Tag Archives: archaeology data services

Sunday 15th February 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

… Day of Rest, and so it turned out to be today. Leaving the breakfast table at … errr … 11:30 underlines that fact perfectly.

Add to that a little trip away with the fairies … "although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine" – ed … for twenty minutes round about 18:30, and you have all of the makings of a perfect Sunday.

Last night, though, it wasn’t quite so relaxing. What with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … including a little crash out while I was writing my notes, it was 23:30 or thereabouts when I finished and finally crawled in underneath the covers ready for my Sunday morning lie-in.

There were a couple of the vaguest memories of waking up at some point, but it was the arrival of the nurse that shook me out of my slumbers. He dealt with my legs and feet and then cleared off. I threw the covers back over me and went back to sleep.

When I staggered into the kitchen, it was 10:18 precisely, according to the time on the microwave. And so followed a leisurely breakfast of porridge, strong black coffee and the last two homemade croissants. Next weekend I’ll have to make some more, and I shall try a revised technique to see if it makes any improvement. I’m determined to crack this croissant thing one way or another.

While I was dining, I was reading some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples

His team has come across a couple of house remains from what he calls “Phase Six” of the occupation. “Phase Six” was classed as the Late Iron Age immediately preceding the Roman Invasion of Britain in AD 43.

He tells us that the earliest house was built in phase 6F, and east of the hearth he discovered … "… a pile of slingstones"

He then says that the second house was built in phase 6G and the silt was covered by slightly more stone, "… including a patch of slingstones."

Periods G and H were amongst the very latest periods of “Phase Six”, immediately before or during the Roman assault on Maiden Castle.

As far as I would say, you wouldn’t need a pile of slingshots at your immediate disposal if you didn’t think that you were likely to need them, so while the presence of slingshots in a heap in a couple of houses doesn’t in itself imply warfare, it does imply that the households were prepared for war at the time that the Romans arrived.

It also should be said that several other houses of the same period or slightly earlier were excavated, but there was no evidence of slingshots in those.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that these adverse comments of “no evidence of warfare at Maiden Castle” are somewhat wide of the mark.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

My brother and I were in the Auvergne and we began to cycle from the Puy de Dôme. We cycled all the way through the Cher and came to the next Département. The border between the two départements was a huge river, and it was along this bridge that you had to change over from driving on the left to driving on the right. So we cycled over the bridge and there was this town, a small French town called Lutu. We carried on cycling and we noticed in the distance a series of bridges. One was a road bridge, the other was a railway bridge and we assumed that the third was a canal bridge. As we looked, on the railway bridge, which was quite high up, a coal train ran past. My brother held that there was a coal train on this line every five minutes. He then asked why there was such an extensive canal network. I told him that the canal network was the same as the railway network in the past. It was built to move the coal to market. We then came to a part where there was a very steep hill so we had to dismount and push our bikes up this hill. We met a local guy, so we had a chat to him for a while. When we reached the bypass that had gone round the town, we could remount our bikes and pedal off. Then we came into a big city. I knew the name of this city, but I couldn’t think of it. We had to rush to pass a green light, and then my brother pointed to one of my tyres. It had gone down and the rear tyre was flat. We cycled for a while until we came to near where our hotel was, and there was a bicycle shop. We went in to ask the guy if he could change the tyres but he said that he was closed – he’d only come in to collect some things. But he gave us an address, which was 499 some street, and it was also the place where the dialysis took place. We found the street, which was only around the corner, and down at the bottom, we came to 499, but it was a big gate and the street was closed off. We opened it and went through, and it was a huge rough patch of ground like a demolition site but it seems to have all little units around it. We heard someone talking about bikes from one so we went over. He pointed us to a place in the corner. We went over to the corner and a guy in there was preparing to go home, but he agreed reluctantly to change my tyres so he began to take the wheel out of the frame.

It was really the Creuse, not the Cher, where we arrived at the large river marking the border. And the only Lutu that I could trace was a small settlement near a river in Fiji.

But once again, my brother turns up in a dream, but while I cycled for miles and miles as an adolescent, I wouldn’t have done it at all after I had my driving licence. This wasteland is familiar, though, and it reminds me of the football ground that wasn’t there that we visited a couple of months ago.

