No-one said it would be easy

But why oh why does life have to be so damned complicated at times?

I seem to have acquired three particular jobs - or at least become involved in them - in connection with the Lions Housing Society that are, each of them, proving more and more complex, far more so than I would have ever dreamed possible. Take the first of them, for instance. Granted, I took this one on myself so I have no right to complain - not that it does me any good moaning about it anyway. This seemed at first a simple enough matter. The rules, or constitution, of the Society needed to be amended. In fact, we (that is, the management committee) had been acting for many years in contravention of at least two of the rules. One of them was that the Society could borrow a maximum of £6,000. Given that only a few years after the Society was founded it borrowed £50,000 - this was back in 1970 or thereabouts - you will appreciate that this rule has been ignored for many years. There was a time when the borrowing reached close to £3 million, and there is still over £1 million outstanding!

So, I checked through the rules completely and found several that really needed updating. I drafted what I thought would be acceptable alternatives and even thought to send them to the Society's solicitor to make sure they were satisfactory. Yes, he said, they were. But . . .

That's was when he told me about all the red tape to be fought through and the hoops to be jumped. We had to hold a special general meeting of shareholders to approve the changes. Simple enough. Having done that, we need to get clearance from the Financial Conduct Authority before the changes can be brought into effect. This involves printing out several copies of the proposed new rules, each having to be signed by three members of the Society and the secretary, and so on and so on. But thank goodness for the solicitor, who will do most of he work - for a fee.

Then we have been trying to negotiate with the Council to buy the freehold of a piece of land we currently rent from it. We have built two blocks of flats on the land and at the end of the lease, the land and all that stands thereon will revert to the Council. It took us rather more than two years to fix a meeting with the appropriate council official. Then he left and his successor denied that it was his responsibility. Then he left as well. His successor at first denied responsibility but then agreed that it was his baby after all. He arranged for a valuation to be undertaken, but we heard no more until, about a year later, we finally managed to get a response, only to be told that as we had not commented on the valuation (which we had not been informed of) they assumed we had pulled out. This seems to have landed in my lap now as well.

On top of that, I had a call yesterday from a local estate agent about another piece of land we have been trying to buy for two or three years. The current owner has obtained planning permission for five houses with the rest of the land to be leased to the Council for use as allotments. We have been trying to meet the appropriate Council officials to discuss obtaining permission for a block of flats and altering the way in which the land is to be split between buildings and allotments by swinging the whole thing through 90 degrees. We only have until the end of the year to get this change agreed (for some planning reason I don't understand) but the council officials are playing hard to get. Now I am told that the mortgagee has appointed a receiver and the sale is being put to tender, tenders to be submitted within just over two weeks. The successful bidder will be liable to pay the Council nearly £70,000 on top of the purchase price and will also have to hand over the allotment land set up and ready to go. I have a feeling we shall be pulling out of this one.

Oh well. A friend is taking the Old Bat and me out to lunch so I will be able to let it all go for a couple of hours.

They got it right

The weather forecasters, I mean.  They told us that we would have rain yesterday morning - and we did.  They also said it would stop about midday - and it did.  So, once again Brighton Lions Club held their annual fireworks display.  I have been involved with the Lions since 1986 and there has been only one year since then when we have had to cancel our fireworks display because of the rain.  Given that we are in England and that Guy Fawkes Day (or Bonfire Night) is in November, one of our wettest months, that is quite some record.

Tony (a fellow Lion) and I were at the ground and set up to sell tickets by 3.30 and we had barely a few minutes between then and very nearly 8.00pm when we sat and twiddled our thumbs.  From 6.00pm, when the gates opened, until 7.30, when the display started, there was no let up.  I am told that total ticket sales yesterday were just over £30,000 - and there are the advance sales to add to that.  I calculate that people came into the ground at the rate of about 100 a minute.

It was good to find this tweet from a spectator:
Fireworks not normally my thing.. But tonight's was actually quality. Good work @BrightonLion followed up by: completely agree!

Yes, we are on Twitter - not that we know how to use it!

I have also hand-delivered to old folk 70+ invitations to the Lions pre-Christmas party and just hope we don't get too many acceptances.  The room the hotel lends us can't cope with more than about 50 people - fewer if their are several wheelchairs.

Remember, remember

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

I doubt there is a person in the land above the age of about four who does not know that 5th November is Bonfire Night, otherwise known as Guy Fawkes Day.  This is the day when bonfires are lit, effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned and fireworks light up the evening sky.

As the Gunpowder Plot Society tells us,

"On November 5, 1605, a solitary figure is arrested in the cellars of Parliament House. Although he first gives his name as John Johnson, a startling series of events begins to unfold under torture. Guy Fawkes, as he is really called, is one of thirteen who have conspired to blow up the parliament, the King, and his Lords, thereby throwing the whole country into turmoil, out of which these traitors hoped to raise a new monarch who was sympathetic to their cause, and return England to its Catholic past."

So religious fighting is nothing new.

