Didn't we have a loverly day...

Not quite Bangor, but along the coast a bit - Conwy & Llandudno...

You probably knew that rendering a castle indefensible, is called slighting? Which must have a connection with the same term for disrespect today. You also knew that an arrow slit in the stone of a castle wall is also called a loophole. Didn't you? I didn't! 

Life, thank God, is not all about politics or sport or the daily grind, fulfilling, interesting and rewarding though they might hopefully be. Sometimes one is fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit somewhere new, take a look, enjoy it, discover stuff that you didn't know before.

We decided to go somewhere we'd never been to before (leisure-wise anyway) - north Wales - and in particular, given my family surname, Conwy and its castle. Now I know there's a vowel missing, but if you've ever been to north Wales, there's very few vowels to be had. I'm firmly of the belief that Lynyrd Skynyrd came from there ;) And anyway my lot come from the west coast of Ireland so it's a tenuous link but, in terms of choosing a location for a visit, 'why not'?

Anyway, we booked a nice hotel with a spa, getting a good deal at this time of year, but actually £50 a head per night is probably less than you'd pay in a travel lodge in most parts of the country. This place - the Bodysgallen Hotel and Spa - just outside Llandudno is fantastic. A National Trust hotel (no I didn't either - it's one of three in the UK); an old hall/manor house with grounds, gardens, cottages etc. We arrived to find we'd been upgraded to one of their 'principle suites' (as if I have any principles? ;) ).

A lovely suite with a bed big enough for three (as my wife pointed out - sadly my enquiry to room service proved futile) two bathrooms and a sitting room. Use of wonderful panelled library, drawing room, reading rooms and dining room as well as spa; swimming pool 'sawn off' (kids phrase) steam rooms etc.

It was very posh, but in many ways like being at home: the central heating clanged in the early hours, the floors creaked a bit, there was no hot water in 'my' bathroom out of the hot tap. But loads out of the cold tap! There were two small, discrete television sets, one in the bedroom and one in the sitting room, both unused for years would be my guess.

You even got a nice little hat to wear whilst drinking your tea. It was for holding the hot handle of the pot (that took some working out).

And then, just to prove it was an inspired choice, we looked at 'what's on' locally to discover Moscow City Ballet performing Swan Lake at the 'Venue Cymru' in Llandudno and some tickets still available!

Now back in 1789, my first date with She Who Must Be Obeyed was a performance of Swan Lake at the Birmingham Hippodrome. No word of a lie. And this Moscow City thing was part of their 25-year celebrations. You couldn't make this stuff up.

We went and it was just wonderful, really brilliant - I don't know where they're playing next in the UK but if you get the chance, go see. Really. Dates here.

Anyway then we visited the castle. Truly an amazing place. A world heritage site and scheduled ancient monument. Built at the behest of Edward I (Longshanks) in 1283-89 as part of a programme to subjugate the unruly Welsh (good luck with that). It was completed in four years at a cost of £15,000. Edward I (who was actually Edward IV [at least] if you're counting) was besieged there in December 1294.

Richard II also took refuge at Conwy Castle in August 1399 during his dispute with Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV) and it was in the chapel that Bolingbroke's supporter the Duke of Northumberland swore allegiance to Richard, before betraying him two days later.

The Castle was also taken over by Gwiliam and Rhys ap Tudur (cousins of Owain Glyn Dŵr) on April 1st 1401 and held for three months before they handed it back having negotiated a pardon which left some of their supporters a bit disgruntled. Losing your head can do that to a person.

Having fallen into disrepair and been rennovated several times in the intervening years, Conwy had little involvement in the Wars of the Roses but was one of the last strongholds of the Royalists to hold out against Cromwell's Parliamentarians in 1646.

But hey you can google the history as easily as I can.

Now I had always thought of castles as being fortresses where each tower served a similar function - i.e. protection for those on the inside and enabling them to delver maximum weaponry against those attempting to breach the defences.

