Late November in the city

Centenary Square late Saturday afternoon

When I'm in another place it's autumn dusk in a Christmas city I see and almost feel. I like the bustle of Birmingham's small centre, police and PCSOs courteously directing pedestrian traffic...

Outside New Street Station, Stephenson Street

...I skirt people jams, weaving among stationary cars, bumper to bumper - Oscar in the front box of my Brompton; a satisfying detachment from an unmadding crowd, we descend to the quiet of the waterways...

Brindley Place near Gas Street Basin

...where the dog jumps down, to lift a leg, before cantering in front and behind - a small white blob just visible in the ambient light of the town. I pedal a familiar route along the Birmingham Mainline, now and then a sound like an animal in anguish precedes the rumble of heavy wheels and yellow windows streaking above me, and along the glassy water of the canal.

Turning into the Soho Loop I'm passing warehouses and chimneys in silhouette, between the real and the reflected - Whistler nocturnes.

The Birmingham Mainline Canal

The Soho Loop

*** *** ***
I am delighted that the gutters and downpipes I fixed with some labour and cost to the roof of my shed - 10' x 8' only - have harvested me so much water. I should have another barrel at least...

One of my water butts and a chair I mended on Sunday

There's not much to be planted now and water is the least of my needs. My reading of an allotment website suggested winter peas and hardy broad beans - Aguadulce -  so I bought seeds from Hirons, up the road...

On Sunday afternoon I sowed the beans.  I dug through a bed which had held cabbage, what was left of them sending up clouds of white fly as I pulled the roots, forking over ground regularly dug already; larger pebbles removed, couch roots pulled, compost and topsoil added. My work brought up yet more stones and some couch roots - but far fewer. The ground here really is getting nicer.

Mindful of things I'd not known until recently, I laid eight carpet tiles down the middle of the patch I'd dug - so as to avoid the slightest compression of soil in which I would be sowing. I coarse-raked then fine-raked the soil, then pushed the broad bean seeds gently into the ground, zig-zag pattern, as the packet instructions advised, about six inches apart...

...I wheeled down a barrow load of topsoil from my store in a builder's bag and laid it on top of what I'd sown, then firmed the seed bed with the back of a spade. Oscar watched the park from his place by the iron fence - barking occasionally at passing dogs.

It suggests on the packet that beans sown now, should be ready in seven months - June and July 2015. 'Seedlings should appear in 14-24 days'. Later in the week I'll sow the hardy peas.
*** *** ***
Another pleasure - back to work as Hon.Sec of Handsworth Helping Hands...

HHH committee - Denise, Charles, Linda (Hon.Treasurer) Jimoh, Mike (Chair) and Simon (Hon Sec)

Bogan skips arrive - one of two

At one of HHH's 'Skip-it Don't Tip-it' days (photo: Lin Baddeley)

HHH works with Council Fleet and Waste - Kabs in the sweeper in Haughton Road

...rubbish collector and white van driver.

Back in Handsworth - Lozells Road

*** *** ***
Amy brought Oliver over for us to do some childminding...

He slept in our room as usual in the cot beside our bed. I got him up in the morning, changed a nappy and made him breakfast before heading, with Oscar to Handsworth Park. A deal of some kind was going down as we approached the main gate...

...yet once inside we were among the birds - pigeons, a swan, ducks, seagulls, geese, coots and even a cormorant flying by showing that fish have returned to the lake.

