Both gaffers.....

... this lovely spring morning I find myself between two gaffers. The Squire, who is about to step up a league and play for North Devon doesn't want me to wake him prior to his Devon league debut down at Chagford and Ivor Thomas is crashed out on me pallets. Dilemma. Ivor has just flown in from Arabia, so jet lag and stuff, should I wake him. He does live in a shed in South West France, the Squire's sofa after a night flight from Abu Dhabi, followed by a few hours tripping the light fantastic in Bees, must feel like bliss. Not the first time the chap has ever done it, but considering the weather since he last departed, the day before the eruption of kbjorkumlatexmagnuspytl, I'd rather be up the Tors down Combe rather than some  dust blown dodgy tourist trap. Apparently, the middle of the World is in the Emirates. A fool's paradise incarnate if you ask me. Bugger Greece, Spain and Portugal the f'ing Standard and Poors should issue a note against them. Of course it's different when you borrow money to build railways. hospitals, social services and education rather than constructing the most wonky bent hotel building in the world by construction firms who have decided not to invest in Greece, Portugal and Spain. The essential paradox of international capitalism. Should we build the worlds biggest bendy hotel or should we invest in Greek/ Spanish/ Portuguese infrastructure. Oh shit Standard and Poors issues a downer note about Iberia, let's not invest there, lets continue building the Worlds biggest, bendiest hotel while unemployment in Spain rises and projects are halted just because some fucking rabid capitalist fuckwit based behind a computer five thousand miles away from Madrid says so.
I found down the tip, using me Mum's five quid gift voucher, a Karl Marx book on historical materialism I think the bloke explains what is going on quite well

Celebrity spotting part 1

I was down 'Combe again yesterday, no travel problems this time I may add, collecting rents for my old buddy Ivor Thomas and I was stood on one of his doorsteps trying to get the rent out of one of his tenants when during this extraction I noticed world famous marijuana smuggler turned raconteur Howard Marks sitting in a Ford Frontera directly opposite. I suppose it shouldn't really have come as a surprise because if you were going to see the chap anywhere in the UK then Ilfracombe would surely be the place. Probably, like Ivor he has a few properties to look after up at Oxford Grove.
 


A library photo of Howard and his lad Carlos.

ELECTION SPECIAL

I popped into Pilton Stores on Friday afternoon just to buy some Westgate Farm pork chops for my tea and there was a right old commotion going on. I believe they call it a media circus. There was awoman with a camera, another with a notebook, the local copper PC 4972 Andy GREENSLADE, mind you he always seems to be in there, a few herberts all done up in suits alongside a little weazilly, shifty looking chap and a larger bloke with no eyebrows and one of them outback bush hats on. This bloke kept going on about how he had never been a professional politician, how local he was and what an immensely successful business man he was. Heather and Geoff looked on rather bemused. As, I tried to push myself through to the cold counter the bloke in the bush hat brazenly introduced himself to me as Philip Milton the Conservative candidate for North Devon in the forthcoming election, I thought I recognised him,  he then pushed forward the weazilly shifty looking smaller chap forward whom he introduced to me as George Young shadow minister for something or another. I was rather taken aback to say the least and almost knocked over the Bobbys biscuit shelf as I attempted to hasten my way to the back of the store. I told 'em I was a Catholic and that seemed to do the trick as they headed off to cram themselves into the Victorian Tea rooms or the beauty salon.

After this occurrence I decided put my mind to closely scrutinizing the candidates for North Devon in the Election on My 6th. Well not all of them. I believe in free speech but that doesn't mean I'm personally going to give them publicity.

NICK HARVEY - LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

This is Nick Harvey the current liberal MP for North Devon. He is an off the peg LD MP he ticks all the boxes. What his actual policies are I haven't got a clue. But all I know whatever your problem he'll deal with it. I had to get in touch with him about the Squire's insistence that I fix me guttering so I phoned up his office, a nice young maid answered and I told her all about my guttering. She said that she'd bring it to Nick's attention and blow me if the next day a packet arrived from the House of Commons containing a brand new Jewsons catalogue and a compliment slip signed my Nick himself sending me his best regards.  In my own poll he is the early leader in the race for my vote. However, I'm not going to make me mind up until at least after the next telly debate.

PHILIP MILTON - CONSERVATIVE

The big I am in my book. Ask anyone in North Devon you'd be hard pressed not to someone who doesn't know of this bloke. His propensity for self publicity is only bettered locally by that Matt Fiddes character. Against his claims about being a successful businessman and creator of jobs I only have to ask what happened to the people he made redundant when he suddenly closed down his Christian bookshop just before Christmas last year? He also makes great play about his christian faith but this does not seem a very christian thing to do nor really help the creation of jobs in the town. I reckon his Christian beliefs should also be taken into account as I know the church he belongs to been there myself a rather was frogmarched own there by an old associate they are a right bunch of gabbling in tongues, doom merchants. A mate of a mate of mine was at the old grammar school with him and they reckon he was a right odious little twerp. I've seen him about town and all over the years and put him down as a rather snidy type. Also, he can't spell or rather can't decide if he is an independant financial adviser or an independent one! Currently lives out at Trimstone Manor which is rather befitting for a prospective millionaire Conservative MP. He runs it as a country house hotel and is in the process of doing it up. Don't mention potential expenses. I went out there the other day and it was a job half done, bags of cement lying about the place, mixers with weeds growing around the wheels and an unpacked pallet of bricks. That sort of thing. Don't like him. Still it's the policies you vote for not the personality isn't it.

