21 May 2007

on 21 May 2007 at 05:30

Problems with perforations may soon be over

Latest reports indicate that counting votes in the local elections is nearing completion at Whynge, the Norfolk new town that appeared from the sea following a temporary fall in water levels and is now often on the coast.

Whynge has been pioneering cutting edge technology to ensure speed and accuracy and has reacted strongly to suggestions that the parish council count is taking too long.

“We feel sure that everything will be sorted out within three weeks,” said special consultant Len (Kissme) Hardy, of Hindolveston. “We had a few problems with perforations, but obviously that couldn’t have been foreseen. And there were software problems, plus some incompetence.”

Asked if the 300 laptops brought in to facilitate the count were a bit over the top when there were only 200 votes cast, Mr Hardy said that it was better to be safe than sorry, generally speaking. If everyone had gone to the polls, there could have been up to 275 votes cast, which would have been a different kettle of fish. Asked how long that would have taken, Mr Hardy declined to comment in view of the “unknowables” involved.

He agreed that it would have been quicker to count the votes by hand, using primary school pupils, but said speed was not everything. He had high hopes that the technology employed at Whynge would be used in the next General Election. “Gordon Brown is very interested,” he enthused. “And the Scots love it.”

The seven candidates backing a bypass for Whynge have accused the parish council of deliberately delaying the result of the count.

“That’s preposterous,” said Mr Hardy. “A bit of congestion is quite normal. They should get on their bikes.” Amazingly old refrigerator found

An extremely old refrigerator has been unearthed on the outskirts of the Autonomous Republic of Hingham, in a house owned by Professor V A R Scheinlich, a local expert.

“I was digging in the cellar, looking for buried wine,” said Prof Scheinlich, “when I noticed an eerie, white light glowing very faintly.

“I dug deeper and discovered that it was a refrigerator – and it was still working. It contained several yoghurts, some cheese that had seen better days and a rather crispy Sauvignon Blanc.”

Researchers from the UEA’s School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing have dated the fridge to “around 1523”. Professor Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam, who headed the team, said it was fairly unusual to find a 1523 fridge in working order. He would quite happily install it in his own house and continue to use it.

Prof Scheinlich said this would not be possible unless he removed the Sauvignon Blanc first. And he was a bit worried about the fridge’s carbon footprint, which he might find if he dug deeper.

“I would not want the UEA to get involved in stuff like that,” he said. “You don’t know where it might lead.

“Then there’s the whole question of wormholes and time distortion, which is a can of … well … worms. Probably.”

Missing poem does exist

Claims that the winning poem in an international competition does not exist have been refuted by a reporter for this page.

Visitors to the Fish Publishing website (www.fishpublishing.com) alleged that although I had been named as the winner of their 2007 competition, there was no sign of any poem.

However a reporter found a copy at a secret address and was able to confirm that a poem of that name did in fact exist and would probably continue to do so. There was every chance, according to a source, that despite widespread disbelief it would eventually be published in this year’s Fish Anthology.

New Norfolk bat could rescue cricket

Following news that Australian engineers are developing a high-tech cricket bat that will enable its big hitters to strike the ball further, a Norfolk company has retaliated. Houseago Inc, which is based at Erpingham, is developing a bat that will not hit the ball nearly as far.

“Cricket is rubbish nowadays,” said owner Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, an entrepreneur, left-arm spinner and druid. “You just take a swing, and you only have to touch the ball for it to fly off for a six. If you want that sort of thing, you might as well watch baseball. Or rounders, which is more or less the same.”

Asked whether a team that adopted his bat would be at a disadvantage, Mr Houseago said this might be true at first. “But when people saw they were playing real cricket, where good bowling counted for something and you had to play decent strokes to get runs, the spectators would come flocking back. Everyone will want our bat in the end.”

So far orders for the Norfolk bat are slow, but Mr Houseago said he was confident that good sense would prevail. He was approaching a Mr Boycott for an endorsement.

Smoking ban on drivers thin end of wedge

Plans to make smoking while driving illegal are the thin end of the wedge, according to campaigner and radical cleric the Rev Nick Repps-cum-Bastwick.

“It may seems a good idea,” he warned yesterday. “Hot ash on the thigh does make controlling the car a little more difficult. Or so I’m told.

“But if they can fiddle the statistics convincingly, it won’t be long before any kind of distraction is banned.

“How soon do you think it will be before tapes and CDs are kicked out of cars? Then it will be children – followed by pets and passengers of all kinds. And what about speedometers, fuel gauges and heaters?

“It’s a terrific buzz fiddling around with air conditioning while you’re trying to negotiate a speed hump, eat an apple, make a phone call and keep an eye out for cameras. That’s real skill. They can’t just ban that.”

Mr Repps-cum-Bastwick, a former boy racer, added that he could see the day when it became illegal for a driver to reach for a chocolate bar in the pocket of the opposite door, or retrieve a map from the back seat.

“Before we know where we are, no-one will have anything to do but concentrate on driving. And we all know how boring that is,” he revealed.

