Punch & Judy

I have spent a considerable time over this last week trying to book a Punch & Judy show for the 'Lilac Lark' that Brighton Lions are organising in conjunction with the Friends of Withdean Park.  My first choice was a professor (which is what P & J operators are called) whom Brighton Lions have used in the past.  He is flying out to South Africa that evening but he promised to check his flight time to see if he could fit in one show early in the afternoon.  But it was not to be: he has to be at Heathrow Airport at 4.00pm, which means leaving Brighton at 2.30 at the latest.  A search on the interthingy showed just one other Brighton-based professor - but he turned out to be dead (so that was a dead end).  When I finally managed to track down three others just along the coast at Worthing, I learned that 9 May - the date of the Lilac Lark - is Mr Punch's birthday.  It seems this was the day in 1600 and something that Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that he saw the show for the first time, and this is the earliest record of the show.  So on 9 May each year, professors gather in Covent Garden, London, to celebrate the anniversary and, it goes without saying, all those I have managed to contact will be there.  So no P&J at the Lilac Lark.

One of the professors I spoke to had, by coincidence, performed for councillors and council officials in Brighton that very day as he was hoping to obtain a license to perform on Brighton sea front.  He said that the reception he received was 'hostile' and the show was frowned upon because Mr Punch hits Judy and mistreats the baby so the officials thought it unsuitable for children.  What nonsense!  Every child who sees the show realises that what Punch does is unacceptable - and this show is an English tradition dating back almost 350 years to our knowledge.  It just goes to confirm what I said yesterday: the lunatics are running the asylum.

Looking back

Skip mentioned on his blog today that he had looked back to see what he was doing this time last year.  I have just copied him, and glancing through a number of postings for March 2009 I see that we had daffodils in bloom in our garden before the end of February.  This year they are still at least a week or ten days away from coming into bloom after the worst winter for 30 years.

Privacy

So it has finally arrived.  Brighton, and presumably much of the UK, can now be seen on Google's Street View.  When it was announced last year that Google intended publishing Street View pictures of England, there was something of an outcry from people who claimed that their privacy would be invaded.  But how can anyone's privacy be invaded when all Google do is publish pictures that are taken from the street?  Anybody driving or walking along the street can see as much as, and often more than, can be seen on Street View.  And from the top deck of a bus the view is even better.  Far more invasive of privacy are the aerial views published by MultiMap, but nobody seems to have been bothered by them.

My personal view is that those people who kicked up such a fuss could have found far more important things to rant about.  I wonder if they realised that we in England are the most spied-upon people in the world?  Go into the centre of any town and you will see CCTV cameras bristling from every building and many street corners.  This, it is claimed, is to combat crime, but I suspect that all it does is push criminals into performing their nefarious deeds either in a place that has no coverage from a camera (in which case I suppose it could be claimed that the cameras have worked, albeit that would be a somewhat dubious claim) or in full view of one or more cameras in the confidence that they would not be identifiable from the film - or that they just couldn't care less.  While I don't much like the idea of Big Brother watching over me, I can just about put up with all those CCTV cameras.  The use of anti-terrorist legislation to prevent people taking photographs in public places is something else.  OK, in most cases this has been down to over-zealous police officers, but I would have thought the one who tried to stop somebody photographing Christmas illuminations should have had more sense.  Since when are terrorists interested in a few coloured light bulbs strung across a street?  We are also told that taking a photograph of a police officer - or even a photograph of a scene with a police officer in it - could be construed as an offence.

It seems to me we are in the classic situation where the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

A knotty problem

To continue with the agricultural theme (well, almost).  There is something of a horticultural problem abroad, only it's not abroad, it's right here in England.  Way back in the early 19th century, an English traveller in Japan was very taken with a plant going by the name of fallopia japonica.  So taken was he that he introduced the plant to England.  His fellow Victorians also took a liking to it, with the result that it is now recognised as the most invasive weed in England and almost impossible to kill, certainly for the amateur gardener.  This plant - Japanese knotweed - grows to a height of 13 feet and can split, and therefore grow through, concrete.  So destructive is it that I understand building regulations require developers to eradicate it before they can start construction.  Not that they always do.  I believe Cornwall may be a "hot spot" and certainly the plant exists on the opposite side of the lane my brother lives in down in the far west.  Despite its existence, a developer has built several houses on the land.  But that is by the bye.

We are now given the good news that a solution has been found.  The trouble is that it involves introducing another species alien to our shores - a 2mm long bug, Aphalara itadori, which breeds and feeds only on Japanese knotweed.  The "experts" say they have carried out experiments and found that it will not eat 90 other species of plant.  But what if it can't find knotweed and takes to eating, say, potatoes or beech trees?

That's the problem with introducing alien species: you never know just what will happen.  Some of our waterways are over-run with mink after several animals escaped from farms and they have devastated the indiginous wild life.  Parts of south London are infested with parakeets, again, following escapes.  On the other hand, one of England's most succssful trees was introduced from somewhere in Asia (I forget just where) and the apple is now considered as English as, well, chicken korma.

Book reviews

My regular reader (yes, I do have one) might have noticed that quite a few days have passed since I posted my last book review.  I have been reading - at the moment I am half way through The War for All the Oceans - but I seem to have had less time free to read over the last week or so.  I can't think just why that should be so as I don't think I am doing anything extra to what I was doing, say, the week before last.  In fact, there are still a lot of things that I haven't found time for, like pruning that is needed in the garden and clearing away stuff that I have already pruned.  Never mind, we shall be off to France on Friday week and that means I should get a fair bit of reading done.

Glancing back over that paragraph reminds me of another Grrr! point: people saying "less" when they should say "fewer".

I'm writing this late at night and will try to schedule the post to appear tomorrow morning.  Quite a few times recently I have noticed that Blogger doesn't like doing that and merely saves the proposed posting as a draft.  We shall see.

Detroit

Memories came flooding back when I saw this picture of Detroit in yesterday's paper.

I mentioned to the Old Bat that I remembered walking down that very street back in 2004.

'Did it look like that then?' she asked.

I assured her that it did, although here were (and presumably still are) more attractive aspects to the city, like this:

If it aint broke...

A maxim by which I try to live.  There seems to me little point in spending precious time endlessly adjusting something which is running perfectly well, but just occasionally I do like to tweek things here and there.  The latest case in point is the web site for Brighton Lions Club.  Having been not quite dragooned into taking over the District 105SE site, I have spent several hours producing what will, I hope, eventually be a better site and one around which it is easier to navigate with every page being no more than two clicks away from the start.  The ideal, of course, would be to have everything no more than one click away from the home page, but I don't think that is feasible with the District site as there is just too much to be included.  The club site, however, is a different kettle of fish.  I used to have a search facility on the site, but all the search scripts I have found rely on an external site sending a robot spider to index the site.  The hosting server no longer allows robots to do that so I removed the facility and merely expanded the directory menu.  That, I thought, makes the site look rather cluttered and I thought it would be better with a more open appearance.  So I have redesigned it with a cascading menu across the top.  All the pages of the site are now accessible from the home page with a single click and links to other sites require no more than two clicks.  Added to which, I think the whole site looks cleaner and clearer.  I hope people agree with me.  The site is at Brighton Lions Club if you would like to see it.