There was some kind of music school or music shop somewhere and I was making enquiries. It seemed that it was something to do with Castor and Pollux, so naturally, I went along there. It was a modern guitar and music shop so I had a wander around as best as I could on my crutches and had a play on one of the six-string guitars. When I came to put it back, first of all, I tried to stagger in the wrong direction, then I ended up staggering in the correct direction to put it back. It was all very complicated because I had my crutches, but, of course, carrying a guitar, I was in a great deal of difficulty on crutches. I heard them talking in the shop that they used to use Marshall amps and speakers but after the death of Jim Marshall they carried on for a short while, but now, they use something called Vose that are light brown in colour. We were listening to some music through the speakers that they had. Someone had ordered a pair but only one had come and he was disappointed, complaining at the shop counter. I went through into the back where there were the basses but I couldn’t play a bass because it was too heavy for me. I heard some kind of laughter coming from the front room and one of the guys running the shop came into the back. He said that there had been a competition for people to vote for the guy with the best bassist in the area. I had a look, and my name was on there once. He said that it was a guy called “Ace” who had won. He should be coming in a little later. He still had the Rickenbacker that he had in the very beginning years ago. I asked if he was still playing these days and he said that he was and that was why he couldn’t come in tonight to receive the reward. I asked about this reward, and it was one of these “write in” answers and thousands of people had written in for this “Ace”. I asked “who on Earth has done that?” and he replied “those lunatics in Italy. They are the ones who have done this”.

Castor would be the kind of person to have a music shop, bearing in mind her interest in guitars and music.

But apart from that, my guitars are too heavy for me to hold and play these days. And “Vose” speakers. I’m not by any chance thinking of “Bose”, am I?

Strangely, back in the early/mid 70s in Crewe, there was a bassist called “Ace” and I know his real name too. And he did actually own a Rickenbacker 4001 bass, to the envy of all of us back in those days. A beautiful guitar.

This voting thing seems to be rather strange but it’s true to say that there was a “Merseybeat” poll back in the early 60s for the best Liverpool group, and the magazine never ever sold out so quickly. All of the groups bought as many copies as they could and, of course, voted for themselves.

Did I dictate the dream that I was on holiday down in Kent and I walked with my crutches down to the beach? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I could see in the distance the coast of France and down towards Dover. I could see the ferries crossing over and also the odd hovercraft or two. Then it was time for me to leave so I managed to stand up but I couldn’t reach my crutches which had blown over. I went to try to grab them but there was a young lad there watching me. He said “are you going to haul your crutches then?”. I replied “I have to try to resolve this myself”. He answered “yes, it’s good for you if you do”. Eventually, I managed to reach my crutches and I hobbled off to the hotel. There was a long queue waiting for lunch but suddenly everyone surged forward as if they had opened the doors to the dining room. I went in, and I had a lot of trouble trying to find vegan food because there were no labels on anything and I didn’t know what it was. It was mostly a salad buffet where people helped themselves. At some point, some girl, while my back was turned, dropped two pieces of meat onto my plate so I made her move them. She couldn’t understand why I’d made such a fuss. I told her that since she’s been at this school for three years, she should know by now that I’m a vegan. She said that she hadn’t realised, and actually, she was a vegan too. Trying to find some food at this buffet was really difficult. In the end, there was some blue grated vegetable that looked like grated carrots or something like that. I was still trying to debate whether there was anything else that I could eat when I awoke. But one thing was bothering me and that was “how was I going to manage to carry my plates when I need both hands to work my crutches?”.

There are several places along the East Kent coast where you have a similar view.

It’s also correct that I need to struggle on as best as I can because it will help preserve my autonomy for as long as possible. However, serving myself at a buffet when I’m on crutches is something that has come up on a couple of occasions.

After this, we had another footfest. The highlights of the remaining games in the JD Cymru League had been posted online so I sat and watched them for a while. That included the Battle of Essity Stadium where Y Fflint and Llansawel went for the best of three falls, three submissions or a knock-out after the final whistle.

No Stranraer game, though. The pitch at Dumbarton was frozen so the game was called off. And that reminds me of back in the mid 70s and my potential one-and-only appearance for Nantwich Town Reserves when they were desperately short of players, and so I turned up at the ground to find that the pitch was frozen and the game was called off.

After a disgusting drink break, I finished off editing the notes that I had started yesterday for a radio programme, and now, the two halves are all assembled. The joining track has been chosen and the notes written ready for dictating at the next early start.

By now, it was time for baking. We had a pizza base and also a loaf of bread, this week with ground Brazil nuts instead of sunflower seeds. I’m told that Brazil nuts are an excellent source of selenium which reduces the likelihood of infection and heart disease. They also help bone formation.

The pizza was delicious and the bread looks excellent too. I hope that it tastes as good as it looks. But I wish that there was something that would reduce the likelihood of this stabbing pain in my foot that seems to be worsening. But having already fallen asleep a few times this evening (once while I was making my tea!) I shall go to bed and worry about it then.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about voting … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was telling one of my friends that the High Court has thrown out a demand for there to be an intelligence test for potential voters to pass coming into force before the next election.
"Why is that?" she asked.
"Apparently the judges didn’t think that it was fair to slash the Reform Party membership like that so early in the campaign."

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Saturday 14th February 2026 – I HOPE THAT …

… you all had a nice, romantic day with the one that you love, and that there were hugs, kisses, roses and chocolates galore. For me, I moved the bedroom mirror to where I could gaze into it with admiration. After all, when there’s only me in the apartment, what else could I do?

