26 August 2002

on 26 August 2002 at 08:00

Fatter earth blamed on selfish behaviour

Amid all the alternative excitement, you may have missed the announcement earlier this month that the earth is getting fatter.

Measurements taken during the last four years have show that its “dynamic oblateness” (a phrase I intend to make use of on a personal level) is increasing. Obviously, this is our fault.

Plans are already afoot to arrange a Fat Earth Summit in Reepham, to which all world leaders will be invited.

Pressure groups are already being formed to alert us all to the appalling effect we are having on the fatness of the earth by our thoughtless and selfish behaviour. Governments are promising to tackle the problem by increasing taxes on anything that promotes fatness, particularly in earth-like objects, and to demand as much paperwork as possible. There will probably be a charge for congestion.

The UEA School of Fatness Research has already put together computer models demonstrating that by the end of this century the earth will be so fat that life as we know it will be almost impossible, except for mosquitoes and some owls.

A spokesman, Dr Paul “Black” Grape, said that the recent flooding in Europe, the drought in America and heavy showers over parts of Norfolk were undoubtedly a result of the fatter earth – a far more important phenomenon than the Asian Brown Cloud. He said it was essential that we all stop using cars and jump up and down a lot, thus compacting the surface area of the earth. It would help if we could do this near the equator.

Meanwhile a controversial view was put forward by Professor V A R Scheinlich of Hingham, an expert on distortions of time, space and earth. He said the increase in earth fatness over the last four years correlated surprisingly closely with the huge growth in speed cameras.

Since road deaths had also increased, he urged that they should be abolished. “If not, we will all slide towards the poles, which hardly bears thinking about,” he said. Road humps would also have to go, for obvious reasons.

Missing from museum

The new-look Castle Museum in Norwich is a strange experience – veering wildly between hi-tech and no-tech, with iffy-tech children’s play areas thrown in. All in all, a surreal though occasionally enchanting journey that made me happy to cling on to the reassuring reality of those old pictures and stuffed birds.

Perhaps the most surreal thing about the museum, however, is that it doesn’t have a public phone. Which means that if you need to contact someone during your (minimum) two-hour visit, you have to leave the castle, scour the immediate vicinity for a telephone and then, having found and used it, decide you can’t be bothered to climb the hill back to the museum. I’m no expert, but that doesn’t seem to me to be brilliant marketing strategy – unless of course they’re going for a rapid turnover.

Clue to location of Atlantis in South Norfolk

Intrepid explorer Richard Meek, fresh from his triumph in exposing the threat to Norfolk from its two dormant volcanoes at Thetford and Sheringham, believes he may have pinpointed another little-known fact about the county.

“I believe that Atlantis is at the bottom of Diss Mere,” he revealed yesterday. “Everywhere else has been checked and, as Sherlock Holmes used to say, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the truth.”

Many locals talk about strange goings-on in the Mere in years gone by, but Mr Meek is the first man brave enough to put the jigsaw together and stick his neck out.

He believes the demise of Atlantis may have resulted indirectly from the explosion of Mount Beeston. “Of course, many people believe Atlantis was much bigger,” he said. “But that has not been proved.”

What convinced him finally was the clue that he believes was left by an Atlantis survivor, who named the town Diss.

“It’s obvious when you see it,” he said. “When you get close to the town, Diss appears. See? Disappears. He was obviously trying to tell us something. Atlantis is definitely in there.”

Rumours of dragons nesting under the Green at Hunstanton have still to be investigated by Mr Meek, who expressed himself “sceptical, though it might explain the pier catching fire”. The former Blue Dragon swimming pool in the town could be significant.

Aliens try to merge in, but get details wrong

Aliens are among us. They look like us, speak a bit like us, and some of them work like us: but they haven’t got the behaviour quite right yet. I don’t discard litter in the street, and I bet you don’t either. But they do. I have seen them in action, and they come in many shapes and sizes.

Last week I observed a retired-type alien “surreptitiously” brushing rubbish out of his car and on to a city street before, presumably, returning to his space ship. Younger aliens – and there are thousands of them – routinely discard packaging or anything else they don’t want before beaming up to the planet Me.

One trick these aliens are apparently unable to master is how to use a public convenience. I mean, how difficult is that? But surveys of these amenities routinely reveal the kind of unpleasantness that must presumably be normal in the home lives of aliens.

Attempts are being made to locate their planet and blow it up in an unneighbourly but satisfying way, but so far such attempts have been embarrassingly unsuccessful.

12 August 2002

on 12 August 2002 at 08:00

Putting too much into the countryside

When I was up in the Cairngorms, just north of King’s Lynn, I walked headlong into widespread local worries about proposals to turn the area into a National Park.

Outside interference, jobs for the boys (and girls), meaningless public consultation and intrusive signposting were just some of the horrors envisaged for the wilderness area in the name of the great god Conservation. And for some reason it made me think of the Tas valley, just south of Norwich.

Close to the city’s outskirts, there is a Roman town. It is not easy to spot. To the naked and uninformed eye there is a large piece of grass with raised banks, some of them containing remains of old walls. There is also a church, and a river. It is a delightful area, with a small parking place, a few wooden steps and discreet information posts.

