Ilkley's Olympic Torch Relay

Work was closed due to flooding so went uptown to watch the Olympic torch being carried through Ilkley. 3/4 hour before the torch is due and people are gathering in some numbers.

It won't be often that the police get a huge cheer just for turning up.

People getting high 5's from the bike cops.

Drink Pepsi, or neither, Scroobius Pip teaches "Don't buy Coca-Cola products, don't buy Nestle products."

Pretty girls, no other reason.

The main Olympic sponsor is of course Jim Robinson Decorators, here is Jim's van in the middle of the Olympic convoy.  You can call him for a quote you know. Still, I think he should have made more of an effort, even one of those plastic torches on the ladder would have made all the difference.

Huzzah! Hooray! Here is the torch.

Followed by a few minutes of friendly anarchy as people wander around on the road.

English Summer Rain

Well this is thoroughly depressing. We are supposed to be hosting Men's Invitation Day today here at Ilkley Golf Club, but due to two days of very heavy rain the course is heavily flooded and it is still raining.  The time sheet was full today with around 140 golfers signed up to play, plus we have two events scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday) and on Monday we are supposed to be hosting an England Golf Captains event for 100. It isn't looking good at the moment.

Yesterday's service was rather chaotic due to the torrential rain interrupting the two visiting parties we had booked in.  Congratulations are due to the gentlemen of Headingley Golf Club and the Spreadeagle Golf Society who braved the conditions to play 18 holes in a constant, wind lashed downpour.

Thanks also to my staff for the day, Rob, Ellie, Callum, Fred and Laura who were all great and responded to our calls for rapidly changing shifts as events changed through the course of the day.

Due to insomnia I've been up since 4.30am, and the river hasn't dropped at all in that time.  Looking out from the clubhouse I can see that large areas of the 1st, 2nd and 18th holes are flooded, and of course this means that the lower lying areas of the course will be a lake this morning.

It looks like a homework day then, I may as well take advantage of the sudden lull to catch up on my A151 work.  Target for the day then; finish the chapter on the history of books, make a start on the history of museums and collections chapter, and then read the rest of the essay Metaphor, Materiality and Interpretation: The Metaphorical Tranformations of Wala Island Canoes, gripping stuff I assure you.

A Suggestion

Pretty much every week I get advertising fliers and letters from various food companies that promise better prices, better products and of of course the current most favoured buzz word of the ad-man, solutions, solutions, solutions.  Well here is a solution I would actually like.

Next week we have a double bank holiday.  Bank holidays are times when many catering businesses and quite busy, Christmas, New Year, May Day, and of course this bank holiday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  All of the food companies, who spend so much time and effort trying to persuade the catering industry how wonderful they are, will be closed for the bank holidays.  This means that we have to take our deliveries for fresh food for Monday and Tuesday (and perhaps Wednesday if it is food for breakfast/lunch service) on Saturday, or even Friday if it is one of those 'solution' based companies whose solution is not to work on a weekend.

My solution then is for the food supply industry to be more flexible, get their arses into gear and deliver food when we actually need it.  It isn't just a question of freshness, although I gather some butchers are warning customers not to order fresh chicken products as they would fall outside the 5 day safety margin. It is often a question of refrigerated storage, many catering businesses simply do not have enough cold space to carry goods for a busy 4-5 day period.

I'm going to give Lishman's of Ilkley a plug here.  Lishman's will be open on Tuesday, which is vital to me as I have a large order placed with them, which I could not possibly carry in my cold storage over the weekend. So thanks to David for opening, and thanks to Stuart and the team who will be making hundreds of burgers and sausages for me on Tuesday morning, I appreciate the effort, thank you.

Booths, They Understand Correct Grammar

I thought this might amuse the grammar pedants, most supermarkets have the "10 items or less" sign.  Not my pic though, it comes via @campusprjo on Twitter.

Changing The Guard

It's that time of year again when we'e taking on new staff in anticipation of a busy summer season.  It looks like we will be changing the entire part time brigade this summer. Fred will be leaving for a full time job, while Laura, Ellie, Maddie and Rachel will all be heading off to university.

As I have done for a few years now I advertised on Facebook, which got a dozen responses plus one person reported me to the Facebook cops for friend requesting them.  I whittled out four of the initial twelve before interview, including nearly all the boys who really need to learn that as informal as Facebook is, when you are talking to a prospective employer calling him "mate" and "pal" is not the way to go.

This week then I have conducted eight interviews and now I'm in a real quandary. Sometimes the interviews throw up a one or two outstanding candidates who obviously stand head and shoulders above the rest of the group.  Last year I thought Maddy fitted this description and she has proved to be a charming addition to the team.  This year I would happily employ 7 from the 8 interviewees, it is going to be really tough to winnow the field down to the two we want to take on at this time.

Also this year at interview I asked some slightly oddball questions in order to make the candidates chat a bit, getting them to explain the LBW rule in cricket was fun, Having them sell their favourite band to me was even more so and provided some eloquent and spirited defences of an assortment of acts from Coldplay to N-Dubz.

I also asked that if a deity could grant you a personal superpower and then change one thing about the world what would they choose.  This brought some lovely responses along the lines of eradicating poverty and halting all wars, and then some unintentional hilarity when one person said they'd like to have all the countries closer together.  That's nice, I thought, bringing down boundaries and making us all better neighbours.  Not for that reason though said the candidate, it's just that Australia is such an awfully long way away and if it was closer it would be cheaper to travel to.