Now that is of course true to a degree but it's not the whole story. At Conwy (and I guess most castles of the period) all of the towers - and there are 8 - had a different function. You probably knew this already but I didn't. From front to back, North-West Tower was the main weapons-delivery tower overlooking the barbican and with a field of fire to the front of the castle and an enclosed area into which the first enemy soldiers breaching the outer walls would be channeled. The south west tower (the other 'front tower') was more comfortable, comprising accommodation for senior members of the garrison and also with good weapons capability. The two towers linked by the outer wall with 'murder holes' or 'machicolations' built in to them allowing those on the wall to be protected while dropping 'stuff' (technical military term) onto their opponents and would-be invaders. The machicolations at Conwy are the oldest surviving examples in stone anywhere in Britain and are an indication of the Saxon (Saxony en France not Saxon as in Anglo Saxon pfft) influence of the castle's architect/builder James of St George.

Other towers, further back, include a prison tower, kitchen tower, bakehouse tower and stockhouse tower all 'in front' of of the 15 foot-thick East Gate (of which more in a minute). Each of these towers were effectively made up of circular rooms, with fireplaces, latrines, windows, arrow slits (which are also known as 'loopholes' - I didn't know that!) etc, with varying degrees of comfort, luxury or functionality, depending upon whom and how they served.

The prison tower, for example had a four-foot drop from the strong door into the room housing petty criminals, making it even more difficult for them to get out of it. However, underneath that room, accessible only by a hatch, is the dungeon, with no light and not much hope.

The final two towers are beyond the East gate which runs from side to side of the castle effectively dividing the whole castle into 2/3 and 1/3, between the 5th and 6th towers. Essentially this wall provides the final protection for the King/garrison. They have the town walls, the outer castle walls, then, when all else fails, the area behind the east gate as a final area of refuge. Beyond this wall (gate) are the King's tower and the chapel tower, as well as the King's and Queen's chambers - luxurious rooms where they would be served by their own entourage, cooks maids etc.

And whilst the outer castle had its own chapel, the chapel tower was essentially for the King's use and featured (bizarrely to me) a built-in viewing place or spying chamber (above), with its own latrine (above right), where the king could sit and watch the religious activities of his own priests without needing to be in the room with them. Weird and not a whim - this was built into the fabric of the building. I guess this was before Xfactor? Below are the spyhole from inside the Chapel (left), and the partly restored Chapel itself.

I was also fascinated by the term 'slighting': In 1655 the Council of State (Cromwell) ordered that the castle should be slighted - i.e made indefensible by having its outer walls breached, creating a weakness which rendered the whole unable to be defended for any great length of time. This did not mean wholesale demolition, but simply breaching (one of) the walls, irreparably, which, so the thinking went at the time, rendered the whole thing useless. You might think about that next time you are slighted or contemplating being a slightee. :)

Although, being a coastal castle but not designed to protect from a seaward invasion, the castle already featured a 'wicked little wicker gate'* in the form of a separate entrance at the seaward side of the structure where the King could enter without going through the whole place and where supplies (secret female supplies perhaps? this was Edward I not Edward II)) could also gain access to his realm. However that entrance was never breached in conflict.

Finally two things: This (above) was the extent of health and safety, which I found refreshing, but I wouldn't want to take toddlers or even kids under the age of seven to the place, it would do your head in.

Secondly and finally, this image is interesting - taken from the walls of the Castle:

Central is the suspension bridge built by Thomas Telford in 1826, right is the tubular railway bridge built by Robert Stevenson (son of George Stevenson of 'the Rocket' locomotive fame) in 1848, linking the two sides of the Conwy Estuary and both, smaller versions of the massive bridges built by the same people, which still cross the Menai straights linking Wales with Anglesey today.

Finally just to show I'm a genuine tourist I went to the smallest house in Britain, which is in Conwy. Conwy itself is a lovely small town and nearby Llandudno is, from this visit, a really nice place, bigger than I'd expected, but a clean, well maintained regency style coastal town that felt really rather nice, as opposed to being run down or on its uppers.

Anyway..  

Thanks for reading.






*Little Wicked Wicker Gate:

The Castle

All through that summer at ease we lay,
And daily from the turret wall
We watched the mowers in the hay
And the enemy half a mile away
They seemed no threat to us at all.

For what, we thought, had we to fear
With our arms and provender, load on load,
Our towering battlements, tier on tier,
And friendly allies drawing near
On every leafy summer road.

