'...the thick rotundity o' the world'

I wake around 2.44 in the morning. Oliver, our grandson, sleeping on his mattress by our bed is coughing. I gently raise him up while he. half-asleep, lets me remake his ruffled sheets.
“Can I have dog back?” he murmurs.
I slide the still warm hot water bottle in its dog-sleeve back beside him and return to sleep. Lin comes to me later and wakes me for a moment
“He’s been coughing” I whisper.
I hear her tending to him as he slumbers. It’s 4.15. I’m not tired so I slip downstairs and go through my morning routine. Turn on the electric water heating, feed the cat, let Oscar in the garden to bark at shadows, make myself a large cup of tea and clean up the cat pee where she’s missed her litter tray again. Loads of time before my train. I send a picture of the defaced Gypsy Memorial in Black Patch Park to Cllr Richard Marshall, Sandwell MBC’s Cabinet Member for Leisure – this after the council’s website with which I’m long registered blanks me third page in when I use it to report graffiti.

Tap tap tap. Stuck! The page sticks on my screen. Phil Crumpton and I are going with Andrew Simon – all members of the Friends of Black Patch Park – to see Cllr Steve Eling, Leader of Sandwell Council on Thursday. Phil and I were looking at the £16.000 clean-up carried out by Sandwell Council staff over the weekend, after yet another extensive bout of commercial scale fly-tipping on the park. It was an opportunity to vent. Cursing like King Lear writ small on 'our' small park's blasted heath. Gradually calming to muttered imprecations

“What is it with these people, they won’t grab the opportunity to bring back people in houses around this park?”
Phil’s my perfect foil, listening and nodding in time to my furious expletive laced grumbles
“Are we to have decades more of tidying and dumping, tidying and dumping, tidying and dumping? Thanking and cursing? Thanking and cursing? Why can the Council not work out a strategy for this area?”

“They’ve placed everything about the Black Patch into a limbo when no-one even looks at the issue – politicians or managers. It’s denial and avoidance. They don’t want to know”

In the centre of Black Patch Park on Monday 20th Feb - after the Council clean-up

“At this meeting I’m not going to start getting into compliments on how swiftly the dumping, once reported in the media (which went national) was cleared …That’s thanking a thief for tidying up after a robbery”

Strippings from a domestic driveway replacement - broken up slabs and tarmac

Littering along the banks of the Hockley Brook

"Will the Leader have read our report and digested its analysis? I doubt it”
“You know I detest being like this. It’s weak. I sound like every other tedious old grumbler”
“No but sitting here in the centre of the Black Patch and having a bout of cursing is good for you and me”
“You and I, Phil!”

The clean up vehicles pushed uncollected rubbish into the remains of the park tennis courts 

We climbed in the van, parked near the Soho Road, leaving Oscar to guard the cab, and had samosas, chai and mango lassi at the London Sweet Centre.
Is there a point where an accumulation of small slights turn into a syndrome, and I become … neurotic? These terms! Neurotic, Grumpy Old Man, dyspeptic dodderer, subject to the 'wiry edge of our fretfulness'.
As I cycle in the dark on Tuesday morning, at the head of our road I see a new resident has concreted his drive to include the pavement and green verge which his several vehicles have turned to tyre-scarred mud.
I enjoy cycling into the city to catch a train in the gloom of a February dawn. I collect passing and passed vehicle registration numbers; see if they'll turn into words or their initials will make phrases. It’s balmy weather. I decide to explore a route into town I’ve not used for near 18 months - through the Jewellery Quarter instead of down Constitution Hill. I get to the foot of Newhall Hill, and of course, the continuing reconstruction of the Old Library site still blocks my old route, and I’m guided into circumlocutions too tedious to detail. I should have known. My grumpiness is amplified by self-blame. To enter the new New Street station by this route I must negotiate new tram lines best crossed at right angles. In the great new Grand Central concourse I realise, looking at the busy timetable boards, that my train is one that stops at many stations on its way, via Northampton, to London. I’d vaguely hoped when playing clever with my bookings that I’d found a bargain deal on a faster train. Will I make my St Pancras connection? In theory 'yes', as there’s half an hour to cycle the few hundred yards from Euston to St Pancras.
I present my ticket to the slot at the barrier machine and it's rejected. Why? I see a Virgin Trains staffman approaching to help, as I gaze down in the manner of an affronted and puzzled old man. As I turn to him he has already turned back two gates.
I heard him mutter “You ignored me”
“I did not”
He returns and activates the gate – a large one - for me and my bicycle.
“Why did it do that?” He ignores me
“But it ignored me”
I pause, deliberately obtuse, between the doors of the opened gate, so he has to notice and shepherd the old man through the lumpish gates.
I glimpse him rolling his eyes to a colleague.
At a coffee shop I wait in a free-floating queue almost immediately jumped by a busy new arrival who’s cheerily greeted by a barista. I wander away, even as I hear another calling after me “Sir?”
At another coffee shop I order a ‘small’ latte. It is really called ‘small’ but the print was so small I squinted to see it. I get my coffee, but no receipt. I could walk away. Why fuss? It means a little bonus for staff. But I’m in grump mode.
“Receipt please!”
What next affront by man, or object, lurks to trigger my vex reflex? On platform 3A my train arrives on time. I walk with my folded bicycle to a convenient door. A red notice on the open button says ‘This door is out of order’.
On the train there’s a copy of a free newspaper. I leaf through three pages of futile print.
“Who reads this stuff?” I glower silently “The subs clocked Socrates’ guide on gossip – “Truthful? Good? Useful?” – and worked on its opposite. Thought. Did Socrates really say that or is it fake news?
Except for books, which seem to be having a slight revival, the only print I read on paper is my gift to myself, the NYRB, published 20 times a year, delivered at discount to my door, stimulating intelligence and understanding in these interesting times.

*** *** ***
In Centenary Square, Birmingham, under major reconstruction 25 years after it was created, a plane tree over a century old, was cut down this morning, as a precaution against a terrorist driving a vehicle into the square.

"Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises."

The summer stays with us a little longer. Oscar contributed to Martin Creed's 'all the bells' cacophony to mark the start of the 2012 Olympic Games in London as I chimed in with St Mary's Church bells this morning - just up the road.

We were in St Mary's yesterday noon. Rev Brian Hall was showing around a group of us involved in designing a two hour Heritage Walk around Handsworth and Lozells. We'd begun the pilot walk at St.Mary's Convent, gone on via St Silas' Square to The Old Toll House...

Outside the Old Toll House

...on the corner of Villa and Hamstead Roads, before strolling on to see the Gatehouse to Heathfield Park - once the Lodge of James Watt's estate.

 - From St Mary's we climbed over the churchyard wall and strolled through Handsworth Park to the bandstand where I gave a short account of its loss and restoration with the re-opening of the Park on 8 July 2006

On this occasion we missed the Victoria Jubilee Allotments though they'll probably be included in the planned walk. We headed on to Soho Road for a lovely vegetarian meal with mango lassis at the London Sweet Centre before going round The Council House a few yards further up Soho Road, now home of the Handsworth Campus of City College.

