Titivating With Wizzers' Creation

Truth to tell, I haven't really got much to witter on about as I sit here in front of the old steam-driven laptop. But, as I've not stuck anything onto these pages for a couple of days, I thought I'd share news of a minuscule bit of titivating in Millbrooker Towers' living room.


For many months, ever since we had an infestation of Graham just prior to Christmas, we've had a naked (albeit low energy) light bulb illuminating our lives at the back end of the living room.


Then only last week, Mrs The Millbroker rediscovered a shade created way back in the mists of time by The Wizzers of Soz. So far back that she probably wasn't known by that epithet or indeed any other except the one she was given at a very early age.


I'm sure she'll be pleased to know that her creation is finally in use.

You'll note that it's of the dangling variety and as such I get a not unpleasant tickle on the bonce every time I pass underneath. Mmm, sensual light shades - maybe there's a gap in the market.

Sunday Wrecking

After an interlude of a few weeks since dancing in braille outside the D&C with the Wreckers' Morris...

...I've had a get-together with Richard The Wrecker to try and establish some sort of vague competence on my part in playing along.


Richard has worked hard to record a shedload of tunes onto a CD for me to strum along with, but prior to those hard-working hours in the privacy of Millbrooker Towers, we had a  go at playing together.

I'm pleased to report that I didn't disgrace myself entirely and managed to more-or-less keep up with the relatively simple chord structures of  mostly G D Em C and A in varying orders (although the faster tunes got my fingers into a bit of a tizzy).


Richard is getting some Cornish Gold ribbon so Mrs The MIllbrooker and I can make our own tatters; with luck we'll become a regular Wreckers' fixture over the coming months. Watch this space.

BIrthday Season In Full Swing

The Millbrook birthday season is still in full swing. Liability and I celebrated our mutual birth date (oh, yes - same day, same year, slightly different place, completely different gene pool) in separate countries earlier this month.

Cousin Dave, whom we see far too little of these days, has made his half century...

...and Dong noted the whizzing past of another year a few days later; here's Millbrook's famed Dongmeister opening a present just before a birthday slap-up.

And then it was Mrs The MIllbrooker's turn; she has made it to 7 this year (remember the formula for making sure you never get older than 9).

The Wizzers of Soz sent a smashing wee bouquet...

...and later in the day (after I'd returned from an early shift) there was some card opening.

 Naturally there were a couple of things to unwrap; nothing grand this year, sadly my budget is not what it once was.

A few days later and we did a proper celebration by spending a few pence over Russell and Mark's bar at the D&C to mark the occasion. We like to stretch birthdays to at least a week's worth here in Millbrook, you know.

There was another birthday celebration going on at the adjacent table, many happy returns to Steph (in the purple top) who was celebrating with her buddies including our own favourite Village Vamp (furthest away in the row of three opposite the birthday girl).

The meal, of course, was cracking. We expect nothing less of Russell; he beavers away in his kitchen for our delight and delectation. This is Dong and Shazzerooneypoos tucking into their "Hog, Sage and Apple Pie" which they pronounced to be yummy.

It only remains for me to present this year's official Mrs The Millbrooker birthday portrait which, on this occasion, features the classic Millbrook pose.

How does that song go?

"Happier than pigs in muck,

living the Millbrook way,

up with the sun when the giro comes

then pissed for the rest of the day."

(Pete Staniforth - The Millbrook Song)

(any suggestion of inebriation on Mrs The MIllbrooker's

part is unintentional - she wouldn't have been safe driving, but otherwise remained

coherent and relatively sensible throughout. Just as well, there's always a me to look after.)

Amnesty International: A Message To Shell

I've not bought (Royal Dutch) Shell fuels for something like 15 years; since Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by his home nation with the tacit support of the stinking oil company (is there any other kind?).


The work that Saro-Wiwa carried out in organising non-violent direct action against the exploitation and despoilment of the lands around the Niger Delta by Shell and its Nigerian governmental cohorts was, sadly, not successful. This is well outlined in the Amnesty advertisement that Mrs The Millbrooker has just brought to my attention.

Please don't buy Shell products. No oil company is "clean", but Royal Dutch Shell is pure unadulterated filth which has stopped little short of assassination in search of its ill-gotten and obscenely huge profits.

*********

This brings me to a line of thought and as everyone is entitled to my opinion, I'll just ramble on a bit.


"So who can we buy fuel from?" will be the cry. "If they're all as bad as each other, what difference does it make?"


