Monday 25 April 2011

Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don't think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other. .....................................................Bill Gates

Thanks Dad and Jim. You have done a brilliant job.

As Mr Gates says Information technology is an absolute requirement if you are running a business today. It really doesn't matter how big or how small your business is the chances are that if you shun the computer you are losing revenue and are probably putting your business on a road to ruin. I understand that 1 in every 3 new businesses fail in the first two years, a tough statistic that I for one do not wish to be on the adverse side of.


So today, thanks to a massive amount of work from my father, we have embraced technology and launched the website of the business that this Blog is all about. The website,  http://www.theoldbakerynorfolk.co.uk , represents the cutting of the proverbial Ribbon as by publishing it we effectively open for business. We are unable to take bookings until mid May as there are still things to finalise in the house as you will have seen on my last Blog.


We still have to ensure that the search engines such as Google pick us up and we have yet to link the site to ones such as the Tourist board, AA and other local B&B sites so no doubt there will be practically no bookings until this is completed.


Web sites are fairly involved and my Dad has truly done a great job, one of the innovations that he has done and that I had not seen on anyone else's site is to allow my customers to click on a local attraction on my site and their computer will open a tab on Google Maps displaying the route from our B&B to the attraction using the get directions function automatically, thus showing how close we are in time and distance. It is that sort of attention to detail that makes all the difference to us.




TODAY, I have been tiling all day in the old bathroom soon to be the B&B room's en-suite. I have been slowed down yet again by the same old battle with the flints. I needed to attach a wooden batten to the wall and in a 6" length of wall I attempted to drill into the wall 7 times before securing a spot where there was no flint. It is amazing stuff, there you are drilling away when this remarkable force field suddenly pushes your drill to the left or right. It actually feels as if someone suddenly pushes your drill bit sidewards. One batten, alone, took me nearly an hour to position as each attempt along it's 6' length came up against the flint resistance!


Tomorrow I need to get all the tiling and grouting behind the pipes where the plumber will be positioning the new loo etc AND I need to lay the new floor so my work is cut out for me.


But TODAY was all about the milestone that is our Web-site publication, here's hoping that it brings us the business that we need to succeed.










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Friday 22 April 2011

"No, no," said the little pig. "By the hair of my chinny chin chin, I will not let you come in." "Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in," said the wolf. So he huffed and he puffed and he huffed and he puffed. But the house of bricks did not fall down. So why did the Norfolk people go and fill the walls with bleeding chunks of Flint?

I have found that I have a knack of taking a reasonably respectable room and ripping it apart to such a degree that it loses all identity and, if I am honest, gives the impression that a pound or so of Semtex has been used in the process.
Oh, dear, that'll get me on the MI5 'Sites to be monitored' Hit List won't it.

The problem is that I can't help myself, I feel if a job is worth doing then it is worth doing well. That's what I feel, but sadly the skill levels that I have simply don't support this noble mantra and as a result there are certain days when I am not proud at what expletives babble out of my mouth. Yesterday was a case in point when I took on the task of filling some pretty big holes in the walls where past 'craftsmen' have been at work.


 As you can see they are not small holes, nor are they what you might call neat. These old flint cottages are very pretty and fairly strong but their true weakness becomes apparent when one needs to make a small hole for a pipe or sum such thing.
The Flints will completely destroy a drill in an instant and so the best thing to do is to knock your way through, as if you were escaping from Alcatraz. As soon as you have managed to remove a single flint then you try stopping all of it's friends following. I reckon I could tear down one of these Flint buildings with my bare hands. The innate stability just tumbles away and the holes just get bigger and bigger. Before you know it you'll have a French Lorry driver pop out flashing his passport at you.
So these past masters have tried to squeeze two small pipes (as above, now removed they were originally in the tied cardboard tubes) and in doing so created a Grand Canyon through my abode.
 Is it any wonder that half of Norfolk's Churches have fallen down?
So having created this indoor quarry they pass their two pipes through, then they look at the hole and decided to do something about it, which for the most part seems to involve the ritual of stuffing a couple of bricks inside or even (as in the photo to the right) a plastic bag and a 1970's copy of Woman's Weekly! In short there is little in the way of an attempt to make good these caverns if indeed any attempt is made at all. So now I have inherited the problem and I have to do something to shore them up as even the smallest knock leads to you ending up with a small rock fall. I decided that I would cement them up and then finish with a layer of plaster.
I chose quick drying cements as I felt that would stop it oozing out before it cold dry.