MARK CANN - LABOUR

Nice bloke. I was at school with his brother Steve. I was a Labour voter during my economic exile in South London and at heart I'm a socialist but to tell you the truth the Labour Party have tested my patience over the last few years. I like Gordon Brown but I'm afraid to say the Cider tax was the last straw even though they have backed down due to the hue and cry that arose from these here parts. I still had to spend out a good few quid which I was putting by for my trip to Cricket St Thomas and weekend break down in Paington, taking in Kent's Cavern and Babbacombe Model Village, the last week of June. That's in jeopardy now.

STEVEN CROWTHER - UNITED KINGDOM INDEPENDENCE (Milton get out your vocab book) PARTY

I know nothing of this bloke. More than likely he'll turn out to be an amiable prat like their party spokesman. Still, from the amount of posters they've put up including a bloody massive one on the Bickington Road they appear to have a fair amount of support



L'ANNE KNIGHT - GREEN PARTY

 
I'm confused about this lot. Now I'm green. I recycle, I'm always darning my socks and patching the knees in my trousers. I use old Lambrini bottles for my elderflower wine. I respect the countryside. I'm partial to a bit of roadkill. Use organic manure on my garden and I own a  share in a chicken. Plus, I feed the ducks down at Pilton Bridge. I am also a countryman and enjoy my field sports and I've been riding the same bike foe twenty three years. How much greener can you get but according to this lot I reckon they think I'm the devil incarnate. I guess I'm the wrong shade of green, brown more than likely.


SCREAMING LORD SUTCH - HONORARY CANDIDATE NORTH DEVON

He passed away a few years back now but to my way of thinking we could do with a few more candidates like him plus a North Devon election campaign has never been the same without him. I met him a few times, lovely bloke a diamond in the rough as they say. I was in the Marshals in 1983 when he came in with his entourage and we had a right old laff, spent all day in there at some point if my memory serves me right someone got out a guitar and we was playing all the old tunes. He came back to my cottage and he ended up dancing on top of the phone box outside. Crazy days.

REMEMBER YOUR VOTE WILL COUNT. SO USE IT.

A lovely drop of rain......

.... cor, there was a lovely drop of rain last night, a few splashes more and I reckon I can start putting me bedding plants in. I've a mind to do some guerilla gardening if I have a few pansies spare and take them down to the old North Gate / Mermaid Cross traffic gyratory system and drop a few of 'em in the beds down there as to my mind the whole area needs a bit of brightening up. If the budget for Barnstaple in Bloom had not got slashed perhaps this would not be the case. As it is, it is up to us citizens to rise up, sieze the moment and plant some camellias. To the flowerbeds!

                                  As I always say, one Hockings van does not make a summer

Mayor Stranded

Just this minute while sitting in the Market cafe I happened on a copy of the Gazette
and I was struck by the headline Mayor Stranded By Volcano. I was rather hoping it was the
mayor of Torrington who after her pig ignorant twittering had been subsumed pompeii style in
in tons of ash but alas it turned out to be the mayor of Bideford who was merely stuck for a
few days on Hatteras Island!

HAPPY ST GEORGE'S DAY

This is actually the flag of Barum's twin town Barcelona whose patron saint is also St George. Hands across the ocean. Infact, Barnstaple Town FC and Barcelona FC have something unique in common they are both sponsored by charities UNICEF and North Devon Hospice

This weeks local news

The Journal leads with a full front page story about a farmer out at Brayford who shot four foxes.  Well I'm no friend of the fox of lost some many hens to them over the years I should be saying fair play to him. But, I don't know there is something to this story which just doesn't seem to ring true. Plus, I can't see why it should warrant a front page in the Journal, complete with two photos one with the bloke aiming his gun at us the reader and the next he's cuddling a lamb and propping himself up with a shepherd's crook. So basically it's saying he likes cute animal really but anyone or anything that threatens to eat or interfere with his stock, cute or not, is going to get the benefit of both barrels. Fair enough, but hang on, read a bit deeper into the story and things start getting a bit strange.
Apparently, he had been made aware by a neighbouring farmer that a white van had pulled up and four foxes had been jettisoned from the back of it onto his land. All this happened at 11.30pm, so it was dark. Unless, Brayford is in the land of permanent daylight, you never know out there. So, on getting the call from his neighbour, don't forget this is a fellow farmer so you have to assume he isn't going to be exactly next door, sometime later he heads off across his fields to see what's going on. Whereupon, he comes across the four foxes and blasts them to be bits. Now are you telling me that these recently released foxes are going to have stayed where they were dropped off, just lolloping about, kicking their paws in the lane looking all dazed and confused and a bit pissed off as they didn't know where they were? No, come off it. He's having us on, especially since he didn't report the occurrences to the Police, nor did he produce any evidence ie. like four fox carcasses or a corroborative witness such as his neighbour, he said he'd incinerated them. I don't know about the neighbour he could have just shot him. Perhaps, he'd been to Planet Barbecue (for all your bbq needs).
What he did do was to contact the  Journal, the Countryside Alliance and the NFU who were quoted in the article. I smell something fishy. The article leaves us with the conclusion that bleddy vermin loving, lily livered do-gooder townies, all soft in the head they just don't need them interfering out at Brayford.
A note to animal lovers: I reckon that in all probability no foxes were harmed in the creation of this story.

