Geoff
& Chris in the UK Letters & Photos: Previous
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UK News January 2004
It is only a few days before we depart for our four week trip to New Zealand, we're feeling excited, disorganised, anxious and elated, all at the same time.We have one night at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Singapore, for a bit of R&R in their swimming pool, then arriving in Auckland on the morning of Tuesday 10th Feb.
Our itinerary: http://www.olympia.co.nz/itinerary_feb2004.htm
I had been hoping for one really decent wintry day before we departed, and
last night (28th Jan) my wish was granted! It wasn't massively cold (only
-2) and there wasn't that much snow (perhaps 2 inches), but the country
almost closed down! The roads of Birmingham and much of England were
treacherous, covered in ice, with traffic ground to a halt. Some of my
workmates didn't get home until midnight, tales have been told on TV of
others getting home at 4am, people waiting hours on pavements waiting for
buses to come, thousands of broken bones after slips and falls, and probably
hundreds of deaths of elderly people ill prepared, thousands of homes cold
due to burst central heating pipes, you get the general idea…
There's mass derision from the public, over why the country can't cope with such a small amount of snow (especially compared to European countries). But the explanation is reasonable: the council had put salt on the roads, but it then rained - washing the salt away. This was followed by lots more snow and then the temperature dropped from 3 degrees to -2 within ½ hour. This caused ice to form on the roads washed clean of the salt. Once ice has set, there's little benefit from further salt, so chaos ensued… Plus, in those countries, motorists change their tyres to winter ones, which have much more tread on them.
Fortunately to me, my trains were running well (the Solihull to Snow Hill line is an exceptionally reliable one with only 1% breakdowns), resulting in an easy journey home. Chris had to scrape inches of snow off the car before she could leave work, and then had a very cautious job driving on slippery roads. In London, many trains were cancelled due to snowdrifts on the line, so there goes my image from old movies of trains ploughing at full speed through piles of snow…
In many places, workers returned to their work and slept overnight. The city council opened up their banqueting suite to 70 workers who couldn't find hotel rooms. Likewise many staff stayed overnight at the University. Hospitals ran reasonably well, served by generous staff who worked double shifts, to replace staff who couldn't make it in. The CEO of one hospital chipped in by making tea and cooking bacon sandwiches overnight.
I was a bit anxious about driving to Northampton today (a trip I make every Thursday). This trip normally takes a little over an hour, but today it was more like 2 ½ hours. One of my workmates took five hours on his journey from Southampton. The motorway was quite damaged, with the median barrier (called here 'the central reservation') missing in two places where huge trucks had jack-knifed. The fast lane of the motorway was covered in ice in many places, showing that wise motorists follow in the tracks of others in the slow lanes. Quite frightening are the great big sheets of snow and ice which slide off the tops of trucks and crash onto the road, causing a sudden shower of snow.
The salt and grit that is spread onto the roads ('grit') makes a heck of a mess of the car, and causes the windscreen to be really grimy. Of course the windscreen wipers are no good as they're frozen solid to the bonnet, or worse still - smearing the grime even more across the screen, unable to be washed away as the washer fluid is frozen as well.
But it was quite lovely seeing the Warwickshire countryside, stunningly
beautiful hills and meadows coated in the white stuff, made even more
attractive by the strong sunlight beaming down through the cloudless skies.
My drive back this afternoon was lighted by an vivid orange setting sun, low in
the sky.
I had 15 minutes spare before my meeting, so I went for a wander over the
fields next to Shoosmiths office. There was a thick coating of soft powdery
snow, with no footprints other than birds and some paw prints. To my delight
I saw a fox a short distance away, and a red robin scratching for worms
amongst the moss and snow. Unfortunately both were too swift for me to catch
them with my camera.
By the time we get back from NZ, spring will be nearly upon us. Most
trees are so barren in winter, causing the emergence of leaves in spring to
be such a powerful sight. I'm looking forward to that, we really enjoyed
spring last year.
Christmas is over, and so is the fascinating German market in central
Birmingham. This market sold tasty sausages, huge smoky flavour bangers,
cooked on a massive circular hanging BBQ . And then, overnight, it
disappeared. One day I went looking for it, and there's not a trace of it
left. All that was left was the fairy-tale musical carousel, which
disappeared after another week. I never did get Chris onto that, what a
shame…
Of course, we really enjoyed the latest Lord of the Rings movie, and like
many who had never read the book, lament that there won't be a fourth movie
in the series. Everyone's hoping that Peter Jackson will make the Hobbit
movie before he gets too busy with King Kong. I'm really proud of NZ's
achievement in making those movies, and everyone here is in admiration of
the fantastic scenery that NZ provided for the filming.
We've had much joy from buying a bird feeder, every morning we watch all manner
of feathered friends come around to our garden for breakfast… a robin,
sparrows, a thrush, magpies, a crow, pigeons, blue tits, chaffinches and
others no doubt feed on peanuts, seeds and 'fat balls' on the smorgasbord we
provide. Add to that the group of squirrels that come around to pick on
fallen seeds, chew our daffodils and run amok in the garden. The squirrels
really are like a pack of ten year old boys, chasing eachother around the
garden, climbing trees, kicking around the bark on the gardens, scaring the
birds away.
