2 July 2007

on 2 July 2007 at 05:00

You can't stop unhappy accidents

The hearts of everyone, I hope, went out to the family of the young lad killed tragically by a falling beech branch at Felbrigg Hall last week. It was reassuring to hear of the measures that had been taken by the National Trust to ensure that the 500-acre wood was as safe as possible. But it was slightly less reassuring to read that the police and Health and Safety Executive were “combing the area to work out why the bough fell”.

They should listen to the boy’s grandfather, who refused to blame anyone. “It was a freak accident,” he said. “It was a one in a million chance. You cannot stop it.”

It is a sad fact that beech trees sometimes lose their branches without warning. What can we do about it? Send in gangs of tree surgeons to do weekly checks – a kind of National Tree Service?

Keep away from beech trees? Sadly, nine out of ten urban families would not be able to tell a beech tree from a gooseberry bush, so perhaps we should label them, or surround them with palings? Maybe we should avoid woods altogether: most children are told that nasty things lurk there, and of course they do.

Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to happy, fun-loving, intelligent 11-year-olds. No amount of safety measures, risk assessments and allocation of blame is going to stop it.

As a grandfather of two lovely, innocent and promising under-fives, I really do wish it were possible to guarantee their safety at all times. But I know it isn’t.

The truth is we could waste an awful lot of time, and stop an awful lot of fun and enjoyment, by pretending it is.

Mystery of tourist bus spotted at Fakenham

Alarming news from Fakenham: a reader tells me that he saw a Norwich open-top tourist bus passing through the town, heading in the direction of King's Lynn.

“I find it hard to describe the looks on the faces of the occupants,” he said, “but mystified comes close.”

It may be, as my informant suggests, that the strange bus misplacement is linked to the “home rule for Norwich” campaign. But I think it far more likely that the bus driver took a wrong turn and became attracted to a wormhole in the Hingham area, which is well known for time and space distortion.

Either solution would explain the mystification, which is quite common anyway around Fakenham. Locals tell of ghostly buses passing through the town containing the shades of passengers past. When the moon is full and the traffic is right, strange voices can be heard pleading not to be let off.

These are not the only strange sounds to be heard in Norfolk nowadays. Walking across Cley marshes between showers last weekend, my companions and I were buzzed by a very large bird that circled noisily for some minutes. Or maybe it was a helicopter. It seemed to be looking for food.

Top local explorer Richard “Volcano” Meek tells me that everything in the sky is getting louder, especially in the twilight of early morning and late evening, when birds of all kinds “twitter and screech away”.

He suggests that this behaviour may be the cause of the freak weather conditions we have been experiencing, not to mention rising sea levels. “I reckon it’s all down to Gloaming Warbling,” he concludes.

Stand back: the shingle's moving

I was a little disturbed to find a notice by the beach in Cley which revealed that the shingle bank is moving inland at about a metre a year.

We kept well clear of it after that: no-one wants to be mown down by a shingle bank, even when it is as unimposing as the one at Cley, which looked as if it would have trouble holding back a strong ripple.

I hope for the sake of the splendid new Norfolk Wildlife Trust visitor centre that I am wrong about this, because it would be a shame to lose it, together with all those lovely oyster catchers, avocets, marsh harriers and spoonbills. I see the penguins have already gone.

Clampdown on speeding tractors

A friend who is keen to spot bizarre roadside objects when visiting Norfolk tells me that he came across a speed camera pointing into a field.

Happily I was able to reassure him that this was quite normal: it was directed at preventing reckless driving by tractors and combine harvesters, which can be a real problem in the west of the county.

That is why there was very little support in Norfolk for last week’s Scrap Speed Cameras Week. No-one likes to be overtaken by a tractor when they’re trying to change a CD or drive across a field, or both.

There was widespread laughter near Themelthorpe at the 28,000 people who signed a national petition to scrap speed cameras, though apparently this was directed not so much at their muddleheadedness as at the response from the Prime Minister, whoever he may be.

Or maybe not. While travelling one of my favourite escape routes from Norwich to Holt recently, I came up against a driver who thought 45mph was a bit on the excessive side for a good straight road, and downright audacious if it bent a bit. Then on the Reepham autobahn, only days later, I was stuck behind someone who felt 35mph was just about possible, closely followed by three others who agreed with her.

I would like to say the four of them were overtaken by a combine harvester, but this would be misleading. They could have been, but they weren’t.

Tenuous grasp of energy issues

Attributing suspect motives to people who disagree with you is a common method of getting your own way. So it is not surprising to see it surfacing in the vicinity of wind turbines, against which there are substantial and genuine arguments.

There are also vociferous and well-meaning promoters, one of whom was reported as saying that he had faced a complete spectrum of opinion – from an architect who sees them as “industrial desecration of a rural landscape on a gigantic scale” to “families with a real grasp of the energy issues” .

Right, so the architect has no grasp of the energy issues? And of course families do. Must be all that eco-propaganda they’re pumping into schools nowadays. Very deep.

18 June 2007

on 18 June 2007 at 05:00

Waiting for the wrong decision over hospital beds

Some people believe that the Norfolk Primary Care Trust is in the process of agonising over the closure of community hospitals and community care beds in the county.

Others are pretty sure the Trust has already made up its mind, and the recent public consultation was a cynical waste of time and effort, and an unsuccessful bid to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

Whatever the truth of it, pretty much everyone who is not an accountant or a politician is sure that any closures will be wrong and totally misconceived, rather on a parallel with Dr Beeching’s axing of rail lines in the 60s – only worse.

More than 97 per cent of people polled by a patients’ watchdog organisation were against the closures. Increased home care, advocated by the Trust, is not better for most and will make life unbearable – almost impossible – for an unacceptable number of people.

Hospitals such as Aylsham are full to the brim, and every morning the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital phones in search of non-existent free beds. Cutting the number of beds will be disastrous both there and elsewhere.

At the same time we read that a doctor who introduced an innovative operating regime that cut waiting lists is leaving the NHS – and the country – because no-one was interested in his methods.

It is much easier to cut beds and close hospitals than to do things in a more effective way. One can imagine the Primary Care Trust saying: “If you carry out changes, there are going to be winners and losers, and in the end the winners have outnumbered the losers.”

In fact that was Guy McGregor, Suffolk roads and transport supremo, talking to Lowestoft shop-owners who have been refused compensation for months of disruption resulting from roadworks.

If the PCT – egged on by the Government – can do no better than echo such a self- satisfied and blinkered view, they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Up and down approach to road safety

The Norfolk new town of Whynge, which emerged from the sea recently, has decided to reduce speed limits on all its roads to five mph.

Consultant Len “Kissme” Hardy told reporters that many councillors favoured a lower limit, but this was not considered feasible at the moment. However, if anyone died in an accident, two or three mph limits would be “inevitable”.

“This is in line with national road safety practice,” he said. “If accidents go up, speed limits go down. You don’t have to think at all.”

Meanwhile in Portsmouth, south-west of Norfolk, it has been revealed that the 20mph limits planned for all residential roads except major through routes will not be backed up by speed humps – because humps “inconvenience emergency service vehicles and aggravate people”.

Alex Bentley, a real person who is executive member for environment and transportation, added: “When given the chance, the population behaves responsibly.” Mr Hardy said last night that this was not a view the road safety industry wanted to encourage.

Volcano to crack down on chip joints

Regular readers may have been concerned at the lack of reports recently from Richard “Volcano” Meek, the intrepid Norfolk explorer. I am happy to reveal that ever since the Government engaged the services of Jamie Oliver and declared war on beef dripping, he has been operating as what he calls “a sort of undercover Lardy- Czar”.

In the same way that prohibition in the States spawned illegal drinking clubs, the clampdown on chip fat and lard-based products has apparently led to illicit rendering plants up in the Ringland Hills, just outside Norwich.

“My mission,” Mr Meek told me, “has been not only to intercept souped-up dripping runners, but also to crack down on the illegal chew-easys springing up in laybys all over the county.

“With names like Fat Dicko's, The Gutbuster Burger Bar, Betty's Big Baps and Nobby's Nosh, these jelly joints are drip-feeding saturated fat and fortified grease to those desperate souls out of their heads on hot sausage and ketchup.

“Along with my colleagues, Albert Ness and the Inedibles, I hope to report the eradication of these cheap chip joints in the very near future.”

More grease to his elbow.

Poor memory over Norwich road?

The Liberal Democrats, who I like to encourage whenever possible, are concerned about drivers “rat-running” on Rosary Road, Norwich.

Some would say that using Rosary Road to reach Thorpe Road from Riverside Road instead of taking up residence in a queue to the Foundry Bridge traffic lights and turning left – which is not only much further, but adds to congestion – was the intelligent thing to do, and not especially ratlike.

What made the situation so bad was the highways authority’s decision to ban a right turn at the Foundry Bridge traffic lights from Thorpe Road into Riverside Road, and to erect a large sign directing traffic along – you’ve guessed it – Rosary Road instead. So what was always a steady flow in one direction is now met by a similar flow in the other direction.

Let me see now, who was in charge of the city council when that happened?

Signs of a bad driver

Traders in Swaffham who are asking for better signposting for town centre car parks may be out of step with the average motorist, if we are to believe a survey carried out by the Vauxhall car company.

High up on the Vauxhall list of signs wanted by motorists came such vital ones as “urban foxes crossing” and “wi-fi hotspot”. Drivers also wanted updated “children crossing” signs showing more up-to-date clothing and – unbelievably – signs warning them to be green by switching off their engines while waiting to pick up their children from school.

I just hope no-one takes this seriously. If you are stupid enough to need a sign to tell you to turn your engine off while waiting, or too dim to recognise children in slightly outdated clothing, you shouldn’t be driving a car at all.

4 June 2007

on 7 June 2007 at 13:34

Sitting in a factory, surrounded by beauty

I’m writing this in a disused factory. Although it’s the end of May, spring and summer are not words that come to mind. A brisk, chilly and extremely soggy bank holiday wind is rattling the metal roof above the wide open spaces below.