7 May 2007

on 7 May 2007 at 05:30

Birds flock to see rare North Norfolk visitor

Large numbers of birds flocked from all over the country at the weekend to see an extremely rare human visitor to East Anglia.

Bed-and-breakfast nests in the North Norfolk area were almost unobtainable as an unprecedented number of birds descended on Cromer, on the North Norfolk coast, to view a family of speckled, dark-eyed waders who were feeding near the pier.

A landlady, Mrs Crow, said she had been counting, and she was fairly sure that every nest in the area was occupied. Some birds were sleeping on the beach.

She added that to see these particular speckled waders in North Norfolk in early May was unprecedented. She was not sure where they had come from, but believed they had arrived on a rare bus from somewhere up north.

“I saw the man in the water, and two of the children,” she said. “But the woman was just standing on the beach. It was a terrific opportunity for the birds to get a good view of them, and some snaps.”

An expert from the Norfolk Tame Life Trust said there was some uncertainty whether these were genuine speckled waders, since the unseasonal sun might have affected their skin. The dark eyes could have been a result of late-night revelry, although this was unlikely in Cromer.

But a spokesbird refused to accept that there was any doubt. “This is totally amazing,” he said. “Absolutely incredible. We thought they were extinct. I’ve got some great pictures.”

Local police were introducing security measures to ensure that no-one attempted to fly off with any of the children, who were vulnerable in unfamiliar surroundings. An osprey was held for two hours yesterday and then released without charge.

A police spokesman said: “You can understand the excitement. We normally only get elderly people here. They’re very common. This is something totally different.

“But we’re sure the birds will be sensible. No-one wants to frighten these visitors away. There’s a chance we might open the putting green if they stay.”

Washing your hands of chaos

That most formidable of lobbying groups, “a number of prominent climate scientists”, is campaigning to prevent Channel 4 releasing its iconoclastic Great Global Warming Swindle programme on DVD.

No surprise there. But in the New Forest, something is stirring. A group of parents is considering a legal challenge against the Government’s decision to give copies of Al Gore’s alarmist film, An Inconvenient Truth, to secondary schools across the country.

I know which one I’d be more worried about, but why not let everyone see both films? Bit dangerous, of course. They might like the wrong one.

Still, a bit of openness would be refreshing. In that spirit, I am happy to publicise the fact that Mark Constantine, the Lush cosmetics chief executive who admits to “really hating” cars, has promised to give all the money taken for his new Charity Pot hand lotion to environmental or humane causes, many of which are admirable.

One of the beneficiaries of this, however, will be anti-car groups such as Roadblock, and Mr Constantine is particularly enthusiastic about this.

“When you think how much mischief you can do with a thousand here, a thousand there, it’s great,” he said. ”If we get a million out of the Charity Pot, we could create absolute chaos.”

So if you want to create absolute chaos, you know what lotion to buy. It may also help you to wash your hands of the whole thing.

Save a life: adopt an artist

One of the many underestimated spin-offs of the London Olympics in 2012 is a cutback in grants and funding for less nationalistic ventures, like art.

Despite their benefits to the community, most artists live on very little and are becoming a more and more endangered species – so much so that a local arts organiser, who prefers to remain anonymous, has come up with a radical way that ordinary people can give their support.

She feels that it is time to introduce an Adopt an Artist system – along the lines already used for horses, giant pandas and small African children.

“It’s a kind of 21st century system of patronage,” she said. In return for regular cash, the donor would get reports on the progress made by the artist and his or her current project and state of health. They would also get personal works of art at regular intervals and opportunities to watch the artist at work.

If this does not catch on, it will not be long before visitors to exhibitions will find artists making exhibitions of themselves, with labels like “Artist: please feed”, “Artist in hibernation” and “An artist is not just for Christmas”.

Visitors to the Open Studios later this month should keep their eyes and options open.

Norfolk and not even trying

It was not hard to predict that there would be complaints about the Norfolk accents in Kingdom, Stephen Fry’s new drama vehicle, which is based in Swaffham-on-Sea.

Personally I am rather proud of living in a county whose accent is so esoteric that it is almost impossible to fake. And I don’t blame actors for failing to get it right.

The effort that goes into a natural Norfolk accent is minimal. As soon as you strive to get it right, you’re doomed to failure – as Kingdom occasionally reveals.

I love the Norfolk accent, but I love the landscape of the county even more – and I really don’t want producers and directors to shun us as a drama setting because of carping from a few “purist” mawthers.

Voting against the greatest evil

In the run-up to last week’s elections we were advised as usual that not using our vote was the eighth deadly sin.

But how to use it? In our ward, only two of the four parties communicated with us in any way; the one that made the biggest effort had a key policy that I profoundly opposed, and the other ran a television advertisement campaign that was irritating in its superficial and irrelevant approach.

Neither of the other two had much chance of success, and neither of them had a manifesto which aroused much sympathy.

If I am to believe my friends, my opinions are not bizarre or reactionary (some readers will disagree), but they are not shared by any of the main parties.

In short, no-one will represent me. So I have to vote against who I think is the greatest evil. It may be democracy, but not as we would like to know it. Hardly surprising that so many don’t vote at all.