MY they were not kidding when they said it would dry in 10 minutes as by the time I had mixed it, got up stairs and started to apply the stuff it was already hardening. It didn't help that it was the hottest day of the year and that the pipes made using a trowel difficult and so the mumblings of expletives commenced, even adding water did not prevent the cement from tipping over the point of in-usability.

So when today arrived and the need to skim the walls with the plaster I was, I have to admit, none to keen to start the job. I slapped the first bit of plaster on the wall, having followed all the preparation of surfaces instructions, and flop, it fell straight down on to the floor. Alison sensed a little tension from me, to say the least, and said it should be easy  it is just like putting icing on a cake. Bah, girls eh? No idea!
      So I presented her with the trowel and the 'icing' and allowed her the chance to show me how it is done.
Well, of course, I knew she would be a natural all along, as she slapped on plaster left right and centre. No one likes a smart arse do they.

We finished the worst of the walls, then I started on laying a hardboard floor over the floor boards which looked like they had been collected from the Titanic, Lusitania and the Bismark. A multitude of sizes, colours, woods it was astounding that such a small room could have so big a variety, some really did look like they had been at the bottom of the sea for a decade or two, but I had renovated what I could and replaced those that were beyond repair.
The floor itself curves to such a degree that it drops in height west to east by the height of the skirting board, some 3".

So this is where we are now, most of the holes you see here have been filled but there is still a tonne of tiles to be bought and put up and the floor has to be purchased and laid too.
All this has to be completed by next Wednesday as the plumber returns on that day to install the bathroom suite.
We have our work cut out for us, as they say.

They also say, "never mind it will all be worth it when it's all done". My experience is that the people who say such things are invariably NOT the ones that have got to do the actual work.

Our Web-Site is getting close to being live and as soon as it is up and running you will be told.
For now all our efforts are focused on getting this en-suite up and running ASAP.
     Oh and the garden too.



















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Wednesday 20 April 2011

Hush, Hush, nobody cares............ Christopher Robin has fallen down stairs!

A very, very hot day but our flint cottage has done us proud by being beautifully cool inside without any air-conditioning machines... bliss!

Today I have been working all day on getting the bathroom floor 'made good' after the electricians and the plumber had done their thing. The room is fairly small (approx 3mtr x 1.6mtr) but the floor boards were, ARE, rubbish and are a variety of shapes and sizes. It looked like they had used every last scrap of wood that they could find. Many were loose and several had to be replaced before I could even think of starting to lay hardboard on top to even them out a little. That said, although it was an arduous day it was well worth stripping the bathroom back to these bare bones as I would not have found the crumbling floor boards which I managed to replace.

I have also been able to make access holes to the pipe valves and also taken the liberty to draw out, on to the floor with marker pen all the positions of the pipes beneath. This is after a lesson learnt the hard way when one bank holiday weekend in our old house whilst laying a bathroom floor I inadvertently hammered a nail into a pipe under the boards. The faint hissing noise first alerted me to this fact and then a stupid instinct told me to pull it out, so I did. Ladies & Gentlemen, for those of you whom are as stupid as me..... DO NOT REMOVE A NAIL FROM A WATER PIPE BECAUSE IT S THE ONLY THING KEEPING THE WATER IN!
In a blink of an eye lid my hissing noise became the Niagara Falls, except this Niagara was entombed under the very floor board which I had just sealed to the rafters.

So now I draw a 'Pipe Zone' clearly onto the floor to ensure that I do not make that mistake a second time!

Also I re-planted the 1977 Daily Mail and added a 2011 Times to the mix for the next poor blighter who has to pull up the floorboards

The moon has been really bright over the last few nights, lighting up the house and gardens beautifully and I could not help taking several shots of it. I don't know why it draws me to look at it so, but it just does I took some photos of it and have posted the best one here......

Anyway, it has been a long day and I'm tired, so may I bid you good night or indeed good morning if you are reading this over breakfast and I hope you all have a lovely day tomorrow.







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Tuesday 19 April 2011

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff. .............................................Doctor Who

The plumber finished two days of work today disem-bowling my bathroom of anything that resembled a piece of bathroom furniture. So, with my car full with one bath, one toilet & cistern , one sink & pedestal and several chunks of wood that made up the bath panels I headed of to my buddies at the local tip, oops sorry I mean the local recycling centre.

