Does Santa Need a Makeover?

There is a Press Association news item on the Internet today that reports on research done by Dr Nathan Grills and illustrator Brendan Halyday of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. They reckon the image of Father Christmas - an obese mince pie eating boozer - is setting the wrong example to young people and enlarging the waistlines of all those fathers who have to eat the leftover mince pies left out by hopeful children. They want to slim him down and sober him up and prevent him from lending his image to those who advertise products that could be bad for us. But what about getting rid of the Coca-Cola red outfit and giving him back his real name? It seems that they are not prepared to go that far nor are they willing to suggest giving up the winter spending spree in favour of a joyful celebration of the Saviour's birth.

Keswick

I drove over to Keswick this afternoon. It was very quiet and a lot of the shopkeepers looked bored and miserable. I've never ever seen so few shoppers in the town but there was little evidence of prices being cut to attract more customers.

Storm Damage

The storm has caused a lot of damage in the area and I've just read of a police officer who is missing following the collapse of the Northside Bridge in Workington. This picture was published online today by the News & Star.

Living on the top of a ridge as we do it is hard to imagine ever being flooded but so many people in West Cumbria live close to rivers or the sea. Blennerhasset not far from here is flooded as are Cockermouth, Keswick and parts of Workington. There are other bridges down and warnings have gone out not to view the floods from bridges because the rivers are running so strongly engineers are not able to assess how stable they are.

This great storm has been as bad, if not worse, than the great storm of 2005. The RAF and Army have been helping rescue flood victims and the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has pledged Government support to clear up the aftermath.

Wind and Rain

When I spoke to my wife on the phone last night she told me a gale had been buffeting her mother's home on the mountainside overlooking Puffin Island all day. I'd been out for a walk in the fresh air that afternoon and though it had been raining I'd stayed dry and had revelled in the number of people who had wished me a good day as I wandered through the town.

However, as the evening progressed the wind built up and the rain lashed against the house. I found one remaining gap along the roof beam upstairs that was drawing down cold air from the roof space and plugged it temporarily with cotton wool - it did the trick so it is likely to become a permanent fix as it is in an out of the way spot that you have to crick your neck to get to.

My wife is in North Wales because her 87 year old mother needed some support. She's nearly blind and had developed a cyst on the one eye in which she retains some limited vision. The local NHS service seemed to be in no hurry to do anything so she'd spoken to her contacts in Liverpool (Mother has been participating in clinical trials for some years testing a drug that, when injected into the eye, inhibits deterioration of eyesight) and they called her in for a procedure to remove the cyst straightaway. After the procedure, which was successful, she was given an eye patch to wear, so anticipating being reduced to total blindness she needed her daughter's support on the return journey. As it was she discovered, to her delight, that she still retained some peripheral vision in the other eye.

Now I've been sitting in my study most of the morning listening to the wind and the rain. It may prove, using the classification made famous by the good folk of Dibley, to have been a great storm but not, I'm hope, as great as the last great storm I experienced in this house. That was The Great Storm when Carlisle was flooded and tiles were blown off the roof and on to my car smashing the rear window.

I Love Cheese, Cheese Loves Me

I love cheese and now it seems, cheese loves me. For years now my dentist and, more recently, my doctor have been telling me I should cut down on dairy products. The dentist because the calcium marks my teeth and the doctor because he wants me to lose weight as part of a package for managing my blood pressure.

Recent research (http://www.rssl.com/services/foodanalysis/FoodEnews/pages/Foode-newsedition.aspx?Category=Edition_461&a=1#293) suggests that increasing your intake of dairy products as part of a weight loss diet can actually help reduce weight. This is music to my ears. I can cope with having my teeth cleaned more often (assuming I can find a dentist up here in Cumbria - my old dentist has gone private and is not taking on new patients) and if call centres could be abolished I'm sure my blood pressure would improve. Now I only need to know which is the best type of cheese to eat - blue cheese I hope, it's my favourite.

A Thought - Not That Its Likely to Happen

If I were to achieve something worthwhile during my lifetime I would not want my life scrutinised because of it; that would surely devalue it.

Meat Sacrificed to Idols

In Corinth in ancient Greece meat sacrificed to the gods was distributed to the populace for consumption. The early Christians were concerned that eating this meat would signify worship of false gods and the idols associated with them. The Apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians explained that no harm could come to a member of the Lord's Church through eating the meat because the idols were false gods and could not hold power over the saints. However, he counselled, it would be best to refrain from eating such meat lest those who did not have this knowledge should see the saints eating and be led astray into the worship of false gods.

Even in our modern world there are symbols that have powerful associations in the minds of the people. For the British, Winston Churchill our great war-time leader and the Spitfire, flown by the few over the sky of London in defence of the many, symbolise the defense of the realm against tyranny. In a cynical reversal of Paul's counsel the BNP have chosen to adopt these symbols for their own political ends and no doubt there will be those, not understanding the insidious forms tyranny can take, who will be led into a world of intolerance and bigotry believing themselves to be saviours of our way of life.