Richard Trengrouse, Ashok,  Simon and Oscar

In our little group of strollers, Ashok, Aftab Rahman, Sue, Richard Trengrouse waxing enthusiastic about the buildings and green spaces; grumbling at examples of damage done them by lack of restoration or, worse, unimaginative restoration. We agreed over lunch that the tour should take in some family homes. Richard emailed us about an encounter on the way back to the walk's starting point at the Convent in Hunters Road

Hi Aftab. Brilliant day, thought the Convent and the park were wonderful  I didn't realise just how good Handsworth Park is, surely the best in the City. After I left you things just got better! I went down Terrace Rd onto Hampstead Rd to look at the restored terraces there. A rather dishevelled man covered in paint came out and went to go to his car. He saw me and accused me of being a historian, an accusation I hotly denied. It was Colin Simms and I got a guided tour of all nine houses and their courtyard gardens in the ninth house which he has just started renovating he has just uncovered the most spectacular stair rails and newel posts, so spent the end of the afternoon supping iced water with Colin! Best wishes,  Richard

Colin Simms restored terrace houses on Hamstead Road

Terrace House on Hamstead Road

Note to Aftab: I hope the Heritage Walk we are planning in Handsworth and Lozells and for which we have funding, will include the possibility of focusing on bad architecture in the area. I noticed how our conversation as we walked together through the neighbourhood was laced with annoyance, even anger, at the examples we passed of ugly renovation and unimaginative new building. The writer Evelyn Waugh wrote in the 1960s about 'the grim cyclorama of spoliation which surrounds all English experience in this century and any understanding of the immediate past…incomplete unless this huge deprivation of the quiet pleasures of the eye is accepted as a dominant condition, sometimes for mere sentimental apathy, sometimes poisoning love of country and of neighbours.' I hope we can draw attention not just to English but global aesthetics as these effect old and new, private and public buildings in Handsworth and Lozells. Here's an example of what I detest about so called improvement in our area (there's an image next to it of one of Colin Simm's restorations to show how beautiful these terraces on Hamstead Road can be). What was in the mind of the builder, owner, who did this to a house? 

*** *** ***
I've typed up the minutes of the meeting on 12 July at which 17 month after the problems of insolvency and lack of leadership were first presented we formally set up Handsworth Helping Hands, previously Central Handsworth Practical Care Project, as an unincorporated association - an extract:

MINUTES OF THE CHPCP COMMITTEE

& CHPCP VOLUNTARY ADVISORY GROUP JOINT MEETING

held at 19.00 on 12^th July 2012 at 34 Beaudesert Road, B20 3TG

Present:

CHPCH COMMITTEE:   Charles Bates*, Daphne Robinson

CHPCH VOLUNTARY ADVISORY GROUP:   Mike Tye (Chair), Linda Baddeley, Simon Baddeley, John Rose, Denise Forsyth, Charles Bates*

* Charles Bates is a member of both groups

1. Apologies: Cllr Hendrina Quinnen

2. Minutes of last meeting ~ 28^th June 2012: Approved

3. Achievements of the Voluntary Advisory Group (VAG): LB reported:

 Over the last 15 months, the VAG have kept accurate minutes of all meetings, maintained proper accounts, filed receipts for all money spent and paid all debts, including reassessment and payment of income tax and national insurance for tax years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012.

All PAYE forms for 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 have been completed online and submitted to HMRC, (including amendment of incorrect 2010-2011 figures originally submitted to HMRC by BVSC), and the PAYE account has been closed. A £300 fine for late submission of 2010-2011 figures was successfully appealed by LB.

The majority of the Central Handsworth Practical Care Project Committee have resigned, leaving only four members. The two paid employees have both left the project voluntarily and have been provided with P45 forms.

Two vehicles (tipper truck and LDV van, (the former now impractical and the latter untaxed and uninsured and originally parked in the street) and the hardly used wood chipper have been sold. The remaining van has been MOTed, taxed and insured, and secure parking in the Handsworth Park compound has been obtained.

All tools belonging to the project have been removed from the garage in St Peter’s Road to secure storage in the Handsworth Park Compound.

Employer’s Liability and Public Liability Insurance was renewed for 2011-2012, but is now due for renewal again. (LB is obtaining quotes.)

The Voluntary Advisory Group has established good relations with the three Ward councillors, keeping them informed of progress and all matters concerning CHPCP.

From a position of being £20,000 in debt, the project now has a balance of over £14000 in the bank account and the Central Handsworth Practical Care Project is now in a position, in accordance with the wishes previously expressed by the CHPCP committee, to be closed, to be replaced immediately by Handsworth Helping Hands (HHH). Handsworth Helping Hands will have the same objectives as CHPCP.

4. Vote on VAG proposals re. dissolution of CHPCP:

LB proposed the immediate closure of CHPCP and transfer of all assets to Handsworth Helping Hands, to be used for the benefit of the Handsworth community. Three votes in favour, two from the CHPCP committee members present and one in writing from Mr Ilyas, who did not attend the meeting, carried the motion. The fourth CHPCP committee member, Mr Kennedy, did not attend, send apologies, nor put his views on the matter in writing.

5.Official inception of HHH

Acceptance of constitution: LB proposed that those present accept the draft Handsworth Helping Hands constitution. The HHH constitution was unanimously accepted.

Election of officers:

Chair:  Michael Tye

Proposed by LB,  seconded by DF. Carried

Secretary:  Simon Baddeley

Proposed by LB,  seconded by JR. Carried

Treasurer:  Linda Baddeley

Proposed by LB,  seconded by DF. Carried

Vice Chair:  Denise Forsyth

Proposed by MT,  seconded by CB. Carried

It was agreed that JR would shadow LB’s role as Treasurer.

DR and CB volunteered to serve as members of the HHH committee. Cllr Hendrina Quinnen, after council legal advice that HHH does not have to have a nominated ward councillor on its committee, will remain as a ‘friend’ of HHH.  HHH will continue to keep local councillors informed.....(continued)
*** *** ***
When Handsworth Helping Hands were clearing the gardens at CMAT studios in Grosvenor Road last Tuesday 17 July I got talking with people who worked there - Pervaiz, Lucy and Mikey - about the work of the studios. That led onto a discussion with Mikey about the film and tape in the Jack Hargreaves' archive. Mikey suggested it might make sense, in the absence of a Steenbeck machine, to digitise films and sound tapes independently, and worry about matching them later. They had the kit to digitise the sound. He'd explore what would be involved doing the same with the film. I made an appointment to bring samples from the archive in the lock up in Sherlock Street this Wednesday. 

Simon, Pervaiz and Mikey at CMAT

I showed Mikey the sound tape - carbon-fibre rods, picking up - pheasant shoot.
"It's in good condition" he said

"We can digitise that"
I showed him a reel of the 16mm film also from the 1970s, this one with Jack's writing recognisable the can 'Out of Town' programme film made on Colonel Hawker and Terns. 