BP is certainly under a cloud at the moment; their deep-sea drilling operations are patently (and now demonstrably) unsafe. Esso (Exxon Mobil in the US) has long been the target of a boycott by campaigners) due to its governmental lobbying to limit research into climate change and to ensure that politicians do not act in any way that might affect its profits. Chevron-Texaco has made a huge environmental mess in Nigeria and in Ecuador and has been implicated in human rights abuses - this has also been ongoing for years.


Leaves us with a bit of a dilemma doesn't it? I don't have a complete answer - we are an oil dependent society, as is the US and just about all of the developed world; China is a huge consumer; the developing world is fast catching up in oil gluttony.


The only way to reign in the abuses by the oil companies and the governments that are supported and even maintained by them is stop using as much oil. And here we can all do our bit.


You already know what to do; why don't we give it a shot? Walk instead of driving if the journey's only a mile or two. Take the bus if you're going to Cremyll or Torpoint or Plymouth (I know that Millbrook isn't well served, but there are services and the more we use them the better the chance of getting an improvement). Use the trains for longer trips.


Turn the heating down a notch this autumn and winter; only heat the room you're actually using.


To quote a certain meerkat "simples".

A Present Through The Post

This afternoon a mysteriously large cardboard box was delivered to Millbrooker Towers by a man in a van. I was expecting it, but nonetheless it was very exciting.

The High Lord of Southwick in a minor fit of huge generosity decided that I needed a birthday-cum-thanks-for-hospitality present and had already checked out that this would be what I wanted.


A little bit of unwrapping later and the wondrous beast within the box was revealed.

Yes, indeed, 'tis a Washburn D10SB acoustic guitar.


I used to own a Washburn D10 many moons ago but wife-the-first put a hammer through it a short while after we stopped speaking to each other. Ah well, there's life for you.


Mrs The Millbrooker has kindly allowed me to make use of her rather smart and high quality Yamaha instrument (right below) for the last few years... 

...but I'm not allowed to take it out "on the road" with The Wreckers. Now I've got a big black one to plink outdoors with a bunch of anarcho-Morris dancers. Note new strap which refers to the standard of my playing rather than anything else.


I want to say a huge thank you to The High Lord of Southwick for his outstanding generosity. The guitar has a great, bright sound and is a delight to play with a lovely low action. It was just a semi-tone flat on delivery, so tuning was a very quick and easy job.


Thank you, High Lord.

Film Club To Reconvene

After a few weeks of inactivity Film Club can resume this coming Sunday.

Regulars might like to know that they had a lucky escape from the appallingly dire "Alice's Restaurant" which Mrs The Millbrooker and I watched last week.

This week's offering, which I hope will be significantly better is the 1972 comedy by Luis Bunuel "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"

Usual time, usual place - hope all the regulars can make it.

Wizzers Doesn't Live Here Anymore

It seems but the flicker of a eyelid ago that Mrs The Millbrooker and I helped Jah Cousteau in his move from Newquay. And here we were doing much the same parental service in Southampton for The Wizzers of Soz.


As the post title suggests - Wizzers no longer abides at Hill Lane in the city of Soz. In fact, for the next week she's effectively homeless until she (and a bunch of other degenerates) take on the lease of another shared house ready for the coming academic year.


Unlike our trip to the relatively nearby Newquay, this adventure began with a four hour crawl along the scenic routes through Dorset and, once in Southampton itself, food was the number one priority. Wizzers was due to sponsor lunch but her chosen venue had a private party booking so we ended up at The Giddy Bridge, a Wetherspoon's pub, where they do the all pervasive Wetherspoon's menu in Wetherspooon's style.


I actually quite like what Wetherspoon's does; it's relatively inexpensive, the ale is always well kept and you know what you're getting.


Here's Mrs The Millbrooker in the midst of choosing her smoked haddock and mozzarella fishcakes.

And here are yours truly and The Wizzers of Soz after the food had arrived.

Wizzers' old-boy Nigel arrived just as we polished off our puddings and then it was off to work, dismantling and packing at Wizzers' soon-to-be-erstwhile abode. 


Note the classic look student accommodation (although moderately tidier than her bro's former pad in Newquay). Also note the unusual addition for those of an impoverished student persuasion of decent quality furniture; The Wizzers of Soz has invested in some rather tasteful flat-pack stuff...

...which now needed to be taken apart. This was deemed to be Nigel's department of expertise.

My job was to try and load everything into or onto a small pink thing.

With the jobs nearly done after a couple of hours slog, it only remained to replace the original bedroom furniture that Wizzers had replaced with her own. So it was rescued from the garden shed and plopped back into its allotted spot.