One recent Saturday, while Chris was off shopping for wedding outfit(s), I took nephew Michael to the
Birmingham Science Museum (with the silly name of Millennium Point). It
really brought home to me that the industrial revolution really was based in
the Midlands. There were so many great names on manufactured goods in the
museum. I didn't know that Spitfire planes were made here, nor BSA
motorbikes (these were built in the British Small Arms factory after the
war, when they were looking to diversify). There were 10,000 people employed
in Birmingham on bicycle manufacture (eg Raleigh), and many more on
jewellery manufacture (Birmingham is still the largest jewellery
manufacturing region in the world). Other well known brand names from
Birmingham include Avery, Cadburys, James Watt (steam engines - in
conjunction with Boulton & Murdock), Wedgewood and J B Priestley, Austin
& Morris car builders, Rover and BMW, Jaguar (in Coventry), and so many
more. And of course Salter scales!
I really enjoyed spend the day with Michael, he's a very clever young
lad, has a great future ahead on him. It's not often that I can play
'Uncle', spoiling him and taking a great interest in his thirst for
knowledge. I almost forgive him for thrashing me in Scrabble last night!
One thing that the UK is very good at is responding to crisis. E.g. I was
stunned how quickly a commission of inquiry was set-up after the suicide of
Dr Kelly (weapons of mass destruction expert), and today how the top brass
of the BBC immediately fell on swords after the results of the commission
were released. Such things in NZ seem to be very protracted, argued for
years, never happening properly.
As mentioned before, the train I get is very reliable. Others, I know, as
not as reliable. I'm impressed with how the whole system works, the trains
run on time, make quick whistle stops of less than a minute at most
stations, are not overcrowded, they're warm and dry.
Human behaviour is funny thing, when I was sitting in the waiting room I was amused to see one person quickly stand up and go outside, to be immediately followed by everyone else - thinking that the train had arrived. In fact it hadn't, making a fool of all of us for following him! Pride (or embarrassment) meant that no-one returned to the warmth of the waiting room, we all waited on the platform for another ten minutes!!!
Virgin (Richard Branson) have great advertising slogans, one being their train labelled as being their '634 foot stretch limo'.
Less appealing have been the advertisements for charity Barnados. They
have done themselves a great disservice by using grotesque, revolting images
of babies - with cockroaches coming out of their mouth, syringes, and other
things. They linked poverty with child abuse, which is a very dangerous
suggestion. The public has voted with their wallets, and their donations
have suffered as a result.
Together with Birmingham's wonderful old architecture, there's some
oddities. I think I've described 'Perrot's Folly' in a previous letter.
Recently I was asked to set up marketing materials for my employer at a
theatre called 'The Institute' in Digbeth. This area is adjacent to the area
of Deritrend, which literally means 'dirty end' as the area was where all
the abattoirs and dumps were during the Victoria era. This theatre is in a
weird old building which was originally the Digbeth Civic Hall. However, it
is now a quite grotty nightclub. Upon arriving, I was a bit grossed out by
the smell of split beer and cigarette smoke. Then I discovered that the room
I had to set up the displayed panels were up three flights of stairs - no
lift! Walking briskly past the padlocked fire exits (!) I found the room. It
was 'in the gods' above the theatre, with a large sloping glass window
looking down onto the stage. This evidently was the bar where thespians
congregate (cue memories of Riverlea!). I was surprised to then find out
about the play the my employer was sponsoring. 'Epicione' is a weird tale of
debasement, not quite the sort of thing that I expected a leading law firm
to sponsor…
A more wonderful looking drinking venue is 'the old joint stock', which
has the look of a grand old bank foyer. We discovered it for the first time
when a blind man asked for assistance to guide him (and his lost guide dog
'Ruby') to this pub. We obliged and have discovered 'yet another' place that
we want to visit again. Another form of architectural oddity is the scene in
'the black country' where an estranged husband is demolishing his house so
that his ex-wife won't be able to benefit from it. He has removed the roof
and all inside walls, doors, etc - so just the four outside walls are left.
He is now living in the woods! I'm not quite sure of the
legalities of that, but I do know that the council is prosecuting him for
unauthorised 'alterations'.
This trend of real life drama programmes brings out the voyeur in us, there's something quite fascinating about observing the lives of the extremes of society. Our favourite star of the "celebratory" is THE Johnny Rotten, who is surprisingly nice and intelligent, with a wicked sense of humour, wonderfully eccentric. It makes a change from watching the pneumatic Jordan jiggling all over the place, trying to be the British Pamela Anderson…
Nights with my Dad mean a bit more education comes our way, as we frequently watch with him, the antiques road show (fascinating) and teaches us so much history of the country. We also watch programmes on the Romans, War (what it is about old people who always want to talk about the war??)
The BBC is extremely good, despite the tempting trash.
While we are away,
it will be the twins Grace (left) and Caitlin (right) first birthday. What an incredible year it has been for
them. They were under 2 pounds in weight when they were born on February
25th 2003 (the day Chris started work), spent a long time in the neo-natal unit of Queen Elizabeth hospital,
and have grown to be strong, healthy babies. Rob and Dawn are such excellent
parents, and Tom is the perfect brother!Truth be known, Chris has done all the packing, while I've been typing this. Woops!
Lots of love,
Geoff & Chris