We went to the See you at Sywell event at the weekend, lovely to see friends, dress up, dance and generally have a dam good time.
Sadly, Angella seems to be allergic to having her photo taken so the only record we have of the event is one photo of me outside the wonderful Art Deco Aviator hotel.
Mystic Meg has died, apparently her death came as a complete surprise to her.
We went to the GER Club in March Cambridgeshire for a forties dance and what a pleasant surprise it was, the club was founded in 1947 by a group of railway men hence the name, The Great Eastern Railway Sports Club. The land on which the Club stands was purchased in 1921 and a bowls Club was formed in 1922. On this land the railwaymen of March decided to build a club house to create good relations between the Railwaymen and Towns folk of March, the Club was finished in 1947.
Never having gone there before we were delighted to be entertained by the Ashby Little Big Band and Blitz Dancers, so we managed plenty of dancing whilst running into friends from our balboa dance class and very nice to see them too.
Rather conveniently we found a hotel within walking distance just down the road which was a converted cinema, now a Weatherspoon pub which was originally built in1929 and called the Hippodrome which as you will see from the picture retained many of its original features, this being the view from the balcony.
The whole weekend was remarkably reasonably priced both at the GER and the Hippodrome and with the cheapest price for a pint of beer at £1.71 a pint one wonders why anyone would be rushing for the modern trend of levelling up, unless they would want to pay £6.00 or more for a pint.
Thank you to the GER and the Hippodrome, we had a fab time and look forward to repeating it again next year.
THIS IS JUST A TEST!! CLICK ON THE IMAGE.
We went to the Coco Club ball at the weekend and took no photos so in the best tradition of “make do and mend” I have borrowed the poster from the event as a taster of the fun we had.
What a wonderful time we had at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe for a thirties weekend, hosted by Mark and Hoc Ewing which finally leaves us able to upload the obligatory photo on the stairs in this iconic Art Deco building.
We decided to go up the day before to visit Carnforth railway station, the location used in the 1945 film Brief Encounter and to get a photograph under the famous clock on the station platform, only to find the clock was missing and had apparently been taken away by the people who own it for repairs never to return. One hopes it will come back at some time in the future and be reinstated on the platform or at least in the station Heritage Centre.
Not to be disheartened we decided to make use of the café on the station which appears not to have changed very much since 1945, one was almost ready for Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson to appear at any moment, although I would doubt whether it originally had a cappuccino machine, I can’t see Trevor Howard as a skinny latte sort of chap.
This next photo was as close as we could get to the shot of standing under the clock at Carnforth station and we decided not to re-enact the scene where Trevor Howard removes a piece of grit from Celia Johnsons eye as the staff in the café must have seen it done a million times.
Finally, on to the weekend at the Midland with everyone dressed appropriately it was like being back in the thirties with music, a great band, the usual wonderful dance lessons from Mark and Hock and a fabulous bunch of people with which to enjoy it all.
And finally, as they used to say on the news a quick shot of the sunset which Morecambe is apparently quite famous for.
A big thank you to Mark and Hoc for hosting such a wonderful event and I have to say both Angella and I are looking forward to doing it again next year.
Transgender Isla Bryson who raped two women when he was a man called Adam Graham, one in 2016 and another in 2019 has been found guilty has now been moved from the women’s prison he was in to a male prison.
There are two stories here firstly the decision of the Scottish Parliament to attempt to change their law whereby a man can have his gender changed from that at birth when attaining the age of 16 by mincing about in a frock for a comparatively short period of time and saying they are a woman.
Apparently Adam Graham took the decision to go down this route during the court proceedings and his estranged wife Shonna Graham suggested he had only done it in order to get a more lenient sentence and an easier time in prison rather than locked up with a load of big scary men.
I think the decision to move him to a male prison is eminently sensible for this man who is allegedly in the process of transitioning but has not actually transitioned and is therefore just a convicted rapist in a frock complete with penis who would in fact be more like a fox in a hen house than a man who genuinely thinks he is a woman.
It certainly gives weight to the British Government’s decision to block the Scottish Parliament from passing their rather flawed Gender Recognition Bill.
I have been a little busy recently as I’m getting ready for a forties event at the weekend but I just happened to notice the news that the Prince Andrew photo is allegedly not a fake.
Now I know Prince Andrew is not the brightest spark and he has made some awful errors of judgement in the friends that he keeps but it seems this photo was taken in March 2001 and has been put forward as evidence of the first time he allegedly had sex with Virginia Guiffre in London.
This being the case, by my reckoning she would have been getting on for 18 years of age which is as far as I know is well over the age to have sex legally in this country and assuming she took part willingly which she must have done or the American lawyers would have been crying rape, he therefore has done nothing wrong by British law.
Nothing wrong in British law, except being a complete idiot which is exceedingly stupid but is not a crime and in this country we still uphold the idea of innocent until proven guilty.
Britain has sent 14 of our Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine to assist in their fight against the Russian invasion of their country but the Ukrainians are keen to get their hands on the German Leopard tank which is commonly used in other European countries which they are more familiar with.
The German’s reluctance to send the tanks seems a little odd when you consider their previous actions, after all they were only too keen to drive their tanks into Eastern European countries in 1939.
The founders of Britishvolt were trying to create a £4bn facility, from scratch, without the backing of a major manufacturer.
What they did have was a vision which they hoped could surf a wave of political support – and attract the necessary funding.
They looked first for a location in Wales, before settling on Cambois, in the Blyth Valley.
The site, formerly a power station, was good. It had a deep water port, good transport links and access to plentiful power. It also happened to be in a “red wall” constituency captured by the Conservatives in 2019.
But political support wasn’t enough. Delays to construction meant £100m of public funding never materialised. With costs rising and no firm orders, the money ran out.
The question is, what happens next? Speak to pretty much anyone in the motor industry, and they’ll tell you that without gigafactories, the long-term future for UK manufacturing looks bleak.
So the plant itself could still become a reality. But for that to happen significant investment will be needed.
And any potential buyer will know that their chances of success will be much greater if they can get an established manufacturer on board.
ANALYSIS BY JOE WELLS.
Another complete cock up by British industry, why oh why are we so useless when we try to manufacture anything in this country it just doesn’t make sense when we have such a proud tradition of manufacturing, after all it was us who invented the Industrial Revolution.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his compatriots must be turning in their graves.
The Diary of a Country Bumpkin 