Hide-and-seek around the oldest tree in the park

The playground

We walk the same paths - a  postcard circa 1900 when our park was called Victoria Park (courtesy Dorrie Lopacka)

*** *** *** ***
PRESS RELEASE on the Ano Korakiana website about the future of the valued Health Centre at Pyrgi, Corfu - four kilometres from Ano Korakiana

Νέο κάλεσμα για το Κέντρο Υγείας Γράφει ο/η Κβκ  
29.11.14
                                                     ΔΕΛΤΙΟ ΤΥΠΟΥ
Την Τρίτη 25 Νοεμβρίου πραγματοποιήθηκε συνάντηση της Συντονιστικής Επιτροπής Αγώνα για την υπεράσπιση του Κέντρου Υγείας Αγίου Μάρκου με τον Περιϕερειάρχη  Ιόνιων Νησιών.
Κοινή ήταν η αγωνία για το μέλλον του Κέντρου Υγείας και η διάθεση αγωνιστικής διεκδίκησης της καλής λειτουργίας της πρωτοβάθμιας και δευτεροβάθμιας υγειονομικής περίθαλψης σε όλο το νησί και την Περιϕέρεια.
Η Συντονιστική Επιτροπή Αγώνα καλεί όλους τους πολίτες στο επόμενο βήμα διαμαρτυρίας, τη Δευτέρα 1 Δεκεμβρίου στις 11:00 στο Γενικό Νοσοκομείο Κέρκυρας.
Η Συντονιστική Επιτροπή

New appeal for the Health Center
Written by KBR
29/11/14
                                                   
 PRESS RELEASE
On Tuesday, November 25, there was a meeting of the Coordinating Committee for the defense of St. Mark's Health Centre with the regional governor of the Ionian Islands.
Shared anxiety was expressed about the future of the health center and the need for more vigourous attention to ensuring proper delivery of primary and secondary health care across the island and the Region.
The Campaign Coordinating Committee calls on all citizens to continue and maintain their protest, on Monday, December 1st at 11:00 at the General Hospital of Corfu.
The Steering Committee

*****
Article in The Observer, Sunday 30 November 2014, about the still seldom told history behind the Greek Civil War Ελληνικός Εμφύλιος Πόλεμος...When 28 civilians were killed in Athens, it wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Ed Vulliamy and Helena Smith reveal how Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today:

Late summer 1944 German forces withdraw from most of Greece, which is taken over by local partisans. Most of them are members of ELAS, the armed wing of the National Liberation Front, EAM, which included the Communist KKE party

October 1944 Allied forces, led by General Ronald Scobie, enter Athens, the last German-occupied area, on 13 October. Georgios Papandreou returns from exile with the Greek government 

2 December 1944 Rather than integrate ELAS into the new army, Papandreou and Scobie demand the disarmament of all guerrilla forces. Six members of the new cabinet resign in protest 

3 December 1944 Violence in Athens after 200,000 march against the demands. More than 28 are killed and hundreds are injured. The 37-day Dekemvrianá begins. Martial law is declared on 5 December 

January/February 1945 Gen Scobie agrees to a ceasefire in exchange for ELAS withdrawal. In February the Treaty of Varkiza is signed by all parties. ELAS troops leave Athens with 15,000 prisoners 

1945/46 Right-wing gangs kill more than 1,100 civilians, triggering civil war when government forces start battling the new Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), mainly former ELAS soldiers 

1948-49 DSE suffers a catastrophic defeat in the summer of 1948, with nearly 20,000 killed. In July 1949 Tito closes the Yugoslav border, denying DSE shelter. Ceasefire signed on 16 October 1949 

21 April 1967 Right-wing forces seize power in a coup d’état. The junta lasts until 1974. Only in 1982 are communist veterans who had fled overseas allowed to return to Greece

....and Richard Pine's latest article in the Irish Times, Monday 1st Dec'14....

....Greece commemorates frequently and assiduously. The key dates after 1821 are 1864 (the first major growth of the Greek state with the acquisition of the Ionian islands); the black mark of 1922 (when Greece was ignominiously defeated by Turkey in its feeble attempt to invade Istanbul); “Ochi” day, October 28th, 1940, when Greece rejected the Italian threat of invasion; and another black mark in the form of the civil war after the second World War. More recently, 1974 saw the dismissal of the seven-year-old military dictatorship.
Some of these are marked by activities to keep remembrance alive: “Ochi” day is habitually celebrated in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, with a presidential address. The suppression of the communist partisans in the civil war is the subject of annual pilgrimages to places of mass execution (such as Lazareto - Λαζαρέτο - island in Corfu bay...see also). This year, the 40th anniversary of the student uprising that brought about the fall of the colonels was widely celebrated. All of this raises the questions: what is to be remembered? Why?.... 