Being aware that they like to charge you every time you take something to be 'recycled' if it is anything more than a Nat's wardrobe I planned my trip with cunning. I chose lunchtime, figuring that there would only be one person on duty, then I filled the bathtub with the half tonne of wood that came out of the bathroom (mainly bath panel and flooring). The idea being that I would pull up unnoticed next to the 'Timber Bin' which is the furthest away from the 'teams' office and speedily off load my mini forest. Then I would take the old carpet and dump it in the 'un-recyclable bin' then off loading the bath and checking where one puts a bath.
Well the first part of the plan went well as I was unnoticed, but a man with a bath was worthy of being checked out and they looked in my car to see a bog and a sink. He took the obligatory sharp intake of breath (I knew exactly where we were going with this after the tour of tips a few months back),
"There'll be a charge for that lot I'm afraid" he informed me"
"Oh," I naively said adding "But I've got no money" I lied.
"Well I can take one thing but you will have to spread the others over the next few weeks" He clarified.

Now I thought this might happen which is why I made sure the biggest, most awkward thing was out of the car (the bath) and we agreed that I could dispose of that. This left me with the Bog & cistern for next week and the sink & pedestal for the week after. Yer, as if! Over the next few days I shall alternate cars until it is all gone, but how ridiculous that in the name of being green the Recycling centre itself causes me to spend 3 times the amount on petrol only to end up having to recycle the items anyway! Lets not get bogged down with that as it just leaves a sinking feeling....

So having returned from that sortie I then set about removing the 70's style tiles from the bathroom walls. I had already spent an hour removing tiles from a square metre in the bedroom, which I began to wonder if they had been affixed with the same glue that NASA famously used on their space shuttle, actually that is not appropriate as some of their tiles actually managed to work loose! It was a very hot day and my safety goggles were filling up with sweat, I felt that I would have a fish swimming past infront of my eyes at any minuet!
Anyway, I mention the 70's style tiles, well they were nothing to the hideous 60's purple wall paint behind that, honestly there are not many colours that make you feel actually nauseous but this is one of them. The 70's guess was backed up by the discovery of an old Daily Mail newspaper that the plumber found screwed up in a cavernous hole in the wall, frankly it served no purpose other than being a literal time-capsule. As he gave it to me he said he could tell it was from the seventies as everyone is on strike. He himself was just 1 year old when this paper was printed, God that made me feel old!

Jack Jones was demanding an increase in pensions& the Union of Agriculture and Allied Workers were bemoaning the fact that the minimum wage for an Agricultural worker was just £39 a week. Well frankly my dear they were on a good wedge, because I can remember my first years full time employment weekly wage was just £19 a week and that was in 1978.

A Datsun Laurel Six is advertised at just £3,500 including the state of the art 'executive features' "push button radio with stereo auto-change cassette player, reclining front seats with adjustable head restraints, electric clock with sweep second hand, illuminated ignition switch, automatic reversing lights, side indicator repeaters, cigar lighter, heated rear window an lots more!   Whilst the price included the special car tax (whatever that was) and the VAT it DID NOT include seat belts which were an extra luxury if you wanted them.

Billie Jean was entering Wimbledon again at the age of 33. The Queen was preparing for her Jubilee. I remember she was touring the country to be seen by all her 'subjects'. Caught up in the Royal frenzy I took my little Instamatic camera and waited patiently along with hundreds of others on the side of the road on her planned route in Solihull.
Eventually her car appeared and I got ready to take the photo. It got nearer and nearer whilst the anticipation became greater and greater. No pressure, I can do this. Firstly the nose of the Bentley appeared, hold off, not yet....
Then the driver appeared, wait.....    Then a window appeared, NOW! Snap, snap, snap.
I duly sent the film way and waited the two weeks or so for them to be processed and returned. Picking them up from the doormat I hurriedly opened the envelope to see my pictures of our Queen, My Sovereign, Her Majesty and what did I get? One empty window, one with a portion of a white glove in it and one with the back of the Bentley disappearing stage left!  Humphhh,

An advert for "PEER The Worlds First cigarette with Cytrl tobacco substitute" adorns the TV guide page. There was a cigarette that went down the metaphoric pan!
Radio 1 line up was Colin Berry, Noel Edmonds, Tony Blackburn, Paul Burnett, Diddy David Hamilton, D.L.T. (Dave Lee Travis) and John Peel.
Radio2 had Brian Matthew, Pete Murray, Jimmy Young and John Dunn.
Radio 4, well it hasn't really changed at all, if you want to know what was on then just pick up the paper today!