We chatted. I realised that digitising the film wasn't straightforward. Mikey and Pevaiz had been exploring possibilities - but after some circuitous conversation I realised they had no suitable conversion equipment nor experience of digitising 16mm film. Here's a passage from the internet hinting at the challenge:

If you have a box of old 16mm film, digitizing it is either dead simple or very difficult. The dead-simple op­­tion is to send the film to a transfer service...doing the job yourself is hard and time consuming, as no consumer-level dedicated 16mm film scanner is available. It's physically possible to scan 16mm film frame-by-frame using a 35mm slide scanner or a flatbed scanner that handles slides. But this approach entails endless cropping and reassembly....A maximum 18 frames per second for 8mm film means 1080 images per minute of movie...

No way...and here's another website offering a 'secret' method for digitising film after dismissing standard methods:

...Project the film and video it off a wall then put the video into an all-in-one Video to DVD machine. It still flickers! There is a huge array of cheap and expensive machines all purporting to reduce this flicker. Some of them work, however with such manipulation any detail left is lost for ever as these type of machines compress MPEG and digitise at one set low rate. We have stacks of Documentary evidence to prove none of these methods work. We use a proprietary based system which is a closely guarded secret and the envy of our competitors. This system produces top quality, flicker free film transfers which are a pleasure to watch with rich colour, contrast and crisp sharp detail. You can clearly see the faces in our films....

Later at home I phoned Simon Winter of Kaleidoscope. He and colleagues played a key part in uncovering the 34 original Out of Town videos that Delta will be publishing in October.

We discussed the 16mm film in the collection.
"I know someone," he said "Kaleidoscope use him for digitising films they recover."
*** ***
Those lines came over the tele' spoken by Kenneth Branagh in the Olympic Stadium on Friday night...

Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak'd,
I cried to dream again.

Lin said "But...that's not England, it's Corfu, Prospero's Cell!"... the gold and moving blue have stained our thoughts...brilliant speck of an island in the Ionian...waters like the heartbeat of the world...darkness opaque...we see in our dreams the world as if in some great aquarium...

Κέρκυρα

Allowing for that small error I without enthusiasm for the thing, was transported into delight and admiration by Danny Boyle's orchestration of the opening ceremony Isles of Wonder. He and his team surmounted that great challenge of entertainers - working with animals and children, demonstrating, in as brilliant a 15 minutes as I've ever seen or heard or read, that defining event of the modern age - the Industrial Revolution, not sparing us the Satanic Mills, the price paid for its wealth, dissent and protest and destruction of a green and pleasant land. 

As the performance proceeded we saw the empire - about which we're inclined to be like a softer version of the Anglo-German "Don't mention the War" - imploding, accelerating the resentment - already stirred by the plural 'Isles'; - of anyone needing an Island Story whose chief job is to keep the others in their place. The messiness carried many stories - the hybridity of London, the multiplicity of the British Isles. In a ceremony being blogged, tweeted and facebooked across the globe - narrowcast even as it was broadcast it was good to see Tim Berners-Lee feted as the inventor of the world wide web or - rather - as Watt's refinement of the Newcomen engine made steam really 'work', achieving the same for the Internet with HTML. I didn't get some of the more contemporary reference, Soaps and Pop, but it was something to get away with the Punk 'God save the queen, The fascist regime' in the same stadium as 'God save our gracious queen Long live our noble queen'. That was the span - the isle is indeed 'full of noises'. I don't recall having so many laughs at any previous Olympic opener. HM being called on at the palace by James Bond - Daniel po-faced Craig - and helicoptered by him to where she could parachute into the arena. I'd seriously like to see a vignette of the correspondence when that was agreed; Rowan Atkinson getting landed by Simon Rattle with the repetitive note that starts and runs through Vangelis' Chariots of Fire, becoming restless with it, looking, Bean-like, for distraction. Bouncing doctors, nurses and children from Great Ormond Street - part of a cheeky paeon for the NHS combined with fairy stories from Barry through Kenneth Graham to J K Rowling. Boyle had real nurses, kids and doctors - all volunteers - dancing. He saved some cash there and included tribute to that British predisposition - volunteering, something 'we' probably prefer to dancing, though that may be changing. Another of many similarly connected groups, were the relatives of the dockers present at the arrival of  M/V Empire Windrush at Tilbury this time 64 years ago to usher her replica into the stadium - relatives of dockers who might also have marched for Enoch Powell after his 'rivers of blood' speech in April 1968. The visual wit and the fun weren't fortune cooky treats. They vaccinated against the heavy risk of getting too tingly with emotion, let alone welling a tear - just what the doctor ordered for the British dis-ease. This was also my stepfather's England of hybridity, starting with the mixing of two races - preceded on this his last broadcast for Southern Television thirty one years ago by four minutes of commercials.

On the higher ground ~ Jack Hargreaves from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

***
On Friday night in Ano Korakiana, apart from some unknown - άγνωστοι - miscreant spraying red paint on cars parked in the square to the fury of their owners, our news - Τα νέα μας - that on Saturday evening there'll be the annual festival of music, dancing and a roast to celebrate Ag Paraskevi:

1. Το καθιερωμένο πλέον ετήσιο πανηγύρι της Αγίας Παρασκευής πραγματοποιείται αύριο, Σάββατο 28 Ιουλίου 2012, το βράδυ υπό τη συνδιοργάνωςση της Φιλαρμονικής και της Εκκλησίας, που υπόσχονται διασκέδαση με μουσική, χορό και ψητά...
2. Άγνωστοι ψέκασαν χθες το βράδυ με κόκκινη μπογιά τα παρκαρισμένα αυτοκίνητα στην πλατεία του χωριού...προκαλώντας την αγανάκτηση των ιδιοκτητών τους...Τι άλλο θα δούμε!
3.Παλαιωμένο κακοτρύγη από την Πούπουλια είχε υποσχεθεί για τα πρώτα γενέθλια της εγγονής του Αγγελικής, ο παππούς Κώστας Απέργης...αλλά τελικά ήταν από Αλευκιμιώτικο αμπελώνα...

It will also the first birthday of Kostas Apergis' grand-daughter Angela - but like lots of the Ano Korakiana website it's tricky for me to translate. What's Αλευκιμιώτικο? and Παλαιωμένο κακοτρύγη?