The balcony

(photo: Mark Jacks)

No sane Greek would have built a balcony out of wood. This structure has been giving us problems for years, but before we left Ano Korakiana this November we'd made an arrangement to have the present decking removed, all dozen support beams lowered and cleared of rot, the whole re-assembled with eleven additional tantalised beams and new hardwood decking.
The internet makes overseeing building at a distance much easier. Mark, working on our balcony off Democracy Street has uncovered and communicated an unexpected problem.

Part of the support beam that runs the width of the house is badly rotted (photo: Mark Jacks)

The front to back cross beams were all in place - the old ones ground and sanded to remove rot and the new ones tantalised; the lot treated with preservative, then Mark emailed:

Hi Simon and Lin. As you can see from the photo's from today most of the old  beams are now back up along with all the new 7x7 ones. It's been a long slow process getting the beams in order as I first had to get all the rotten wood out (ground out) then sanded out with an orbital using a very course grade p40, then 3 coats of the universal wood preserver which kills all manner of grubs and beetles apparently, then I gave all of the old beams the 2 coats of Resolcoat which seems to have gone off nice and hard so sealing all the preservative in and keeping the bad weather out hopefully.

Before and after (photo: Mark Jacks)

A couple of problems have arisen -  one being the old beams are 14.5 cm x 7 cm (not all are this by the way) and the new ones are 7x7cm with the extra piece under the end being added to make them 14x7cm, which leaves half a cm out from the tops of the new 7x7 cm to the tops of the 14.5 cm beams, meaning  along with other inconsistencies with the old beams not running true we have the decking touching the tops of some of the beams and others not... 

'...touching the tops of some of the beams and others not' (photo: Mark Jacks)

...at its worse out by 1 cm and its least ½ a cm, so I am going to have to pack in places to get the levels as right as I can.
- two you will see on the photo's the beam which is attached to the house (2 actually), the one that is directly under your balcony french windows.  In the very left hand corner the wood is rotten far worse than I thought, this beam holds the house side of I think the last 5 beams.

(photo: Mark Jacks)

I saw a bit of rot on the top of it so got a wire brush and started to scrub away and it just fell apart on the back side up against the wall up until about half way along to the centre of your balcony door. You can even see one of the coach screws now from one of the brackets.

(photo: Mark Jacks)

'That's how far gone it was in one place'

I have cleaned it out the best I can and given it some of the wood preserver and hardener, but I am not sure if it doesn't need to be replaced totally, which means I have to take half of the beams down again and get another length of timber and replace it
Maybe it will hold for many years after treatment. I don't know, so you can decide on what I should do with that one.
I am behind schedule as I have yet to remove the last middle beam and 2 end beams after having to secure the balcony first , which is in quite a sore state on the whole. I was hoping to be putting the decking on next week but I don't think so, not with these few minor problems arising, then of course I have to adjust all the beams so as they will allow the decking to sit on top .
All the old beams I numbered so as they went back on the same bracket in the same place and even with no work done to the bracket area of the wood on the beam apart from a little sand and then treated, they don't all allow the decking to make contact so I will have to either raise or lower them a little to try and square it all up, just shows how bad the work was done on it in the first place .
That's it , not all doom and gloom from below it looks quite nice. Sally and I think and the weather is great for doing this work. Hope all is well. Cheerio, Mark 

Dear Mark. Thanks for the latest news on the balcony. It will cost more and take more of your time but there's no question this must be made good. Please go ahead and ‘replace totally'.  This is a key support for the whole balcony isn’t it? It will take more time but please order a tanalised beam from the Velonades yard. It’s a jolly good thing you found this. If it had been left, even with a dose of Resolcoat, it could have been a weak link in the whole ‘new’ balcony. Glad you are figuring out ways to deal with the inequalities of the beams as they emerge. That’s our John the Builder again. All the best, Simon