And then, after a failed attempt to find a quiet cuppa in a nearby establishment overrun by celebrating England football supporters (the team had just qualified for the 2nd round of a football world cup that I'm told is taking place at the moment),...

...it was time to hit the road and trundle past one of the longest brick walls in all of England; that of the Drax Estate surrounding Charborough House. A brief piece of research leads me to learn that it has something over 2,000,000 bricks in it.

The wall is punctuated by the famed Stag Gate - the stag has five legs because in its original state when viewed from the house it looked as if it had only three. So another was added to correct this monstrous error of perspective which so offended the landed gentry (who, in this instance, made a vast pile from slave trading in the seventeenth century - citation BBC Dorset).

The estate is still privately owned by the improbably quadruple-barrelled Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax family and is currently occupied by Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (b1958) who is the Tory (oh, quelle surprise) MP for the area. The great unwashed are permitted into the grounds a couple of times a year, so I've read.


Right, enough of my ramblings - it's time to relieve the little pink car of its burden of belongings from The Wizzers of Soz.

Shysters, Thieves and the Government

It's been quite a while since I had a rant.

I feel one coming on, however, at the endless repetition of the big fat lie from the posh boys now running the country on behalf of the wealthy that "we're all in this together". Easy to say when you're one of the 18 (count 'em) millionaires in the cabinet.

In not quite so many words, we're getting "this is going to hurt me just as much as it's going to hurt you". Bollocks is it.

Seamus Milne (in this article) reminds us of a 1930s depression era cartoon "...four class stereotypes...on a ladder. A cloth capped unemployed man is standing at the bottom, up to his neck in water. "Equality of sacrifice - that's the big idea, friends!" says the silk-hatted figure at the top. "Let's all step down one rung.""

The outrageous porkie that this week's emergency budget was "fair" seems to be the mantra of the disgusting snout-in-trough Bullingdon boys and their little pet Liberal Democrats.

No, No, No - it's quite patently a genuine (and who's surprised?) and malicious attack on the ordinary working person and the lowest paid of our society.

The VAT increase will punish the lower paid far more than the wealthy if for no other reason than that a far bigger portion of our income has to be spent rather than invested or saved. Therefore we pay a higher proportion of our incomes as tax through this mightily unfair system which is loaded towards the "haves".

Why would the government do this? In the name of fairness? Perhaps there's a clue in the prime minister's and the chancellor's backgrounds. Here's Cameron amongst his caring-sharing Bullingdon Club bullies.

 Oh, and look, Osborne was counted among their number, too. (Number 1 in the photo below).

The fact that these are massively wealthy people is bound to affect their thinking when it comes to what is actually fair and what is not. VAT attracts the comment that "you have the choice about whether to spend your money or not" - yes, but only to a point. The wealthy have far more choices than those lower down the income scale.

This government has deliberately weighted policy towards their own kind.

Note also the £2billion levy on the banks and City - the very organisations that actually caused the financial mire that the government is enjoying so much. £2billion is petty cash in the city. The £20billion estimate of revenue from the VAT increase should have been more justly and far more affordably been raised from a transaction tax on financial institutions. They (and their customers) can afford it; ordinary working people cannot. But, of course, the financial institutions are best buddies with this bunch of multi-millionaires who pretend to have the public's interests at heart - heaven forefend that anyone rich enough to afford it should pay.

I also note, from today's news, that the state pension age is to rise to 66 for men from 2016. This is personal - I've worked and paid into the social contract since the age of 17. That contract said that I get my state pension at 65. Changing the terms is nothing short of theft. (Note the change of terms is coming from people who simply have no need of a state pension as they have massive personal wealth already). If the pension age has to rise it should only rise for those not yet paying in - otherwise the state has broken its contract with the people.

Of course I understand that the demographics have and are changing rapidly; that a smaller working population is having and will have to support a larger retired one. This does not change the fact that someone (the government over many years and of whatever hue) has had my (and your) money under false pretences. Liars, cheats and thieves the lot of them.

The only answer is to increase taxation on the wealthiest - a national maximum wage of no greater than 20 times the national average (that would make it in excess of £400,000 a year) with 100% taxation on anything over that and a graduated higher rate band of 60-80% on incomes over £50,000 should go some way to helping out.

Now that would be "fair". That would go a little way towards me believing that "we're all in this together".

**********

The full list of who's who in the photos of the Bullingdon Club can be found here.

The cartoon of George Osborne is by the great Steve Bell of The Guardian.

