Millions of Pounds not yet obtained

When we got married in 1988 I told my husband I would require £17,000,000 in monies to provide me with my heart's desires. I have been careful to review this figure annually and adjust it in line with inflation, so that it currently stands at £45million. (I have added a bit extra to allow for my increasing greed and sophistication over the years.) This would permit me to buy a fitting house for someone with my tastes and to pay staff such hefty sums as would prevent them from acting disloyally or displeasing me in any way. Obviously we are going to need some top quality personnel to see to the maintenance and grass-cutting etc. but as money is no object I can't foresee any difficulty there.

Here's a house that would do: 

 

 

This is Bloxworth House and you get loads of Dorset with it for only £4,000,000 sterling! Perfect. That leaves £41million for emergencies and for bribing the workforce. Unfortunately it's got a tennis court but with this sort of budget you could get that grassed over no problem.  How happy I shall be!

 

They had better let me have it unfurnished as there is some pretty nasty stuff in there at present (I have seen the particulars from the estate agent). If there are any wood-burning stoves in it they will be TORN OUT before I set foot in the place. I hate wood-burning stoves.

 

The flaw in my plan is this: the specified sum has failed to materialise. ANY of it. But if we do not act quickly someone else will buy the house and then hang onto it for 350 yrs. So please send your contribution NOW, URGENT, cheques payable to G-AHLK and thank you very much. No Gift Aid I am not a charity. 

 

Bloxworth house was built in 1608, a v good year for architecture as you can see.

Standards have fallen dramatically since then and near here the latest housing estate is as shown :

 

 

Notice the shape of this bijou terrace of affordable homes. It looks like a couple of bookends squashing that pitiful hovel in between them. I am at a loss to explain the reasoning behind this. Nursery school children routinely draw nicelier-proportioned houses than these. What compels the fools of architects to try to be different all the time? They could just find a pleasing old cottage built by simple peasants, copy its proportions exactly, and gain a much more satisfactory outcome.

Why have they used those mean little windows? It makes the buildings dark inside. Perhaps they have a pact with the League of Artificial Light Suppliers. All new houses suffer from this defect.

The rooms are so small and separated by such flimsy partitions that they seem scaled to house a race of delicate pygmies rather than the robust oaves of Somerset.

The chimneys - at least the ones which are not FALSE - betray the presence of wood-burning stoves.

Needless to say greed dictates that the gardens (which are boasted only by the more prestige* of the properties) are approx. 1 sq. yd. in area and therefore quite useless either for recreation or for horticulture.

 

They have destroyed an ancient stone wall and some of Exmoor's best blackberry plants to put up these tiny-windowed, gardenless, stove-infested dolls' houses. I am furious. 

Well, I should be furious; but since I shall have Bloxworth House soon what do I care?

 

 

 

 *'Prestige' has become an adjective meaning 'expensive'. This is due to Estate Agents defiling the English tongue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instructions for Feeding Ducklings

Further evidence of my boundless capacity for being cross

 

Some dear little ducklings have been coming along the river behind the house here and cheeping in a most weedy manner to ask for food. Utterly charmed, we responded to their pleas with enthusiastic benevolence - "Feast, my Pretties!" we cried - and indeed we felt flattered at their obvious devotion to our patch of river. Horrid great seagulls and rooks, no doubt equally needy and deserving, gathered to glower over the scene but we scared them empty away. WE feed only the fluffy, the endearing.

Endearing fluffy ducklings ready for feeding. Seagulls are neither fluffy nor endearing and get no bready morsels.

 

But now our neighbour, a kindly and thoughtful person, has ruined everything with her superior feeding methods. Whereas we pelt the ducklings with big bits of rock-hard stale crust, Mrs Nextdoor buys for them soft, fresh bread containing nourishing and tasty seeds. She cuts the crusts off and crumbles the bread into micro-pieces in order to present it in a beak-friendly format, and then delivers it just upstream from the ducklings so they can pick it up as it floats down to them.
She has enticed them away, and since then the duck family have naturally spurned our offerings and only visit us if there's no-one in next door.  

Ungrateful Mother Duck leading her family of QUISLINGS off to get the baby-compatible bread treats from next door

  

 

Right. Well, here you are, Rooks and Seagulls! Have some of this premium ciabatta and costly sourdough, this exotic couscous, these grains of choicest expenso-rice! Gorge upon these hand-picked flakes of wild salmon, these slices of fillet beef, this asparagus! Eat! Leave nothing for the thankless ducklings. Let us teach them the consequence of their folly.