This wooden balcony has been a problem since we bought the house in Ano Korakiana in 2007. The house has two balconies - one of concrete, on the official house  plan, and our wooden one which is not. It is a temporary structure within the law. Turning it into a permanent structure - or stone, iron or concrete - would be an expensive bureaucratic nightmare. Ignoring the law and creating an illegal addition would be no better, as planning regulations are tightened across the Republic - and rightly so!
Early on we made the mistake of thinking we could make the balcony leak-proof, so that the area beneath it would be dry in bad weather. We covered the decking with UV resistant polythene. Lin and I went to great pains to seal it all the way round. We should have realised that covering the wood in this way would make it sweat, encouraging rot.

I put some L-brackets under the dodgier decking and even began replacing some of the planks - an expensive option that didn't deal with rot in the support beams.

Before Mark started work

By May this year I was putting temporary planks over the worst areas of rot; wholly unsatisfactory, especially as we'd at last dealt with the problem of keeping the space under the balcony dry by rigging a tarp on hooks and carefully anchored bungees.

Amy and her mum fix a tarpaulin to create a rain shelter beneath the balcony

Once the tarp had been fitted the first time, it became a matter of minutes to put it up again. It works perfectly. If only we'd thought of this years ago. The new decking will have gaps between planks; no attempt to make it into a 'roof' for the veranda below. It will be stronger, having more support beams. It's hardwood, more resistant to sun and rain. The wood will never be covered again, prevented from breathing or allowed to rot. Yet the balcony will remain a temporary structure; not too tricky to dis-assemble if required.
Why all this trouble over a balcony? When we first inspected this house in in 2005 we were taken out onto it and saw the view. As we stood on this balcony gazing over the island's olive-clad contours, on to the Sea of Kerkyra, to the mountains of Albania and mainland Greece, Linda and I decided to buy the house.

Our wooden balcony ~ overlooking the Sea of Kerkyra, Albania and Epirus on the mainland of Greece beyond

One of our neighbours from Democracy Street - Angeliki Anthi - posted on Facebook:

Οι Κορακιανίτες κατ' επιλογήν, όπως ο φίλος Simon, ο γείτονας και φίλος Mark και πολλοί άλλοι, είναι άξιοι σεβασμού, εκτίμησης κι αγάπης! Πιστεύω πως κι αυτοί τρέφουν τα ίδια αισθήματα προς εμάς, αλλά πολύ περισσότερο στον τόπο μας! Αυτό φαίνεται με την προσοχή και τη φροντίδα που έχουν δείξει με τις κατοικίες τους ώστε να μην αλλοιωθεί η αρχιτεκτονική του χωριού μας! Να είναι σίγουροι πως δεν θέτουν σε κίνδυνο "την ακεραιότητα" της Κορακιάνας, και ακόμη πως δεν τους θεωρούμε "αλλοδαπούς" αλλά σημαντικό κομμάτι της κοινότητάς μας.

Could anyone ask for such generosity of spirit?

Τι γλυκό πράγμα είδους να πω, Αγγελική! Είναι τιμή μου. Συγχωρήστε τα ελληνικά μου (:)) Σαίμον και Λίντα

**** **** ****
I had lunch with Mark Woblee* in town. He'd driven down from Lancashire to give me recordings he'd made of Old Country as a young man. We had two pints of Doom Bar and sausages and mash in The Bull on Loveday Street. A proper pub entirely built for privacy in public and undamaged by restoration and fake tradition.
*Mark's domain name! He's really Mark Carroll, but I rather like Woblee.

In The Bull, Birmingham Gun Quarter

I've seen some of Mark's recordings of Old Country before but not all the episodes he's so generously let me have, and certainly not the ones with signing, nor the additional programme - a BBC interview. Pity that the recording ends abruptly mid-sentence before the end.