The sale of fireworks is strictly regulated these days but it was not always so.  I well recall that as Bonfire Night approached each year, my brother and I would visit the local stationer's shop.  As well as stationery, books and a few toys, this shop was the local supplier of fireworks during October each year.  These magical incendiary devices were stored in a glass-fronted, glass-topped counter and my brother and I, with our pocket money either clutched in our hands or lying red-hot in the pockets of our trousers, would spend an age deciding just which ones to buy.  There were none of the large fireworks we see in supermarkets these days.  Rockets shot into the sky on sticks about a foot long, if that, and the ground-based fireworks would generally stand only two or three inches tall.  What should we buy next?  The Emerald Fire, perhaps?  Or a couple of bangers?  The thing with bangers was that they just blew up, usually with a disappointingly quiet "bang", whereas the "pretty" fireworks could generally be trusted to burn for a minute or two.  Catherine wheels were pretty much always a calamity, possibly because my father never fastened them to a post so that they would spin as they were meant to do.  Jumping crackers were another type that we learned not to bother with; they had a hrrible habit of going under plants in the garden and staying there.

It's many years now since we had fireworks in the garden and I am always involved with the Lions fireworks display.  We don't have a bonfire - that would be most unpopular with the cricket club whose ground we use - but we do have some pretty spectacular fireworks with plenty of bangs and stars.  Here's a promotional video we put together.

Fingers crossed

I wonder what is happening here. Firefox kept crashing on me so I - rather reluctantly - switched to IE. I opened up a new blog and typed in the title - above. And that was it. A message appeared at the foot of the screen informing me "error on page". No way could I start typing anything on the "compose" screen. I tried refreshing, reloading and everthing I could think of to absolutely no avail. Then I switched to the HTML screen. I am still getting the "error on screen" message but at least I can type something!

I wonder. Perhaps that message is a not-so-subtle hint that what I am typing is a right load of codswallop. Well, I know it is, you might very well think it is, but how the heckythump can a computer know it is? Are we really being taken over by heartless technological wizardry? I don't really think matters have quite reached that stage, although given the driverless cars that are being tested, maybe we are not so very far off. What a scary thought!

Anyway, the next couple of days are going to be pretty busy. Today, a trip to see the quack. I rather expect he will prescribe a course of steroids to put down what I have self-diagnosed as the aspergyllosis thingy playing up. I certainly hope he will so that I can move about at a normal speed without bursting into a fit of coughing! Then this afternoon I hope to deliver the invitations to senior citizens to attend the pre-Christmas party being organised by Brighton Lions. I know it sounds horribly early but they need a bit of time to reply and we need to know numbers so that if we are short of attendees we still have time to find more (if you follow my drift).

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY. I expect I will need to fit in a supermarket run with the Old Bat but not long after lunch I will have to make my way to the county cricket ground where Brighton Lions are staging the county's biggest and best fireworks display. So it's fingers crossed for the weather as this is our big fund-raiser and we have already spent £12,000 or so on the fireworks!

~~~~~

I have trawled though the photographic archives and found this scene.  The picture was taken back in November 2010 and is the view from Balmer Down looking to the south-east.  The chalk cliff is Seaford Head and that is indeed the sea in the distance - the English Channel.

In a jam

I really didn't pay much attention to an announcement made this week by Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, that the minimum sugar content of jam is to be reduced from 60% to 50%.  I most assuredly did not expect the announcement to cause such a furore, with MPs demanding a debate and letters being sent to the papers from people such as Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

Actually, I have never to my knowledge seen a letter purporting to be from Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.  That pseudonym is a complete fabrication indicating that Colonel Blimp-like reactionary people inhabit the genteel spa town in Kent.  In fact, Tunbridge Wells is - or was, I haven't been there for donkeys' years - a rather pleasant town.

But to get back to the jam.

By the way, it was reported earlier this year that the Queen is rather partial to the strawberry jam made by the Duchess of Cambridge.  Not that the fact has any bearing on what I am supposed to be burbling about, but at least it's about jam.

As I said, the minimum sugar content is to be reduced from 60% to 50%.  One Honourable Member (as MPs call each other) declared that because of this, British jam could become no better than coloured mud.  Apparently, the change is to bring this country into line with other European countries and thereby make it easier for British manufacturers to export their jam.

Since all the jam eaten in this house is made by herself, the change will have absolutely no effect on me or my standard of living.  It will not cause the demise of the British breakfast (another of the fatuous claims made this week) in this house as we don't eat toast and marmalade.  Indeed, I really do not understand (a) why the change in sugar content is being decreed, and (b) why people are getting in such a fuss about it.

It seems to me that if British manufacturers feel that it would be an advantage to produce jam at the lower sugar content and do so for export only, that would solve the problem.  In any case, the change simply reduces the minimum permissible sugar content.  That does not mean that manufacturers will be obliged to reduce the sugar content in their jam.  Should they do so, and the reduction mean that people buy other makes in which the sugar content has not been reduced, then market forces will dictate the reactions of the manufacturers.

And it struck me that I had always believed jam is made with equal amounts of fruit and sugar, ie a 50% sugar content.  Now I do not claim any prowess in the cuisinery department, haute or otherwise; I am quite possibly the only person living who could burn a boiled egg.  But, i also understood that it was pectin, not sugar, that caused jam to set.  So why are people claiming that we will be sold gloop?  I checked my facts with the fount of all knowledge.  No, not Wikiwotsit.  The Old Bat.  At least she knows about cooking.  She told me that for many years she has made jam with less than 50% sugar content.  Less than!  And her jam is not mud-coloured sludge, nor is it a gloopy mess, it tastes fine, and it keeps well enough.

What is the problem, other than the Nanny State dictating to us the proportions of the ingredients in jam?  That I could do without.