Now and again a couple, a family group or a lone hiker wanders past, pausing perhaps to look at a painting. Occasionally I walk round the factory’s selling floor – a circuit that I can assure you measures almost exactly one thirteenth of a mile. This is my exercise for today and yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s Norfolk Open Studios 2007.

I belong to a group called InPrint, which consists of four poets and five visual artists working in collaboration. And I’ve found that putting on an exhibition is an esoteric experience much removed from what you might guess by the calm, colourful catalogue.

First, you have to move the screens, which have been carefully constructed to make shifting them – or indeed doing anything with them – as difficult as possible. I guess there must have been a competition of some kind.

Then there’s the other heavy work: hanging the pictures. One particularly striking piece in which I have a vested interest consists of three weighty vertical items that have to be hung exactly level. Not easy: how about a step formation? The artist quite rightly, demurs, and gradually it comes together.

The real pleasure of course is seeing visitors come and view the various works of art – but even then it’s not plain sailing. Do you engage them in conversation and feel like a car salesman, or do you leave them to their own devices and appear stand- offish?

Visual art is a curious thing. If you measure the amount of work put in, and add the creative vision, the prices (with the exception of the top-of-the-range models) are tiny – probably less than what you’d pay a management consultant for a day’s work. But of course most of us don’t employ management consultants, and splashing out the cost of a couple of dishwashers – or even a small TV – when you can’t actually do anything with what you’ve bought except put it on display gives pause for thought.

Do we need it? It reminds me of something Stephen Donaldson, the fantasy writer, put in the mouth of a visitor from this world to one where beauty was a vital part of everyday life.

He said: “We have beauty too. We call it scenery... It means that beauty is something extra. It’s nice, but we can live without it.”

Or can we?

www.inprintartsandpoetry.co.uk

Out of step with the unholy brotherhood

I have a soft spot for Professor James Beck, who died last week. He was an authority on the Italian Renaissance who found himself out of step with what he called “the official art establishment, which appears to be composed of an unholy brotherhood of influential critics, powerful galleries, prestigious collectors, leading newspapers and magazines and the major museums”.

Anyone who has questioned the established views on climate change will know exactly how he felt. They will also understand why his views on the restoration of paintings met the reaction they did.

He was a minimalist when it came to touching the old masters, but found himself opposed by those who favoured thorough cleaning and restoration work. He pointed out that modern restoration projects, in the words of his obituary in the Daily Telegraph, “were very often funded by major sponsorship and, as such, under pressure to produce spectacular results”.

Naturally, within the art world, “scientists, conservators, curators and scholars all have a vested interest… a light going-over with a feather duster offered little in the way of employment or kudos for them”.

A lighter touch on climate change would have a similar result for the thousands of people whose future is invested in the dogma of catastrophe, of course – just as admitting the ineffectiveness of speed cameras would have disastrous consequences for those making money out of the road safety industry. Presumably this is why the Government cancelled research into the negative effects of cameras.

In almost any area you look you will find an unholy brotherhood whose livelihood depends on maintaining a particular spin on reality. That is why Albert Einstein said: “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” It is also why Al Gore is doing very well, thank you.

Europe imposes muntjac quota

Following the rescue of three muntjac deer from the sea off Lowestoft, the European Union has acted swiftly.

A quota has been imposed on the number of deer caught, and the size of the nets used to catch them has been restricted.

Spokesperson Annette Rotwild said yesterday: “If we do not impose these measures, the traditional stock of muntjac in the sea off Lowestoft will simply disappear. It will be an ecological disaster.”

But radical cleric the Rev Nick Repps-cum-Bastwick said the move was distinctly fishy. It could have dire consequences for the thriving deer-catching industry in Lowestoft, and he hoped the Prime Minister, whoever he might be, would intervene to save the town.

Deer and chips was a popular local delicacy, he added.

Hingham democracy lives

Those with long memories will recall the notorious Scout Hut incident in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham towards the end of the last century, in which a new form of local democracy was invented by the council. This involved asking people what they wanted, and then ignoring them.

Readers will be glad to hear that Hingham democracy, taken up enthusiastically by the Government of the day, is thriving. Here are two examples:

A huge majority of ordinary people and 93 per cent of Norwich GPs are against the loss of community beds and cottage hospitals across Norfolk. Under pressure from the Government, the Primary Care Trust is making plans to lose both beds and hospitals.

In Norwich, members of the highways committee have approved changes to residential parking permits which favour smaller cars – after carrying out a consultation revealing that 52 per cent of residents were against and only 35 per cent in favour.

No, it’s not dictatorship. In a dictatorship, I would not be able to write this.

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.

23 April 2007

on 24 April 2007 at 11:17

Green Party gets to grips with submarines

I was talking to that nice Rupert Read the other day – he’s the transport spokesman for the Green Party in Norwich, which is a bit like being the flight spokesman for submarines.

Mr Read told me he was against road-building because it had been scientifically demonstrated, by scientists, that building new roads created new traffic. This is an amusing idea, but only to statisticians. My own research indicates that new traffic is created by rain, especially in the afternoons.

However, the traffic creation idea is a handy one if you just don’t like roads – if, for instance, you don’t drive a car. It might also encourage you to want to close roads to cars, because that would mean you are actually reducing traffic – at least on the roads that are closed. And of course if you don’t drive a car, it doesn’t bother you at all.

The Green theory, as I understand it, is that if they close roads, then we will all rush out and use buses. Don’t you just love them?

Or maybe they think we’ll all start cycling. “Additional staff time for supporting the needs of cyclists”, plus “making the road network cycle-friendly” stand beside “closure of more roads to motor vehicles” in the party’s manifesto.

I wonder how many Green Party members are actually cyclists. Well, nothing wrong with looking after your friends. Just in case, like most people, you use four wheels in Norwich, the next two roads on the Green closure hit list are Westlegate and St Augustine’s. Which brings me to house-building. I think we should stop it, because no sooner is a new house built than someone moves into it. Scientific evidence shows that new houses encourage new occupants, and of course new carbon emissions. Mr Read, who lectures in philosophy at the University of East Anglia, is something of an expert on Ludwig Wittgenstein, which is good to hear. Everyone should have an area of expertise.

But I feel that there are a couple of quotations from Ludwig that he may have overlooked: • “It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions that do not concern him.” And • “A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inward - as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.”

For balance, here’s one that he has clearly embraced fully: “I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”

Chance of a weekend break on the moon

I met a friend who told me she had bought some land on the moon. I was delighted. If there is anything better than owning land on the moon, it’s having a friend who owns land on the moon, and I envisage calling in for the odd weekend there when things get unbearable down here, which doesn’t seem too far off.

The advantages of living on the moon are fairly obvious. You don’t have to worry about rising sea levels or lunar warming, and there are hardly any speed cameras. There are also surprisingly few politicians, though that could change. Best of all, there are no wind turbines.

Funny things, wind turbines. They have a strange effect on people’s minds – presumably it’s the humming.

Take Hempnall, for instance. A company which wants to erect a windfarm there staged a public exhibition to put the villagers’ minds at rest, only to run into substantial opposition. A campaign group asked villagers whether they wanted the windfarm, and 83 per cent of those who replied said they did not.

The company’s reaction? “There is a large silent contingent who support what we want to do.” Naturally, they’re pressing ahead.

Isn’t it wonderful, living in a democracy? Next time a party loses an election, a large silent contingent will have supported them, and therefore they will be justified in ignoring the fact that only two people actually voted for them. Dictatorship, coming soon to a democracy near you.

Solution possible for city full of holes

Norwich residents have come to terms with the fact that the city is full of holes. Most of them are in council policies, but some are caused by old chalk mines subsiding.

The fact that my house could suddenly disappear downwards is a minor worry compared with, say, the weather getting warmer next year, but it is always in the back of your mind, so I was tremendously reassured to read that the city’s facilities and buildings maintenance manager has gone on record as saying: “It could happen again and could be catastrophic.”

She thinks it’s unlikely, though. That’s why the council isn’t doing anything about it, which is fair enough. It’s so unconcerned that it doesn’t even keep records of where subsidences have happened, unless “ it involves a road or one of our properties”.

Such altruism is always good to hear. Meanwhile, an Erpingham company has offered to deal with the holes.

Houseago Inc, owned by entrepreneur and legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, has offered to fill them in with a “sustainable substance”, possibly chalk. He claims to have an extensive map of the city underground, which he got off the Internet.

“If the chalk idea is unacceptable, we plan to build apartments and night clubs in them,” he said last night. When asked, he said the carbon footprints would be almost invisible, mainly because it was so dark down there.

Climate of incompetence

A Foreign Secretary I know was roundly condemned for her handling of the Iran hostage situation – and indeed, it did seem particularly inept. Nevertheless, there she was, a few days later, chairing the first UN Security Council debate on climate change.

At first I thought it was strange that someone who was so incompetent one day could be given such an apparently important role the next.

Was it true, as someone suggested, that uttering the words “global warming” or “climate change” immediately pushes up the IQ by 20 or 30 points? Or is it that having shown herself to be totally out of touch with reality in Iran, she was felt to be the ideal person for the job?

9 April 2007

on 9 April 2007 at 16:38

Hamster wheel comes to grief in grey area

The tricky line between art and an April Fool’s joke is one that few people can locate with any confidence.

Many locals will define art as anything containing a view of the Norfolk coast and feel fairly content. Others plump for Old Masters, or Colin Self. Last week a French girl gave us some guidance in the grey area.

As a student at the Norwich School of Art and Design, she created an arts project that involved building a giant hamster wheel and piloting it herself (in the absence of giant hamsters) from Norwich to Happisburgh – which she said “looked like the end of the earth”.

She didn’t say which end. She was right, however, in envisaging a tortuous journey, because most of the hamster wheel came apart in Magdalen Street, at a point where the distance from her starting point would be measured in yards rather than miles. I’m not sure if this disqualified it as a work of art, but it does seem as if the technical aspects were somewhat lacking – assuming that traffic calming was not a factor.

However, I understand that very little modern art is built to last ¬– an artist friend tells me that few people even understand how to prepare a canvas properly nowadays.

