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Like a Gallon of Woodbines This story first appeared last year as the last of my Pig Tales . Not all the short stories in the book are much cop, to be honest, but I still like this one, especially as it was one of those "stream of consciousness" events. Sometimes, when you have too much time for editing, you can ruin the feel of a tale by tinkering with it too much. This one benefits from being a first & only draft. Well, I think so any road! LIKE A GALLON OF WOODBINES   Jess Ennis ran her last lap at the Don Valley Stadium on the day that Wednesday and United were playing in the semi final of the Youdan Cup. The OCS and the BBC met for a fight in t’Oil int Rooad, causing shoppers to take cover in C&A while they waited in vain for Superintendent Duckenfield of South Yorkshire Police to get a squad together to deal with the trouble.   Down at Roxy’s nightclub Susan and Joanne had arranged to meet Phil but he had gone to Josephin...
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Could You Be Any More Offensive?   pic: Scotzine.com   You probably recognise the title because it's a quote from  Wayne's World . It's what Cassandra said to Wayne after he said, referring to his love rival, Benjamin, "Maybe he's pokin' ya". His reply to her shocked response, "Could you be any more offensive"? was "Yeah" at which point, quite rightly, she threw him out of her flat.    A piece of fake news about so-called Political Correctness aroused my interest in what sort of thing people really do find offensive. The article in question was in an American web magazine and claimed that a little boy at school had been arrested for using racist language after calling a chocolate bun a brownie. That anyone could fall for such nonsense is depressing but not surprising; the fact is, of course, that chocolate buns have been known as brownies for generations and no reasonable person would consider the use of such an innoc...
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September at Old Moor Long ago, when T. Rex were top of the charts and we only had a choice of three television channels, there was a coal mine called Manvers Colliery on the outskirts of Rotherham. It's not there now, of course, but where the land collapsed, undermined by the workings below, lots of lakes were formed and the site is now the Old Moor RSPB Nature Reserve. And it's a good place to visit on an afternoon when summer has begun to migrate South and the leaves and fruits are looking all autumnal. We didn't see much in the way of unusual birds. There was a kingfisher on a post and it was almost visible with decent binoculars, and we had a good view of some rude cormorants who insisted on sitting with their backs to us, but in compensation the berries, leaves and remaining flowers looked brilliant. There is a field of sunflowers which I can never remember seeing there before. I only hope that the pictures below do them justice. The photo of the interesting ...
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Images of Sheffield Previously posted in early May 2017. I apologise to Bob and Steve, whose comments have now disappeared. There was a technical hitch as WordPress somehow inserted itself into the blog. Since the photographs below were originally taken some of the city's tower blocks, although not the ones featured here, have begun to have their cladding removed post-Grenfell, and the Pheasant at Sheffield Lane Top has been flattened. Rare & Racy has closed and that cherry tree has, after all, been reduced to a stump along with all its neighbours on Donnington Road. On 27 July a picket/human chain organised by the renters' union ACORN prevented the eviction of a family for protesting about the state of their hovel on Abbeydale Road. A few pictures taken in the last week of April 2017. The idea is to create a photographic essay contrasting some of the prettier parts of the city with others that are less picturesque and which visitors are not enc...
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