Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[celtic]

Tonji - whom I met for the first time at bB6 - has whetted my appetite & aroused an interest in me for old photographs. I seem to stare at them for hours, because they convey so many messages from a different era, & things have changed so much.

Imagine this being allowed to happen today. This was taken in 1955, at the Bulmers factory in Hereford, & those are apples being shovelled off the wagons!.

this was the core business in hereford and surrounding areas in the 50's & 60's, The 1974 Health & Safey act prevented this kind of shovelling to continue, which meant the intoduction of more spohisticated machinery etc being introduced, which resulted in the loss of lots of jobs and caused to the local economy to crumble. The turnover was so high at one point it was estimated that there was almost 1 billion apples passed thru the factory every year!!!! The managed to just pip their nearest competitor who had 970 million per year.

[tikay]

Tonji - whom I met for the first time at bB6 - has whetted my appetite & aroused an interest in me for old photographs. I seem to stare at them for hours, because they convey so many messages from a different era, & things have changed so much.

Imagine this being allowed to happen today. This was taken in 1955, at the Bulmers factory in Hereford, & those are apples being shovelled off the wagons!.

this was the core business in hereford and surrounding areas in the 50's & 60's, The 1974 Health & Safey act prevented this kind of shovelling to continue, which meant the intoduction of more spohisticated machinery etc being introduced, which resulted in the loss of lots of jobs and caused to the local economy to crumble. The turnover was so high at one point it was estimated that there was almost 1 billion apples passed thru the factory every year!!!! The managed to just pip their nearest competitor who had 970 million per year.

Look, my name is tikay, not Dingdell......

[tikay]

The Times reports in an Obituary that Werner Groebli has just died.

Who? He was Frick, in Frick & Frack. Obviously.

Frick & Frack were "comedic ice-skaters" as far back as the 1930's.

They made over 15,000 appearances in an Ice Follies Show.

Frick's trick was the famous (?), never been done before "famous cantilever move" with which he ended every show, & the audience roared for more.  Frack was more sombre, he did a piece called "The Minger" (I kid you not), named after an Austrian Farmer, Rudolf Minger, & it involved imitating a farmer sitting on a tractor bouncing up & down across a field. On ice.

I don't make this stuff up you know.

It's extraordinary to see how peope were entertained 50 or 60 years ago. I wonder what they'd make of Big Brother, Ant & Dec, or Gladiators? On balance, I think I'd stick to Frick & Frack.

Look at this picture & tell me you are not fascinated.

[tikay]

Dashing get-up, eh?

[tikay]

Eventually, we left Brighton, & headed North.

I had already decided we would stop off at the Hickstead Hotel & have a coffee - this Hotel is just lovely, and it's just a few hundred yards off the A23.

It has a little bird sanctuary, with "hides" & suchlike, & some marshy wetlands to encourage waders. It also has a decent-sized pond, inhabited by quite a variety of ducks & birds.

We were there about an hour, sat under a grand old oak tree in the garden, after a really beauitiful day's sunshine, & the animal kingdom was in it's element.

I spotted......

Rabbits

Mallard

Canada Geese

Cormorants

Swans

Magpies

Swifts

Swallows

And my current favourite bird, the Blackbird. I prefer the Male Blackbird, it's jet black (the hen is brown), & it's only in the last year or two I've come to learn & appreciate the different "body language" different birds exhibit. Blackbirds fittle-fattle about on lawns, foraging for insects, beetles, worms, & fly very low, just above the ground, sort of swoopy-woopy, to their adjacent nest, usually in a hedgerow at fairly low level. They are very "busy" birds, & sing beautifully. I learned only yesterday, from Tom, that they are seriously territorial.

I forgot to add, for Tom - that Roma Caravan is still there!

[RED-DOG]

Eventually, we left Brighton, & headed North.

I had already decided we would stop off at the Hickstead Hotel & have a coffee - this Hotel is just lovely, and it's just a few hundred yards off the A23.

It has a little bird sanctuary, with "hides" & suchlike, & some marshy wetlands to encourage waders. It also has a decent-sized pond, inhabited by quite a variety of ducks & birds.

We were there about an hour, sat under a grand old oak tree in the garden, after a really beauitiful day's sunshine, & the animal kingdom was in it's element.