Nevertheless, we were reassured by the enthusiastic student that her hamster wheel was a “metaphor for the human condition”, perhaps because it started off as a wheel, became a hoop, turned a into a square, then a coffin shape, and ended up as sea defence when it was tipped off the end of the world.

This pretty much describes most people’s life, I suppose, but then so does waiting for a bus that never arrives – and I wouldn’t call that a work of art.

Come to think of it, the hamster wheel, for all its failings, may be a more reliable mode of transport.

Song thrushes do well out of climate change

Here is a worrying quotation from a serious national newspaper: “The varying birds visiting our gardens is one example of the impact climate change is having on the natural world.”

I don’t mean the grammar, though that is worrying enough. I would also like the birds to be more consistent in their character, but that is a minor point.

What really worries me is the emptyheadedness. “The varying number of birds visiting our gardens” could be replaced in that sentence by so many other phrases – “number of blue skies last year”; behaviour of great crested newts in relation to major roads”; choice of holiday destinations for stockbrokers”; “movement of sub- atomic particles in second homes” without any loss of integrity or meaning.

There is more to worry about when we discover who said it: the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ head of climate change policy. This means that not only does the RSPB have a climate change policy, but it has a department dealing with it, of which someone is head.

I have no idea what such a policy could be – perhaps to persuade birds to emit less carbon dioxide – but the policy head’s next observation is that song thrushes are doing rather well in the countryside, though “as changes to our climate become more extreme, many birds will struggle to cope with the altered weather patterns”.

That’s birds other than thrushes, presumably. The words “non” and “sequitur” come to mind, but so do the words “goodbye RSPB”.

You can't take the adder away from me

Following my recent mention of adders, I discovered that someone was trying to track down sightings of the poisonous snakes to compile a record of where they used to be found.

It so happens that I have only seen one adder, but you can’t take that away from me. It was at Hemsby, in the late 1950s, which I have to admit is a long time ago.

When I was a child we often had holidays at Hemsby – in a community of bungalows called The Marrams, which I am delighted to see has largely survived the despoliation of the rest of the road to the beach.

It was a pretty magical place in those days. All right, I did visit the first very innocent amusement arcade, where they played the latest pop songs – I remember fondly repeated plays of Diana and Last Train to San Fernando, but I don’t talk about it.

I watched the Norwich bus arrive and turn round, I devised extraordinary games in the dunes, and I played football and cricket on the short, sheltered grass of The Valley, which stretched up to Winterton – not that we ever went there.

We were warned about adders in the Valley but I never saw one. Mine was in the hedge outside the bungalow we were staying in – and to my relief, it made a quick exit.

Interestingly, the Old English for adder is naeddre, which could be part of the derivation of Saxlingham Nethergate. Snakes in such an exclusive spot? Surely not.

Volunteer surgeons may be next on list

I see that the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital has been reduced to using volunteers to man its outpatient reception desks.

These volunteers used to walk the corridors, offering assistance in a relaxed way to visitors confused by the mysterious medical signage. Now they are tied to one spot, where they enjoy the enormous benefit of unrewarded responsibilities and the opportunity to be abused by tense visitors without the correct change for the car park.

Two questions: how soon will they run out of volunteer receptionists, and when will they start recruiting volunteer surgeons?

High risk of traffic calming in distortion spot

Most traffic calming has been described by a road safety campaigner as “a form of appalling vandalism”. To introduce it in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham, as is proposed by the local Traffic Action Group – a title to make the heart plummet rather than simply sink – adds a new element of danger.

Time and space distortion in the Hingham area is well documented. Expert Professor V A R Scheinlich said last night: “We are on a knife-edge. Introducing humps, ramps and chicanes would be not only pointless but extremely disturbing.

“People could die, or at least disappear into another dimension.”

26 March 2007

on 26 March 2007 at 09:22

Very simple guide to climate change

Thousands of people have written to me to say they are confused about global warming. Or they would have written to me if they were not too confused to do so. To help them, I have prepared the following simple guide.

The climate is changing. It always has changed, and at the moment it appears to be getting warmer. Unusual weather is not a reliable indicator of this, as we have always had unusual weather. Unusual weather is quite normal.

A quite large group of scientists believe that at least some of this warming is probably caused by humans, emitting carbon dioxide in various ways. A smaller group of scientists believe that it isn’t.

In the historical record, an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has always been linked with global warming – but irritatingly, the warming has always come before the carbon dioxide.

Most politicians like the idea of human-induced global warming because it means they can raise taxes, dictate to people, convene crisis meetings, order inquiries of various kinds and avoid doing more urgent and important things. This is why Labour’s David Miliband said he would be refuting the TV programme “The Great Global Warming Swindle” before he’d actually seen it.

The national media like global warming predictions, especially if they’re catastrophic, because it makes a good story. And of course they’re completely unbiased, which is why Mr Miliband likes to “highlight the work of the parliamentary press gallery essay competition in taking forward the message on climate change”. Hmm.

The large group of scientists say the small group are heretics who are probably getting paid by the oil or coal industries. They would like them to be gagged.

The smaller group say they wish they were getting paid by the oil or coal industries, but they aren’t. In fact, they say, all the money around is going to the larger group through government funding: the words “global” and “warming” function rather like “open” and “sesame” where cash is concerned.

Powerful people like Al Gore and big business are making, or will make, a lot of money out of global warming.

Poor people and small businesses are likely to lose money and quality of life, not so much through actual warming, which might even help some of them, but through regressive taxes, government demands for carbon reduction measures and the blocking of development in the Third World.

The large group of scientists say the research of the smaller group is obviously untrue, twisted or outdated.

The small group of scientists say the research of the larger group is untrue, twisted or outdated.

They are both wrong. And, possibly, right.

Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, admits that “scientific knowledge is always provisional knowledge” – in other words, it will constantly be supplanted by new knowledge - but adds frighteningly that this knowledge “can be modified through its interaction with society” and that scientists (and politicians) “must trade truth for influence”.

Sorry, that’s a bit complicated. Let’s just say you can’t rely on the current state of scientific knowledge, because it will change completely in ten years’ time. Either that, or the earth is flat.

I hope that’s cleared things up.

Rare sighting of democracy possible in North Norfolk

The chance of a freak outbreak of English democracy is on the cards at Cromer, where a referendum may be called on whether car parking should be included in the revamping of the delightful North Lodge Park historic clifftop area.

A 2000-name petition opposes the idea, and the town council has now gone further, successfully demanding a town poll – although North Norfolk District Council, for reasons best known to itself, ruled the first attempt out of order on a technicality.

This worthy petition stands more chance of succeeding than petitions put up on the 10 Downing Street website – the most recent of which is for dualling the Acle Straight.

The feeling that such petitions are little more than an attempt to placate a disillusioned populace refuses to go away – perhaps because of an exchange reported in a national newspaper on the subject of road charging.

Apparently the Minister of State for Transport, Dr Stephen Ladyman, had let slip in the presence of an undercover reporter that road charging legislation had been delayed because of the petition – but only until after the local elections in May, when things would have “quietened down”.

Meanwhile Tony Blair was telling people who had signed the petition: “Let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing.”

So probably best not to hold our breath there. The Norwich scheme to create congestions is forging ahead, of course, with more roads being closed to ensure that there will be plenty of traffic queues on the few remaining routes in and out of Norwich when the Blair-Ladyman master plan comes to fruition.

Taking over humanity by stealth

I can’t help noticing, as I wander the Norfolk beat, the increasing number of people who have machinery growing out of their ears.

Sometimes this is combined with talking to themselves.

I can only conclude that the Borg, after frequent defeats by the Starship Enterprise, are taking over humanity by stealth instead. If the machinery spreads, we shall know, but by then it will be too late, and we shall all have numbers instead of names and stop thinking for ourselves.

The process may already have started. Soon, Seven of Nine may not be the only stunning figure on show. Just call me 14 of 40.

Road safety disappears with a smirk

A motorcycling acquaintance stopped in Happisburgh to allow children to alight from a school bus safely.

After the bus had departed, with all but one student having dispersed, he put the bike into first gear and had just begun to move when with what he describes as a “spiteful smirk”, the remaining girl stepped suddenly into the roadway so that he had to make an emergency stop.

I wonder who would have been to blame if the child had been knocked over. TV road “safety” ads that blame the driver or rider when a girl steps out in front of them and is killed? Or the motorcyclist, for existing? Place your bets now.

12 March 2007

on 12 March 2007 at 05:00

The remains of the bike

As we pulled away from the lights on Highway 41 – one of those three-lane dual carriageways that is just a normal road in the USA – a young motorcyclist accelerated past us, receding quickly into the distance.

A mile or so later we caught him up. At first we thought it was something that had fallen off a lorry – part of a tree, maybe, blackly blocking the centre lane. But it was the remains of the bike.

Just beyond lay the lad who had been riding it. He still had his helmet on, but there was a pool of dark liquid. I couldn’t see where it came from.

He was not dead. His arms were moving. Already he was protected by strategically parked vehicles, and at least two people were making phone calls. But everyone hung back from him, afraid, perhaps, of what they might find if they moved closer. They really, really didn’t want to look.

Beyond him stood a car with considerable damage to its rear end, but it was impossible to say exactly what had happened.

The boy had certainly been exceeding the speed limit the last time we saw him. It would be easy to blame him. In America hospitals call all motorcyclists “organ donors”.

But there are some sloppy motorists around too. Lane-changing is erratic. Talking on mobile phones while driving is normal, and the right to do so is fiercely defended.

I don’t mean to attack American drivers: bad drivers are everywhere. So what can be done?

In England, the knee-jerk reaction would be to lower the speed limit, but as in most similar cases, this would be pointless. The limit where the accident happened is already low: 45 or 50 mph for a wide, straight road – a speed that might be said by some to induce dangerous complacency.

Maybe someone had pulled out in front of the rider. Maybe no-one was thinking bike. Maybe someone had been trying to change a CD or light a cigarette and had swerved just a little.

There is only one way to stop accidents like this – so why don’t we campaign for it instead of hanging back and not looking?

The key is for everyone to recognise that driving and bike-riding are difficult skills, and we need to give them our full attention. Anything else is just Russian roulette.