Our gates were strong, our walls were thick,
So smooth and high, no man could win
A foothold there, no clever trick
Could take us, have us dead or quick.
Only a bird could have got in.

What could they offer us for bait?
Our captain was brave and we were true....
There was a little private gate,
A little wicked wicket gate.
The wizened warder let them through.

Oh then our maze of tunneled stone
Grew thin and treacherous as air.
The cause was lost without a groan,
The famous citadel overthrown,
And all its secret galleries bare.

How can this shameful tale be told?
I will maintain until my death
We could do nothing, being sold;
Our only enemy was gold,
And we had no arms to fight it with.

Edwin Muir

I had to study Edwin Muir at A level. It was for the best that he wasn't a stand-up comedian in my opinion. 

 



  

UKIP, why is the establishment so scared?

I'm not a 'kipper' (long time no sea to coin the old joke) but I must admit that Mr Farage and his party are becoming more attractive to me as time goes on.

I have advocated voting UKIP (in last year's local elections) because I wanted their main agenda item - The EU - to be given more prominence on the political stage. And that has happened to a considerable extent. I believe and fervently hope that this process will continue, nay accelerate, after the European elections at the end of May this year. I would urge you, whatever your political default position, to vote UKIP in May, to maintain the pressure, primarily but not exclusively on Dave, to deliver an EU Referendum.

Most people in the UK want a referendum on our membership of the EU, one way or another and to see Labour filibustering the recent bill in the light of that fact, is both deeply worrying and frankly disgusting. You work for us, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg, not the other way around and you are striving to deny our democratic freedoms in the country.

That stinks to high heaven. But then Dave wants an 'in' vote too. And in many ways he's only promising the referendum as a means of keeping his back-benchers onside and to gain some short-term political and electoral advantage. He won't get any meaningful repatriation of powers. Wait for the fudge.

I see our membership of the EU as the biggest issue we face as a people since the last unpleasantness (WW2). And I do not view this as a 'little Englander': The fate of young people throughout southern Europe is at stake here. The very identities of countries whose people culture, food, music, way of life, I love and respect and which should be celebrated and enjoyed, is at stake here. More here.

But one has to be practical about this. We have a political process in the UK. It seems to me that it has become more of a vehicle for MP's careers than about representing the will of the people, but we still do have a modicum of influence. Not enough. But some.

And if we hand over the reins to the EU that will be lost forever. We will cease to be a self-governing nation state. It really is that big a deal. Please wake up to this threat. If you don't, we're fucked (technical term).

So, in many ways I'm prime UKIP material. So why am I not a supporter or member?

Well one reason is that I believe in conservatism. Fundamentally, I believe in the principles of the Tory party - smaller government, lower tax, control of our borders (that does not mean anti-immigration by the way), defence of the realm and financial prudence (not the 'prudence' crap that was espoused but in no way adhered to by Mr Brown).

My problem is that I'm not quite sure that the Conservative party actually believes in this stuff anymore.

Nor do I believe that our politicians of all and any parties, really give a damn about doing what's right for the country above feathering their own nests these days.

So I think that Dave (et al) needs to be forced into doing what's right for the UK (how did it come to this?) and that means creating the 'burning platform' that will force him and others to listen to the voter and deliver what we want. And the only way to do that is to create a situation wherein they will lose their power, their cushy jobs and lifestyles, if they don't do what we want them to do for the good of the country.

And UKIP is an increasingly effective tool to help us to create that scenario.

But.

If Dave doesn't respond, what do I do? Give up? Or vote UKIP?

As I say I have voted UKIP tactically. Maybe I will become a supporter, even though, fundamentally I'd rather not. Not because I have any difficulty with the populist anti UKIP, 'right wing' bollocks. That's just puerile nonsense.

But because I'm a pragmatist and want to get to the bigger goal for the UK which is getting out of the EU.

One thing is clear to me however. When Tories describe UKIP as loons. It makes me like them (UKIP) more. When the MSM including the BBC calls them 'nutters' it pushes me towards not away from UKIP.

They're all running scared of Nigel Farage because he increasingly speaks the truth. Increasingly says what many former Tories are thinking. But not just Tories. The working people of the north of England too.