 

 

Some Towers : A Comparison

Right. (left) Here's the Campanile of Venice, completed as it looks now, in 1514. When it fell down in 1902 the Italians decided to rebuild it "com’era, dov’era" i.e. as it was, where it was, bless their sensible hearts. And what a joy it is. Well done, Italians!


 

 

                                        


 

And what did we do, when at Weymouth, awash with Olympics money in 2012, we thought we'd build a tower? We did this :

Weymouth Sea Life Tower -

Utilitarian, yet useless. Tall, yet contemptible. Intended as a tourist attraction, yet repellent in every way.

The best that can be said of it is that it blends nicely with the surroundings - in this case scaffolding, vans and Keep Out signs.

It has a ridiculous doughnut-shaped thing that you can go into and which goes up and down the tower, costing £22.50 a time for a 10 minute ride during which you are pestered to buy various nasty souvenirs of your foolishness.

 

Lastly here is a tower constructed by me entirely out of things waiting to be ironed. The largest man-made structure in the district and now visible from outer space, it is both a danger to shipping and an internationally recognised landmark. Result.
It isn't a very cheerful sight, but at least it's an achievement.

 

EFFIGY NIGHTMARE

Alas! The effigies season has begun and this specimen, found in Swabia (south west Germany - far away, thank goodness) shows how the new crop are evolving to push the boundaries of what people can bear. It alarms me that this one is a more realistic shape than the earlier models; yet in keeping with established effigy tradition the colour is as fanciful as it is unpleasant. One wonders what they are trying to achieve. At least it has been placed appropriately, in what seems to be a demolition site.

 

 

Here's another blemish on the Swabian scene (right). 
This one is not even fibreglass but is cast in bronze. Dear Lord above what a waste of valuable resources. It is of a ragged beggar and he is strumming upon some sort of mandolin thing. Really horrible in every way. Why do the authorities think we want our public money wasted on items of this nature? It's bad enough when a real minstrel comes by, strumming and plucking. We don't want a permanent reminder of such visitations. All it does is degrade its surroundings and lower the spirits of all who see it.

 

Better News:
I have received a report that the Dulwich inflatable hippopotamus and all it stood for have been RAZED TO THE GROUND. Result. (as the yobbery say.)


 



Pests on the Road Network

Sporting Cyclists do not read this. I warn you.

Honest persons who use a bike in order to get about may read with impunity.

Yesterday I was delayed in a journey to work because the road was swarming with racing cyclists and I take this to be Nature's way of permitting me to make this blog entry.
 

A herd of deluded madmen.
Note silly attire. Note stream of delayed traffic behind.

I can not STAND the sort of cyclists who wear all that idiotic ugly lycra and preposterous helmets. They look horrible, they make it quite obvious that they are convinced of their own tremendous  superiority to other road users (who they arrogantly ignore), and they selfishly clog the road as if they had more right to be there than the cars - and all the while they are clearly going NOWHERE for any legitimate purpose whatsoever.

Now look. I am happy to share the road with people who are going by bike in order to get to somewhere where they need to be, eg work, or the pub, or their friend's house; and these people can be identified by the fact that they wear ordinary clothes, keep to the side of the road and do not go about in packs spread right across the carriageway. I like to see them, and I sympathise warmly with them when they are struggling up a hill into the oncoming gale. I have in the past cycled, myself, to many pubs etc. I admit that I did sometimes bicycle without a specific destination to get to, but only because I used to use 'going for a bike ride' as a way of blow-drying my hair. 

I have NEVER, though, biked like these modern fools do, in special outfits or just to race. If they want to do that they should do it in Velodromes, not on the narrow public roads around here. They are a confounded nuisance, and inconsiderate with it. The ones yesterday were so pompous that they were being preceded by a "Race Lead Vehicle". Where will it end.

This is what I have to say, and the 'Sports Cycling Community' ought to take note:

• There is no need to wear a special outfit; that is the advantage of cycling.
• As for the helmets... do they not realise what utter TURKEYS they look in them? And have they not noticed that when you fall off a bike, you get grazed knees or elbows? Your head is rarely damaged. And if it is run over by a lorry your turkey-helmet is not going to save it.
• Refusing to acknowledge other road users is one of their most serious mistakes. They do it in order to impress upon us how very important and difficult their task (they think) is. But eye contact with motorists is a useful communication tool. It also helps dispel some of the hostility. These things would be to the cyclists' own advantage so they aren't doing themselves any favours by being so standoffish. 

My policy is to wave cheerily at the dolts from my car, smiling friendlyly whilst saying "You really do look like a lot of complete twerps. Get out of my ruddy way, curse you," knowing full well that they are far too grand to bother doing any lip-reading.