Nice spot for a congestion charge

The tightly knit group of people who supervise the roads of Norwich and Norfolk would love the island of Captiva, in south-west Florida.

There is only one road through it, and it doesn’t go anywhere.

The maximum speed limit is 30mph, no overtaking is permitted, and there is no parking on it. There are loads of cyclists and pedestrians, all of whom get priority, especially on a “ped xing” which, in case you were wondering… No, of course you weren’t.

At one point the speed limit is 19 mph. Oh, yes it is. Don’t ask me why: presumably 20 would be excessive and 18 just too slow.

Why would the Norfolk highways gurus love Captiva? The weather, for one thing. But mainly because they would feel on familiar territory. Like Norwich, it is out on a limb. There is a huge amount of traffic, all on the one main road, and all it can do, eventually, is turn round and come back.

It’s the perfect spot for a congestion charge. There’s absolutely no escape. If only Norwich could be like this. Maybe one day, with global warming…

I thought about sending the highways people in Norfolk a postcard, but in the end decided to make do with the strikingly apposite message which I saw on a tee shirt in Naples, just down the coast: “The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful.” Introducing terrorists to Sheringham

A friend who is a bit of a naturalist once mentioned to me that adders were being reintroduced into a certain area – I don’t want to be more specific in case I frighten readers of a nervous disposition.

This struck me at the time as a bizarre idea, on a par with introducing terrorist cells into Sheringham. Adders are poisonous, and tend to multiply. They can kill people. What next? I mused. Reintroduce wolves into Scotland? And lo and behold, someone thought that was a good idea too.

But perhaps we all have a little bit of a death wish. I spent part of last week walking along waterways on a Florida island, looking for alligators. I probably came within a few feet of one or two deadly snakes at the same time.

In the end I did see a small alligator, but it was in an even more comatose state than I was. So I am reconsidering the adder idea. And how about the occasional alligator in the Broads? It might not do any harm. The only thing that worries me is that they look like giant newts, and we know where that sort of thing can lead.

On Captiva Island you can’t build on land occupied by a tortoise. No, really. They’re called gopher tortoises. You’re also supposed to help them across the road. I’m not making this up. Coming soon to a road near you.

They’ll probably call it traffic calming.

Any kind of path would do

St Edmund’s Church, Caistor St Edmund, is mysteriously situated in the nearby Roman town and not in the village. Which is why I saw mourners at a recent funeral making their way gingerly along the busy road that joins the two.

Like many country roads in Norfolk, there is no footpath, and at places not even a verge. So there was considerable risk of a further funeral in the near future.

Isn’t it time we put some effort into creating room for pedestrians on roads like this? I suspect that the reason we don’t is because all new footpaths have to be paved, fenced and wheelchair-friendly.

There are some nice paths, like the one between Great Hautbois and Coltishall, but surely if a few feet of short grass can save lives, it is foolish to put off providing safe passage for thousands simply because we can’t afford to do it for absolutely everybody.

26 February 2007

on 26 February 2007 at 05:00

Crises bring dictators out of the woodwork

You may get hot under the collar about global warming, or it may send a shiver of indifference up your spine. But one thing is sure: it brings a worrying assortment of would-be dictators out of the woodwork.

With every prediction of catastrophe from scientists or politicians comes another opportunity for the enforcers to scramble on to the moral high ground and punish those who would rather chew things over than blindly swallow whatever ill-thought- out fast-food climate recipe fits the day’s headlines.

Some of these potential dictators work for pressure groups; others are in the House of Commons. But the most disturbing kind are in local government.

There is nothing that any local council in the United Kingdom can do to affect the world’s climate. The very idea is ludicrous. But this does not stop council leaders like Serge Lourie, of the London Borough of Richmond, from wanting to penalise residents who own and park vehicles that don’t meet his criteria for carbon emissions. And of course he would like other councils to follow his lead.

So he must be pleased with Brighton, where the council wants to increase the cost of a parking permit by 50 per cent for those residents whose cars emit higher levels of carbon dioxide. And with any other council that goes along that road.

Individuals may very reasonably want to purchase vehicles that emit less carbon dioxide: they are free to do so, and there is no reason why the Government should not encourage them. But where a local council takes it upon itself to act as judge and jury in a case where we are not even sure there is a crime, it goes far beyond its remit.

A long time ago, H L Mencken said that “the urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule”. The anger gives it away.

And now for somewhere completely different

The inhabitants of sleepy little Thetford got a little miffed when Americans living there affectionately renamed their fine town Theftford, in memory of … well, certain losses.

But it got me wondering. What other local place names are open to this kind of creative reinterpretation? The one that sprang to mind immediately was Slowestoft, in recognition of its being the home of apparently permanent roadworks and ever- deepening frustration.

Others were inviting, but less apposite. Flakenham does not see exceptional snowfall; nor does it boast an extraordinary number of unbalanced people, as far as I am aware. There are not that many murders in Killverstone, and robberies in Stealham are not so much above the national average.

Loverstrand may be a seductive spot for an illicit liaison, but there are not many explosions in Bangham. Street attacks in Maulbarton are relatively rare, and Yellverton, I seem to remember from when I lived there, was not noted for its noisy drunks; nor is Sweardeston.

Achle can be a bit of a pain on summer Saturdays, but Burglingham’s houses are pretty secure. I may have been bribed not to insert a letter in Bungay, but when it comes to Wymondham – well, you can insert as many letters as you like: they’ll all be silent.

Drereham is not as boring as all that. Plumpstead does not attract oversize people, any more than Leanwade is a haven for slimmers. And as for Freedham, it’s a nice idea.

Newts' scheme is for the birds

The scheme by great crested newts to get themselves categorised as “endangered” and then obtain additional living space by forcing road builders to construct expensive newt-friendly estates has rebounded rather badly.

A reader tells me that highly expensive fencing was erected to collect at-risk newts at Wymondham when the new A11 was built. Collecting stations were positioned every 50 yards or so, consisting of pots into which the newts were supposedly to fall to safety.

The theory seemed quite good, but the fencing was held up by posts, most of which were adjacent to the collection points.

Travelling to work early in the mornings, my informant would frequently see a magpie on each post, waiting for his breakfast.

Magpies tend to be earlier risers than conservationists and are not endangered at all. Rumours that they were employed as consultants to the contractors have however been discounted.

Norfolk legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, who was involved in the original battles against expansionist newts, was reported last night to be celebrating callously at a pub near Erpingham.

Magpies are believed by many newts to be an omen of bad luck. They are watching the plans for the Norwich North Distributor Road very closely.

Déjà vu all over again

The original Attleborough bypass, in all its single carriageway glory, was completed in 1984 – just over 20 years before construction on the new all-singing, up-and- down dual carriageway began.

Even the most short-sighted of us could see that bypass number one was a waste of time and money of monumental proportions, and so it has proved.

Perhaps those who approved it would like to step forward, preferably into the middle of the new road, and apologise.

With the missing £8 million this time round, and the shoulder-shrugging refusal of the Highways Agency to upgrade the Besthorpe junction, the words déjà and vu will not be far from many people’s lips.

Going in the right direction?

Seven more people died on Norfolk roads last year than in 2005. Figures for the last three years were 64, 59 and 66, which certainly doesn’t constitute a steady downward trend – the sort of trend that might be expected with the big advances in vehicle safety, road engineering and, ahem, devices designed to reduce the speed of traffic.

The figures reflect the national situation pretty closely, and beg one pretty obvious question: Is the Government going in the right direction?

The fashion nowadays is to accept everything government scientists say or be accused of being “in denial”. This is an even less healthy trend. More thought, please.

12 February 2007

on 12 February 2007 at 05:15

Highways Agency steals scenery idea

Some time ago, after noticing that roadworks delays could be quite pleasant if they happened in the stunning scenery of Glen Coe, I suggested importing mountains to Norfolk to re-create the experience here.

Now the Highways Agency has stolen my idea. Well, almost. They suggested last week landscaping the approaches to Yarmouth, particularly four key roundabouts ¬ – using not mountains, unfortunately, but sculptural features representing the cultural heritage of the town.

This, in Glen Coe style, would take motorists’ minds off the delays and congestion caused by the poor road conditions in the area.

The study that produced the idea came in at £30,000 – only about £29,800 more than it cost me to do the Scottish research. When you consider the cost of carrying out the work, you can safely add in a few more zeroes. So if the Highways Agency has that kind of money floating about, couldn’t it use it to actually improve the roads?

Ah, no, of course. It’s from a different budget.

So of course we can’t do anything about it. Budgets are much bigger than people, and if we keep on expelling hot air at the current rate, there is little doubt that global budgeting will become so destructive that the world will perish. Already newts are taking over. The only hope is to get out of our budgets and think for ourselves. But that would be too taxing.

Not that I am against beautiful roundabouts. Indeed, I am quite disturbed to read that councils in Norfolk are failing to take action against a huge destroyer of beauty – litter, which is almost as much of a threat to the world as budgets.

Legally, councils can keep the cash raised by fixed penalty notices issued to litterbugs, but despite this incentive, Norfolk accounted for only about 100 of the 33,000 notices issued last year across the country. I suppose they were too busy devising new calming measures to do anything that might improve the quality of life for everyone, now.

Antidote to tourists went badly wrong

News that University of East Anglia scientists had discovered what caused the smell of the seaside was greeted with scorn yesterday by Norfolk legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago.

Bacteria plucked from Stiffkey saltmarsh were said by UEA scientists to be the key to the smell, but Mr Houseago, of Erpingham, said that his company, Houseago Inc, had been growing micro-organisms in the Stiffkey area for generations.

“We are developing an antidote to tourists,” he said. “The idea was to create a smell that would be tolerable to local people but would drive tourists away. “Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out. We now think it’s the cause of global warming, though of course no-one will listen to us.”

When it was pointed out to him that many scientists thought climate change was caused by carbon dioxide emissions, Mr Houseago laughed and said he thought his idea was much more likely, but he didn’t have the spin doctors to put it across. He attempted to hold a world summit at Hanworth, but no-one was interested.

