Law

 

The law should state that...

...every worker is entitled to an extra day off on his or her birthday.

...every person qualified to vote must do so in local and national elections.

...every citizen is entitled to an annual carbon footprint allowance that must not be exceeded. (Size of allowance to be determined by a committee of climate and environmental experts).

...the sale,  purchase and use of tobacco products is prohibited along with all vapes and vaping products.

...politicians must not work beyond the age of seventy - retirement being compulsory at that age.

...road surfacing contractors must have their work inspected after two years. If there is significant deterioration then they must fully reimburse the authorities who paid them.

...use of smartphones while driving will prohibit offenders from owning or using another smartphone for twelve months.

...those spammers who advertise products or services via blog comments should be hunted down and jailed for a minimum of six months.

...the wearing of red "MAGA" caps is illegal.

...anyone driving a brand new Nissan Juke is entitled to receive free petrol for life.

...when apprehended, Boris Johnson is to be be given a compulsory vasectomy.

...anyone caught deliberately dropping litter  must work as an unpaid  refuse collector for one full week under the instructions of their local council.

...all privately owned guns in America's fifty states must be surrendered to the authorities for disposal as gun ownership is phased out.

... reality TV programmes are hereby banned.

... in wealthy, western countries homelessness is illegal  with the guilty parties being not the homeless themselves but the authorities who fail to ensure that every human in their orbit has a roof over their head and somewhere safe to sleep.

Can you think of any other laws 

you would like to add to my list?

Poem

Clint in his youth

Ode to Clint

Farewell Dear Clint -

Thou wert my trusted friend

Loyal and true to the very end

We travelled far and journeyed wide,

Courage grew with you on my side.

I parked you in villages far away

And polished your bonnet every day

But now dear chap the end is nigh -

I'll remember you sweetly till I die.

Clint and The Pudding - a dynamic pair

You drove me just about everywhere.

Now another driver will turn your key

Someone else - who isn't me.

Tube

Down in London, the underground railway network is commonly known as "The Tube". Of course, half the people who visit this corner of the blogosphere will have direct personal experience of "The Tube". However, the other half may never have been to London and will therefore have only a dim awareness of  what "The Tube" is like in reality.

It is the world's oldest underground railway system and with eleven tracks and 272 stations, it remains one of the largest networks even though it has been overtaken by a dozen Chinese cities and Moscow too.

But my purpose in making this blogpost is not to spew out facts and figures about "The Tube" and how it compares with other underground railways. No, I wanted to focus on the people who ride "The Tube".

Every journey is different with an ever changing cast of actors and actresses boarding the train and leaving it. You never know who will come together. Different people with different stories to tell if you could only corral them in order to record their varied tales.

If you are lucky enough to have a seat, you look across at the people facing you. You note the different ethnicities - travellers from every corner of the world... Africans, Asians, Scandinavians, people from the south of Europe, North Americans, South Americans, Arabs, Jews, Australians. There are even people from The British Isles! And there are old people, young people, children, disabled people, poor people, wealthy people, people who have been to football matches, tennis players, students, hippies, Goths, tattooed people and the unadorned too. Some carry bags from "Harrods" while others carry musical instruments, flowers or huge suitcases.

Almost always. there is a calm,  unwritten respect between passengers. They police themselves as they move between stations. The atmosphere is rarely intimidating even during busy times when the carriages are packed - with standing room only. We are all social beings and "The Tube" is a great leveller. Briefly - while riding on those subterranean trains - everybody is equal. 

The others are strangers that we will probably never see ever again. This is what it means to be in a city of ten million humans. Nowadays, many lone travellers  can be seen inspecting the screens on their smartphones - secret worlds where they can briefly hide away and avert their eyes as the tube train thunders onward to Pimlico or Putney Bridge, Sloane Square or Stepney Green, Holborn or Hornchurch.

Weekend

 

"Core Femme" by Jill Berelowitz (2011)

Friday, the 1pm train to St Pancras is cancelled so we have to catch a local train to Doncaster, then take an East Coast Mainland train to King's Cross. We get there in  less than two hours and London is even warmer than Sheffield... Into the underground rail system... Hammersmith and City Line to Edgware Road... An American woman drops her Oyster Travel Card as she leaves the train and it drops onto the track. She tells me she had paid £200 for it that very day. We wait till she has found a member of staff to help her... Then on to The District Line to West Brompton... We walk along Lillie Road and stop at a toy shop... Buy Zachary a wooden spinning top, a "Playmobil" human figure with a dinosaur and an inflatable banana... Ian is bringing Zach along their street in his pushchair... He has been at nursery school all day...Ian makes us a wonderful vegan Caesar salad with mushrooms, tofu and homemade wholewheat croutons followed by Sarah's lovely rhubarb crumble...  I visit the nearby "Bedford Arms" for the first time... two pints of "London Pride" then back... 

