Back to Birmingham

Last summer - Mum, Lulu, Oliver, Cookie, Amy and Oscar

My mother's bedroom emptied of all but carpet and curtains; and every crevice, corner, surface, shelf and cranny of the rest of Brin Croft, dusted and scrubbed. Woe to spiders, and other small beasts caught in the nozzle of my searching vacuum. I'm much acquainted with the dust of my mother's house, knowing it in ways that would have been strange when I sojourned there with her, with family and dogs. Lin has been my stalwart companion. The weather has been lovely; high summer in the Highlands without the swelter of England; like warm air rising the wind blows from the south west under cloudy skies. It’s timeless this sound of wind outside the city; the self same wind that impressed me in childhood, that I hear as the surge of trees and leaves, as surf impressing gravel. It gusts ebbs and flows banging doors left ajar, tipping over things carelessly lent, making startling crashes, turning the washing into rippling pennants “Make haste. England expects”.
Oscar has watched us puzzled and even dismayed, knowing 'something's going on' that makes all different; bereft of the joy of long walks through the woods, riverbanks, moors and meadows of Strathnairn. There's been a hierarchy of disposal ending at the Highland Council Recycling Centre off Henderson Road. Before that we've laid out in the carport, for collection by the charity Newstart Highlands

an incalculable miscellany, left after a two day garage sale that has seen people from up and down the Strath directed by leaflets and canvassing up driveways and through clusters of dwellings, including a word through the car window to people on the road
"I'm clearing my mother's house at Brin Croft. Come and have a cup of tea. Lots of bargains!"
I left the selling to Lin who's much better at it. Earlier in the week Guy and Amy helped take two hire-van loads over the Keswick Bridge to Dingwall & Highland Markets. Then they headed south to spend a night at the Rowan Tree Hotel to visit Alvie Church where they'd married three years ago.
I auctioned those items that were not wanted by Roger Milton, Auldearn Antiques, including things valued higher for probate then Roger would pay. Our lawyer, who I saw last Monday, wanted me to have sent these to Bonhams in Edinburgh.
"What? Send them six time further to raise hardly the price of getting them there?"

Tired out but relieved, we turned off the electricity; read the meter; turned off the water and with a final load of rubbish to dump in the wheelie bins at the end of the lane, we loaded our picnic and drove away. It was 5pm on Tuesday. We'd been clearing Brin Croft over most of nine days. We've no need for the gadget on this familiar journey south, but I set the satnav. It's almost fun to have this disembodied female voice counting off waypoints on our route, noting our speed and ETA and the miles we've covered. At the stores I kissed and hugged Isobel; shook hands with David and waved as we  drove away down the B851 to the A9 - for good.

B851 - Google street view of Inverarnie Stores and the track to Brin Croft

The Highlands is becoming foreign - shift of connection with place. Mum made the places she lived. Going to the Highlands was going to stay with her. Now we’ve cleared a property with a familiar postcode. Not a tremor of sadness assailed me. Mum would have wanted little grief at her departure. I was born in her and knew her for 70 years in all the changes of my life and her good and adventurous life; her only unfinished business the momentum that was inseparable from her character; that little spurt of energy that came with handing over a baton bejewelled with understanding and future joys. I need no souvenirs; her memorial is inside. Lucid until the final days of laboured slumber, she'd slowed in her last two years and had to lean on more people than suited her style; almost - and of course unjustly for those involved - resenting the attentions she needed. Death was, as for Epicurus, a natural irritant to be faced with courage and irritation and frustration as a tedious unavoidable interruption of her journey. She said goodbye in so many words to everyone who mattered, without being literal. It was mysterious.
I’m almost glad of the work involved in handling her estate. I’d dreaded ‘going through her things’, but I’ve not been on my own in the business of fetching, carrying, sorting, phoning, emailing and making journeys to the Highlands. Lin is my strength; also my accountant, lawyer, driver and adviser. I’ve grown closer to my stepsister, Fiona, through regular conversations in the last seven months. I’ve been discreetly tended by my children, my attention caught by the new life that began the year mum died - Oliver born in April 2012, in time to be dandled on her knee and crawl on her bed.

Bay and I at Coignafearn

My sister’s reaction to mum’s death is as different and as bewildering as she is from me, and perhaps our mother. Dutiful in caring for mum in the long weeks that preceded her death, Bay hurried away after the formal ceremonies, uninterested – so far as I could see – in the longer procedures of so great a bereavement, preferring to license the clearance men.

On Saturday Colin had again cut and raked the grass along the drive and around Brin Croft. The key was with the estate agent; the house as ready as we could get it for prospective buyers; almost a property again; certainly no longer an inkling of mum's home. She's long away.