Jack's first and only appearance on the BBC: an interview with phone-in questions from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

Almost within minutes of streaming it on Facebook I got a message:

Iwan Bob Geldart - I was a cameraman on the show on the Vimeo link above. The show was Open Air shot at BBC North Studio B, Oxford Road in Manchester. The presenter was Susan Rae

...and then hardly an hour later...

• 

  Simon Baddeley Thanks Iwan. For neatness it'd be good to have a date, but I've already got more than I could have expected from you by way of information. Perhaps Susan Rae will know. I'll tweet her.

  1 hr · Edited · Like
• 

  Ian Wegg Earlier this year the BBC put online transcripts of every single edition of "The Radio Times" so thanks to Iwan providing the show title we can track this down to 2nd May 1988.
  http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b22d9203688b46dc95ba6ae135550579
  

  Open Air - BBC One London - 2 May 1988 - BBC Genome

  Do you know whether this programme was actually broadcast as scheduled? If not, tell us what was. Or do you know something else about this programme? The information you send using the Tell Us More form will not be published on the page. We plan to hold on to it and use it at a later stage, to fill…

  GENOME.CH.BBC.CO.UK

I'd never heard of the BBC Genome Project. I searched my name and came up with Miles Blackley's BBC Private Investigations programme about the Victoria Jubilee Allotments made in 1999
Victoria Jubilee Allotments: BBC Private Investigations from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

Shoot forward 15 years ....Wet on the allotment this Friday.

Not much to do but continue weeding and tidying. Winnie pruning too.

She found a plastic cloche and made it into a shelter for Oscar as he gazed at the park. I dug up enough potatoes for supper and harvested a pound of Jerusalem Artichokes - peeled, boiled and liquidised with a chopped onion and a few young carrot leftovers in chicken stock made a good winter soup.
*** *** ***
27th November....

Hi Simon and Lin. Rained off today maybe avrio also. As you can see from the photo's all the new and old beams are up which includes the two end beams.
What I did with the support beam on the house was to cut it back at about half the length which was well passed the rot and using one of the old better spare beams from the end of the balcony which I cut down to the size of the removed rotten beam...see photo...

....sanded it down and treated it then secured it back to the end of the house .This way keeps costs down for you and it is just as good as a new one anyway. Then I put back the removed beams from the top so now it is all complete .
Next step is to start with the decking when the weather improves. Hope all is well. Mark

All new and repaired beams in place ready for new decking (photo: Mark Jacks)

Dear Mark That saved a journey to the north and with preservative it should be fine - especially as we’ll never again try to cover the balcony. Ridiculous that we were so focused on preventing it leaking to the plaka below, we ended up ignoring the consequences for the wood. Mr and Mrs Rot must have been overjoyed when we covered the balcony and worked so hard sealing it all the way round (:)) What was it like screwing into the wall to refix the ’new’ beam? Look forward to seeing the decking. Nice to think of all the firewood we'll get from sawing up the old decking. Its pretty wet and grey and chilly and often misty in the evenings here - typical English winter, otherwise all’s well. We’re babysitting Oliver this evening and I’ll take him and Oscar to the allotment tomorrow. How are you? Simon

Back in Birmingham

All Saints Street, Hockley ~ on my route via the canal towpath to the centre of town

I'm back in Birmingham. We're back in England. I'm cycling through parks, along towpaths, sometimes with Oscar...a flâneur again.

With Oscar and a heron on the Birmingham Mainline - towpath improved by the Canal & River Trust

...wandering around the markets, sweeping up leaves, bagging them for compost, mowing twelve weeks of grass on the lawns, checking up on the allotment where I've garlic to plant - for a start. The other night we had a meeting of the Handsworth Helping Hands Committee...

