Tag Archives: priestley farquarson

Monday 19th October 2020 – LOOKING BACK …

… over my posts from a few weeks ago (which is one of the reasons why I write this rubbish that you read) I noticed that I was taking four – and on one occasion 5 – days to prepare just one radio programme.

This morning I sat down at about 07:15 to make a start on one and despite a break to speak to someone on the telephone and another break for lunch, it was all done and dusted and ready by just after 14:10. And that has to be something of an all-time record.

It’s a really good programme too with a couple of interesting and one extremely rare piece of music that will be bound to excite the interest of my listeners. Both of them will enjoy it very much.

What helped the matter very much is that the third alarm and I had another draw this morning. Just as I’d thrown off the covers and I was about to sit up, the alarm went off.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone. I was with three others and we’d arranged to go to the football but we didn’t for some unknown reason. When I was on my way home, all of Gresty Road was cordoned off because there was a big match. I quickly went home to dump my things and then ended up back in the ticket office for a ticket for me and a programme. I couldn’t remember how much the match was so he said “as a special favour for you we’ll do it for £20:00” which sounded pretty cheap for me but I could never be sure if that wasn’t the admission price normally. I fought my way back out through the crowds to take my position. He’d asked me where I wanted to sit and I said “in the stands nearest Gresty Road” so I thought that that was where he’d given me. As for my 3 friends whom I was supposed to be meeting I gave up any idea at all about seeing them again

It reminded me very much of the time that the Police caught three boys climbing over the fence at Gresty Road. They made the boys climb back and watch the second half.

Then I cracked on with my radio programme. I had a ‘phone call at about 11:00 from some people in the Isle of Man and then I had to send off to the engineer this week’s programme. A break for lunch, when I used the last of my home-made hummus (I must make some more tomorrow) and then I finished. A new record time to.

But it helps that I have a new system of working that’s much more efficient and choosing the tracks now only takes me a couple of minutes instead of the hours that it used to take. My record collection is divided into 7 groups now that it’s mostly digitalised, and there’s a playlist for each group. If I’m doing, say, Group D next week, I’ll be listening to Playlist D this week and making a list of the interesting and appropriate tracks, their length and (if appropriate) the week in which the track was previously played.

It only takes a couple of laps around the groups and there’s probably a list of 200 or more tracks in each group now indexed to play. I just take 50 minutes’ worth of each group each week, write out the text, dictate and edit it down, merge it all together, add on 35 seconds for a final speech, and then choose a track of the appropriate length to make up the hour.

When I’d finished, I had another task to perform. That is, to make the arrangements for the trip to Castle Anthrax. Some of us are going out on the Sunday so I’m going out on Saturday and coming back on the following Friday.

Fishing Boat English Channel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallHaving completed the day’s work extremely early, I went out for my afternoon walk, suitably masked for the occasion.

This afternoon I went, for a change, around the walls of the old town, so at the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord I had a good look out over the beach. And I was surprised, not only to see a fishing boat out there off the coast by Donville les Bains, but to see it so close to the shore.

The thought went immediately to my mind that maybe it’s run aground and waiting for the tide to float it off, but that’s unlikely. I’m sure they know what they are doing.

People on Beach Plat Gousset Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallHowever, I’m not too sure that these people do.

It’s half-term now for French schools and so the brats are out and enjoying themselves. And quite right too. This group of people were engaged in making very pretty patterns in the sand – some kind of temporary artwork. Still, it keeps them out of mischief.

For my part, I was keeping out of mischief too. Far too many people for me to break out into a run so I had a quiet walk along the path.

Drained Port de Granville Harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallNo-one about on the Square Maurice Marland so I took the opportunity to go for an extra run across to the other side.

And here, a quite interesting spectacle met my eyes. Thet had drained the inner harbour – which might explain why Granville and Victor Hugo, the two Channel Island ferries, cleared off to Cherbourg the other day.

Having made “certain enquiries”, it turns out that they have done this today so that they can examine the pontoons that they installed over the winter and also check on the seals of the gates that they installed about two years ago at the port entrance.