One candidate giggled, perhaps through nerves, all the way though the interview, but her laugh was so infectious she had me laughing with her by the end. Another almost reduced me to tears with a heartfelt deity request that was so unexpected honest that it stopped me in my tracks for a moment.

I have high hopes ten for this year's intake.  Two young people will be offered a job today, and most of the rest will be given first choice if they are still available later in the summer.  I know it won't be any consolation for those that don't get a place, but if I had enough employment to offer, I'd take them all on.

Stupid Ilkley People

I had gone to Golden Butts Recycling centre, my car filled with half a dozen bin bags of cans and plastic bottles and as I was unloading my car a black 4WD pulls up and a lady gets out with a carrier bag.  The lady stopped to read the instructions on the side of the plastics container, which clearly states "No yoghurt pots" and then proceeded to  post dozens of yoghurt pots into the skip. Stupid.

Just as stupid is the lady I once saw there pulling up in her Toyota Landcruiser Planetdestroyer, who then got a single empty bottle of Ty Nant from the boot to recycle.  1 trip to recycling centre in giant petrol guzzling 4WD to recycle a single bottle = stupid.

While I am having a general rant about the people who live in my town, how about Mums driving their children to school.  I often hear people say that the roads are far busier than they used to be and that consequently it isn't as safe as it used to be for children to walk to school.  Well, if you stand at the Dalesway traffic lights in a morning as all the Ilkley kids are being driven to school you will be able to see for yourself why the roads are so dangerous - it's Ilkley Mums talking on their hand held mobile phones while driving through town with a car load of kids.  Seriously folks, who can afford a Lexus RX450 but cannot afford a hands free kit to go with it ?

Stained Glass

Window detail at Christchurch, Ilkley

White Wells - New Year's Day 2012

Mr Moosehead, Father-in-Law, YS

No matter how many times I do this, and it is 11 years in a row now, it never feels any warmer.

Let Every Thing That Has Breath Praise The Lord

Stained glass window at All Saints Church, Ilkley.

Ilkley Gig - Lady Maisery

If anyone fancies a bit of folk music, the all girl trio Lady Maisery are playing at the Manor House in Ilkley on Friday 13th Jan.  Lady Maisery released their debut album Weave and Spin last year and have been nominated for best debut at the Spiral Awards.

Get there early for a place in the mosh pit, also, I presume there is no bar at the Manor House ? Hip flasks of single malt at the ready then.

ICC Dinner & Wine Night

Image via WikipediaThe food cooked by Dave, Richard, Owen & Callum, Maitre D'd by Liz, and served by Ellie and Rae of this parish, was wonderful.  Seriously folks, hats off to you, I think you did a quite remarkable job cooking a five course meal for 50 people from what is really just a standard home, non-commercial, kitchen, I was most impressed.

The ICC wine nights are a fund raising event for the cricket club, always popular and very well supported, where a team of very hard working volunteers cook and serve the food, and a selection of 'wine experts' select and present a wine to go with each course.  I got to choose the dessert wine (with a fabulous budget of £6 a bottle), and my presentation ran like this....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a wine, the grapes for which are grown only in a single, near inaccessible valley in the Nava De Roda hills of the Ribero Del Duoro wine region in Southern Spain.


Lavish care and attention is spent on the grape vines, grape tenders camp out in the valley ensuring that each vine receives exactly the amount of water it needs and keeping the vines clear of pests. The grape tenders have to be somewhat accomplished at a musical instrument, for wine grower Jesus Montilla is convinced that the grapes grow riper with music, preferring light classical music in the growing season, and a little flamenco as the grapes ripen.

The Moscatel grapes are only picked at night, during the first frosts of Autumn, and only after being blessed by the bishop of Valencia. They are then transported in padded baskets on the backs of mules, at the winery each grape is inspected for ripeness and any that do not pass Jesus Montilla’s exacting requirements are rejected.

The grapes are then gently trod beneath the feet of young girls, filtered, and barrelled for two years before being bottled. The resulting wine is said to taste somewhere between sexual ecstasy and religious revelation, and this, ladies and gentlemen, is not that wine.

However, there is another wine, grown in vast quantities on the plains of Valencia, where the grapes are watered by the urine of passing goats who are herded by the infamous winemaker Pablo Ossario. They say that if you are downwind of Pablo that on a breezy day you can smell his BO in Madrid, on a bad day in Portugal. Pablo seasons his goat piss tinted grapes by spitting regularly and heartily into the fermenting vat, and because Pablo can’t be bothered waiting for the grapes to really ripen he sweetens the resulting wine with antifreeze (which is only rumoured to cause cancer in lab rats). This pale green, sometimes lumpy and frankly repellent vintage is bottled in stolen Marks & Spencer bottles and shipped to the UK to be aimed at the slapper & chav Lambrini girls market.

This ladies and gentlemen, is that wine, cheers."

Real Bales

These were in a field close to Ilkley Lawn Tennis Club, you don't often see proper oblong bales like these any more, most farmers seemed to have switched to the giant wheel shaped bales.  When I was a child there was a big field behind the Red Lion in Burley (which is a new housing estate now) and we used to play there in the cutting season, building castles from the hay bales.

Thieving Gits

This was the sign that greeted the good book borrowers of Ilkley this week.

Deer in Coppy Wood

Sorry for the shoddy picture, I could kick myself.  I always take my proper camera when I set off for a walk, except this morning I forgot, and there just inside Coppy Wood a deer stood still long enough for me to take its picture on my phone camera.  Tomorrow I'll take my Canon and see nothing of interest of course.