In the particulars it's called the 'Master Bedroom'

...and we left a few things in the sitting room

Above Blair Atholl, south of Drumochter Pass, we joined a stationary queue before easing by a score of urgently blinking blue lights and the grisly remnants of a road collision that had occurred 6 hours earlier - a shiny black amputated car roof alone on the grass; two people dead in one vehicle, one in the other - the injured and dead long removed. I read of familiar calls to lay down dual carriageway for the whole length of the road rather than alter the fatal impatience of impulsive drivers.

We were back in England by 2.00pm on Wednesday morning. I unloaded Lin's car in the light of the street lamp outside our house, unknotting a cat's cradle of spider hooks and string from the roof, carrying things gently up the sloping drive to lay them in the hall and sitting room, before heading for bed in the light of dawn.
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Wednesday morning I was chatting to my nurse at the blood donor centre, putting the world to rights and speculating on the name of the new royal baby. Gracie brought up in Mauritius was saying that she'd been embarrassed to pull carrots from the ground and bring them muddied to her home...
"Yet I, Gracie, am ashamed I cannot be more successful doing just that"

At reception, as I left for other errands in town, I was handed my award for 100 donations - a number arrived at in January - a pretty little lapel badge, which I probably won't wear. Bound to get lost. I'm proud of being a donor yet waver at a badge. Might it be a means to reassure people wondering about becoming donors - a painless charity?
I had two talks to give - one a tour of Handsworth Park for members of Sheldon Library. We met at the park gates - seven people around my age, interested, curious, enthusiastic. I spoke as usual of what's involved in creating a trusted green space; what's involved maintaining an urban park with so many other goods - education, health, transport, you name it - competing for cash from a diminishing pool of public finance. We gazed about us enjoying the sunny scene amid the greenery. How I love this park! I know that comes over when I talk about it how it first came about over a hundred years ago.

Visitors from Sheldon with Mark Bent in the Sons of Rest, Handsworth Park

We ended the tour at the Sons of Rest where Mark and his family served us tea and cakes and I circulated old pictures and maps of Handsworth Park, and told them how the building where we sat was saved from demolition with days to spare via a petition of 400 signatures we'd raised from people in the park queuing for loos during a Vaisakhi Festival.

In the early evening I cycled across town towards Moseley to give a talk to 20 members of the Balsall Heath Local History Society. The Chairman reminded me that a payment was involved. "How much?" I said, only half-joking "do you want for me to talk about Handsworth Park?"
My talk was based on my account of the founding of Handsworth Park
"If you had one pound - in what proportions would you spend it on health. education, policing and parks? Unless you can show that money directed to parks is good for health, that it educates people and increases social cohesion, the money will go to those services rather than to the park. That argument had to be made when Handsworth Park was founded in the 1880s. It had to be made again to restore the park in the late 1990s, early 2000s."

A talk about Handsworth Park: Patrick introduces me; Socks the cat lies on the chair beside him

The morning tour didn't go close enough to the edge of the park pool to show that thousands of dead fish - roach - were floating belly up; a fatal reduction in oxygen caused by days of hot weather. On my way home after the tour I met Allen Broad, who leads the park's grounds maintenance staff, driving to the depot "It's happening in Cannon Hill Park too"

Dead roach in the park pool

25/7/13 - Dear Counclllors. Please please emphasis getting the aerator motor that blows oxygen into the water of the Handsworth park pool going again. Don’t just clear up the dead fish. Stop them dying in the first place! I don’t think other city ponds have aerators (oxygenators).  Handsworth Park got them as a result of the lottery refurbishment. Use them please. You can’t install aerators in canals or in Cannon Hill park where fish are also dying in the hot weather. In Handsworth Park we should be able to resolve this problem of fish die-off in hot weather. The motor that drives the aerators is on the island in the pool and the pipe system extends under the surface of the water with six outlets in the centre of the pond. Simon

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The ivy on the apple tree - cut through at the base two weeks ago - is starting to wilt. Tree and ivy have co-existed so long I wonder, unscientifically, if the tree missing its creeper, and fail to thrive.

Amy came round to leave Oliver with us before heading off for a ten hour shift.
"An old lady of 93 died yesterday. She'd had someone coming round to do her garden for years. While the gardener was working she'd sit in her car and read a book. That's where she died. Where she was found...in this weather. 90% of our work involves domestics and things like this."