Preparing for the party at Agia Paraskevi

Κορακιανίτικο πανηγύρι ~ Saturday night party in Ano Korakiana

On Saturday 28 July - the annual festival and party, panigyri:

Δύο ώρες πριν από την έναρξη του φετινού πανηγυριού της Αγίας Παρασκευής, οι προεργασίες συνεχίζονταν με αμείωτο ρυθμό. Γυναίκες της χορωδίας και του χορευτικού είχαν αναλάβει την προετοιμασία των λουκουμάδων, πλάι στους υπόλοιπους που ετοίμαζαν τις ψησταριές και τους υπαίθριους παγο-καταψύκτες, ενώ τα τραπεζοκαθίσματα ήταν ήδη στρωμένα. Την ίδια ώρα, στη γραφική εκκλησία με το νεόκτιστο και φρεσκοβαμμένο καμπαναριό, ο ιερέας τελούσε τον Εσπερινό, ενώ ο κόσμος που άρχιζε σιγά-σιγά να μαζεύεται περνούσε πρώτα από εκεί για το άναμα ενός κεριού.
Οι πρώτοι ήχοι της ορχήστρας λίγο αργότερα, θα δώσουν το έναυσμα για την έναρξη του πανηγυριού, ενώ καθώς νύχτωνε ο κόσμος γέμιζε το πλάτωμα. Λίγο πριν από τα μεσάνυχτα το υπαίθριο γλέντι βρισκόταν στο φόρτε του, με τον Πρόεδρο της Φιλαρμονικής να οδηγεί το χορό. Μα πέρα από τη διασκέδαση, το πανηγύρι, όπως κάθε χρόνο, θα προσφέρει μια ευκαιρία συνάντησης των Κορακιανιτών κάθε ηλικίας, που θα συρρεύσουν. Αργότερα, θα μοιραστούν λαχνοί προς ενίσχυση των διοργανωτών της εκδήλωσης, Φιλαρμονικής και Εκκλησίας και το γλέντι θα διαρκέσει μέχρι τις πρωινές ώρες…

Two hours before the start of this year's festival of Agia Paraskevi, preparatory work continued unabated. The women's choir and the dance group looked after the preparation of donuts, next to others who were preparing barbecues and outdoor freezers, while tables and chairs were already arranged. At the same time, in the picturesque church, freshly painted with a newly built tower, the priest was doing vespers, while everyone gradually began to gather, pausing to light a candle.
Later, the first sounds of the orchestra will trigger the start of the festival. As night falls people filled the plaza. Shortly before midnight, the outdoor festival was in full swing, the President of the Philharmonic leading the dance. But beyond the fun, the festival, as every year, will offer a chance for Korakianas of all ages who've flocked to the village to meet... the party will last until the early hours...

The puzzling invisibility of the new

Last night I was waiting for my train back to Birmingham, sat in a squashy armchair, in the Victoria and Albert Pub inside Marylebone Station drinking London Ale, catching out of the corner of my eye, amid a stew of chat and muzak, as I approached the final chapters of A Woman in Berlin, images on a high flat screen, of our Prime Minister, mingling with other European politicians in Brussels. A strip of closed captions (see also) with dopey phonetic interpretations of multi-tongued events hopping across the screen, telling all who watched, no doubt as cursorily as I, that David Cameron was distancing the Country from its Continent. No sign of Nick Clegg, nor anyone from the Lib Dem side of our Government. My beer, but most of all my book, better brewed and far better written, attracted easily the greater part of my attention. Of current events, widely discussed, Bagehot wrote... yesterday in the Economist

Britain did not walk out of the EU last night. But let there be no doubt about it: we have started falling out...

... (always thanks to Jim Potts' blog Corfu Blues for drawing this thinking journalist, a member of his family, to my attention).
I was in London to take Christmas presents to the Greek side - multiplied by another generation. Even as I dropped off two parcels in central London a transit van was there to whisk them off to various addresses across the Channel.

Jewellery Quarter Station, Birmingham, on Friday morning

I've owned a folding bicycle since 1998. 14 years later they're all over the place. Had the rack on my Brompton - the only kind I've owned - not been broken I could have cycled with my parcels from home to Jewellery Quarter and from Marylebone to my London drop-off. Instead I had to fold and load everything onto taxis. Delivery made, I could unfold and pedal swiftly through Green Park, down Buckingham Palace Road, over Battersea Bridge to Phoenix Cycles, where Mike - forewarned - was ready to repair and overhaul the Brompton I bought from him in February 2004. Leaving him a list of jobs I set off on foot then bus to South Kensington for a few hours at the V & A, where I stayed most of my visit in the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. Sublime and quietly exhilarating.

Ox and ass: part of a book cover carved 1200 years ago

Mike texted me to say my bike was finished and I was back by bus to pay his bill and pick it up, with replaced rack, rear mudguard, front wheel, pedal, new front tyre and tube. Not cheap until you compare the cost of a modern car's annual service.

Crossing Chelsea Bridge

Once over Chelsea Bridge, above the ebbing Thames, I turn briefly east along Grosvenor Road then sharp left up Lupus Street to work my way, as the crow flies, to Victoria where I join the teeming traffic along Grosvenor Place surging towards Hyde Park Corner, where I escape through the easternmost arch of the Decimus Burton Screen to cross into the cycleway that runs north through through Hyde Park to Marble Arch, where I head a short way up Edgware Road before turning into Seymour Street to work my way via back streets to Marylebone Station.
****  ****
Europe has a dark and shameful history of finding scapegoats for hard times. A well known phenomenon; decide you need someone to blame - someone, anybody - a rejection candidate. Once you have a person, a people, a country, in the cross-hairs, you must, to justify pulling the trigger, heap on better and better arguments for your choice of target. Greece is well coated in blame Velcro. Nick Malkoutzism, making no excuses for corruption in the Republic ('A line has to be drawn between valid criticism and prejudiced posturing'), writes a good piece on myths about Greece and the crisis for his blog Inside Greece, 8 December:

...For much too long, this crisis - which Europe now unanimously admits is a systemic one - was approached as if it was a symptom of the failure of one country: Greece. Rather than treat Greece as the weakest link in a chain that would be tested to its limits, the eurozone chose to view it as the font of all Europe’s woes. The fact that a more comprehensive strategy to tackle the euro’s weakness is now being sought is tantamount to an admission that the wrong strategy was adopted. The blinkered view that persisted over the past couple of years was built on certain myths that went largely unchallenged and became established in public discourse, much to the damage of both Greece and the eurozone. These myths have since given rise to other tales that threaten to undermine any possibility of recovery, even at this late stage. For this reason, perhaps now would be a good time to address some of the misnomers and misconceptions of the past months...

*******
"Never, ever throw anything away: You can preserve it, freeze, cook it, reuse it, or give it to someone who needs it more than you."
Eleni Nikolaou, Ελένης Νικολαΐδου, of the Tender Age Nursery-school in Kifisia, a suburb of Athens we know quite well, has written a cookbook of austerity recipes. She'd begun looking through Greek newspapers published during WW2. Among reports of the privations of those years she came across many survival recipes and advice on living frugally.