Rod Stewart was at No.1 with "I don't want to talk about it" and with the 70's being the 70's you had the bizarre dichotomy of Kermit being "Halfway down the stairs" at No.5 whilst at No.6 The Sex Pistols were screaming "God Save The Queen".

Still what was on TV then?
Firstly remember there were ONLY THREE CHANNELS, that was your lot mate and the earliest that they started  was at 6:40am and even then that was with bearded scruffy men on Open University on BOTH BBC1 & BBC2!
Well John Noakes was still doing his thing on Blue Peter with Peter & Lesley, Play School, Scooby Doo, Rainbow & the painfully risqué Captain Pugwash.
Crossroads was the only Soap and both Thunderbirds and Little House On the Prairie were still going strong. The best films you could hope for were an Abbott & Costello  in the foreign Legion (1950) or John Wayne as The Magnificent Showman (1964).
Finally there was the inevitable Closedown just before midnight (so we all knew that Nanny State says it's time for bed) and we all stood up and saluted as God Save The Queen was played religiously, then off the picture went with only a pinprick of light in the centre of the screen and a high pitched noise for the next 10 minutes to remind you to turn your set off as they had all gone home. Sometimes, if you were lucky, they would squeeze in a 2 minute Public Information film warning you of the hazards of chip pan fires or falling asleep whilst smoking. A bit of a waist of time as most of those people were probably already in the land of nod and the fire engines were rushing to the scene as they spoke, whilst the rest of us just had night mares. Thanks a bunch for that!
Ah, those were the days.



So my time capsule in the wall has nothing more than a Newspaper dated June 9th 1977, no gadgets of the day or toys of the moment. Nor does it have any messages for those that found it, but it does and has prompted memories of a very specific time when the newspaper was crunched up by a dodgy plumber to semi fill a hole some 34 years ago.
And the sad part is that I know, in some box, somewhere in this house I have a souvenir newspaper celebrating that Silver Jubilee along with a couple of unopened bottles of Silver Jubilee Beer and for the life of me I don't know why I keep them.







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Friday 15 April 2011

There is nothing difficult about my work, and people get to hear it from me. .....................................Tracey Emin

I have spent all day creating an art installation in the Guest Bedroom which I have called 'White on White'. Like all good artists it has taken me to emotions of the lowest of lows and torn the very heart out of my soul through the process of seeking pure perfection. The 'installation' consists of a large area of the room's ceiling, actually all of the room's ceiling, which I have covered in a particular shade of white called 'Brilliant White'. Furthermore I have become a part of my own art work, it is me and I am it, by frequently brushing different body parts across the still wet 'White on White' subtly picking up small quantities of this striking Brilliant White on my arms, hands, face and hair (which is not immediately obvious as it seems to disappear against my Silver Fox hair and only succeeds in sticking patches of the hair together giving the appearance of an upturned bog brush on bleaching day).

The canvas (the ceiling), originally white, is now a slightly brighter white and try as I might I cannot lose the nagging feeling that I have just wasted 9 hours of my life. 9 HOURS? You may well think that is a long time to paint a ceiling, I mean canvas, and ordinarily you'd be right but this canvas is 252 sqft in size with the added complication of a further 84 sqft of extra surface consisting of wooden beams which hang from the canvas.
336 square feet of painting white paint on flipping white paint, ensuring that every nook and cranny created by the 12 beams or so, is painstakingly covered.
I am waiting with baited breath to see if, in the morning daylight, I can get away with just the one coat because (if you haven't already guessed) I HATE PAINTING WHITE PAINT WHITE!


For the Modern art lovers of you out there I have created a follow up to the bigger original masterpiece and it is reproduced below. I call it White on White, the afterthought..........




White on White, the afterthought
By Mike

Dedicated to Fyfe Robertson who discovered Phoney art (PHart for short).