(Take a breath)

Saturday - Shirley and I walk to "The Half Moon Cafe" on Fulham Palace Road for brunch while Zach is having his midday nap...We spot "Core Femme" outside Charing Cross Hospital...Later 74 bus to Bishop's Park... There's a sandy beach there and children's playgrounds. Local people having outdoor time with their kids... Nearby The River Thames flows and we go up the bank to see it. There's a nice breeze as a team of eight rowers go by on their way to Putney Bridge... We buy some supplies from "Costcutter" then it's back to Ian's house... Evening meal for Zach, then bathtime and bed... All weekend Zach  has been saying "pider" - pider, pider, pider because he has been shown one and it really interests him but also "moth" for two or three moths are resting on the ceiling... Maybe he will be an entomologist... Ian orders a Lebanese meal which is delivered after half an hour...  Lovely wraps and tabbouleh with hummus, babu ganesh and flatbreads... I watch Trump on television saluting his birthday parade - a guy who dodged the draft for heaven's sake and his sidekick Angry Hegseth looking like a clown who is out of his depth... 

(Take a breath)

Sunday morning toast and coffee... I opt to remain out back in the sunshine reading my book while they hot foot it to the Waitrose in Chelsea for more vital supplies... I doze and when I open my eyes they are back... It's Father's Day and Ian makes  a lovely vegan brunch with roasted tomatoes and chick peas plus a tofu version of scrambled egg with sourdough toast... Goodbyes then bus back to West Brompton... Tube back to St Pancras where it is chaotic getting on the 15.32  train back to the land we call Up North... Delighted to bag two seats in Coach B and we rattle along home - Shirley knitting and me reading... Kettering, Leicester, Loughborough and Derby... Sheffield buses along Ecclesall Road are in short supply so we spot a taxi and climb aboard...£10...then cheese on toast before I catch my bus to "The Hammer and Pincers" quiz... The word of the weekend is definitely "pider" (Adult English: spider)...

Absence

St Pancras Railway Station, London

Dear Blogland,

We wish to apologise for the absence of our son Yorkshire this weekend. Once again he has boarded a choo-choo train bound for London and will not be back in Sheffield till Sunday evening.

Yours sincerely,
Chocolate and Bakewell Pudding 
(Legal guardians)

Quiztime

 

Today's quiz concerns oceans, Hopefully it is not too hard and you should be able to get at least one right! As usual, the answers will be given in the comments section. Best of luck!

⦿

(1) By general agreement, how many oceans are there on this planet?

(a) 3 (b) 5 (c) 7 (d) 8

(2) In which ocean will you find the island of Tristan da Cunha?

(3) By volume and map coverage, which is the biggest ocean on Earth?

(4) Which ocean laps the shores of Antarctica?

(5) In which ocean will you find the island of Spitsbergen?

(6) Situated in the eastern Pacific Ocean what is the usual name for Isla de Pascua or Rapa Nui?

(7) If you were sailing from Madagascar to Sri Lanka, across which ocean would you be travelling?

(8) The Mariana Trench is in the western Pacific Ocean. It is the deepest point in all of this planet's oceans but approximately how deep is it at its deepest point?

(a) 1 mile  (b) 3 miles  (c) 7 miles (d) 85.4 miles

(9) Here's a pop singer when he was in his prime but who is he?

(a) Billy Fury (b) Billy Idol (c) Billy Joel (d) Billy Ocean

(10) What is the term for a scientist who studies oceans?

That's all folks! How did you do?

Brian

Famous people die all the time. Hardly a day goes by without hearing about another celebrated human's death. Mostly those deaths have little impact upon us but once in a while a death can make us stop in our tracks, giving pause for thought... like Queen Elizabeth II, John F. Kennedy, Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix, Ted Hughes, Hilary Mantel, Tony Benn... Yes, some deaths of famous people seem to matter more than others - at least it feels that way.

Today the world said farewell to the once brilliant songwriter and music producer Brian Wilson - both the heart and the brains of The Beach Boys. I saw them in concert once at The Great Western Express music festival in Lincolnshire. It was Sunday May 28th, 1972 and in the last sunshine of that happy day, as fans threw straw in the air, Brian Wilson and his fellow Californians proved what wondrous sounds they could produce without any need for recording studio trickery. Awesome.

He gave the assembled crowd really good vibrations... and now he is no more. He was 82 and it appears that he had been suffering from dementia in his final years. In his memory, please listen:-