Sacks in Drained Port de Granville Harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallMy eyes however alighted on these objects and I wondered what they might be.

My first thought was that a group of seals or some such had entered the port when the gates had been open and were refusing to leave. And so I waited around to see if there was any movement – but there was not so I ruled out the possibility that it might be a living creature.

Closer examination revealed that they might be sacks of something or other – perhaps dropped off a fishing boat or one of the little freighters. Doubtless there will be some remark in the Press tomorrow to clarify the issue.

Back here I made a start on a couple of other tasks but Rosemary rang me up and we had a very long chat. That took me right up to teatime. A stuffed pepper with rice followed by half of the apple turnover. And even though I say it myself, my apple turnover was totally delicious. I’m really pleased with that

Trawlers Baie de Mont St Michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallLater on I went out for my evening walk and runs. Mind you, I didn’t want to. The wind was blowing a howling gale the brought me to a dead halt on a couple of occasions.

Despite the wicked wind, it wasn’t going to stop the fishing fleet from going out to sea. There were a couple of trawlers battling through the waves on their out to sea to join a few of them already out there.

There were several other photos that I wanted to take too but I found to my dismay that I had forgotten to swap the lenses and put the f1.8 50mm lens – the one that I use for night-time photography – onto the NIKON D500 so nothing would work out in the dark tonight.

Instead I continued on my runs as best I could in the conditions and came on home to write up my notes.

Tomorrow I have my Welsh course so I need to be up early and do my revision. And then for the rest of the week I can finish off the photos from August 2020 and maybe even start work on some more arrears. There are plenty to go at of course.

And meantime you can have a look at THE INCIDENT ON SATURDAY that led to the sending-off. One additional defender (Priestley Farquarson, and we know how quick he is) covering, the ball 10 yards in front of the attacker, Lewis Brass the goalkeeper off his line quickly to clear the ball. Imminent goalscoring opportunity my Aunt Fanny.

The ref should be ashamed of himself.

Tuesday 6th October 2020 – REGULAR READERS …

Vegan Pizza Dominos Leuven Belgium Eric Hall… of this rubbish will recall that LAST YEAR IN MONTREAL I came across a pizza place that had started to sell vegan pizzas as a mainstream meal.

Here I am in Leuven tonight, and what do I find but that another, different pizza chain is now offering the same. It’s most unlikely that I’ll be able to find them in France, with France about 100 years behind in this respect and Leuven is likely to be in the forefront, having such a huge student population as it does, but it’s certainly progress.

The only downside of this is that I didn’t see the notice until after I’d bought the food for my stay here for the next few days. Had I seen it earlier, I would have changed my meal plans. This kind of thing needs encouragement.

What also needs encouragement is my early starts in the morning. Another day where I was out of bed, up and definitely about this time, long before the third alarm went off. First task was to release the gas in the Kefir, and second was to feed the sourdough. It’s like having household pets in here now and that was something from which I have been trying to escape. The idea of having ties like this of any kind is not part of the plan.

So having loaded the working files onto the portable hard drive, done the washing up, had a shower, taken out the rubbish and bleached the sinks, shower and toilet and finished the packing, I hit the streets.

Trawler Port de Granville Harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallLast night, the day’s photographs finished with trawlers unloading at the Fish Processing Plant.

So today we start as we mean to go on with a carbon-copy of last night’s photograph, except of course that it’s somewhat lighter right now. And there’s a trawler manoeuvring around in the harbour too. Although the harbour gates are closed, the tide is well on its way in and so I imagine that the gates are about to open and the trawler is ready to leave.

And so I headed off towards the railway station. It was windy, but nothing like as windy as it has been, and the weather was doing its best to rain. It’s a good job that I’d prepared by wearing the correct clothes.

84565 GEC Alstom Regiolis Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallThere was still half an hour to go before departure time when I arrived at the Railway Station.

And here we have a disaster. The coffee machine is out of order. I’m not drinking very much coffee these days but I still fancied a cup this morning due to my early and somewhat energetic start. The train, a GEC Alstom Regiolis, was already in at the platform so I was able to board it, find my seat and settle myself down in comfort.