Meeting of Handsworth Helping Hands Committee at Simon and Lin's home

Agenda: 1st item - Apologies from John Rose; Present - Mike Tye (Chair), Linda Baddeley (Hon Treasurer), Denise Forsyth, Jimoh Folarin, Charles Bates and (taking the photo and minutes) Simon Baddeley, Hon.Sec (also tea maker)...2nd item: approve last meeting minutes: approved 3rd item: finances: Lin reports - healthy and transparent; 4th item - work done and planned - an inventory of jobs done and planned; current concerns about the problem of hiring skips for street clean-ups "They're more and more expensive"
"The companies delivering them aren't always reliable"
"How about relations with Fleet and Waste Management?"
"Can they replace skips for our next 'Skip-it Don't Tip-it' day in just over 10 days?"
"We'll just have to hire skips entirely from our own funds then?"
"This time - yes"
5th item; AOB and date of next meeting - 11 Dec'14
*** *** ***

Black Lake Metro stop

In the urban sprawl I am wholly fascinated by the experience of non-places, by placelessness part created by auto dependency part by post-industrial destruction of an area once defined by manufacture...

The Black Country as it was

....but also by the mental shift that allows me to find these de-identified spaces almost a pleasure (especially when it's dreich - chilly and wet - and I'm in warm outdoor clothes, and car drivers are even happier to be in their havens) not least for the sudden juxtaposition and surprise afforded by a building or an experience that recovers somewhere from nowhere. I was trying to explain this to Richard Pine while we were having a family lunch  in Tomas' O Foros in Old Perithia - a once deserted village on an island defined by its multiplicity of places.
"Have you come across psychogeography?" I asked, knowing him perfectly capable of understanding the notion of strolling off predictable paths.
"Hrumph!" he replied, wholly of the belief that places are either a delight because unspoiled by mass tourism or desecrated ruins.

Lunch at O Foros in Palia Perithia with the family and Richard Pine

The other day I was stuck for nearly an hour near Black Lake Metro stop, expecting to be collected for a meeting of the Friends of Black Patch Park. Like so much of the Black Country at night there was little hint of place, just roads, lightless buildings and streaming lights on wet roads.

I cycled to a cross roads to look around. I glimpsed a branch of Staples in the distance. All of a sudden I came across a temple, back slightly from the road...

Shree Krishna Temple, Old Meeting Street, West Bromwich

...a pleasing surprise. A narrow column of light came from the large front doors beyond the grey stone portal. A Hindu Temple; not an adapted church; one built to the principles  of Vastu shastra. I'd learned something of the precise complexity of these buildings when, over ten years ago, I went with some of my Japanese students to see the famous Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, the magnificent Hindu temple in Neasden, where the architecture relies on huge cut stones placed one above the other without cementing mortar.
I forgot about waiting for an appointment that wasn't kept; just headed home the way I'd come. Then 30 minutes later Harjinder collected me and drove me to where we had a wonderful shared meal at a small restaurant almost hidden in a line of shops at Great Bridge - Sanam Tandoori, Tipton. Ron. Our chair, Ron Collins, caught me up on what had been discussed at the meeting; mainly about the terms for a partnership with Sandwell Council for the renovation and stewardship of the Community Centre in Black Patch, something about which I remain sceptical, wondering if there could not be a S106A in connection with an application to build a recycling centre next to the park. It could be a way of funding a full-time manager for the centre. On his smartphone Harjinder showed me a 30 second clip from the series Peakyblinders which I've heard about, repeating the now familiar conjecture that Charlie Chaplin, brought up in south east London, was born on the Black Patch.

“He was a bookie in Birmingham, then he went to Los Angeles. He’s a Romany gypsy like Chaplin. He keeps it a secret, Chaplin was born on the Black Patch, a gypsy camp in Birmingham. That’s why he gave Wag a job, even though Wag was on the run.” Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby in Episode 5, Season 2 of BB2's Peaky Blinders

*** *** ***
Gave a talk (as I do now and then) about Handsworth Park the other night - to the Great Barr Local History Society in the Great Barr Memorial Hall with a plaque on the wall commemorating local men killed in the Great War. Took my folding bike on the 51 from Perry Barr bus; was early so had a tray of chips with curry sauce....