The 'Establishment' is scared of Mr Farage because he is a threat to them and their cushy lifestyles. Bob Kerslake (head of the Civil Service) increasingly runs this country, not the Prime Minister for whom we voted. And he has the EU at heart not what's best for the UK. Governments can fiddle with issues but the main direction of this country is already set in train by our EU civil servants. They and other tools of the establishment including the BBC therefore see Farage as a major threat because he seems to want to do what the people (who pay for all this) want. That is why they're so scared of him and why they will do anything to discredit UKIP. Essentially they're determined to discredit you, the voter and to deny you any opportunity to have your say.

They will of course deny it, but essentially the establishment is saying that we cannot let the future of the UK be decided by the stupid voters, and that 'we' know best. I find that scandalous, depressing and above all challenging. Who do these fuckwits think they are to override the will of the people for whom they work and to whom they owe their livelihoods? 

If he was a viable route to power and decision-making, I think I might well vote for Farage. Because Tories don't seem to be Tories any more and he seems to me to be on the side of real people. Are any of the others?

Thanks for reading.

  

  

 

 

Lady Jane Grey & Bradgate Park

Lovely visit and walk around Bradgate Park today. Fantastic place, just six miles from the centre of Leicester, looking and feeling more like Connemara with the gorse and landscape. An unspoiled landscape produced by, and dating back to, the hunting shooting and fishing lifestyle of the Tudors but having been a 'parkland' since before 1240.

 Not a bad place for a pic-nic with a view!

The house - Bradgate House - was built between 1481 and 1520 and is one of the first known examples of brickwork construction in England since Roman times. It was the home and birthplace of Lady Jane Grey, who I and most of you will have heard of; perhaps thinking of her as some substantial figure of the late medieval/early modern period of England?  

In fact, by the time of her death aged just 16 in February 1554, Lady Jane Grey was renowned as an intellectual, one of the best educated women in Europe, a staunch and pious protestant. She had also been Queen of England for nine days and was beheaded as one of the first Protestant martyrs by the court of the Catholic daughter of Henry V111 Bloody Mary - Mary Tudor.

Sixteen? Wow.

Major landmark 'Old John' is a feature of the local skyline that can be seen for miles around.

 A 'folly' built by Thomas Sketchley of Anstey as a mock ruin for George Grey, the 5th Earl of Stamford, Old John is said to commemorate the life of an old retainer who was killed by accident at a bonfire held in the same place. It's 'tankard' shape perhaps a nod to the fact that Old John enjoyed his ale!

There's a deer park, featuring white fallow deer

and it's a great place for Jeeves to explore - he's had a great day!

A great place to visit, do if you get the chance.









 Anyway I love this stuff. I'll fetch my anorak.

Thanks for reading. ;) 

Sugar is as bad for you as cocaine.

And so is salt, and walking blindfold across a street, and being fat, and smoking, and drinking and living if we're honest. Everything is bad for you. Get over it!

I'm not sourcing any of the above (for a change) because it's all crap. You can google health scares and bad sugar and salt etc as easily as I can. Enjoy the trip.

There seems to be a campaign against sugar this month. The question is whether you believe this shit or not? If you do, then it's bad for you. If you don't, it isn't.

Life is a sexually transmitted disease that is always fatal.

Think about that for a minute.

Then there's the old chestnut (with which I have some sympathy) that you can give up smoking, and drinking, enjoying yourself, if you want to live longer. 'Will it make me live longer?' 'No but it will feel like it.'

If you have to have a government tell you what to eat, imbibe, drink, not eat, etc, then you are stupid. You know that eating burgers and processed crap is bad for you. You know (don't you?) that eating fresh fruit and vegetables is good for you.

But it's up to you in the end. I tend to think that eating well is a good thing because it makes you healthy during your life. It enables you to enjoy yourself, to be fit enough to play some sport, go skiing for example, walk the dog, enjoy our wonderful countryside, engage with people, enjoy their company, essentially, to 'live'.

But if you live your life by some governmental health edict, essentially decreed to ensure that you contribute to the common good - i.e. work - for as long as possible, you're just a pawn. It's not about you and your quality of life but about screwing as much out of you as possible.

You may want to be the oldest man or woman in the care home, fed on a drip, surviving not living, having your waste taken care of by others. And that's just fine if you do. But is a life of abstemiousness really worth that? I don't think so.