Newquay Manoeuvres

Mrs The Millbrooker and I found ourselves on helping-to-move-out duties on Friday of last week. This involved a trip up to Newquay (AKA "that stinking pit") in north Cornwall.

Yes, indeed, Jah Cousteau has completed his studies in said stinking pit and, as is the wont of most student types, done the "please help me, mummy" act to coerce us into bundling his worldly goods into the back of the little pink Millbrooker Machine for storage at Millbrooker Towers whilst he goes swanning off to The Seychelles for for the next three months; he calls it "work".

Needless to say, on arrival, the packing was only just getting underway in the well kempt and very tidy lodgings of Mr Cousteau.

Never mind, help was at hand, and Mrs The Millbrooker waded into the fray.

Because I'm essentially one handed (my right usually being employed with a white cane) I got to be guarding the car monitor as Jah and his mama trotted up and down the stairs of his erstwhile abode laden with the detritus of student life.

I spent a contented hour or so enjoying the sunshine and arranging stuffed bin bags in the back end of the automobile. My relative lack of activity meant that I had ample time to notice things like Jah's house being on the Newquay Tourist Train route. Classy town, Newquay.

Once the little car was stuffed to the gills with Monsieur Cousteau's treasured possessions, we repaired to an eatery of his acquaintance for a double birthday lunch. His treat. The day fell quite neatly between my birthday and Mrs The  Millbrooker's and Jah was paying - a first in my experience.

We ate at Cafe Irie, a bit of a bohemian-cum-studenty place which Mrs The Millbrooker and I both loved. Here's a selection of shots, I won't drivel on about the food / ambience etc. Chances are we'll never go there again because it's in Newquay; but if we were in the unfortunate position of finding ourselves in the holiday destination of choice for chavs-from-hell and surf bums, we'd probably seek it out as a little haven from the mayhem.

A thank you to J.C. for sponsoring the yummy grub and smoothies (you know, I'd never actually had a smoothie before).

A Day In Huelgoat

Ha! Fooled you.


Yes, I'm afraid that this is "What I Did On My Holidays Part IV".


It'll be short one, honest.


'Twas our last full day and the idea was to have a slap up in Collorec where we've shared some memorable meals.


After a thirty minute drive, we arrived in Collorec to find the wonderful restaurant closed on a permanent basis. It's a business opportunity for anyone thinking of starting a new life as a lunchtime restaurateur in Brittany.


So we drove on and luncheoned in Huelgoat which was our intended post-prandial destination. We dined in La Chouette Bleue to be precise. For anyone unsure of the meaning of "Chouette Bleue" - check out the big blue thing behind Shazzerooneypoos' head, it should give a clue.

Suitably stuffed to the gills with enormous starters, roasted ham on the bone mains and mousse au chocolat puds (not to mention a dribble or two of wine), we sauntered off toward Huelgoat's main attraction - the tumbling boulder formations and enchanted forest only a few hundred metres from the town centre. Here's The High Lord of Southwick forming the vanguard through the boulder-strewn pathway.

The High Lord, being a Huelgoat virgin, was obliged to lead the way down into La Grotte du Diable (The Devil's Cave)...

...but the rest of us joined him soon enough.

After that, as is the tradition, it was also his duty to make at least a token effort to move La Roche Tremblante. The giant boulder is purported to rock if you can prod / push/ lean on the right spot. In the eight or so years that we've been going to Huelgoat, none of us has ever seen it so much as tremble; optimism reigns supreme, however, and everyone has to give it at least a try.





A gentle potter down the banks of the Silver River and thence back into the forest led us to La Mare aux Sangliers where the opportunities for white cane adventuring (or stupidity) are legion.

The mildly hazardous clambering did allow a shot of those less intrepid (for which read "infinitely more sensible") souls who remained on the bridge side of the pool.

Despite the serried ranks of cameras aimed to get a shot of me missing my footing and inflicting lots of wet and damage on myself during the death-defying leap of the return journey across the boulders, no one managed to catch the triumphant gazelle-like crossing of the void.

A slightly longer than anticipated pootle through the forest up to the Camp d'Artus (a fortified Gaulish settlement from the days of the Roman occupation) saw us lose Dong to a different (and quicker) route to the nearest bar. Dong's absence notwithstanding, we took a peek at the ancient encampment; part of the settlement's defences are formed from naturally occurring boulders. Shazzerooneypoos did some exploring...

Like every good day of holidaying, we ended up in a bar. In this instance, the one right next to La Roche Tremblante; one of Dong's favourite spots.