Nigel Davenport

It's so sad to hear the news that Nigel Davenport has died at the age of 85. For me, he will always be one of our finest British actors and is possible one of the few actors with a face that 'everyone knows' through his many film or TV credits.

I 'grew up' with Howard's Way during the 80's and I'll always remember for him for his role as Sir Edward Frere, a role he was perfectly cast for. Others will have their own recollections.
Yet another actor to join the BAFTA 'those we have lost' roll... very sad.

We'll catch you...

I received a distressed call from my parents last Friday evening. A car had gone through their fence, the third time such a thing has happened. The last time it had happened, the car missed my father by a few inches as he tended his plants in his front garden.

The difference then was that the driver admitted her mistake and apologised. She was insured and details were exchanged. All was good. This time, it was quite different. The driver had stolen the vehicle, crashed it into my parent's house and fled the scene. There was no apology, no exchange of insurance details, just a wrecked fence and garden, and substantial damage to my parent's home. The police were of course very supportive, but there is no help or advice as to what to do next. They're just interested in taking away the evidence and catching the culprit - the victim just has to pick up the pieces, in this case literally.

We have a good description of the driver - early 20's, short ginger hair, slim wearing a blue top and trousers. He was apparently injured and limping. If there was an offence for leaving a vehicle unsecured, then this should apply to the vehicle's owner who idiotically left the keys in the ignition, an open invitation to any passing would be thief.
No doubt the insurance will cover the cost of rebuilding the corner of the house, for having had a structural engineer visit from South Holland Council, this is what we're told is needed. What isn't 'covered' is the shock, distress and damage caused emotionally. My parents are well into their 70's. They don't need this and an incident on this scale is too much for them to cope with.
The mindless idiot who caused this may be laughing now at having caused so much damage and distress, but the police have his finger prints and we have a good description from a witness. It's just a matter of time before you are caught, and you will be.
Yet again, we have another example of just how lawless this county of Lincolnshire is - particularly where driving and road safety is concerned. This isn't an isolated incident - it happens all too frequently. How long before someone is killed...?

UPDATE
This did finally reach the attention of our local newspaper the Spalding Guardian.
The article can be viewed here: http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/latest-news/terrific-bang-as-car-hit-our-house-1-5702001

Harvest (in a tin)

We've just received the latest newsletter from my son's school which, among things, gives details of the annual 'harvest festival'. Now, when I was at school, a harvest festival was, as its name suggests, all about the harvest, i.e. fresh vegetables and things that people had grown. I can still see the school stage festooned in carrots, cabbages, lettuce, giant marrows and potatoes.
How ridiculous, it seems to me, is the instruction to all parents that NO fresh produce is to be donated and that food items must be either tinned or in packets, and to assist, the school have provided a list of 'acceptable' food items;

Why on Earth aren't they contacting the local supermarkets who routinely dispose of anything dented or past its sell-by date? Surely this would be be a better idea rather than expecting those who can barely afford to feed themselves to empty their larders. Is it any wonder our children have no idea where our food comes from...?

Music & Memories

If there's one thing that takes me out of the current world and transports me back in time to relive distant locked-away memories, it's a music compilation. I stumbled across such a compilation only the other day - a folder full of MP3 files, most dated from the mid to late 90's. A lot of it is 'techno', a type of music I was oddly enough quite into. Some is electronic trance and the rest can't really be adequately described. One or two are in German and date back to my visit to Germany in 1995. The fact that they are in German is no handicap to their enjoyment. It's the tune that brings back the memories and unlocks the images of fondly remembered times. For anyone who knows me, it would be hard to imagine that I once hankered after the latest downloads of Torley Wong, Blumchen, Das Modul and Scatman John to name just a few, but I did.
A lot of the music I collected I heard for the first time on MTV's Most Wanted - a programme hosted by Ray Cokes from 1993-1995 gaining cult status among its loyal fans throughout Europe on what was then the first pan-European satellite network. I was pleased to see that Ray Cokes is still broadcasting at 55 and can be found on a small radio station in Belgium.
Each track carries with it its own set of memories, whether sat at my desk in the IT department of Churchill Insurance trying to look busy whilst secretly downloading masses of MP3 files over their super-fast Internet connection, driving my Volvo 760 Estate with newly installed CD auto-changer or hurtling down an autobahn in Germany or touring Berlin in my pen-pal's Volkswagon Golf MKI. These are cherished memories of good times and each MP3 tells its own story with it's own unique set of feelings, images and events from a time gone by.
I imagine there are many who can relate to this and have records, tapes, CD's and MP3's that when played unlock fond memories or perhaps still have the power to produce feelings deep inside - the butterflies, the tingling sensation and the heart-skipping elation. Of course this is all very personal and entirely unique to the person concerned and their own mental libraries of memories and images, images that the camera missed.
Maybe one day we'll be able to retrieve these memories... or perhaps they should stay where they are and remain forever personal.