Children happy to believe parents destroyed planet

Children have remarkably clear views on some things. On others they are simplistic and self-righteous. Specifically, they tend to think they know better than their parents.

So they are peculiarly susceptible to certain suggestions. They do not own or drive cars, so they are likely to respond favourably to the idea that cars are bad. That’s why it’s so reprehensible for unscrupulous groups to use children to propagate their views on traffic management.

Children also tend to blame their parents for everything, so they respond enthusiastically to the notion that their parents have destroyed the planet.

At the same time they gleefully trust people who propound such views. So if, as the Government wants, they are shown Al Gore’s much less than accurate film about global warming, most of them will swallow it with all the gusto they use to reserve for chicken and chips.

They will love to hear that an increase of 2C will be devastating for life on earth, that practically any unusual weather is proof of global warming and that all debate has been ended – I quote from a typical release by a campaigning group last week.

I would like to think that anyone teaching climate change would do it objectively, just as I would like to think that anyone teaching the origins of life would do it objectively. I am sure many such teachers exist. But I am becoming more and more afraid that what is happening in schools is often perilously close to brainwashing.

Perhaps the curriculum should contain lessons on scepticism. It might also make it more interesting.

Anonymous dozen praise police

The refusal by police to name or issue photographs of 12 people wanted for serious crimes who are on the run in Norfolk was welcomed by 12 people yesterday.

They refused to give their names but said they thought the police decision was “forward-looking and enlightened”. They felt that releasing the information would definitely infringe the human rights of free people, who had earned the right to live in peace and “were being persecuted by certain individuals who would probably be in trouble if we, I mean they, got hold of them”.

A spokesman said he would like the address of anyone who suggested they should be named. Asked if he thought the police lacked common sense, he said: “In many ways they are doing a great job.”

Police last night named a prime minister who was being questioned. Potter in peril from unexpected owl

I can reveal that Harry Potter will die in the final book of the series written by J K Rowling. On page 4695 he is struck in the face unexpectedly by an owl as he makes his way into the lounge at his retirement home. Complications set in, and Hermione’s attempts to cast a healing spell have grave repercussions. The retirement home is closed down by the Ministry of Magic, and Ron Weasley is struck by the Hogwarts Express as his crutches give way. Whoops. I probably shouldn’t have said that.

29 January 2007

on 29 January 2007 at 05:30

Scheme to close down Suffolk resort is leaked

Secret plans to close down a fairly well known Suffolk seaside resort are revealed in a highly confidential document that has been leaked to this page.

The paper reveals that confusion over the allegiance of Lowestoft – which is often regarded as being in Norfolk although it is in fact well into Suffolk – has led to suspicion and recriminations. After exhaustive research and public consultation, mainly in Yarmouth, it was decided that the best solution would be to close down Lowestoft completely.

The first stages of the plan are already in operation. An initial disorientation programme was highly successful, with residents expecting a new improved road system but getting months of congestion instead.

Now plans to stop anyone entering or leaving the town by road are being put into effect, subtly codenamed “Three Months of Traffic Misery”. They include resurfacing, bridge refurbishment, converting streets from one-way to two-way, lane closures, road closures, diversions and traffic calming measures.

“All this is essential,” said consultant Len “Kissme” Hardy, of Hindolveston. “In fact all roadworks are. You may have noticed.

“Here we are aiming to transform a roads system from something that is merely amusing into one that is totally incomprehensible. And of course drive people mad in the process.

“It’s all going very well.”

According to the leaked document, the ultimate aim is to close down all entry and exit points under the pretext of installing cycle lanes. In order to avoid charges of urbanicide, food parcels will be dropped by helicopter until the media lose interest or the sea level rises. New maps are already being drawn.

Wrong kind of wildlife

My article last time on the obnoxious dune walker of Horsey brought two contrasting responses.

One was from a Sheringham woman who felt that we should give the seals space. This is a view I have no problem with at all. Seals can have as much space as they like, and I am quite happy to keep well away from them, once I know they are there.

My objection was to the unpleasant behaviour of the ODW, which was clearly not a unique incident. Another woman rang to say she had a similar experience.

She said: "We walk along Horsey Beach all year round, but on one occasion recently, our party was confronted by a very rude man – I don't know if he was a warden or a volunteer – shouting at us from the dunes through a megaphone, telling us to get off the beach. It must have been very frightening for the seals.

“We couldn't get off the beach immediately, because there was no gap in the sea wall, but one of our party managed to climb up the sand dune, at which the man was very abusive to him, and threatened to call the police. When my friend offered him his mobile phone to make the call, he decided not to pursue it.”

Clearly one of the distinguishing characteristics of the ODW is the way it enjoys shouting at people and bullying them. This is precisely the kind of wildlife we do not want on our coastline, and I trust someone will find it a different habitat soon. Scroby Sands comes to mind.

If it is necessary to keep people off the beach, there are perfectly civilised ways of doing it, as my second contact points out: “On another occasion, there were two lady wardens there who were politely marshalling people, with no trouble at all."

Ivy peace hopes as league promises to lay down arms

After years of guerrilla fighting amid the glades and coverts of eastern England, the Anti-Ivy League has agreed to lay down its arms and disband.

Scientists have demonstrated that ivy, though it has a bad reputation, does not kill trees. It is not parasitic and does not directly affect the health of the trees it climbs: it simply uses them for support.

The League has accepted this in principle, though it has declined to sign any documents.

Talks with the League have often been called off in the past amid recriminations and counter-accusations. Although it has on occasion agreed to stop its attacks on unsuspecting ivy, it has never given up its caches of saws, knives and cutters.

Isolated attacks have continued, and the innocent have suffered. But now peace hopes are high. All weapons will be handed over, and a local ombudsman, Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, will oversee their destruction.

A spokesman said from Wicklewood last night: “It is time for the Anti-Ivy League to slink off into the mists of history.” But he sounded a warning note: “We must not forget that the Provisional Anti-Ivy League and the Real Anti-Ivy League are still out there. We have to remain alert.”

Outbreak of cooling baffles experts

Meteorologists are baffled by an outbreak of global cooling in south Norfolk.

Alert locals have noticed that a stretch of just over a mile of country road, roughly at the centre of a triangle whose points are in Alburgh, Topcroft Street and Hardwick, is regularly iced over when surrounding roads are clear.

Last Thursday, when most roads in the area had lost any trace of snow by 11am, the freak stretch, which includes two sharp bends, was still covered by packed, icy snow and lethal to the unwary.

The cause of the phenomenon is a mystery, but experts put it down to a current of cold air that “comes out of nowhere” and suggest installing sleeping snowmen to jolt drivers out of their normal inertia. Weather man Ralph (Sonny) Gewitter said a local tributary of the Waveney was to blame. He declined to name it.

Bring on the haggis

I was in something of a dilemma last week, torn as I was between celebrating the feast day of Francis of Sales, the patron saint of journalists and authors, on Wednesday, or Burns Night on Thursday. To do both would clearly be excessive.

An esteemed former editor of mine, something of a Scotsman, impressed on me the importance of Burns Night, as well as the correct spelling of St Andrews (no apostrophe) and the fact that there is no such thing as Moderator of the Church of Scotland.

I can think of few facts more essential to civilisation as we know it. There was no contest, really.

15 January 2007

on 15 January 2007 at 09:47

Steer clear of winter visitor to dunes

Ramblers in the Horsey area should be on the lookout for a rare winter visitor to the area – the obnoxious woolly-hatted dune walker.

We came across one just into the new year when we ventured past the Nelson Head public house, across the meadows and out on to the sand.

As we emerged from the cut in the dunes we noticed a lone seal. We thought of having it with chips, but decided to leave it alone.

Turning left towards Horsey Gap, we were met by a couple of walkers of the female persuasion, who warned us that we should avoid disturbing a mother seal and her pup, just ahead. We assured them that we would give them a wide berth.

At this point the obnoxious dune walker appeared, with his distinctive booming cry, “Get off the beach.”

I was reluctant to approach him in case he panicked and ran into the sea, especially as he was accompanied by a rather elderly looking member of the same species, who may have been his mate. Its distinctive though softer cry of “Ridiculous, ridiculous” was, I noticed, slightly less likely to disturb the seals, one or two of which I now saw in the distance.

To try to minimise any disruption, we climbed up the dunes towards the pair. I was accompanied by a sociology professor and felt the experience might come in handy for research purposes.

On my inquiring politely why I should get off the beach, the ODW retorted that he did not have to tell me why, suggesting that he had delusions of owning the beach, which may be a characteristic of this species.

In fact the species may be prone to more widespread delusions, as this particular specimen seemed to think that we should have seen notices not to go on the beach, though there weren’t any; that we should have deduced from the emptiness of the beach that we shouldn’t go on it anyway (the book I was using said the beach was frequently deserted); and that we should have known there were many seals on the beach, though we had only just set foot on it.

Hopefully the ODW and his mate have now moved on to warmer climes, but I suggest that visitors to the Horsey area watch out for them.

When we eventually reached Horsey Gap, expecting to find numerous “Keep off the beach” notices, all we could find was a small one attached to a fence that said: “Do not attempt to return young seals to the sea.”

Personally, I wouldn’t dream of touching a seal of any kind. But I could think of one or two other creatures I would like to propel seaward.

Frightening disappearance of coach and horses

Shock news on the Christmas card front. A contributor who has been religiously documenting the contents of his cards for the last 40 years has come up with a statistic far more frightening than the loss of the word Christmas in favour of Season’s Greetings, Merry Winterval or Have as Good a Time as you Can at Roughly this Time of the Year.

He reports that this Christmas (or the recent December Event, if you prefer) he received only one Christmas card that featured a coach and horses in the snow – “three pairs of horses, driver and three passengers topsides, red livery”.

That represents, he says, a frightening overall card percentage drop in coach and horses from about 85 per cent 40 years ago to under one per cent this year.

“Is this the end of something?” he asks. “Are coaches and horses (and snow) the victims of global warming? I really do think we should be told.”

Nowhere near here

I mentioned last time that an appropriate place for the notorious “Nothing Happened” plaque in Turnstile Lane, Bungay, would have been Nowhere, near Acle.