J O P Jones

A while ago I came across this picture on an Internet site. This is J O P Jones, headmaster of Longlevens Secondary Modern School, Gloucester, and his dog Suzie. For the five years (1962-1967) I attended the school JOP and Suzie were permanent fixtures - yes Suzie attended school too.

JOP was a very gentle man who shook continuously. Rumour had it that during the Second World War he'd been aboard a ship that had been torpedoed.

He interviewed me just before I left his school. I was going on to the 6th form at Sir Thomas Rich's Grammar School, Gloucester and he strongly advised me to study English, Mathematics and History for GCE A Level and then to take a BEd. I've often wondered how my life would have turned out if I'd taken his advice. As it was I took English, Mathematics and Art for my A Levels and failed all three miserably. Dad wasn't keen on me re-sitting them so I took a job with an insurance company in Cheltenham instead of going on to higher education - it wasn't until my 40's that I got to study at university.

Shortly after we married my wife's parents moved to North Wales, first to Benllech on Anglesey and then to Penmaenmawr in Gwynedd where this photograph was taken - small world.

Endangered Species

Is the Greater American Meat-eater now an endangered species? I've just spent a few minutes reading a review of a study published by the US National Cancer Institute in the American Journal of Epidemiology (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/kwp280). Dr Rashi Sinha and his colleagues have analysed data collected from over 175,000 American males looking particularly at meat-eating habits. During the course of the study 10,313 of those participating developed prostate cancer, 1,102 were advanced cases and 419 died. The conclusion is that there is a 12% increased risk of developing prostate cancer among those who eat red meat and a 7% increase among those who eat processed meat.

This is just one of a number of studies that have looked at the cancer related risks associated with eating red and processed meats escpecially those cooked at high heat. It does appear that the Greater American Meat-eater, usually seen presiding over a Bar-B-Q, truly is an endangered species unless, of course, you know better.

Disabled Parking Trouble

Yesterday I drove my wife into Carlisle so that she could catch a train to North Wales to visit her mother. The station forecourt is very small and regular parking spaces are invariably taken. Because she has limited mobility my wife has a disabled sticker for the car and we can usually find a slot in one of the disabled parking spaces provided.

Yesterday all but one were already taken by people displaying valid disabled stickers. The remaining one was occupied by a paramedic (he was sat in the car messing with his mobile phone) and when I challenged the guy he told me he had permission to be there.

Why is it, wherevever you go, if any parking space is going to re-allocated to another purpose - usually builders skips (paramedics on stand-by is a new one on me) - it is always a disabled parking space. It's bad enough that the ignorant able bodied take advantage but that the owners of the parking areas should do so too is unacceptable.

Time flies

It's more than a year since we returned to Cumbria; how time flies! In that year so much work has been done on the house - new doors and windows throughout (only the garage doors were spared) - the roof was stripped back, rotten wood replaced, insulation laid (for the first time ever in the parts of the roof space that couldn't otherwise be accessed), new roof felt and, finally, the slates and coping stones were relaid - all internal walls repainted, door frames and skirting boards varnished - new floor coverings laid (what was there, even the new carpets we'd laid three years earlier when we decided to rent the house out while I was working in the south of England, was just too far gone) - all the electrics updated and white goods replaced - and, luxury of luxury, a completely new bathroom. We just have to agree on new curtains now which is proving to be more difficult than anticipated.

The most frustrating part was sorting out who supplied our gas. We thought it was E.ON and had set up an account with them (so we thought) and then along came British Gas who insisted that they were our supplier. When we checked back with E.ON they denied supplying us with gas so we went with British Gas. Then E.ON came back and insisted they were our supplier. It dragged on for most of the year but in the end Bristish Gas backed down and sent a bouquet of flowers by way of apology. Everything was confused by the old farmhouse, of which we own part, being further sub-divided, new meters being installed and allocated to the wrong properties, a new billing system at British Gas, duff information on databases and wrong postal addresses being used. In short, a total mess. A third utility company got involved at one stage so that at one point we had three utility companies arguing over which meters were in which properties and which belonged to whom. Remember the line from the introduction to each episode of Soap - "Confused! You will be." E.ON came out the winner but only on points - it was they who finally sorted everything out, but only after British Gas and E.ON were shamed into talking to each other.

Contact with the Church in this area was re-established and, as before, I attended Carlilse Branch for a short while before being asked to go to Workington. Workington is what you would describe as a happy branch, lots of smiling people and welcoming hugs. A lot of good work is being done there and it's a joy to be part of it.

Just one final thought, I've so much work to do, so much to read, so much to write that I haven't missed being employed - not once! Retirement is so good.