River Post

I really love this story on the BBC News site of a letter box that's mysteriously appeared in a bridge at Sonning-On-Thames, Berkshire. It could only happen here...

Farewell to thebox.bz

It's so sad to hear the news that thebox.bz is closing on 1st September. The site has been an invaluable source of TV torrents for many years. Much of what is available simply cannot be found anywhere else and niche interest means that much of it will never be made commercially available. For ex-pats living oversees, thebox.bz has been a lifeline and the only way to watch British TV programmes.

I daresay a similar site will emerge to take its place, but for now it's a fond farewell to one of the best sites on the the Internet.

A couple of days away

I've just returned home from a couple of days away down in Lowestoft. Now I'm not going to write about where we stayed as it will only depress me - suffice to say that it was awful and the only place I have written about it is at tripadvisor.com where my negative comments have joined the ranks of countless others.

Lowestoft wasn't really what I had been expecting. For a start there are too many roundabouts. There is literally a roundabout every few hundred yards and the place is a nightmare to navigate.
We did have a couple of trips out to local 'attractions'. The first was to Pettitt's which is an 'animal adventure park' at a tiny place called Reedham. It is quite off the beaten track and our journey to and from the place involved a very short ride on a chain ferry across part of the Broads. We were literally on the thing for a minute or two as it took its maximum load of two cars from one side to the other - for a rather inflated charge of £4 (each way).

I've read the reviews for Pettitt's, and they are mixed. Some seem to like the place whilst others clearly hate it. It's fair to say that I was quite impressed with the place once I was inside. I must admit, having parked in a field a few hundred yards from the entrance, I had visions of that 'Christmas Wonderland' that was anything but a few years ago that got closed down by Trading Standards. Once inside though, I was pleasantly surprised. It was far bigger than I expected it to be and there is enough there to keep the average family occupied and amused for a good 3-4 hours. Our son particularly enjoyed the miniature train ride around the park and I'm pretty sure we went on it eight or nine times. The facilities are pretty good, though items in the gift shop were massively over-priced as was the food in the cafe/restaurant.

The other place we visited, on the Sunday, was the East Anglia Transport Museum at Carlton Colville just outside Lowestoft. I don't know why but I had in my head a huge place with long rides on buses and trams. The reality was quite different, the place being a lot smaller than I'd imagined. However, there was a lot crammed into a small space with trips on trolleybuses and trams which basically did a circuit of the museum.

There is also a little train which I thought would do a loop of the site, but I was disappointed to find that it only went to the next station a hundred yards away and came back again.
For anyone interested in trolleybuses and trams, the place is a must. The effort and dedication by those running the museum is plain to see and for the entrance fee (£7.50 each), it's great value considering you can have as many rides as you like. We opted to tick the Gift Aid box when we bought our tickets and this entitled us to a season pass granting free access until next August.
It's not really a place you could spend all day in. We were there for about three hours by which time even I was tram'd out.
For our second visit of the day, we called at Great Yarmouth. This was on our way home as we had decided to vacate the place we were staying at a day early. Great Yarmouth was very busy but we managed to get easily parked. Many people, we found out, were gathered there to see the East Coast Truckers convoy pass through. Apparently this happens every year and is in aid of a children's charity.
No trip to Great Yarmouth is complete without a ride on the 'snails' and we spent much of our time in the amusement area where I gave in to my son's begging and joined him on a couple of the less scary rides.
Again, everything there was massively over-priced and the whole place is designed to make you part with as much money as possible. Thankfully, we had a limit and this was strictly enforced by my wife.

I do like Great Yarmouth. OK, it is full of shops and cabins selling all types of multi-coloured rubbish, screaming teenagers (and adults) being thrown around on rides, the smell of hot doughnuts mingled with fish, chips and vinegar, but it is typically British and I would miss it if it wasn't there.

We left Great Yarmouth at about 9pm. I was exhausted and our parking ticket was about to run out. I'm pleased we had a couple of days away. It certainly felt like longer, but I am so glad and relieved to be home. It really does take a stay somewhere else to appreciate the things you have.