I now discover that there are at least five other Norfolk villages not a million miles away from Nowhere. They are Repps, West Caister, Great Witchingham, Wiveton and Wereham, and they are listed (together with Wenhaston, in Suffolk) in a fascinating volume called Norfolk Fragments, by former diarist and walker Bruce Robinson, whose research into the sideways history of Norfolk is legendary.

The book is published by Elmstead Publications and concludes of the places called Nowhere: “Some seemed to have been scraps of land at places where parish boundaries met.”

I understand that others were stations on the M&GN line.

Coincidentally a founder member of the West Norfolk Mountain Rescue Team has been kind enough to send me a “Nothing Happened here in 1832” plaque, which is on my desk as I write. I am trying to think of the right spot for it.

Winners are not newts

A couple of readers have responded to my article on the risk of corrupting innocent nightingales by sending them down the road of money-spinning great crested newts.

Newts, it seems, may have been hoist by their own expansionist petard.

Apparently the cost of safeguarding the protected amphibians through obtaining a Defra licence is so expensive that many would feel the only way to make progress was not to notice the newts in the first place. This could easily result in the loss of newt colonies.

“The only winners are those who are getting paid, and it’s not newts,” I’m told.

Temperatures up and down

Forecasters at the Met Office have predicted that this year is likely to be the warmest on record globally. They also point out that last year was the warmest year on record across the UK – though for some reason omitting to mention that globally it was only the fifth warmest in the current century – or to put it another way, the second coolest.

Meanwhile I read that official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia show that “the global average temperature did not increase between 1998 and 2005”. Can this be true?

1 January 2007

on 1 January 2007 at 05:00

Wandering among the griffins

I understand that the next time I take a trip on the Bittern Line, I could end up in what is due to be called Griffin Country.

This is extremely worrying. I am already on a hit list drawn up by great crested newts and by coypu, which I revealed on this page are nowhere near as extinct as they pretend to be. I can’t prove that the e-mail I received from ycoup@hingham.com, suggesting that I might become extinct myself, was in fact from a rodent of any kind, but I have my suspicions.

Now, it seems, I have to contend with griffins whenever I venture into the villages north of North Walsham.

It could be worse, and nearly was. I understand the original idea was to call it Griffon Country, but it was pointed out that griffons are a type of vulture almost never seen in north Norfolk. The idea was abandoned, but not before several twitchers arrived at Bacton.

Griffins themselves are not so common now in the north-east coastal strip. Some say they have been eroded and have fallen into the sea. I doubt this would happen to a beast that is a cross between an eagle and a lion, though I can see how it might be confused enough to lose its footing.

It is some years now since I have actually seen one of these wonderful animals running free around the Great Barn at Paston. One of them was believed to have gone to school at North Walsham, where it was good at contact sports, but in recent times they have all but disappeared, perhaps because of global warming and a lack of glaciers.

I thought I saw one last week when I stood in Hog’s Loke, near Spa Common, and gazed over the North Walsham and Dilham Canal towards the sea as the sun set over Meeting Hill, but I could have been mistaken.

I shall certainly be watching my step as I stroll through Knapton, Trunch and Edingthorpe in future. Once griffon, twice shy, as they say.

Nothing plaque pinned down in Bungay alley

My thanks to the readers who wrote in to tell me where the mysterious borderline “Nothing happened” plaque was pinned to a wall.

It turns out to be Turnstile Lane, in Bungay - an alleyway running between Upper Olland Street and Lower Olland Street. Geoff Went tells me he walks through there quite often and is sure that one day something will happen, which is commendable optimism.

The precise location, I am told by David Wolfenden, is the wall of a house at Number 8; so I suppose the plaque could refer to nothing happening inside the house, but only in 1832. The wording specifies “on this spot”, which begs several questions. Meanwhile my original informant suggests that a more appropriate location for the plaque would be Nowhere, near Acle. I happen to be nowhere near Acle as I write, and could not agree more.

He also suggests that there may be several even more obscure places in Norfolk called Nowhere. If any reader is in the middle of one of them, perhaps he or she could let me know, in case plaques are necessary.

Save nightingales from filthy lucre

Disturbingly, Norfolk Wildlife Trust has launched a Christmas appeal for £25,000 to bring nightingales to Foxley Wood.

I like a nightingale as much as the next man – in fact I am fond of birds of all kinds – but I have strong reservations about this.

Everyone knows how much great crested newts charge nowadays to allow any kind of construction to happen, whether it is roads or houses. Indeed it seems that the possibility of disturbing great crested newts has to be factored into any major project, such is their expertise in extorting cash.

Few people would trust a newt further than they could throw it, which is illegal, by the way.

I would not like to see nightingales, at present innocent birds, go the same way. Once you give a group of nightingales £25,000 to live in one place, you will find nightingale consortia all over the county, demanding nesting fees. Desirable areas, like Berkeley Square, could see astronomical amounts paid.

From there it would be only a short step to their charging extra for singing unsocial hours, especially if the singing was enchanting.

Save our nightingales. Don’t give them anything.

Disappearing hospitals the game of 2007

Watching hospitals disappear is the new, exciting game for 2007.

Apparently what you do is set up cottage hospitals to look after the needs of small communities in Norfolk. You encourage local people to work in them, with a resulting high level of care and community. You develop local pride in their performance, and a great deal of local money is raised to improve them.

Then you put them at the mercy of a huge and constantly changing top-heavy health service that leaks money like a burst water main, but in much less interesting ways.

Then you get someone from a long way away to come and listen to overwhelming reasons that the hospitals should stay open.

You turn round, feel good, shut your eyes for a few seconds, and when you open them again, the hospital has disappeared.

Hours of fun for all the family. A No-one is to Blame Production. On sale now.

Horror as time distortion pops up in Norwich

The influence of the Autonomous Republic of Hingham, with its radical form of democracy and time-space distortion, has reached out to the very heart of Norwich.

I don’t mean its Georgian architecture, its annual fairs or its candlemaking. I mean the clock on St Augustine’s Church, near Anglia Square.

For years this had been stuck at 7.10. Recently, for no apparent reason, it moved forward to 7.40. When the phenomenon was investigated, it was found that the clock had no workings inside at all.

Recently a Developing Consciousness course has been running at the nearby church hall, and some members of the congregation feel that the clock may have been affected.

Prof V A R Scheinlich, the Hingham distortion expert, said: “We thought this kind of thing was restricted to the Hingham area. The vicar should be very worried.”

25 December 2006

on 23 December 2006 at 21:38

A rumour of angels

Those of you who follow these postings religiously will of course be aware that today is Christmas Day. Some of you will also be aware that the Eastern Daily Press does not publish on Christmas Day.

As a result I miss a week and return to your lives on New Year's Day, when I will have none of the usual attractions associated with that date - looking back to the future, forward to the past and sideways at what other writers are saying.

I will also not be including a series of puzzles or a quiz to demonstrate how many things I know that you don't. This is in case you retaliate with a series of much harder puzzles and a much longer list of things you know that I don't.

I do hope that you enjoy today and remember whose birthday it really is. Here is Christmas described in other words by C S Lewis:

In addition to the physical or psycho-physical universe known to the sciences, there exists an uncreated and unconditioned reality which causes the universe to be; this reality has a positive structure or constitution that is usefully, though doubtless not completely, described in the doctrine of the Trinity; and this reality, at a definite point in time, entered the universe we know by becoming one of its own creatures and there produced effects on the historical level which the normal workings of the natural universe do not produce; and this has brought about a change in our relations to the unconditioned reality.

Or, as Peter Berger put it, any serious inquiry into human experience will reveal a rumour of angels.

Happy Christmas.

11 December 2006

on 11 December 2006 at 06:00

Astonishment as carbon footprints are found in Grey Area

The scientific consensus was disturbed last night by the announcement of a ground-breaking discovery near East Rudham in north-west Norfolk.

The University of East Anglia’s prestigious School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing has carried out extensive tests on indentations found in a field on the way to Bagthorpe and has confirmed that they are carbon footprints.

“Big ones, too,” said Prof Ian (Sam) Aufmerksam, who headed the team out in the field. “We were amazed, especially as it was quite cold and getting colder.”

The initial discovery was made by whole-food chef Len “Kissme” Hardy, of Hindolveston, who is not married. He told our reporter that the area was relatively unexplored. While not as remote as Norfolk’s famous black hole – which is normally situated somewhere near Reepham – it is commonly known as the Grey Area.

“I’m not sure when any human being would have been in that field before me,” said Mr Hardy. “Probably not for thousands of years. Except to plant the hedge, of course.”

Asked where he thought the footprints came from, he said there was every likelihood of at least one large carbon roaming the area. Probably two.

“I haven’t actually seen one,” he said, “but I suspect it would look like a big black cat – maybe a puma. If there’s two of them, and they mate, we could be in real trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if the earth moved, or the sea level rose.

“It’s happened before.”

Prof Aufmerksam said many people knew that medium-sized carbons did stalk parts of Norfolk in Roman times, when Great Yarmouth was still under water and had never hosted any kind of chess tournament.

“This could be worse,” he said. “I would advise people not to have too many lights on in their houses. It attracts these things. I’m not sure how.”

The Government is considering taxing fields where such footprints are found, and the people who found them, but Mr Hardy was sceptical.

“That’ll never work,” he said. “Norfolk people aren’t stupid. The farmers will just plough them up and deny all knowledge of them. I can’t remember where I saw them now.

“I hope someone made copies.”

Online shopping backlash expected

While many companies are announcing an increase in online shopping in the crawl- up to Christmas, a backlash is waiting in the wings.

Professor V A R Scheinlich, who declined to give his age or name, said yesterday from his holiday home in Thorpe Hamlet that he would not be shopping online any more, as he had had to wait in a long, cold and wet queue outside Norwich sorting office for the 14th time to collect his parcel.

“I suspect newts have infiltrated the postal service,” he alleged. “They wait till you go out, then try to deliver your parcel but can’t get it through the letterbox, so they take it away again. I’ve heard them laughing.”