What else was new in this weeks Journal? Nothing same old trite tripe about charities, the Journal acting out it's role as the contemporary pillory by naming and shaming the usual parade of unfortunates through North Devon Magistrates court and Barnstaple Town lose again. Fortunately, they aren't being relegated so premiership football will once again be on offer down at Mill Road next season.
Actually, the new column Mum's the Word could be a sleeper hit judging from it's first edition. Apparently, the columnist loves new born babies. Well I never, another inciting look at North Devon life courtesy of the NDJH

Ah to be in Devon now that spring is here......

Congratulations are in order for the Squire, the Rt Hon. Charles Street as he made a fine 56 n.o. on his comeback to the local cricket team. His batting prowess contributed to a fine win by North Devon 3rds over Filleigh 3rds on Sunday at Castle Hill on the opening day of the season.
Well done Sir!

What's in a name......

After a conversation over a pot of coffee or two in the Royal & Fortescue coffee lounge the other morning with my old schoolmate Wilbur Whiddon I found myself this morning down at Rolle Quay checking out a point of fact that the old boy had made. He reckoned that as a matter of fact that it wasn't actually called Rolle Quay but is infact called Rolles Quay and he maintained that the old ceramic tiles bearing the place name on the wall of the pub prove this. So, I thought I would check it out on such a lovely morning. I had to go there and feed the ducks anyway so I didn't make a special trip. I'm not that mad.  Anyways, it turns out he was right! There in blue and white, what I assume to be, ceramic barumware tiles it reads Rolles Quay. (not having passed my o level English language I not sure but I think there could be a possessive apostrophe missing). So there you go I have lived all my life in this town and I'm never ceased to be amazed how you can learn something new about it everyday.
Further to this discovery I was making my way back along Rolle Street ( or I suppose it should now be known as Rolles Street) when I notice a new business premises had opened up there on the corner. I think was the old bottled gas showroom anyway it seems to have gone upmarket and has a fancy new sign telling folks that it is now Barbecue Planet and from what I can tell that seems to be just their mission, to barbecue the planet. The shop no longer sells bottles of butane but now sells bottles of butane with all manner of barbecue contraptions attached to them. Now I like a barby, love 'em all that charred meet, scrumptious.  However, it does seem a bit daft or just bleddy short sighted to call a shop Planet Barbecue as the amount of by products of combustion that their merchandise gives off is in the long term going to do just that. As a town if we want to hasten global warning we should all pop down there as soon as and take advantage of this fine weather we are having as a may not last for long. The weather, the shop or the planet...........
Here is a handy link
Planet Barbecue this weekend

Volcanic ash ......

I haven't been able to keep up the blog in recent weeks as I have been stuck down in 'Combe. I thought I was only going on me annual Easter Break down to the seaside which I enjoy at this time of year. However, like hundreds of thousands of my fellow Britons I didn't count on Mt Xjaaigurjussonquist erupting in Iceland. Consequently, due to the restrictions imposed by the so-called authorities on the matter, the matter being volcanic ash, on high altitude transportation, First Bus in it's wisdom and with regard to both it's fleet and the safety of it's passengers decided to suspend running double decker buses from Barum to Ilfracombe.  Therefore, due to the ensuing travel chaos I was stuck down there for the last week or so and I managed to get the first bus back out of Combe only yesterday evening. I've heard that some people, those without passes who require a walk on fare, may be stuck down there until at least the middle of next week! It has been rumoured that some Taxi drivers and less safety minded coach operaters have been making a killing ferrying passengers back and forth. Also, there was a story going about that one couple who'd popped down just for the day to clean their caravan had chartered a boat to take them over to Swansea where they then took the train to Bristol and then were forced to get another coach back to Barum changing at Taunton where they had an hour and a half wait. It took them the best part of a day and if you believe what people say cost 'em £125.
As far as I am concerned as the weather has been so nice the only impediment that I suffered was that I couldn't make it down to use the computers in the library and I missed Town's last home game of the season. More on that later.
Still, I,m glad to be back home.