Somewhere along the route I was joined by a miserable, bad-tempered old woman who had clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed and who moaned all the way to Paris. And for the first time ever, I managed to go for most of the way without crashing out. Just 10 minutes or so. I was able to do quite a bit of work.

One of the jobs that I did was to listen to the dictaphone. I was with someone last night – it might even have been Castor I dunno. It started off with meeting somewhere – we had to meet and I had to go on back to my digs. I’d looked at a couple of digs and wasn’t really keen on them but the 3rd one was OK so I’d booked in there. Then I had to go out to meet whoever it was. It turned out that 1st of all it was yet another boy from my school days and we met in Claughton Avenue. I said that we had better go to check to make sure that my car was still there because I’d left it there a day or so ago. It was the old Ford Escort that I’d had. We walked down the whole length of the street looking for this Escort but it wasn’t there any more. I thought that either we were in the wrong street or someone has pinched it. If it’d been pinched, it’s been pinched and it’s far too late to do anything about it now. It was all about worrying about a car or worrying about a bike When we got to the end there was a bike rack with a pile of bikes and someone in charge The guy whom I was with picked up a bike and sat on it as if to cycle off Some old guy who was in charge said “put that back! It’s not yours!” My companion replied “ohh yes it is!” so we had this “no it isn’t – yes it is” bit and in the end he said “no it isn’t” and handed the bike back. The old guy said “thank you very much”. By now the situation had advanced and I was with Castor – it could have been Castor, it could have been anyone. We’d come out of a huge building complex type of thing and we had to go home to where my digs were. I said “come this way” and she replied “no, it’s this way”. She wanted us to go in exactly the opposite direction but I was insisting that it was my way and she was insisting that it was her way She’s had a bit to drink and was a bit unsteady on her feet so in the end I guided her back In the end we ended up somewhere walking home and I suddenly realised that you needed a special code to get into the building where I was staying and I didn’t have that code I thought “how am I going to manage that?” To make it worse, whoever I was with decided that she wanted to stay the night with me I thought that ordinarily this would really be my lucky night but how am I going to manage this if I can’t get into my building? I supposed that I could conceivably go and find a room for us in a hotel but it was now something like 02:00 and what hotels with rooms would be open at this time of night? We were on foot so we couldn’t go far. It all became really confusing as well as being a really feverish night again

It’s a common, recurring theme, isn’t it? Here I am, with the bird on my plate and just as I’m about to get my fork stuck in it, something always comes up to spike my guns. Story of my life, I suppose. And Castor too!

A little later I was back in a similar kind of situation and a similar kind of situation running a chocolate factory and mixing chocolate. There was some kind of dispute about the recipe and in the end she chose one. We were busy making it and we got a couple of blocks to take back to the hotel where we were staying to try them out.

Exterior Entrance Gare du Nord Paris France Eric HallOur train arrived in the Gare Montparnasse about 2 minutes late but the Metro trip was rapid and straightforward. Some people didn’t find it that easy though. There was a barrage of ticket inspectors checking everyone’s tickets and a few people fell foul of them.

When I arrived at the Gare du Nord I had half an hour before my train was due to leave so I went for a walk around outside. One thing that I do like about the Paris Metro is the beautiful art-deco work of the entrances. This one, across the road from the railway station, is a typical example.

There were not very many people at all in this photo, which is not what you expect outside the Gare du Nord. In fact, one thing that I did notice was that the Metro was much quieter than usual and the station was quite empty. This virus is certainly affecting the business habits of the inhabitants of the city.

Paris Gare du Nord France Eric HallAnother thing that I noticed was that outside the Gare du Nord thee was a placard saying that planning permission had been obtained for various alterations.

The work that is planned to be carried out is quite extensive and substantial. It’s going to change the aspect of the railway station quite considerably and that’s a shame because the station is a beautiful building and a rare survival of decent 19th Century railway architecture.