~~~~~

This being the first Sunday in November, we will be treated to a fine display of "old crocks" being driven from London to Brighton today.

The first Sunday in November each year sees the re-enactment of the Emancipation Run from London to Brighton which celebrated the passing into law of the "Locomotives on the Highway Act".  This raised the speed limit for 'light locomotives' from 4 miles per hour to 14 mph, although this was reduced to 12 mph before the act come into force. The act abolished the requirement for the car to be preceded by a man on foot.

The Brighton Run has been reported to be the longest running car event in the world and ranks as one of Britain's biggest motoring spectacles. It attracts entrants from around the world, all eager to take part. The event is not a race. The cars are limited to an average speed of 20 mph and the only reward for a successful run is a Bronze Medal (awarded to all who reach Brighton before 16.30).  Only cars built before 1 January 1905 are eligible to take part.

Here's one of the cars due to start.  It's a Peugeot from 1898 with 2 cylinders producing 6 horsepower.

Not my pic.

Sarajevo - again!

It's the stream of consciousness thing or something like it that causes me to think further about that Balkan city.  Or perhaps not so much about the city itself, but something that sprang from an event which occurred there a little more than 99 years ago.  The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28th June 1914 was the spark that ignited Europe and led to what is or has been known variously as the Great War, the War to End Wars and the First World War.  With next year marking the centenary of the outbreak of that war, there has been a resurgence of interest which, doubtless, will redouble as the date of the anniversary approaches.  Already, one of our national newspapers has started printing supplements about the 1914-18 war, publishing one on the first weekend of each month.  There has also been a rather low-key campaign to clean and tidy up war memorials across the country - and to replace metal panels listing casualties that have been stolen from memorials and sold as scrap.

People do seem to have more interest in history generally than they did only a few years ago.  As well as the almost never-ending cookery programmes on television, Who Do You Think You Are? seems to be very popular.  This is a programme in which the familial roots are explored of one "celebratory" for each hour-long programme.  I suppose many of the viewers - probably most of them, in fact - are those people for whom the lives and doings of "celebs" are important.  All the same, there has been an increase in the number of people delving into the past, whether that be a matter of tracing their family tree or the history of the town or village where they live.

What I find surprising - a more than slightly alarming - is how close some of those historical events seem.  For example, it really doesn't seem as though the First World War was a century ago.  We were watching a (fictitious) television programme the other evening which was about a feud between two families in a small village.  The feud arose from the fact that a member of one family had been charged of cowardice in the face of the enemy and sentenced to death.  A member of the second family, in charge of the firing squad, had been obliged to administer the coup de grace.  This was shown as a flashback and aroused great indignation from the Old Bat about inhumane treatment, until I pointed out that it had happened nearly a hundred years ago and that people's attitude to these things had changed somewhat in the meantime.

I suppose, now I come to think about it, the past is not so very far away from us.  After all, I clearly remember my grandfathers.  One worked in dockyards during the Great War while the other served in the Royal Navy - aboard those primitive submarines.  Perhaps it's not so surprising really.

Off at a tangent - to Sarajevo

Yes, Sarajevo, the city in what was once Serbia and, later, Yugoslavia and now, Bosnia Herzegovina.  I mentioned it in passing a couple of days ago as the city that hosted the 1984 winter Olympics.  I went there once.  In fact, I went there twice, although it might be rather more accurate not to say that I went there but that I drove through there.  Sarajevo was on the route to Visegrad and my destination was a refugee centre near the latter town.

It was shortly after the break-up of Yugoslavia and the dreadful war that had broken out between what is now Croatia and its neighbour, Bosnia.  The Lions Club of south-east England collected hundreds of shoe boxes filled with little gifts such as toothpaste, soap, pencils and paper and all manner of things to be donated to refugees made homeless by the war.  We borrowed a couple of lorries and a party of seven of us, with the two lorries and a camper van, drove to Bosnia to deliver the goods.

I think that just about everything that could have gone wrong on that journey, did so.  The fresh water tank on the camper van was accidentally filled with petrol; three different drivers (one in each vehicle) were involved in accidents - none of them serious and nobody was hurt but one driver ended up in court in Slovenia.  Plus a seemingly endless list of lesser irritants.  We did reach the refugee centre and were made very welcome.  Being unable to unload all the goods that first day, we were directed to what was described as the best hotel in the area, one which had been built especially for those winter Olympics, but it turned out to be more of a psychiatric hospital than a hotel!

This was more or less our first view of the refugees' living arrangements:

 And we did wonder if this still, producing slimovich, would be the destination of the bottles of water that had been donated by (I think) Gatwick Airport.