«Συνταγές Πείνας», το οποίο περιγράφει συνταγές με φθηνά υλικά που χρησιμοποιούνταν κατά την περίοδο της Κατοχής το 1941-44. Ο λόγος που το εν λόγω βιβλίο πηγαίνει πολύ καλά σε πωλήσεις είναι προφανής: Η πρωτοφανής οικονομική ύφεση που μαστίζει την Ελλάδα τα τελευταία δύο χρόνια. The Hunger Cookbook

*** ***
Ray Suarez introduces a wise and troubling text and podcast in which Jim and Maria's daughter, Nina-Maria Potts - for America Abroad - fluently bi-lingual, she writes and speaks, with interviews and local sounds, of a further de-population of the villages of Epirus - the Zagorochoria,Τα Ζαγοροχώρια - north of Ioannina.

...“There used to be no water, electricity or roads. That changed, now we have tourism. The hotels. Tourism woke this village up.” That growth has been derailed by the economic crisis. Local hotel owners say they've only worked a month this year and worry they won't meet their operating costs or be able to pay off their debts. Kostas Vasdekis, who owns the hotel in the main square worries his two daughters, both graduates, might not find work. “I worked all my life for their future. Now I don't know what will happen. They want to go abroad. Everything I did, I did it for them.” Even villagers who came back to Greece recently worry they made the wrong choice....

I maintain vigorous hope for a revival of sustainable communities - clusters of villages and smaller provincial towns; a global trend to be observed if sought in India, Australia, Canada and much of Europe including Greece.
 To survive and even thrive in villages it is neither possible nor feasible to revert to the past whose grinding conditions so many sought to escape; nor is it possible in some straightforward way to revert the attitudes and values of a globally urbanised world to villages. The ideas, techniques and values essential for survival and success in these small linked communities have not yet been assimilated or in some cases even invented. The new ideas and practices exist but only in certain places unique to particular critical clusters of people. Every small community is different and unique and there is so simple generic set of guidelines on how to make villages or clusters of villages work for their inhabitants. The ideas are out there - hardly realised, evolving, their originality, difficult, even impossible, to distinguish amid the suffocating noise of present crises  and current understandings of the world. There are communities dotted around the world which seem to be working (some we know, some we don't and wouldn't know what we were seeing of they were evolving in front of us because of our urban globalised preconceptions). I very much doubt if the centralised governments of large modern states are capable of helping such new ways of living too evolve, and certainly the past for all our nostalgia about it has little to teach us in this matter (notwithstanding sources of wisdom in our species that have always been present in, and at, different and unpredictable places and times. The work of Elinor Ostrom (Nobel Prize 2009) is helpful but there are many many other sources of inspiration. We cannot look to Athens. London, Berlin or Washington, nor Delhi, Beijing or Rio for answers and inspiration. Though it may be that men and women who will support and can lead, and are leading, these other ways of living, will come from the heart of great cities - not escaping, not refugees but pioneers
.

Fred Emery and Eric Trist, revered seniors when I was first working in England in the 70s. dwelled upon the puzzling invisibility of the truly new, in an article written for a collection of papers on the Competitiveness of Nations in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy - 'Towards A Social Ecology: Contextual Appreciation of the Future in the Present' (Plenum 1972)

...Concealment and Parasitism: The second major difficulty in predicting the future states of large complex social systems, that of early identification of emergent processes, poses far more perplexing methodological problems. However, if social life is properly characterised in terms of overlapping temporal gestalten, then many of those processes that will be critical in the future are already in existence in the present. If this were not the case, it would be difficult to see how such processes could quickly enough muster the potency to be critical in the next thirty years. Thus, for instance, the conditions for World War I were laid before the end of the 19th Century, and correctly perceived around 1900 by such oddly gifted men as Frederick Engels and the Polish banker, Bloch (Liddell Hart, 1944, p. 26). An obvious question must be asked at this point: ‘Is this not the same class of evidence that is the basis for extrapolative prediction?’ Such evidence does include some evidence of this class, but its most important additional inclusion is of processes that are not recognised for what they are. The early stages of a sycamore or a cancer are not obviously very different from a host of other things whose potential spatio-temporal span is very much less; likewise with many in social life.
One suspects that the important social processes typically emerge like this. They start small, they grow and only then do people realize that their world has changed and that this process exists with characteristics of its own. Granted that there are genuine emergent processes (otherwise why worry about the next thirty years), then we must accept real limitations upon what we can predict and also accept that we have to live for some time with the future before we recognize it as such....

*********
Mum, in the Highlands, spoke of the high winds Thursday night when I spoke to her Friday afternoon on the phone - "I woke in the middle of the night. I thought someone was trying to break into the house...we lost power some of the day, but all's fine now."
Saturday I cycled over to Plot 14 to do carpentry on the shed, check my cabbages now netted and dig over the area near the park fence where we plan a small orchard. Someone reported a polytunnel stolen from their plot. I wonder if the structure lying on Chris's allotment, next to ours, is the missing tunnel, not stolen but blown yards north by the gales.

** ** *** ** **
The search continues for original Southern Television Out of Town programmes by my stepfather, Jack Hargreaves. The thing I, and other friends assisting, are seeking will begin like this mock-up:

In the meantime it's pleasing to know that Delta Home Entertainment plc have bought the licence from Endemol to redistribute the DVD versions of Out of Town that Jack made for home viewing in 1986. They are not the Southern Television originals but they contain new commentary and sound over a sample of Stan Bréhaut's old 16mm location film.

Planting a vine

After a morning and afternoon's paperwork, I cycled with Oscar to Plot 14 to plant the vine - Vitis Boskoop Glory -  I'd bought Lin for her birthday.
"What's the best way to plant this?" I asked Vanley
"Dig deep and wide. Put some compost at the bottom."
Danny's on the plot next door to Vanley. She gave me a bucket of manure "Mix it with earth and water them together but leave earth between that and the vine roots or you'll burn them."
So I dug a good sized hole and planted the vine by the shed. I hope it'll grow around a trellis I'll raise on a veranda frame for our shed. I damped down the turf I've started to lay in front of the shed on a layer of riddled earth.

The scarecrow came from Scotland

*** ***
In Ano Korakiana the heat and humidity of August brings out family and friends - η μεγάλη οικογενειακή και φιλική παρέα της γειτονιάς - to sit in 'concentrations' - «συγκεντρώσεις» - chatting quietly - σε χαμηλούς τόνους - in the narrow streets.

Έξω από τα σπίτια της Νίνας Τσιριγώτη και της Θάλειας Μπαλατσινού

*** ***
I just came across my son Richard's posting - words and images - Violent Exposure

During this time, the flow of information/news from myriad sources has, at times, been overwhelming in content and volume.  Other data on the events has been distorted, exaggerated and imagined.  There have also been times when the flow of new information comes close to standstill. Scenes from television programmes on the night the Birmingham unrest quelled.  The TV schedule for that evening included the usual pulp-vision; films such as “I, Robot” and “Alien Vs. Predator,” and an ITV Police Drama starring Caroline Quentin. Popular mantras seeded and perpetuated by news media through such events are referenced with disarranged subtitles.