Prof Scheinlich, an expert on space-time distortion, said he called it in-line shopping, not online shopping, and he proposed to go back to sitting in his car in the road outside the Riverside shopping complex every Sunday morning. “At least you don’t get wet that way,” he said. “Of course, you can’t buy anything either.”

He claimed Royal Mail could sort out the problem by making the collection room bigger, the counter longer and the staff more numerous. Or by making more than one attempt to deliver parcels.

“Instead they let strange people clog the place up by posting armfuls of parcels there as well,” he said. “They could do that anywhere. I think they’re taking the mickey.”

Nothing happens in border town

A fairly respected correspondent tells me of a plaque he came across in a border town – possibly Beccles or Bungay. He can’t remember which.

It was in an alleyway, maybe near a church, and commemorates the fact that “nothing happened here”.

I made almost every effort to check the splendid plaque down, and even considered going to either Beccles or Bungay at one point, before abandoning hope on the A146 as usual.

Nevertheless I did engage in much more arduous international research and discovered that such plaques are not unique to the Norfolk-Suffolk border. In fact there was a rash of them in Paris at one point. The similarities between Paris, Beccles and Bungay will be obvious to most readers.

The plaques, I discovered, are offered for sale on the internet by an enterprising American company called Siegler. I am not saying this is the source of the East Anglian plaque, or the French ones, but nothing can be ruled out.

The “Nothing happened here” Siegler wall plaques were priced originally at a generous $19.95, but they have since been reduced to $5. Which I suppose goes to show that the price of nothing is going down.

Unexpected weather may hit other outdoor events

The shock cancellation of an ice spectacular that had been scheduled for the Norfolk Showground in February has had unexpected repercussions.

The ice show was deleted because of fears that unpredictable weather might lead to disappointment if shows had to be called off nearer the event.

Norwich City are now considering calling off all home matches in case it rains hard or someone gets injured, and a sun-and-sea party planned by Houseago Inc of Erpingham for Bacton beach in January has also been struck off. “We felt there was a risk that it might be a bit chilly,” said chief executive and Norfolk legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago.

The Rev Nick Repps-cum-Bastwick, a spokesman for Weather or Not, a meteorological betting conglomerate, said that calling off outdoor events could be disastrous. Concerts in Blickling Park and Thetford Forest could be affected because of the risk of rain or, in some cases, trees. Thousands would be disappointed.

He suggested rescheduling the ice spectacular for July, when it was a “fair bet” the weather would be much nicer.

Meanwhile there have been calls for the Ashes series in Australia to be abandoned because of a serious risk of weather of one kind or another, especially in Perth.

27 November 2006

on 27 November 2006 at 10:50

The lights don't work, so why not turn them off?

I see that the Anti-Highways Agency has struck again, by declining to do anything about the bottleneck Gapton Hall junction at Great Yarmouth except install more traffic lights at entrances to the roundabout.

In a near-brilliant coup, their managers added that the only way this would be possible in the less-than-distant future would be to get a contribution to the costs from new developers – in return for planning permission.

New development, of course, would make the junction even more congested. Clearly Catch-22 is high on the reading list at the Anti-Highways Agency. Perhaps something on improving roads would also make good reading, but I suspect that has all been thrown out.

It would be nicely ironic if the agency’s inertia, coupled with its crazy obsession with combining traffic lights with roundabouts, were to coincide with some really radical highways rethinking somewhere out of their reach.

How about a city like Norwich, for example, getting rid of nearly all its traffic lights, together with a hefty number of its signs and road markings?

As one reader reminds me, this innovative idea has been tried in Holland, in a town called Drachten, with surprising results. Where there had been a road death every three years, since the removal of the lights seven years ago there have been none.

The logic behind the scheme is compelling. The organiser, one Hans Monderman, is reported as saying that taking the lights away enabled motorists, cyclists and pedestrians to co-exist more safely.

It worked well precisely because it was potentially dangerous, he said. “It shifts the emphasis away from the Government taking the risk to the driver being responsible.”

As a result everyone is much more careful and tailbacks are reduced considerably. He claims not to have found anywhere that traffic lights were actually useful. I imagine if such an idea were mooted seriously in Norwich, the usual suspects would be up in arms instantly, demanding more, not fewer, obstacles to the progress of traffic. But maybe I’m wrong. I frequently am.

Could it be time someone started treating motorists – and other road users – like responsible human beings? Lateral thinking, anyone?

Anyone?

Objections to sinister roof-squatter

This year’s Christmas postage stamps are religiously offensive, says Norfolk legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, of Erpingham.

He wants them withdrawn immediately.

“I am amazed at the Royal Mail,” he said. “It has been more or less proved that Santa Claus didn’t exist – and if he did, he didn’t have a beard, and it wasn’t that long. In the stories, his treatment of elves is probably racist and certainly exploitative, not to mention the animal welfare problem. Reindeer are a threatened species.

“I do not believe in this sinister, roof-squatting figure. His exploits are obviously exaggerated and couldn’t have happened, and I object to seeing him every time I want to send a card or letter.

“Some people may worship him, but I object to being forced to join in.”

Asked if he was happy with the second-class stamps, Mr Houseago said he was not. “Many stories of snowmen are bizarre and obviously inserted by later writers. I am glad they’re portrayed as second-class, but would rather they weren’t there at all.”

He described the reindeer and tree cards as “unconvincing” and almost Japanese. “They are bound to offend people of non-tree faiths,” he said, “as well as people who are allergic to snow.

“The Royal Mail should show more sensitivity at this time of year.”

Curious affair of the disappeaing payphone

A more suspicious person than me might find certain elements in the case of the “lost” Norfolk village of Drymere a trifle curious.

You will remember that Drymere, near Swaffham, disappeared temporarily from BT maps at the same moment that the village’s payphone vanished.

Coincidentally, this was one of four rural payphones that BT had threatened to remove a couple of years ago, but which were reprieved after a campaign by local councillor Ian Sherwood.

On hearing about the disappearance of the phone and BT’s failure to locate the village, Mr Sherwood kindly supplied his own map to BT, together with a photograph of where the phone used to be. A spokesman then admitted the phone had been the victim of a “theft attack”, which is presumably different from a simple theft in that the thief wraps up the end of the wires after taking the equipment. Normally only a telephone professional would bother to do this, or a compulsive wire-wrapper.

Prof V A R Scheinlich of Hingham, who specialises in space-time distortion, suggests that a wormhole may be involved, or possibly a phone collector with access to BT maps.

“It’s easy to get your lines crossed in that area,” he said.

Residents of Swacking Cuckoo, near Cromer, are said to be “concerned”.

Jail depends on who stands where

I have no sympathy at all with habitually careless drivers. But everyone who is human – and this may not include one or two of my correspondents – will admit to having a momentary lapse of concentration while at the wheel.

The consequences of such a lapse are usually tiny, if measurable at all; occasionally they will be more serious; and very, very occasionally they may be fatal. The lapse is the same in all cases, but the consequences are different.

The Government plans to make jail likely for those drivers whose lapse causes someone else’s death, and I can understand the relatives of victims feeling this is justice. But is it?

Last week an elderly driver made an error of judgement in an unfamiliar car, and it shot forward off a wall and on to a busy street in Thetford. A mother and child had to take evasive action: if they had not, it could have been a double fatality.

Under the proposed law, if the “victims” had not been alert, the driver could have been jailed. As they were, he couldn’t. Making the punishment fit the crime is one thing: making it fit random circumstance is no justice at all.

13 November 2006

on 13 November 2006 at 05:00

Queuing up to jump on catastrophe bandwagon

Predictions of catastrophe are always good value: if you prove to be right, you can remind survivors that you said it would happen. If you’re wrong, no-one will remember.

I’m sure one University of East Anglia professor didn’t have that in mind the other week when he repeated the familiar warning that where freak weather events “might have occurred once in a generation, they may now happen every decade, and in the not-too-distant future that could be every two or three years”.

But he is part of a growing band of people willing, if not eager, to make such remarks. Some are climatologists, but many are not.

Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the Government, is a chemist, but he is to the forefront of politically correct climate alarmists. John Prescott is a politician: his association of increased hurricane activity with global warming (possibly not his own idea) fell rather flat this year when no hurricanes at all made landfall during the season.

Sir Nicholas Stern is an economist, but he had no trouble impressing politicians with his forecasts of catastrophic climate change. Of course politicians are easy to impress, particularly when doom scenarios give them the excuse to increase taxes and restrict freedom. Other economists were not so enthused by his report.

Richard Tol, senior research officer at Ireland's Economic and Social Research Institute, commented drily: "It assumes that society will never get used to higher temperatures, changed rainfall patterns, or higher sea levels. This is a rather dim view of human ingenuity.

"The Stern Review can therefore be dismissed as alarmist and incompetent."

More significant locally, however, is the fact that Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the UEA, is concerned by the bandying about of catastrophe scenarios.

While sticking to the view that human activities are heavily involved in climate change, he says: “The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. To state that climate change will be ‘catastrophic’ hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions that do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science.

“Is any amount of climate change catastrophic? Catastrophic for whom, for where, and by when? What index is being used to measure the catastrophe?”

A welcome burst of sanity from an unimpeachable source, but he would certainly not go as far as Dr Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, who with many others feels there is still “no scientific proof of causation between the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 and the recent global warming trend” – a hypothesis, he says, that “has not yet been elevated to the level of a proven theory”.

Is there still room for an alternative explanation? A little-reported but significant new Danish study published by the Royal Society has recently provided definite experimental evidence that cosmic rays may be a major factor in climate change.

The figures fit, and the implication is that humans may have had little or no impact. Now that’s what I call a catastrophic theory – for politicians.

Driving hazards in Cape Town

The two Norfolk enthusiasts who are planning to drive to Cape Town to raise money for the East Anglian Air Ambulance may find that one of the most dangerous parts of the journey is Cape Town itself.

During a recent stay there I was driving along a mountain road when I was faced with a car proceeding merrily towards me round a corner on my side of the road. Fortunately I was able to swerve to avoid it, largely because I wasn’t watching my speedometer at the time.