You have one life, live it, and enjoy as much as you can. Eat vegetables and fish. Exercise for enjoyment, walk and look at the world, make the most of it.

Don't, for goodness' sake worry about salt or sugar. Take the opportunities that life presents. Travel if you can. Experience other cultures, food, music, history, places.

'Sugar is a major threat to health'? Fuck off.

Thanks for reading.

  

Diets. Do they work? Is there a magic solution?

No.

Thanks for reading.

Oh but actually, if you're interested, you might read on.

Actually I guarantee that you'll lose weight if you follow my instructions.

And you won't have to pay me a bean in order to do so.

Here's the deal, in scientific terms. If you take in fewer calories than you expend on a daily basis, you will lose weight.

It makes absolutely no difference whether you eat cream cakes or doughnuts or cheese or crisps, or raw carrots or starve, if you take in fewer calories than you expend, you will lose weight.

I worked with Dr Mike Stroud (many moons ago) on his trip with Sir Ranulph Fiennes, to the Antarctic, looking at this very issue. They took on some 12,000 calories a day, mostly in the form of fat, and, because they expended it in the form of energy and exercise they lost weight. And, interestingly it (by being mainly fat)  had no negative effect upon their metabolism or blood sugar levels. Essentially, because they were consuming the 'fuel' they remained healthy.

The question is, do you want to? Really? Are you prepared to forgo the snacks, the chocolate the chips, the alcohol in order to achieve what you want? If you're not, then stop telling evreyone that you're on a diet. Because you're not. It's like buying a 'Big Mac' and a diet coke. Pointless.

Or, will you walk several miles a day, or go to the gym, to 'work off' that snack bar, that chocolate?

If not you are just cheating yourself. And you might tell us all that you're on a diet, but you won't get anywhere. You'll still be the fat girl.   

I posted a thing earlier this year - actually last year - about feeding someone for £53 a week. You'll remember the furore about that I'd guess. It was about how anyone could possibly survive on that  amount of money for a week?

I demonstrated - and proved I think - that I could feed three people for £53 a week. here's the piece 

And there are some recipes in that post. That work and are healthy and easy to cook. There's no alcohol. No meat. But they're very healthy and affordable. I have some more recipes for you if you're interested? I'll post them tomorrow if there is any interest.

The bottom line is that diet and weight loss is not about some magic formula. It's about mindset. I can make it easy for you to enjoy an interesting and healthy diet. You just need to ask.


Thanks for reading 

If the BBC won't change itself, it must be forced to change or to fail

I've long been an admirer of the BBC. It has been behind some of the best 'telly' ever produced. The best journalism, the best investigative reporting, the best documentaries, the best features on nature, the best sporting coverage.

Just imagine if you had all that talent, all those resources all that expertise, all that power, that 'reach' to influence about 75% of UK citizens in terms of their main informational input, and many millions around the world as well.

It's a fantastic asset for the delivery of information and entertainment and it has become one of the world's most trusted suppliers of 'truth, credibility and news'.

It is - and I still firmly believe this - one of the best things that Britain has ever given to the world.

Its charter talks about accuracy, impartiality, credibility. Editorial independence. Its output is 'forbidden from expressing the opinion of the BBC on current affairs or public policy'.

So it should be providing us with unbiased news. Facts. Unalloyed information upon which we can base our judgements on this complex world.

Is it doing that? Really?

Or is its bias and agenda-pushing being 'put up with' by politicians because they fear its power these days? Has it become too big and too powerful to criticize?

And is that fuelling its belief that what it says goes? Regardless of the facts or the reality?

I've blogged about my nacent uncertainty about what is really going on in the world (here) before. That sometimes decisions are taken and policies introduced that seem to me to be a bit weird, not in line with public opinion or what's best (in my view) for the country: As if there's some kind of sinister power behind what is going on. Something that we cannot influence (even in a so-called 'democratic' society) something that is being done 'to us', rather than 'for us', or even 'with us'.

Just imagine if you had the resources of the world's best communications company on your side if you wanted to achieve something that was, erm, let's just say dodgy or undemocratic. My friend at Langley, at the NSA who reads all my stuff (without my permission {fuck you}) has just sat up a little straighter and become a bit more focussed.