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Thursday 14 April 2011

The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive; the right in certain cases to do as we list; and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. ....................................William Godwin

Let me give you some examples of why being Normal for Norfolk (NFN) is not the embarrassment that it seems to hint at. Today I had to go to our local hospital for a physiotherapy appointment. I parked the car in the hospital car park and it was totally free to do so, for as long as I needed and for all those patients whom by their very nature are not well and do not go there by choice. Look at the hospitals that I have had reason to park at in the South, for an appointment of just a half an hour I had to pay the following;- The East Surrey at Redhill, £2, Crawley Hospital £2 , Haywards Heath £1.50, Queen Vic at East Grinstead £2.50, Northwick Park at Harrow £2 and so it goes on. I could understand those hospitals in the middle of a town where everyone would try to park so they could go to the shops, but come on East Surrey East Grinstead and Haywards Heath where there is no reason to be there other than a visit to the hospital. Lets just target the ill, because they have 'bigger' things on their minds and they have no choice but to park here AND if we're lucky the appointment will run over or the Pharmacy will be slow in dispensing and they will have to pay double. Oh yer, perhaps we could ensure that the machines don't give change then we can also keep all the change too when they have to round up because they don't have the exact money. Well done Kelling Hospital for abiding by the Patients Charter principles that you can expect the NHS to make it easy for everyone to use its services and the patients right to receive health care on the basis of your clinical need, not on your ability to pay.

THEN when I get in one of the physiotherapists comes over to book me in because the receptionist was tied up with someone on the phone. Then as I walked into the waiting area the other patient looks up from his paper an says good morning and when the next patient joins us we do the same and have a chat.
THEN I am called in on time!  If that is Normal for Norfolk then thank God I've moved here.



The electricians finished yesterday, that is they finished phase one, which was to get the B&B side of the business set up. The fire alarms are in every bedroom and public area, the kitchen has a heat detector and the halls have their emergency lights fitted. There are a few 'snags' to be completed before I can be given the required certificate that my property is electrically safe and I am sure that to put them right will involve more money..... everything continually seems to involve more money!

I am still painting and decorating the main guest bedroom and getting ready for he plumber who is due to come on Monday to remove all the bathroom items, leaving me just one week to redecorate before they return to plumb in all the new stuff. Alison will be off that week so she plans to assist in turning this around in time.

The garden is looking better and better. We have so much fruit, Raspberries, Redcurrants, Loganberries Blackberries, Cherries, Red Grapes, White Grapes, Red Cob nuts, Hazel nuts, Blueberries, Gooseberries, Rhubarb, Pears, Quinces, and two apple trees. The garden will be open to the visitors and I am sure that some fruit will be snacked upon, we used to call it grazing in the supermarket world, but with some 30,000 customers a week it was a far bigger issue!

There was an incident once where I met a lady of about 60 years of age whom had been 'grazing' on one of our apples but God works in mysterious ways and on this occasion he decided to punish her by quite literally making her choke on it! When I saw her she was gasping for breath and she had half of the damning evidence still in her hand with a big bite out of it. I had been trained on the Heimlich maneuver several years previously but had never actually carried it out but, frighteningly, it was becoming clear to me that I had little choice but so to do. We were near the customer service desk and I explained what I was about to do, then I got into position behind her with both arms hugging her and both hands clenched under her rib cage at her tummy. This is, it has to be said, a position of some intimacy, I then started a series of firm pulls into her stomach area trying to effectively blow the apple chunk out of her wind pipe. After 3 or 4 of these she indicated that it had moved but was still stuck, so I gave her about the same amounts of firm slaps to her back and suddenly out shot the mischievous bite of Granny smith just missing the Customer Service member of staff.

Now, unknown to me, my ever watchful Checkout Manager, Nicole, was observing this from some way behind me. Thus she was not in command of the full facts of the matter, that is she had no idea the lady was actually choking. Well if you can put yourself in her shoes and see the same events without that snippet of information you can probably imagine her disquiet at what she saw. She explained later that she saw me spooning an elderly lady, hugging her close to me and then start to thrust back and forth at the hips after which I let go of her and started to thump her on the back quickly followed by much joviality. In short she thought I must have gone bonkers, lost the plot and was heading for the dole queue!

What did I do to punish the grazing Granny? Nothing, of course, she had learnt her lesson and I'd had a very cheap thrill  ...........everyone was happy!





