphoria of the Games has been good for the country, I hope the closing ceremony is of an equal standard to the opening but if what I hear is to be believed and The Spice Girls are back, well that can't be any worse than Paul McCartney. I still think we should have Tom Jones singing Delilah to close the show, I bet everyone joins in.

OK, I have to go now and make cheese sauce and I wish all of you a happy Sunday and continued success as you run your race of life.