Here is a picture from my early cycling career. You will notice that
 

i) my conveyance was an ancient tricycle handed down from generations of previous Smiths - not some £8million fancy-bike

ii) I was wearing "normal" clothes (normal for Smiths). Lycra had not been invented I admit but even if it had I would have shunned it.

iii) that's a sunbonnet in the picture, not a turkey-helmet.

iv) I had gumboots on. Sporting cyclists wear freakish shoes which can not be used for walking in when they get off their bikes.

v) I was confined to the yard - not allowed to wander willy-nilly about the highway.

vi) I was looking directly at the photographer with a genial expression. (aren't I charming). It is not the custom of sporting cyclists to offer even a flicker of recognition to anyone. 


All cyclists should be forced to study this picture, to embrace its tenets, and to have a proper justification for every journey.
Those refusing to comply had better stay out of my zone.



 

 

Two Paintings and what I think of them




Madonna con Bambino Benedicente
or, Madonna del Pollice
by Giovanni Bellini in 1460-1464

This is my favourite picture in the world. Available to view at the Accademia Gallery in Venice. Top quality workmanship with delightful Infant Jesus and engaging air of pensive melancholy shown by Mary. Highly conducive to holy contemplation.

 

 

And here is one by D Hockney called Mr and Mrs Clark and their cat Percy (painted in 1970-1971; now at Tate Britain Gallery). The cat wasn't even called Percy - its name was Blanche though speaking as one whose cat is called Blackie I can't really complain about a white cat called Blanche. However, the name Percy is the best thing about this painting in my opinion. I nearly called our son Percy but decided he might never forgive me so there was a fontside rethink. Now he is 15 and he regularly berates me for not calling him Percy as he would have liked it. He is lucky not to be still called G-AHLK actually so he should count his blessings. 

 

 

Here is what I object to about this painting:

1) General style. It is like one of the illustrations they used to have in Ladybird books - perfectly adequate in its way, but hardly great art. In fact the colours are rather less subtle than one would hope to find in a Ladybird book. The treatment is crude and undetailed.

See what I mean? Far better.

 

2) Composition. Vastly improved if a live figure stands in front of the painting. 
I can not understand why the telephone or the yellow book have been included. They are not things of beauty and their significance escapes me.

  

 

 

 

3) Figures: Has Mr Clark a club foot? It appears so. (His left foot). [One presumes his right foot looks peculiar because half of it is buried in the decadent thick carpet. It could be a homage to the fact that Bellini's Jesus' right foot seems only to have 4 toes, but I doubt it.] Also he might have had the good manners to sit up straight for the portrait.  It is unconventional anyway for a gentleman to be sitting down if there are ladies present who have not got a seat and this is a possible explanation for the peevish mood in which Mrs Clark is here depicted. Alternatively she may be looking cross because even though Mr Clark is a fashion designer (I looked it up) they have put her in an old sack for the occasion.

4) Other annoying things: Why is the telephone on the floor? What is that weird thing beside it? Why aren't either of these plugged in? The shadow under the chair does not look right. That picture hanging on the wall on the left is (I looked this up too) an etching by D Hockney so one can only admire the nerve of the artist in displaying such self-aggrandisement. The lilies are OK but I must point out that in real life people do not advisedly use narrow vases with high centres of gravity on low tables. That will certainly be knocked over when the cat gets off the bloke's knee.

 

Verdict: I'll have the Bellini. Julia can have the Percy one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cows 'are not Julia' says Expert

Cowkind - already reeling from
i) gross and widespread misrepresentation by hideous fibreglass effigies, and
ii) recent publication of a newly-discovered poem written by T S Eliot, sample lines of which include "Of all the beasts that God allows... I most of all dislike the cows,"  -

has this week suffered a further blow as members of the cow community were subjected to a horrifying serenade by a silly human dressed in what he imagined was a cow suit. The cow suit was actually an unconvincing costume incorporating a most indelicate udder which was embarrassing for everyone present. The event was being done as a publicity stunt to advertise a musical entertainment taking place in London. Needless to say, the cows failed to buy a single ticket. They just stared, bewildered, as one of their human masters behaved like an absolute imbecile. 

 

 

 

One can only hope that the poor creatures, pictured, later took matters into their own hands and stampeded, trampling the guitar-and-pretend-cow act to the ground.
 

It's time for Society to pause and take stock. When even the cows look aghast at our activities, we have surely gone too far. We owe it to the dumb animals who are at our mercy, to conduct ourselves with a modicum of dignity. Otherwise they feel terribly insecure, wondering what idiotic thing we might do next.

A bovine spokesperson and cow expert said yesterday, "Cows aren't Julia. They should not have to undergo this sort of distress."