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Monday 11 April 2011

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. .................................William Wordsworth

This week we went HD! High Definition at last.      The colour is brilliant and the clarity of the view astounding.
I've only cleaned the dining room and Kitchen windows so far but the view of the daffodils and Tulips is a massive improvement from a foggy blur up to a full clear highly defined view. It was such an improvement that my daughter likened it to getting HD TV.
Only another 48 windows left to clean and God only knows how many panes of glass that is. The drips of wood stain that the previous owner has liberally splashed over just about every single pane will take many months to remove but for now I can enjoy a clear view of my garden.

The view of the garden has been further improved as there has been such a lot of sunshine including several days without a single cloud in the sky all day! That is until the evening when enough clouds brewed up to give some stunning sunsets. A couple of days we drove up to the coast to catch a view of the sun as she slipped quietly into the sea and, of course, I took plenty of photos. Here's two of them.

Claire has been struggling to unravel the dozens of old Deed documents that we have in our possession for The Old Bakery. It is very confusing to our untrained minds as the writing is of vivacious old England style with the added challenge of being written by High Sheriffs in 'lawyer speak'. That said, she has made a couple of really interesting links today with one of the earliest owners of this house. We have the Deeds of 1746 when a Robert Henry Ackers owned it and run an Academy in the village. He had a pupil in his Academy called William Godwin who went on to be extremely well known in his own right, writing books and poems. He became good friends with our blogs host poet of the day, William Wordsworth. Which I think is pretty cool. BUT...... not as cool as Godwin's Grand-daughter who was the great Mary Shelley (for the ignorant, the bird what wrote Frankenstein).

I guess a house this old will have a multitude of interesting connections and increasingly I am becoming aware that I am not so much the owner of the property just the custodian, the guardian  if you will, over my comparative short tenure here. Like the last owner we plan to take nothing away from its history and perhaps even add a little to it.

We went Camel racing yesterday.  Yes,   yes, you did read me correctly, we went Camel racing yesterday at Fakenham race course........   Of course. It was after the main race meeting and was for charity with local Restaurant Pups putting members of their own staff up as jockeys. Some idiot has said on the web that Fakenham is the most boring place on Earth, well he should have turned up to this event, it was so funny. The Jockeys were all in fancy dress there was Wonder-woman, one of the Three Kings, a bumble Bee, a very 'stocky' Stig (from Top Gear) and several others. Inevitably Wonder-woman was not up to the job and the single Wise man of the Three Kings to bother to turn up suddenly made a bolt off the track heading towards Wales with a very concerned looking jockey holding on for dear life!
I managed to find a nice wad of Camel hair which, when positioned carefully under the nose made a great fluffy moustache. Sadly neither my Daughter nor my wife thought it was either funny or,indeed clever. Earlier we had each taken it in turns to choose  a horse to bet on and had a massive three out of three utter failures. For the most part they were either last or simply pulled up. The girls decided by either the horses name, or in Alison's case by the fact that the Jockey was wearing Sunderland Football teams colours! I however was more considered in my choice and even went to the enclosure to look at the 'orse and use my skilled eye to judge the fittest and most muscular. Ahhhh, but if only you could judge such things merely by looking at them. I chose the one with the most muscular bum the longest legs, the meanest, thinnest belly, the wildest eyes and that was just the Jockey! Looks can be deceiving and the old nag came in last. Mmmmmm.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
                                                                                                                  Carl Jung

Talking of deception I am not in the practise of deception, usually, but when I went to Cley windmill I was frustrated to see that I was unable to get the sun in a position behind the windmill, however I did manage to produce the above photograph. Talk about things not appearing to be what they seem I decided to try a little experiment. To those of you that were paying attention above, when I wrote of the sunset picture, "Here's two of them." That was exactly what I meant. I really could not get the photo that I wanted so when I got back (and you need to take my word that I have never done this before to get a 'good photo') I used a photo of the windmill and one of the sunset and constructed the one that I wanted. I was amazed what I could do with a software programme over 6 years old.
So here's the two original pictures that I took;-


The a bit of jigory pokery and hey presto the windmill is a silhouette just where I wanted it. Is it art or is it deception, I don't know but it has made me a little bit more cynical about great photos, that's for sure.








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Sunday 3 April 2011

Normal is in the eyes of the beholder ........................................... Whoopi Goldberg

I am sure that Whoopi was not the only person to use this expression but it nicely sums up a blog that brings the previous entry to a conclusion.

In MY defence, with regards to the last post (that is the last post that I posted on my Blog, NOT the Last Post as played by a rather dodgy bugler which I normally find less of a lament and more lamentable), I don't think I am eccentric. I think I am fairly NORMAL but the question is, am I normal or in actual fact Normal for Norfolk?