[Here his images of Handsworth Unrest posted 9 Aug'11]

*** ***
I got a call from the council planning department this morning, took notes and circulated what I'd learned:

CURRENT POSITION ON THE VICTORIA JUBILEE S106A

I’ve had a 20 minute chat with Stuart Morgans this morning. Stuart is the Principal Planning Officer for this part of the City now leading on overseeing the delays in implementing the S106 Agreement on the Victoria Jubilee site. It seems things had slowed down with the retirement of the long standing officer Alan Orr who was Stuart’s predecessor, plus other staff retirements. The Council's Landscape Development officer in Local Services (Andy Hogben) has also retired; his job now done by Bob Churn (useful always to have these names and I’ll seek emails). Stuart and Bob between them have had a recent meeting with Persimmon's Technical Director, Simon McDonald and Cliff Nixon to establish an agreed way forward. The City Council's Planning Solicitor has reminded them of their legal obligations and the Council's powers to pursue legal action if the matters cannot be resolved. Stuart said the meeting had achieved some effect and Persimmon have expressed their commitment to get things completed. Persimmon are keen to fulfil their obligations and get clear of the site. They are however pleading economic pressures and the fact they have already spent more than what was in their pot to fulfil this particular S106 Agreement. 

1. The allotments: There are a few minor ‘snagging’ problems to be sorted before the City Council can sign off the works. There’s nothing too serious needing doing now and problems, including one of rain run-off on a sloping area of the car park, should be dealt with in a couple of weeks.

2. The children's play area: The play area if built to current spec by a contractor on the Council's approved list would be far more than Persimmon state they can afford. They have suggested using one of their own contractors to do it for less. From the city’s point of view agreeing to a contractor who is not on the approved list could raise potential quality control issues and they don’t want to create a precedent developers could exploit in future agreements of this kind. However, the contractor has been working with officers to demonstrate that they can provide the required quality, and Stuart is awaiting confirmation from Bob as to whether they are agreeable to this compromise. Progress here is also complicated by the opposition of a number residents on the Parklands estate to having a playground near them on the grounds it could become a security risk.

3. The playing pitches (photo taken this morning from the allotments): On the subject of the playing pitches Stuart says the area in question is currently mowed. There are ‘technical issues’ relating to the cricket square that have been identified by the parks manager. It must be regraded and re-seeded, There must be a period of time for the land to settle and be ready as working playing pitches. Gillian Dovey is the officer in the City’s Education department with responsibility for overseeing the handover to the city of this facility. Her view is that it is pointless for the City to accept the playing fields unless the sports pavilion (with changing rooms for both sexes, plumbing, toilets and electricity) is ready. Persimmon cannot afford in the present economic climate to build any of the recently approved designs. It is also agreed that in the light of recent events, that whatever is built needs to be ‘robust’. Stuart says it will be a ‘basic’ building with the necessary changing facilities, but designed to be robust to vandalism. Gillian is ready to accept the situation and has submitted a suggested revised spec for the pavilion to Persimmon. They have appointed contractors to assess what's involved connecting it to power, water supply and sewer. Persimmon have agreed to prepare a new design and to get this costed with a view to having contractors on site this Autumn if possible. I asked Stuart for a judgement on when he thought the playing pitches would be available. Could they be ready by summer 2012? He said it might be safer to say by 2013.

I was grateful to Stuart for his detailed frankness. The delays and the reasons for them are by now familiar to me, They applied to the allotments which most of us are now happily working, even though officers would agree the land was not in the best condition at the time we started paying for our plots. At least that part of the site Is being worked as allotments. Indeed those of us who’d been lobbying for the allotments pressed officers to ensure that happened, saying, more or less, that we would be responsible for top-soil shortcomings, just to get on site and get gardening. Obviously circumstances are different when signing off playing pitches, We could have still worked plots without the communal shed valuable though it is. But using the playing fields with at least changing facilities is far less acceptable. So there you have it. Best wishes

A meeting at Parklands in 2008 about the Victoria Jubilee site

At that time I wrote: S106A = A section 106 Agreement, otherwise known as a 'Planning Gain Agreement' - by which a developer, in return for planning permission to build private homes on an area of green space, agrees to give a benefit back to the community equal to the opportunities lost by the removal of that space for leisure and recreation. It may just be that by August '08 we shall see work starting on the sports pavilion on the old Victoria Jubilee Allotments site off Hamstead Road. (The homes here have been built on part of the site. In return the developer - Westbury Homes and then Charles Church - will fulfil the contract of a planning gain agreement with Birmingham City Council). On Tuesday morning 20 May '08, this site-meeting on Parklands Avenue with - left to right in my photo - Cllr Mahmood Hussain, residents who I've not met yet, Cllr Kim Brom, Alan Orr our Constituency Planning Officer, my good friend Liz England from the Handsworth Park Association and Basil Hylton, Chairman of Handsworth Cricket Club and Frank James, Basil's representative on the park committee*. Alan said he'd met the representative of Charles Church, the developer of the housing on the site, and that he had agreed with Alan that the 'trigger' point for implementing the terms of the Section 106 Agreement on the VJA site had been arrived at. Sales of new homes on the site have been given impetus through affordable housing schemes overseen by Midland Heart, a locally prominent registered social landlord and Housing Association. (There is already a growing residents' group on Parklands - the name of the new housing). In other words we are now about to get the 80 new allotments, cricket pitch, two soccer pitches, sports pavilion and children's play areas. I will be sceptical up to the moment I see the work beginning but it was a good meeting.
Background.  Other images. Follow up correspondence.
*Since 2008 Liz has died, one councillor has resigned, the other de-selected, the planning officer has retired and Basil is no longer active with the local Cricket Club.

In a place far far away...

After the misery comes humour

Strife. Strewth. Getting jugged by spouse, daughter, son-in-law, mum's carer, for saying though looting is double plus depressingly stupid, there might be a link between contagious urban pillage and the most severe cutbacks in public services since WW2 beside global recession. They believe I condoned this, caused it and would like to take part. There's no arguing with these mindless thugs - I mean - beloved family and friends (:)) Simon in Scotland - not planning to torch the village shop!

"A cautious thumbs up for the Big Society?"

Just after midnight GMT from Connecticut:

Dear Simon. I heard tonight on the BBC television news that the rioting in UK has spread to Birmingham.  Are you and Lin OK?  Aside from the shooting by police last Saturday (I thought the London police didn't carry guns unlike the US police) which seems a trigger not enough to account for this extraordinary outburst except that the Conservative austerity plan is finally driving people to the breaking point.  I can't make out the cause from the BBC whose coverage seems poor for once. But most important are you OK? ...anxiously, Tony & Helen

Dear Tony & Helen. I’ve been sat at my laptop in the Highlands of Scotland – 10 miles from the town – with my daughter Amy (in the West Midlands Police) and her husband Guy as they watch events on BBC 24 Hours rolling news on the widescreen TV, she on her mobile, and he on his laptop, discussing events as they emerge - Tolystoyan style - across the country and from different parts of London and Birmingham, from whence come messages – questions, observations, exclamations - by email, twitter and facebook from strangers and relatives and friends. Now you’ve just  emailed to ask after us and I’ve just come off the phone to Linda at home in in Handsworth who’s also on her computer and watching the TV, while my son, Richard, in the house with her has just come back from taking photographs in Soho Road a mile away. 

