Upon Westminster Bridge

I must start today by apologising, apologising to all those good folks who have arrived here at my blog as a result of them searching using the phrase "Upon Westminster Bridge".  They may very well complain that they have been brought (or directed) here under false pretences as they were looking for deep, meaningful insights into Wordsworth's sonnet - or maybe the actual words of that sonnet which starts:
Earth hath not anything to show more fair.
Dull would he be of soul etc etc.

As I say, I apologise.  You see, I am conducting a small experiment.  About a week ago I wrote a piece which carried the title "Ode to Autumn" and you could have knocked me down with the skin of a rice pudding when I saw how many times that page had been visited.  It occurred to me that Wordsworth might possibly have the same sort of drawing power as Keats.  So I thought I would try it.

Anyway, now you're here why not stay for a chat?  I would happily offer you a cup of tea or coffee but those fibre optic thingies have yet to be developed sufficiently for one to pass a beverage between computers.  I say "chat" although I am well aware that the blogosphere allows chats only by way of commenting on people's posts.  That is not something I do very often, usually because someone else has got there before me and said what I would have said only better!  It might make me seem rather rude, ear-wigging on other folk's conversations the way one listens in to the people on the next table in a restaurant.

Talking of being rude reminds me.  Some guy put the phone down on me the other day, saying he had better things to do than to talk to somebody as rude as me.  It had started as one of those terribly annoying phone calls that went like this:

Me: "123456" (our phone number)
Him: "Good morning.  Is that Mr Pensioner?"
Me (cautiously): "Ye-es?" in that querying way in which one can inflect a single word.
Him: "I'm Reg Somebody from Havenu Window Company.  How are you today?" (as if we had been talking the day before and I had told him I was feeling off colour)

By now I suspected that this was one of those cold calls disguised as market research to get round the fact that I have signed up to the telephone preference service in order to stop cold sales calls.

Me (attempting to sound puzzled): "Why do you ask?  What is it to you?"
Him: "I'm being polite."
Me (starting to get irritated): "But what is it to you?"
Him: "Like I say, I'm being polite.  But if you would rather I didn't ask. . .?"
Me: "Yes, I would prefer it."

And that is when he told me he didn't want to talk and put the phone down.  Which saved me having to choose between listening to him wittering on or being rude and telling him to go away.  Which just goes to prove that my old granny was right when she told me that honesty is the best policy.

~~~~~

I have not been taking photographs much of late so what I post will come out of the archives.


Brighton is a town (I'm talking here about Brighton itself, not the city of Brighton and Hove) which seems to have a thing about clock towers.  I can't recall there being a single church with a clock on the tower, but free-standing clock towers abound.  There is THE clock tower, which stands at a busy crossroads in the centre of town.  It was built in 1888 to commemorate Queen Victoria's golden jubilee and the golden ball on the mast rose and fell under hydraulic power every hour, until it was discontinued because of the excessive noise!

Having got this far, I have searched my files and found that the only picture I have of the Clock Tower is too poor to post here, so I will use this one from Wikimedia by someone calling himself (or herself) The Voice of Hassocks.

I started today's post with an apology - and now I'm ending with another!