But that was only one hazard: people wandering across motorways was another, and then there were the taxis.

Cape Town “Kombi” minibus taxis have their own highway code. While I was in line for traffic lights – or robots, as they are excitingly called over there – I was a little disturbed to note a series of Kombis shooting past on my inside, mounting the kerb and swerving round trees to beat the queues. Tourists are advised not to challenge these innovative drivers, as many of them carry guns.

Maybe bus lanes aren’t so bad after all.

Whales in unlikely places

Just south of Cape Town there is a stunning surfers’ bay called Llandudno. While walking among the huge boulders there we caught sight of a couple of whales only a hundred yards or so offshore. Yes, Llandudno. Yes, whales. What can I say?

Death off the roads and out of churches

My Scilly correspondent informs me that the Isles of Scilly Council has been criticised for not doing more to implement the Government’s proposals for keeping death off the roads.

The inaction of the council may have something to do with the fact that no-one has ever been killed in a road accident in the Scilly Isles. I wonder what their target is.

In Norfolk we are much more compliant. At Ranworth Church a safety bar was installed so that people could continue to climb the church tower. In 600 years no- one had ever fallen from the tower.

Speed up the paths and bridges

When I wrote about the need for paths and footbridges to bring city people easily to the recreational areas at Whitlingham, just outside the city, I was unaware of the persistent work done by the Norwich Rivers Heritage Group to open up much of the area involved.

They tell me that a big consultation is in progress to clarify the situation and to expedite the necessary amenities. I just hope it’s not too big: asking everyone is often an excuse for not doing anything, and in this case there seem to be simple things that could be done very quickly – or at least before I die.

The NRHG website is at www.norwichrivers.co.uk. It’s worth a look.

30 October 2006

on 30 October 2006 at 05:00

Expedition to seek sweet spot in Dereham Dessert

Thousands of people have been asking me what has happened to Richard “Volcano” Meek, the intrepid Norfolk explorer whose exploits occasionally grace this space.

In fact he has been exploring local long-distance footpaths, and readers who are looking for more intellectual stimulation than they will find here can scan the erudite, compelling and indeed entertaining results on the internet at http:// walkingoverbishybarnabees.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile he tells me that he is about to tackle a mystery that rivals the fabled Lasseter’s Reef – a ridge of solid gold supposedly found around the turn of the century in the vast Western Australian desert but never located since.

I understand that, somewhat surprisingly, Norfolk has its own Lasseter - a grizzled old prospector who stumbled into a Little Chef on the A47 in barely civilised times before the road was even dualled. (Oh, it still isn’t, is it?)

He was barely alive and hard to understand, but he was heard to croak “Demerara” before collapsing. It turned out that he had found an unrefined map drawn by two fabled explorers who had found a reef of pure sugar - cubes the size of a man's fist, sugar beet the size of his head.

Could it be, wondered Mr Meek, that "Demerara" had been misheard and misunderstood? Could the prospector have croaked "Dereham Area"? Could Beetley be the new Eldorado?

Volcano intends to find out by leading an expedition into the great Dereham Dessert in search of riches and fame. Previous expeditions have found only Fool's Beet or "Dumpling Green", as geologists sometimes call it.

He is hoping to sign up members of the recent Over 80s expedition that discovered previously unknown tribes of forest dwellers in Foxley Wood. Excitement is mounting almost daily.

Flexible fares and drivers with discretion

Readers will be relieved to hear that the gentleman who had difficulty finding out about buses to Norwich Airport achieved some success after his story appeared on this page.

He rang up County Hall again and found himself speaking to someone who not only knew about buses but revealed that he could catch a park-and-ride bus from Castle Meadow to the airport on payment of just £1.

A trifle suspicious (I don’t know why) my informant decided on a dummy run and, after reaching Castle Meadow from the station without more trouble than you might expect, found an airport park-and-ride bus strategically placed.

Unfortunately its driver wanted to charge him £2 instead of the promised £1. He was also helpful enough to point out that when my informant travelled “for real” and had his wife him, they would have to pay £2 each.

My informant pointed out that this seemed a little curious when cars were allowed to park for £1.50, which included transporting the driver and all his passengers to and from the city centre; so the bus driver relented, charged him the £1 the council had suggested - and presented him with a free voucher for his return trip.

The flexible fare structure and degree of discretion are certainly surprising, but no doubt that’s what you get in a free market economy. At least the bus went to the airport as advertised.

Meanwhile my informant was recording his arrival and departure at the various bus stops, and as a result proposes suggesting to County Hall that a team of people could be recruited to record actual journey times on various routes, so that realistic journey times could be publicised.

He has even thought of a name for such a team – "Waitwatchers". Which somehow makes it all worth while.

Lowestoft ideal spot for new airport, says report

A shock report by the School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing at the UEA has revealed that airports come in the same category as wind farms, except that their propellers are smaller.

Government-funded in-depth research disclosed that people object to both wind farms and airports on land, but don’t mind them at sea.

Following the report, a feasibility study has been ordered into the possibility of siting an East Anglian Regional Airport at Lowestoft. Locals say this is the ideal place, as the town already has an annual air show, and much of the infrastructure, such as waves, is already in place.

A number of companies have said they are keen to dip their toes in the water.

Car ownership gets unexpected lift

People who find it hard to tear themselves away from their cars will be delighted to hear that they can now take them to bed.

And the technology that makes it possible is ideally suited to the new riverside apartment blocks springing up around Norwich – with the added advantage that the cars that are taken to bed would no longer incur city council parking charges.

The idea, originating in Germany of course, is called CarLoft, and it involves installing a car-size lift in the building. This would then raise the car to the level of your apartment, where an appropriate slot would be available for it. And if you really wanted to, you could put your bed next to it – though a garden is the preferred option.

The whole process, I am assured, would take no more than two minutes. Of course this does not include installing the lift, but what really worries me is something else.

What happens when the lift breaks down? The car can hardly take the stairs.

Still it is unarguable that the car is safer up there, as the architects of the scheme point out. And your family would no doubt be removed from the risk of carjacking and kidnapping – perennial Norfolk problems.

Apparently there is a lot of interest from Russia and Israel.

16 October 2006

on 16 October 2006 at 05:00

Ten years and still going strong

Celebration this month of the tenth anniversary of the tabloid Eastern Daily Press reminds me that the Tim Lenton commentary page had the honour of appearing in the very first of the new-look papers.

Nothing really changes, does it? On the first page I wrote about confusion on the roads, and while I have received many messages of support – some from quite eminent people - nothing much has changed except the precise shape of the confusion.

I also wrote about blots on the landscape such as phone masts, and while the emphasis has switched to wind farms, the blots don’t go away.

So why bother? Well, most obviously, someone had to expose what was going on in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham, where time and space are distorted, wormholes are common, democracy is under threat and only Professor V A R Scheinlich sees things as they really are.

Of course, democracy is under threat everywhere: we are asked to accept so many dubious things as self-evident, when a little thought shows that the picture is much more complex.

If what we’re asked to accept is going to have a real impact on our lives, the threat is all the more potent. And when there is an attempt to drown out dissenting voices, we are on hazardous ground indeed.

Expansionist great crested newts have become for me – and a few discerning readers – a symbol of dehumanising bureaucracy and unthinking consensus, and they were there as just a bizarre germ of an idea on the first of these absurd pages.

The newts are still with us, in so many different forms. They have to be challenged, or the glory of human life will be ploughed under.

Mystery of the missing bridge

Readers intrigued by Peter Sargent’s typically eloquent journey around the city’s Wensum bridges in the EDP recently may have found themselves wondering why there is one bridge too few.

No, I don’t mean the famous invisible pedestrian bridge ¬– scheduled for years to be built between the rail station and the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge but never actually materialising.

I mean the one that is never talked about but which clearly should be materialising – at Thorpe St Andrew, enabling pedestrians to walk from Thorpe over to the spanking new edge-of-the-city leisure park at Whitlingham.

This would mean that many people from both Thorpe and the city would be able to reach Whitlingham without taking their cars, which should surely attract funding.

And as if in mute testament to the desirability of such an undertaking, the short piece of road opposite Thunder Lane is actually called Whitlingham Lane, although it is prevented from reaching Whitlingham by both rail and river.

I’m sure there is some really good reason why such a bridge has not been built, just as there must be a reason why a riverside path cannot be created out of the city and past Carrow Road stadium, on one bank or the other.

If we really want to encourage walking, these are two obvious steps in the right direction. Why is our green-fingered council not insisting on them?

Right kind of crime will lure police out of hiding

The suggestion by a police authority member that we might exaggerate reports of crime in order to persuade the police to put in a swift appearance was to my mind unnecessarily crude.

Certainly it is hard to find a policeman when you need one, but there is no need to exaggerate to bring them out of hiding. You just have to report the right kind of crime.

If you want them to attend a burglary, all you need say is that the burglar made a homophobic remark or a racial insult while smashing you in the face with a bottle. On second thoughts, to avoid confusion, leave out the bit about the bottle. And your face.

They would also be sure to turn out for a road accident if there was the slightest chance of closing the road for 24 hours. And if a teacher steals your purse, don’t mention money: just get a child to make a complaint against them.

If you want something done about an anti-social neighbour, don’t bother to complain about noise, violence and threats. Just say they’ve got your ball.

Simple when you know how.

Bid for freedom

As they tried to leave the city, they could see a road block in the distance. With scarcely a moment’s thought, he swung the wheel and took a side road to the left. A bit more fuel, but it would get him there more quickly.

He turned, and saw a white van do a U-turn to avoid being stopped. He listened for the wail of sirens, but nothing happened, and he was soon out of the danger area.

Yes, it’s a bid for freedom, but not the kind of wartime dash you might have expected. It’s an attempt to avoid being delayed by last week’s road censuses. Some people simply go round them, some give wrong information for their own purposes, others are forced to fit in with what’s on the form, and almost no-one has any idea of which postcode they’re going to.

The result: lots of unnecessary delays and a wodge of very approximate, distorted information for someone to feed into a hungry computer. It may explain the bizarre highways policy and high number of road closures we have to endure in Norwich, but does it really get us anywhere?