I know this place...

and this...

...too

We are getting sounds, images, film and interconnection on various channels with the rest of the world including you. It’s sweet of you to be concerned. I appreciate it. We’ve been through a succession of urban riots here over the years each bringing months if not years of post-mortems, analyses, enquiries and ever contested narratives. Have a glance at some of the links in the second paragraph of yesterday's blog entry. I’ve also been having a lively socio-political debate on-line about cause and effect with a couple of academic friends in other parts of the the country, agreeing, disagreeing.... Here the weather by the seaside has been sublime with brisk winds blowing a short surf onto an iron grey sea skirting the long shallow pebble and sand beaches of the Moray Firth as we stroll with the world to ourselves, dogs romping joyfully around us. Love Simon

In the Highlands ~ Amy and her grandma with dogs

From America:

Whisked through the link you sent me. Seems much like the Arab Spring. See Casey Rain's entry (and here). Hopeless youth. Having been through a period of unemployment myself I know that there is nothing more emasculating than being unemployed even if one's food is not is question. This is the best explanation I have seen of the cause of the rioting. Still inexcusable - on both sides - and no solution either. Cameron's austerity program will lead to more of this. It will happen here too if the #'s get larger enough or if it goes on long enough while the fat cats are siphoning Midas's gold through the tax system and bailouts. But wasn't there some moral about Midas where the gold turned molten when he tried to eat it and he was killed by his avarice? fill me in. Perhaps an apt metaphor for our times. Regardless of the lessons, so glad to hear you both are ok. Tony

Quotes from one line of chat -

Sarah Jane West · Wallington High School for Girls: Mike, I'm sorry, but I live in Croydon, I live with these people, have worked with these people.We had riots in our town centre last night. I promise you, the kids taking part in this are not engaged with the things you are talking about, they don't read papers, they don't watch the news and they won't read this. They tweet each other about where the next riot is taking place, dress up in their "costumes" and bus themselves over to where the looting is going on. They won't have heard of Mark Duggan, they won't have heard of Rupert Murdoch and they don't care about student loans because they won't be going to college.They just like wrecking stuff.

Susie Brain · Manchester, United Kingdom: The kind of rights they clearly feel have been taken away from them or have never been given. A small handful may understand the reason behind it, but most of them have just jumped in to get some easily acquired freebies - the way they already probably spend most of their life anyway. They're not worth even spending any time thinking about. In fact I don't even want to spend any more time on a reply about why they may be doing it. They 'simply' shouldn't be doing it and that's that.

Steven Keyser · Owner at PC Fix-IT Shop: Burning of buildings and cars is a sign of ignorance. If your protest is with the police why destroy your neighbors lives. I suspect the people who burned and looted had no idea why the original protest started. I understand the events in photo's like 4, 5 and 11. But, 9, 13 and 23

Me: ‘Depravity in the oppressed is no apology for the oppressor; but rather an additional stigma to him, as being in large degree, the effect, and not the cause and justification of oppression’ Herman Melville, Chap 14 White Jacket

...and (back to the future - 23 Oct '11 - on BBC R4  Today Programme's organised public debate on the riots in Birmingham Town Hall, hearing Martin Nairy, ex-Prison Service and Barnados, during the last hour rough quote (at 05.41) the vexed shepherd's words from Scene 3 of Winter's Tale:

I would there were no age between sixteen and
three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the
rest; for there is nothing in the between but
getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,
stealing, fighting...

In Ovid's Metamorphoses XI Dionysus found his old schoolmaster, the satyr Silenus, missing. Silenus had wandered away drunk. Found by some Phrygian peasants, he was brought to Midas, Μίδας, their king. The king's guest for ten days and nights, Silenus entertained Midas and his court with stories and songs. On the eleventh day, Midas brought Silenus back to Dionysius. In gratitude Dionysius offered Midas whatever he wished. Midas asked that whatever he touched be turned to gold. His wish granted, he turned a holm-oak twig and a stone to gold. Utterly delighted he ordered his servants to prepare a feast. Everything he touched became gold; but when on trying to eat he found his food grow rigid and his drink harden into molten gold. By mistake he touched his daughter, transforming her into a golden statue.

Horrified, grief stricken he prayed to Dionysus.
"Father Dionysus (Ovid called him Bacchus), forgive me! I have sinned. But have pity on me, I beg you, and save me from this costly evil!"
Bacchus restored him, kindly taking back what he had granted.
"So you do not remain coated with the gold you wished for so foolishly go to the river by great Sardis, make your way up the bright ridge against the falling waters, till you come to the source of the stream, and plunge your head and body at the same moment into the foaming fountain, where it gushes out, and at the same time wash away your sin."
The king did as he was told. His hated gift flowed into the river and its sands turned to gold, which explains why the river Pactolus is still so rich in gold. Midas was freed, his daughter restored. Hating wealth and splendour, he moved to the country and became a worshipper of Pan, the god of the fields - my favourite god.

***** **** *****
A Facebook exchange with my friend Jonathan Davies last night and next morning:


Jonathan Stephen Davies According to Nina Power, the only things getting smashed up on Walworth Road are 'bastions of economic misery - loan shops, bookies and banks'. But, inchoate rage is by definition unfocused, so inevitably people who should not get caught up in it. That is regrettable and sometimes has tragic consequences. But, that just makes naming the enemy and providing grounds for hope - politicization - so much more important.

• • John Moore The Gordon Rioters had the Bank of England at their mercy but decided to prioritise the release of the prisoners at Newgate. Having burnt down Newgate they returned to the Bank of England only to find troops defending it. Random targets?
  • Simon Baddeley The Gordon Rioters like Enoch Powell's dockers had a nasty agenda.
  • Jonathan Stephen Davies Enoch's dockers became Heath's nemesis four years later.
  • Simon Baddeley Because he was one nation where Thatcher wasn't
  • John Moore Gordon, the marchers and the petition had a very nasty agenda but the subsequent rioters had were far more than a tool for the protestant associations and had a number of their own agendas.
  • Jonathan Stephen Davies In other words, there can be many outcomes to tinderbox situations like this and movements that start with reactionary agendas, like the Powellite dockers, sometimes develop authentically emancipatory ideas.
    
  • Simon Baddeley If Heath had been prepared to use the police as Thatcher did he might not have been replaced by her. He'd a vein of common decency that comes from being in war.
    