You see the thing is, that despite my love of the BBC's stuff (radio4 mainly), and my fear that some of the best stuff will be lost if it loses its public funding, (more here) it has become a biased organisation. And one that can charge me and you and everyone else in the country, to pay for its bias, its propaganda.

It tells me that AGW (global warming or climate change) is 'settled science' when not only is it not, but it's complete crap (more here). An impartial, editorially independent news organisation would question this rather than just accepting it. More from Sir Anthony Jay & Christopher Booker here (really interesting piece). I pay for it to tell me that immigration is not an issue of concern for the British public when it so clearly is.

It charges me to pay for its views-not-news, about the EU. And receives significant funding from the EU. So it says that the UK leaving the EU would be a disaster. When it clearly wouldn't be - or at least it is a subject worth exploring impartially and in much more depth. More here.

Impartial? Editorially independent? I think not. We all understand the political leanings of the newspapers we buy. The Telegraph or the Times or the Sun, the Express or the Mail or the Grauniad. We can easily choose not to buy their slant or bias. We are not forced to pay for their 'campaigns'. The same is not true of the BBC.

The BBC is essentially charging us to be told what to think.

I have advocated change for the BBC for some years. I have suggested that it needed to change for its own good. The cover-ups, the massive wastes of money on failed projects, the ridiculous pay-offs for former executives, but much more important than all of that shit, is the independence, impartiality and truth by which the BBC is recognised worldwide.

It seems to me that they aren't listening. That they have become subsumed by their lefty, comfortable and smug outlook and, therefore, that it's time to change things. Senior BBC personnel who shape the organisation's editorial policy - who essentially decide what we are told - about Savile, welfare, food banks, poor people suffering because of the heartless nature of the current government, regardless of the facts or the rationale behind the policies, are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year as a matter of course. The BBC's head of personnel Lucy Adams is paid £330,000 a year for example. To sign off mega pay-offs for former executives, along with a gagging order so that they won't 'spill the beans'. Yet this is a publicly funded organisation. It's our money she's giving away needlessly. And our money that is being used to stop these people from telling us what is really going on. How can that be right?

And on that kind of income, they can afford to be smug, to supposedly defend the poor people of our country whilst sipping their vintage Krug. They don't really give a flying toss about 'the poor', so long as they get their huge salaries and solid gold pension schemes. And we're paying for it all.

Enough. 

They've had the chance to control their own future and make the necessary changes that would restore credibility and our trust in the organisation. To make it live up to it's founding charter and to, once again, make us proud of 'our' BBC. But time after time, in the face of clear public concern, they have not taken it. They have not taken this real, in my view existential, threat seriously. Well you know what? It's time that the decisions surrounding this rejected chance were taken away from them. It's time for the BBC to be forced to change for its own sake, if it is to survive as a credible organisation. 

I now think, given all of the above, that the BBC should be cast adrift to secure its own funding on the basis of commercial pressures and no longer be 'given' an almost unlimited amount of free tax-payer money to spread its propaganda. It has, in my opinion lost the right to its free money because it is not delivering on the principles of its charter. I will miss some of the fantastic programming that simply won't exist without the current funding model. I will lament the loss of so many great programmes, particularly on Radio 4 and Radio 3 (from our own correspondent, Saturday live, the Proms, the essay, Bob Harris Country, TMS etc); but if they cannot be persuaded to make the clearly required changes, to eliminate the bias that has infested the organisation in recent years, then they must be forced into making those changes.

They've had their chance and have ignored it. In my view, it's time to impose it. To get back to the values of the Charter of impartiality and credibility upon which the whole edifice is based. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but it is what's needed now. They've had their chance and have smugly blown it. No more. 

I saw something online recently where a citizen refused to pay his license fee because of the departure of the BBC from it's 'contract' with the population. He refused to pay his fee and invited the 'authorities' to take him to court on the issue. They declined to do so. I think we should all start to consider this as an option. But I would advocate taking legal advice first.

Much better would be for the government - half of which will obviously be happy for the left bias to continue unchecked - to take some decisive action and leadership on this massively important issue. A biased national broadcaster is a very bad thing for the credibility and standing, not only of the BBC, but of Britain itself on the world stage.

Thanks for reading.