Our cop's off to work

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An email from Jan Bowman:

Dear Simon I hope all is well with you and family, and that you're enjoying the sunshine, whether here or the Mediterranean. I thought you might like to know that a print of Richard and Flea made it into the RBSA's portrait exhibition this month. I attach a photo of it, hanging in good company.  Exhibition is on till 24 August. There's some nice stuff in the gallery; worth a visit -- if you aren't in Greece! All best wishes. Jan

Jan's sketch of me:

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Celebration of Agios Paraskevi in Ano Korakiana
Στο πανηγύρι της Αγίας Παρασκευής

Γράφει ο/η Κβκ

28.07.13

Λίγη ώρα πριν από την έναρξη του (χθεσινού) πανηγυριού της Αγίας Παρασκευής, οι ετοιμασίες βρίσκονται σε πλήρη εξέλιξη. Η Διοίκηση και μέλη του Συλλόγου φορώντας τα διακριτικά σκούρα μπλουζάκια, φροντίζουν για τις τελευταίες λεπτομέρειες: φωτισμός του χώρου, ψησταριές (για σουβλάκια αλλά και για αρνιά), αναψυκτικά, παρασκευή λουκουμάδων κλπ. Καθώς το φώς της ημέρας χάνονταν αρχίζει να καταφθάνει ο κόσμος, που λίγο αργότερα θα γεμίσει τον υπαίθριο χώρο με τα τραπεζο-καθίσματα, περνώντας πρώτα από τη μικρή εκκλησία για το άναμα ενός κεριού. Η ορχήστρα των «Φαιάκων» δεν θα αργήσει να «σηκώσει» τον κόσμο με τους νησιώτικούς ρυθμούς και η διασκέδαση θα κρατήσει μέχρι τις πρώτες πρωινές ώρες. Όπως θα τονίσει και ο Πρόεδρος της Φιλαρμονικής Σπύρος Σαββανής, η συνάθροιση και η τόνωση των κοινωνικών σχέσεων, η συνέχιση της παράδοσης, αλλά και η ενίσχυση του Συλλόγου, είναι η ιδιαίτερη συνεισφορά  του πανηγυριού αυτού στο χωριό μας, τη δύσκολη εποχή που διανύουμε.Και πραγματικά, το πανηγύρι αυτό αποτελεί μία ευκαιρία συνάντησης των Κορακιανιτών που βρίσκονται τις μέρες του καλοκαιριού στο χωριό... Όμως, για να είναι όλα στην εντέλεια, οι προετοιμασίες ξεκίνησαν από τα χαράματα (χθες)...(φωτο από Δώρα Μεταλληνού) Preparations started at dawn - neighbour Lefteri opposite Papa Kostas (photo: Dora Metallinou) Στο ζεϊμπέκικο διέπρεψε ο χωριανός μας Κώστας Νικ. Σαββανής, χορεύοντας και τραγουδώντας το άσμα «Καλύτερα να με ζηλεύουνε παρά να με κακολογούνε»!> We've missed another party in the village! My rough translation:  Shortly before the start (yesterday) of the festival of Agias Paraskevi, preparations, begun at dawn, were in full swing - management and Association members wearing distinctive dark shirts, caring for the latest details: ambient lighting, barbecues (for souvlaki and lamb), soft drinks, donuts, etc. As daylight faded more and more people, after visiting the small church to light a candle, filled a great spread of tables and chairs and in no time local musicians are lifting our spirits with island rhythms and the party will last until the wee hours....the President of the Philharmonic Association, Spyros Savani, reminded us of this festival's special contribution to the village, encouraging neighbourliness, sustaining tradition, and strengthening the Association, in difficult times.  Our fellow villager Costas Nik. Savvanis excelled himself at the Zeibekiko, dancing and singing the song "Better to be jealous than cast aspersions".

Aleko D adds: Now I give you a small explanation of the Zeibekiko Ζεϊμπέκικο dance - Greek folk dance (rhythm 9/4) and undoubtebly one of the most popular. The name derives from Zei (one of the names of Zeus) and the Phrygian word 'bekos' meaning 'bread'. It symbolises the union of the Spirit with the body and is danced in honour of Greek Gods. It is a solo dance and it's offensive to be interrupted by another dancer. Sometimes the dancers perform feats like standing on a glass of wine or a chair or picking up a table with their teeth! (I am sure you've seen this). The other point which I would like to correct while looking at your blog's translation, you wrote 'Celebration at Agios Paraskevi in Ano Korakiana. Agios is a man Saint and Agia Paraskevi (Αγίας Παρασκευής) is a woman Saint. So when looking at a church: Αυτή (η εκκλησία) είναι η Αγία Παρασκευή and not Agios, or Αυτή (η εκκλησία) είναι ο Αγιος Στέφανος. You say αυτή because εκκλησία is feminine [Join my classes, now starting end of October and you will learn about out all these confusing issues!]
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We continue the work of Handsworth Helping Hands - this weekend a garden cleared, is waste removed, and two beds moved from one house to another...

Awake and smelling the coffee! HHH van with Oscar aboard at the Holford Depot weighbridge, completing Veolia paperwork after unloading garden waste and household clearance rubbish with our Charity Waste Free Tipping Authorisation...

"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? 

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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)
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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."
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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.

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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...