  • Jonathan Stephen Davies @Simon - they did use Thatcherite tactics and Heath considered worse (he showed no decency in Ireland). Remember Saltley Gates? The police were actually defeated by force of numbers and the very real threat of a general strike in 1972, th...
  • Simon Baddeley The history of those times is as contested as the present. It teaches me that in the last resort Heath blinked - and some saw that as weakness other's as decency. At what point to maintain the Queen's Peace do you call on water cannon, plas...
  • Jonathan Stephen Davies Absolutely - but he may also have blinked because he thought he would lose. As we're seeing in various parts of the world right now, sending in the army does not translate into automatic victory for the state. It is not the bottom line and...
  • Simon Baddeley 
    

    We are in conjecture land. Tolstoy was so right about how events that are later called history unfold. I think you are right about Cameron's direction but recall that it was Willie Whitelaw who challenged Thatcher's view that 1985 in Handsworth was just criminal. i was at one of the many meetings where one of the brightest civil servants I've met came up to listen to small groups of Handsworth people saying they deplored the riots but that the rioters were not criminals. There was, whatever you think, some listening. More optimistically I think there will be a great pulling together of the Handsworth community - in fact even in Scotland where I am, I'm engaged in the rebuild - material and psychological.

Linda to me: People with your condescending, 'it's not their fault, we need to do something for them, laisser-faire attitude' are the reason for things like this. It is their fault, they should be getting off their butts and doing something for themselves and they shouldn't be able to do as they please! I'm fed up with people thinking they're 'entitled' and can just do as they please. You're seeing the results of not practising 'tough love' in a big way!

But my friend Susan Green, long term Handsworth resident,living up Antrobus Road defends me: Of course their is a link. Kids in places like Chipping Norton aren't out looting. Poverty in all it's manifestations provides a rich breeding ground for resentment, envy and frustration. So many young people around here are boxed in by lack of options that when a bunch of criminals decide to go on the rampage they drag along a lot of disaffected youth. In fact I think last night they counted on it in order to ensure there was enough diversionary activity allowing them to concentrate on high end stuff like the jewellery shop. My local shop keepers are really upset and afraid as are local residents I've spoken to this morning.

*** ***
I just streamed another of Jack's films. The Falcon pipe he lays down - still smoking - on the table beside him stands on a shelf in our kitchen with another he never used. The bowl of the Falcon still has a whiff of that Gallagher's Rich Dark Honeydew I remember from childhood and all the later years.

"I have no doubt that in about 200 years time the people who occupy my patch will find one of these - one of my pipes lying around the place and no doubt they'll take it to the local museum and ask them what it is.'"

An episode - or rather half an episode - of one my stepfather's 30 minute 'Old Country' broadcasts made in the early 1980s. Many thanks as usual to the viewer who recorded this at the time and took the trouble to find me so I could stream it on YouTube. As usual off-air copies on '80s video recorders are seldom of the best quality, so apologies for fuzziness.
*** ***

In the late afternoon Amy and I walked the dogs along the heathered esker above the house. Two buzzards, their territory invaded circled mewing. "Sending them to prison won't do any good. What will they learn there? We need some restorative justice despite the popularity of harsh retributive justice" "Make parents account for their children?" "Confiscate goods that were stolen" "Get rioters to clear up the mess." So we chatted over the esker laid down before men walked here when ice stood five miles above the ground. You can't steal a walk I thought but then I thought of those respectable men who steal landscapes.

Dammit! There was a S106 Agreement -  the same that after four year's delay brought us the hard won Victoria Jubilee Allotments, but which has still not brought us the cricket pitch and two playing fields and sports pavilion that were part of the same agreement. When we got back to Brin Croft we had supper, after which wrote to our new councillor, Waseem Zaffar:

Dear Cllr Zaffar 

I may be 400 miles away for a few more days but Handsworth is in my mind every moment. In Oct 2009 as part of lobbying over more than a decade we were getting closer to having the 80 allotments many people now enjoy next to Handsworth Park as part of a S106A deal with Persimmon Homes. But there was meant to be more to come. Instead there has been a continued delay in providing sporting facilities next to the allotments. The significance of that delay in the light of current events you will immediately grasp.

For context, this was my letter to Cllr Martin Mullaney after Basil Hylton, many years Secretary of the cricket club in Handsworth Park and the promoter of sports for local young people in our area, had again asked me if I knew anything about the delay in the implementation of the S106A on application N/01514/03/FUL:

Dear Martin. I’ve been pushing the allotments, but as background to Basil’s enquiry, the S106A of May 2004 included the following:D. Planning Application No. N/01514/03/FUL – Victoria Jubilee Allotments ... approved under a Section 106 agreement to provide the following:• Eighty new municipal allotments plus an index linked payment of £21,000 towards their maintenance.• An index linked sum of £27,000 towards the maintenance of a play area and £25,000 in lieu of a second play area.• An index linked sum of £15,000 towards the regeneration of neighbouring Handsworth Park.• Two playing pitches and a cricket square plus a pavilion and car parking to the Council design.• The inclusion of twenty four affordable homes.Yours sincerely. Simon

Can I suggest you try your hand at accelerating the play area and most especially the two playing pitches and cricket square plus pavilion and car parking? At present all we see from the allotments is a vast and inviting flat green space on which hundreds of young people should be involved in sport.

There appear to be three reasons for the delay which may well make the problem seem to you intractable, though the log jam might be loosened by current events.

1. Local residents on the new Parklands estate (Secretary: Marcellus Lindsay have objected to the planned locations of the play areas included in the S106A. Marcellus is a sensible and intelligent man and very ready to discuss this matter and share residents' concerns. marcellus@catalystsforcommunity.com

2. The developer Persimmon Homes, project manager Cliff Nixon at last report, claim the recession affects their ability to pay for the work which, when completed, like the allotments, are supposed to be transferred to Birmingham City Council and indeed should have been transferred 4 years ago. Planning officer Alan Orr, presuming he is still our constituency planning officer, (or his successor) is the best informed on the status of the S106A. alan.orr@birmingham.gov.uk (Note: in fact it's now: Stuart.Morgans@birmingham.gov.uk, Stuart Morgans,  Principal Planning Officer)

3. Unlike the allotments on which the plot holders themselves have been dealing pretty well with debris strewn top-soil spread by the developer (we said to city allotments officer Adrian Stagg "Let's just get gardening" despite his dissatisfaction with the preparatory work of the developer, so the site was opened in June 2010), the City Education department which has taken responsibility for implementing schools use of the playing fields is unwilling to receive the site until it is in a fit state to be played on, fearing, very understandably, the possibility of having to spend city money rather than the developer's money, to get the ground fit for soccer and cricket.

Whenever I raised this matter at Ward Committee - many times over the last 4 years - I said officers could do nothing without robust political action by elected members. The problem was constantly referred back to officers by ward councillors. My point that they might need to lobby politically to get movement on the delay in getting those playing fields was not grasped. Local people campaigned for over ten years for that S106A with crowded public meetings, petitions, letters and regular stories in the media. We thought that the conclusion of the S106A marked the end of the need to campaign.

I really hope you may be able to achieve progress where we have failed.

Kindest regards

Simon Baddeley
Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG)
mobile 07548 820658