The prospect of this quiet beauty being invaded by people who want to exploit it is one that worries me as much as it does Roy Masters, a blacksmith from North Norfolk who works “very much as the Romans did when they were here – by hand”.

He is “absolutely appalled” to see what the so-called experts came up with. “They intend to spend £3½m on a visitors’ centre plus access," he writes.

"Once you leave the southern bypass “you would be on what could only be described as a single-track roadway. Then there is a narrow railway bridge to negotiate, and after that the plan is to run nearly a quarter of a mile along the top of a hill to an ancient Roman beech-wooded mound, where these experts intend to place a car park and visitors’ centre”.

And that’s not the end of it. From there they “intend to construct a raised walkway and bridge all the way across the valley. When you have finished your quarter-mile walk and, having paid for the privilege, you stand in the centre of our ‘Roman Town’ – a vast, open grass area surrounded by banks”.

Mr Masters suggests that paying visitors may be less than enchanted by the view. And thousands of unhappy paying visitors will have replaced a few happy, non-paying ones.

Not a pleasing prospect. I warm more to the rather cheaper scheme suggested by South Norfolk councillor Roger Smith in 1998. Leaving the site a little overgrown would add to its sense of age and mystery, he suggested.

The leisure services committee at that time agreed a programme of grass cutting and general maintenance of the site – at the modest cost of £3500 a year.

That’s what I call a breath of fresh air.

Expert opinion: how important is that?

With all the major athletics events recently, some people may have missed the Norfolk Games, held at Little London, near Corpusty, and opened by the mayor, Mrs Hicks, with the words: “I declare.”

Unfortunately we don’t have time to bring you any of the events, but we have space for analysis by the experts, led by Norfolk veteran Henry (Fred) ‘Shrimp’ Houseago – a two-furlong specialist in his youth. With him are Prof V A R Scheinlich, who has frequently smashed the record for Hingham to Norwich, and Len ‘Kissme’ Hardy, a chef and high jumper.

Houseago: The crowd were wonderful. They got right behind our athletes.

Scheinlich: Definitely. Our runners really came of age here.

Houseago: How important was it that most of them got out of bed this morning?

Hardy: Definitely. And the crowd were terrific.

Scheinlich: Yes, I think we have to hand it to the crowd. But how important was that gold medal?

Houseago: Definitely. It really came of age. Do you think it can go on from here?

Hardy: Definitely. But the crowd were wonderful.

Houseago: Perhaps we could have a look at that key race. No, sorry. We’re out of time. Pity, really.

Scheinlich: Definitely. How important is that? Great crowd. It came of age. Nice stadium, too.

Bale-rolling set for comeback

I was delighted while rambling near Claxton the other day to see that a couple of fields had been set up for the ancient Norfolk sport of bale-rolling.

Since it was hit by scandal just after the war, bale-rolling has faded into the shadows. Several teams were accused of using illegal dwiles, and there were rumours – possibly ill-founded – of both greasing and stubble-smoothing.

“There was too much money in it,” said Prof Ian ‘Sam’ Aufmerksam of the UEA School of Penguins, Chess and Road-Surfacing, when he researched the subject five years ago. “These old sports could only survive on an amateur basis.

“I’m afraid we’ll never see the like of the old champions such as Andy ‘Push’em’ Higbee. The thrill of bales thundering down the slope and into the grup may never be glimpsed again.”

But recent research has revealed a resurgence of the Claxton Chapter, and the bales have been set up on sloping fields for a championship-level match – the bale equivalent of playing off the back tees in golf.

The time of the event and the names of the participants remain a closely guarded secret.

New volcano located

Lava expert Richard Meek, who warned recently of the imminent eruption of Mount Beeston, near Sheringham, has stumbled across yet another dormant Norfolk volcano.

This one is in Thetford which, as local historians will know, has suffered from more than its fair share of explosions in the past. In the last century, one such catastrophe resulted in a violent increase in population.

The dormant volcano pinpointed by Mr Meek is known locally as The Mound. He points out that this is a synonym for ‘Bump’, the alternative name for Mount Beeston.

He also reveals that “students of ley lines will not be surprised to learn that the two sites can be joined by a straight line on the map” – clear proof that ancient Norfolk people regarded them as having special spiritual power.

As yet, he sees no indication that The Mound is about to erupt, despite the lack of stability in the town centre.

Too many slow ponies

When I was on holiday in Aberdeenshire, which is an extraordinarily civilised part of the world, I came unexpectedly upon a sign in the grounds of a castle. It read: ‘Slow Pony Driving’.

I was a little taken aback, but was quickly able to adjust when I realised that people on Royal Deeside are known for their colourful and inventive use of language. Clearly, people who drive too slowly there are known as ‘ponies’ (presumably by analogy with shanks’s pony). I soon came across one. He was driving at 35mph on an A road – and slowing down for the corners.

Perhaps the sign could be adapted for use in the rear screens of cars. There would be a huge market in Norfolk, especially on the North Walsham road, and I am sure it would contribute to road safety.