Somewhere here and there I have a few photos of the exterior of the railway station but I don’t have one of this angle here. I reckon that I had better take one to add to the collection just in case they are really going to alter it in any major way and we might not ever see it again.

TGV Duplex Inoui 218 Paris Gare du Nord France Eric HallBack inside the station there was still 20 minutes to go before the train was to depart. I wasn’t going to loiter around outside too long because it was raining and it’s dryer inside.

There was already a train parked in our platform. It was one of the TGV duplex trains, built by Alstom and are getting on for 25 years old now. But nevertheless, they are still very comfortable and very rapid too.

We weren’t allowed on board yet so we had to wait around for another 10 minutes before we were allowed on board. During that time they were loading up the train with the foodstuffs and drink for the journey. I’m not quite sure why because it’s not as if it’s actually a long way to Lille on a TGV.

TGV Duplex Inoui 214 Paris Gare du Nord France Eric HallThey eventually allowed us through towards the train. This train set consists of two units joined together and my seat was is in the farthest unit.

We actually left on time and hurtled off into the wild blue yonder at 300Km/H. The train was actually half-empty, which was something of a surprise. Like I said earlier, people’s habits are changing.

Our train arrived in Lille-Flandres 5 minutes late, and then there was the hike down the road to the Lille-Europe railway station. The rain had stopped by now so it was a really pleasant walk down there, although I had to get a wiggle on because they don’t allow you very much time to make the journey and there isn’t a shuttle-bus or anything to connect up the stations.

TGV Lille Europe France Eric HallNegotiating the layabouts with their savage dogs at the entrance, I made my way into the station. Still 5 minutes to go before my train was due to arrive which was just as well because the singing was wrong in the station and I had to walk almost the full length of the platform to where I had to board.

Bang on time, our train came in. It’s the TGV that comes from Montpelier and when I lived in the Auvergne I used to catch it quite regularly from Lyon when I was flying out to North America from Paris Charles de Gaulle.

Arriving on time, leaving on time, and reaching its destination, Bruxelles-Midi, bang on time too. This isn’t the SNCF as we know it. There’s a story that goes around France about how kids spend all of their maths lessons working out train arrivals and departures, and then when they start their working life they encounter the SNCF …

SNCB Siemens Class 18 electric locomotice Brussels Gare du Midi Belgium Eric HallHaving arrived in Brussels, I didn’t have to go too far or wait too long for my train to Leuven. It was due to come in at the next platform.

This is the express from the Belgian coast to Welkenraedt on the German border. It’ one of the Siemens Type 18 Electrics, about 12 or 15 years old and designed by Chris “Failing” Grayling. Consequently they came with a great many problems and Siemens had to pay a hefty fine. Once they were eventually put right they’ve proved to be the backbone of the SNCB’s express passenger service.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall by the way that there’s a story to Welkenraedt and WE’VE BEEN THERE to find out about it.

We arrived in Leuven on time (I’m not used to this) and I was soon installed in my room here. One of the benefits of being a regular here is that when there’s room, I am given a free upgrade and as it’s quiet, I have a duplex apartment.

Down at Carrefour to do my shopping, past the pizza place, and then back to here for tea (falafel burger and pasta followed by fruit salad and vegan sorbet) and to watch the football. Connah’s Quay Nomads in a torrential rainstorm against Caernarfon Town.

In the first half, it was all one-way traffic towards the Caernarfon goal. Caernarfon only made it into the Nomads’ penalty area once so you will not be at all surprised to learn that the half-time score was Nomads 0, Cofis 1. Such is the nature of Welsh Football.

The second half was a much more even contest but the Nomads were playing with the rainstorm pushing them forward and they ran out 3-1 winners in the end , 2 goals of which were scored by the centre-half Priestly Farquarson who was pushing up behind the attackers on several occasions and relying on his pace (because he is quick) to get him back.

It was however quite quaint to see, every time the game stopped, a hand come round the front of the camera with a cloth and clean the lens of the rain that was soaking it. That brings back many memories from a less-sophisticated past.