I spotted......

Rabbits

Mallard

Canada Geese

Cormorants

Swans

Magpies

Swifts

Swallows

And my current favourite bird, the Blackbird. I prefer the Male Blackbird, it's jet black (the hen is brown), & it's only in the last year or two I've come to learn & appreciate the different "body language" different birds exhibit. Blackbirds fittle-fattle about on lawns, foraging for insects, beetles, worms, & fly very low, just above the ground, sort of swoopy-woopy, to their adjacent nest, usually in a hedgerow at fairly low level. They are very "busy" birds, & sing beautifully. I learned only yesterday, from Tom, that they are seriously territorial.

I forgot to add, for Tom - that Roma Caravan is still there!

The more I think about that, the more it doesn't add up.

[ifm]

Is that you walking across it ?

For that, 3 more railway pics will follow.

Sigh ... will i ever learn !

wfp kev

Im sorry ... but hey there is always a bright side ... if he is posting pics of trains, he wont post pics of kittens, birds and bloody hotels ... every cloud and all that

Or lack of sleep, 60,000 unreplied pm's or 89,000 unreplied emails, how fortunate he is or lack of sleep?

[77dave]

At least the weather will be nice when your back in England they said

if only

[The_nun]

Turn Table is in the NRM

[tikay]

It's Friday!

I may do this at bB7 Karaoke.

 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TSmfNxmaQHc&feature=related

[tikay]

How good is this?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MqlE1nE-0Tk&feature=related

[Bongo]

Have you ever seen this before TJ?

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

This place in Uzbekistan is called by locals “The Door to Hell”. It is situated near the small town of Darvaz. The story of this place lasts already for 35 years. Once the geologists were drilling for gas. Then suddenly during the drilling they have found an underground cavern, it was so big that all the drilling site with all the equipment and camps got deep deep under the ground. None dared to go down there because the cavern was filled with gas. So they ignited it so that no poisonous gas could come out of the hole, and since then, it’s burning, already for 35 years without any pause. Nobody knows how many tons of excellent gas has been burned for all those years but it just seems to be infinite there.

More here:
http://www.englishrussia.com/?p=1830

Or heard about the (now abandoned) town in the US plagued by an underground mine fire that could last for another 250 years?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

I found the stories pretty amazing!

[tikay]

Good grief Bongo, thats the hole from to Hell.

[tikay]

Feltham, Saturday.

It's so hard to keep up with this Diary, not enough hours in the day, or days in the week. Still got the Bash, some Sky fun on Monday & Tuesday, DTD Tuesday, & a lovely discovery I made on Wednesday, but first I'm gonna skip a few days, to Luton last night.....

[tikay]

Went to Luton last night, stayed at Days, so I could be at Luton-G for the (temporary) return of Jim McShane.

Much fun & merriment, & a good friday night crowd there to enjoy themselves. Amongst the "welcome home Jim" brigade were Jeff Buff, Vinni (celtic), Dave Courteney, Dingdell, and the indescribably scruffy Compo - questions were asked as to how Compo gained entrance, wearing a boiler suit & what appeared to be carpet slippers, & 3 days growth of beard. He fluked a big Super-Stud hand early, & by the time the £75 Comp started, he was a grand ahead. He left the Casino at 3qm to travel home to Bishops Stortford (Stansted Airport), & was due back at work at 7am this morning.....I don't know how he does it

In the Comp, We had a £100 Last-Longer - Compo, Mo Muse, Jeff, Dave Courteney, & me. Jim was an Alternate, doubled up early, & then asked to join the L-L. Look Jim, we missed you, but not that much. He did, of course, last the longest. Mo Muse & Dave Courteney chopped the Last-Longer.

Jim's Comp exit was very sad actually. A Dealer error cost him a 70k Pot! Shame it was Jim, but then again, maybe just as well. I can imagine the hoohah if it had happened to some players. 

Also present were Simon Galloway, Exprressman, Dick Lynch, Gino, Shirley, most of the regulars really. Nice atmo.

The new Cardroom Supervisor was present, overseeing things, & I got the impression he was just watching tricks, trying to assess his brief. He never said much to anyone, just soaked up what was happening, probably a wise way to bed himself in. He got plenty of evidence.....