...and enjoyed it by the dual carriageway; then gave my talk to a lovely group of people - many my age and older - full of stories and questions and welcome mugs of tea....

...then, since the next bus wasn't for over 20 minutes, cycled back in the rain - mostly downhill - to Handsworth, where Lin and I had a late supper, salad, chicken legs and baked potatoes

At the Memorial Hall I was told a story. Maurice, even older than I, told me a tale his father had told him of the park pond before the Great War. There were fewer and fewer fish to be caught by the keen local anglers who fished the pond in the 1900s. A great pike was rumoured to be eating them. A reward was offered of a month's wages - £5 - to anyone who could catch and dispatch it. Many tried and failed, losing their tackle. Eventually a man called Morton, who lived off Holly Road, succeeded in landing and killing the great predator. He got the reward and spent it - plus another £3 - on taking the beast to a taxidermist. The stuffed pike, in a glass cabinet, was displayed with pride in his home. Ever after locals called him 'Pikey' Morton. He'd button-hole people and boast of his catch; how that fish came out of the pond "barking like a dog", "lips full of rusty hooks", "wrapped itself three times round me!" I wonder where Morton's pike might be now.

*** *** ***
Richard Pine who has written about the difficulty of getting Greek writing translated into English and other languages, encouraged me to read Apostles Doxiades' Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture. Given my mathematical illiteracy it's not promising but then critics similarly innumerate praise Doxiades' novel. 

*** *** ***
As one of the 1000 elders recruited to take part in research overseen by Professor Janet Lord at the Medawar Centre for Healthy Ageing Research....

....I've agreed to take part in another small experiment...

...which gave me a chance to cycle to the Medical School along a resurfaced towpath - several miles greatly improved...

Worcester & Birmingham Canal near Birmingham University

...as is the rough stony path through Perry Hall Playing Fields which I used the other evening for the first time in years, giving a nice route between One Stop Shopping Centre and Handsworth Wood Road...

The new cycle path through Perry Hall Playing Fields - one pleasing product of the Birmingham Cycling Revolution

*** *** ***
So consoling to work through a checklist of errands - like mowing lawns and firming up a shelf in our larder...

Cameron fears second global financial crash - does the UK want UKIP or Labour or more austerity and are we all going to die?

Amazon UK with precise micromarketing expertise (note the generous range of search terms, but why the use of singular where plural is the norm?) has suggested I might like to buy 'New men Sexy seamless underwear pants briefs U convex pouch thong knicker'

• Margaret Prothero, Alex Kendall, Chris Holmes and 2 others like this.
• 

  Stefan Unkelbach 

  15 November at 18:20 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Liz Basden Yeah not getting that for Christmas!

  15 November at 18:51 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Tony Jacks Is there something you are not telling us!

  15 November at 19:24 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Paul Grantster Grant
  

  15 November at 19:44 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Paul Grantster Grant Mmm..yes Simon , I can see you in them on your decking at the back of your Spiti in Ano

  15 November at 19:44 · Unlike · 2
• 

  Margaret Ann Hope Well !!!

  15 November at 22:42 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Chris Holmes and, as usual, the 'zon has SB bang to rights. cant fool my old alma mater

  Yesterday at 07:27 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Simon Baddeley Pondering this. I bought some Long Johns via Amazon - so some bot decided to offer me 'short johns'

  Yesterday at 07:58 · Like · 3
• 

  Stefan Unkelbach I like also the advertising from facebook on my side. They suggest me a page for incontinence garment...

  Yesterday at 08:40 · Unlike · 2
• 

  Margaret Prothero Ha no V.P.L.!!!!!

  Yesterday at 12:00 · Unlike · 2
• 

  Simon Baddeley Depends what the 'P' stands for....(don't go there)

  Yesterday at 13:25 · Like · 1
• 

  Margaret Prothero Visible panty line just a female thing?

  46 mins · Like
• 

  Simon Baddeley End thread now

  43 mins · Like · 1