It is the perception of the person making this judgement that dictates the conclusion. As they say on all the 'Managing People' courses, there is no wrong or right answers, mind you they also say "what is said in these four walls stays in these four walls", yer sure! As soon as the meetings over they're straight on the phone to your Boss, "Boy has he got issues with you, he's slagging you off to me, to the other trainers, to the rest of the class and even the poor old tea & biscuits lady, anyway, just thought you should know...."
   Back to the point, your perception of normality can only be based on what your previous life experiences have thrown at you. Once again I think I should clarify that by previous life experiences I didn't mean in the re-incarnation 'previous life' although if you were Henry VIII previously that might shed light on why you keep chucking your Kentucky Chicken bones over your shoulder and, perhaps, why you are not as patient with your wife as you could be!


I give you three examples, the first being the busker in Kings Lynn. This guy will be well known to ANYONE that has ever visited the High Street there. He is a man of some age, shall we say, and he plays the guitar. So far, so good. However there is just one problem with the act, it is not a lack of rhythm, far from it as the man shows great enthusiasm with regard to his strumming. No the main issue is that his guitar has no back to it, or front and the neck has broken off from what is left of the main body of the guitar forcing him to try to keep it in some way, at least, aligned. This is, of course, impossible so the neck flounders about as he basically plays 'air guitar' because there is about as much tension in the strings as there is in the elastic waist band of an old pair of Pavarotti's trousers.

Example two does his street entertaining in Norwich and he too has a guitar 'act'. There is a slight difference in that he uses a puppet to play his guitar. Once again you can not fault this gentleman for lack of gusto, no, when they were handing out gusto he must have pocketed his, then run around to the back of the queue and got double helpings, and then some. Ditto his confidence, because contrary to what many passers by see he clearly feels that his act is the business. The puppet is grey, I think it is meant to be white but like many a male teenager it has not seen any soap suds for many a year and as it vigorously plays the guitar there is only one thing missing........ Yes you've guessed it, the guitar. In short it is a dirty, scruffy, puppet 'air guitar' act.

My final example (No. three if you are still with me and frankly there is no earthly reason why you should be) is a lady of a similar age to the other two. Not a street act, but a shopper who whilst at the butchers counter in my store was victim to a young lad who run down the aisle and snatched her hand bag and run off with it. She shouted out in alarm and I ran out after him but he had already disappeared around a corner and by the time I got to the corner myself he had dumped the bag and was hurling curses at the lady who wasn't even there as she was still in my store. I figured he had got the purse, as is usual, and had dumped the worthless handbag. I picked it up and took it back to the lady in the store so she could see what was missing. It was unusually heavy, even for a lady's handbag, and I was of the opinion that she just may have left the kitchen sink out, but for all intensive purposes she had indeed taken the rest of the household items out to the shops with her that day.
   Anyway I took the bag to her and suggested that she check to see what he had stolen. She was really not at all keen to do so, I explained that she would need to cancel any cards and that she needed to check if her house keys had been taken. Still reluctant to do so, she said that she would go out-side and check in a minute.
At a bit of a loss as to her reluctance the answer came quickly when a short, sharp bark echoed from her handbag. The game was up, as with an expression of guilt she opened her bag and a Chihuahua popped it's head up like a Stoat out of it's burrow. It emerged that she takes her dog everywhere with her, for the most part secretly, including to the hair dressers and even the library! I was obviously not keen to have a dog in my food-store but on the other hand, as she found that nothing had been stolen, a wry smile formed on my face as I had this image of the guy thrusting his hand into her bag to grab the purse only to be met by a snarling Chihuahua, which quite possibly gave him a hearty nip on the finger. You'd like to think once bitten, twice shy wouldn't you.


Normal for Norfolk? Well my perception is that all three could fit the label and yet the two guys may not be the failure of the 'care in the community' programme that they appear to be. They could, as my son points out, be very smart and even avant garde, ahead of their time (and mine) and be totally on the nose when it comes to street savvy. Whereas the lady that takes her dog everywhere she goes in the handbag may also have had street savvy, I think that she is the best example of Normal for Norfolk (NFN) by far, except that she was in Worthing, in Sussex, so I guess that blows NFN out of the water and we should re-evaluate them down south, especially the 'Strange in Sussex' mob!









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