What I could have done was to have gone to bed early but unfortunately, it didn’t work out like that. As usual, I fell asleep writing my notes and what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … it was, once again, about 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

One thing’s for sure, though, and that was that I slept right the way through until the alarm went off at 06:29. And then we had what has become the usual struggle of trying to find the energy and enthusiasm to leave the bed.

Nevertheless, despite the struggle, I did in fact manage to stagger off into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There had been a whole new series of elections in the European Union and hundreds of MEPs and directors had changed. They were beginning to have meetings with all of the new ones. There were also plenty of staff changes too and it turned out that I was one of those people who had lost their jobs as a result, so I had to leave my job. In doing so, I happened to make my way outside, which meant having to squeeze past dozens of meetings with people sitting everywhere, and basically had to walk along halfway up a fence in order to clear one group of people and was still walking in between them. As I was making my way out, I encountered someone whom I knew who told me that he was starting a new job in some other kind of directorate so I told him that I wasn’t starting at all, that I was on my way out of the building. When I was outside and in the street, I began to wonder what I was going to do. I could retire because I was old enough, but then I thought that there were plenty of employment agencies, so why don’t I go along to see what some employment agencies have, and if they have casual work so I don’t have to stay for too long in the same place. But walking along the street just outside our office where there were all these shops etc, traffic lines, tram lines, I couldn’t see an employment agency so I thought that I’d wait until a couple of days later and then have a day walking around Stoke-on-Trent to see what the agencies have to offer me.

So here we are again, at work long after retirement age. This time though, I’m the one who is being made to leave, rather than thinking about leaving on my own accord.

But the bit about going from employment agency to employment agency reminds me of the author Richard Gordon, who, on going from one shipping office to another in Leadenhall Street to find a berth as a ship’s doctor, also ended up making enquiries in the Leadenhall Street branch of Barclays Bank.

And we were in Stoke-on-Trent, wandering around the other night.

I was out in Shavington last night, walking past some houses where various kinds of actors lived. The first house was occupied by an actor who was starring in many leading roles which had received a really good critique. As I walked past her house, I saw that it was all run down and in need of a good going-over, with dead plants everywhere and long grass. I thought to myself that one day, that woman is going to start to have really bad reviews for acting and how on earth is she going to cope? The next house was someone from a well-known soap opera who was rubbing down his metal fence and preparing it for painting. He was as black as the ace of spades with all of the dust that had come off it. I remember one critic writing something that even if this is Britain’s most popular soap opera, it ought to be shown much less than it is now because the stories are all becoming all the same and there’s nothing ever new in any of them. But back home, I asked the parents how the football went. They just mumbled a few incoherent answers but I didn’t really understand what they were saying so I decided that I’d go to look myself.

Another place where I seem to be spending a lot of time is Shavington, even though we only lived there from 1956 to 1970. And there certainly wouldn’t have been any actors or actresses living there. However, it’s true that my parents showed no interest whatsoever in football so it would have been a waste of time asking them anything.

When the alarm went off, I was singing LIKE A HURRICANE by Neil Young. I’d gone into some kind of building that was a hospital. I’d written a scathing review of a doctor’s intervention but I’d had to go back to the hospital so I’d gone in rather quietly. I’d wanted Floor 6 so I’d gone to the goods lift, but there was someone else there with a trolley so we went in together. I pressed “6” but the lift carried on and went all the way up to the twenty-fifth floor and I had my eyes tight shut from about the fifteenth. This guy left so I pressed any button to take the lift down so that I could open my eyes again. I thought that I’d pressed about “Floor 10” or “Floor 12” but the lift roared on past. It roared on past “6” too so I pressed “6” and it shuddered to a halt and then began to climb up again. I managed to jump out onto the sixth floor as it went past. From there, I was walking across the campus of the hospital. I started off by singing Jackson Browne’s LOOKING EAST and then followed that by “Like a Hurricane”. I noticed that amongst the people on this campus was Castor, but the alarm went off before I had a chance to speak to her.

Actually, I wouldn’t have had my eyes closed if I were going up in a lift. Heights have never bothered me. I remember when Laurence and I went to look at an apartment on the eighteenth floor of a tower block in Brussels. I was out on the balcony looking to see what I could see, but she was pinned against one of the interior walls, far too scared to move. However, there is nothing on earth, not even the combined forces of TOTGA, Zero and Castor, that would entice me into a submarine.

The hospital needs no explanation, and neither does criticising the doctors, but the campus and jumping out of the lift are a mystery.

But seeing as we have been talking about Castor … "well, one of us has" – ed … imagine her appearing in a dream after all this time and I couldn’t manage to talk to her. What kind of tragedy or disaster is that?

But with her being in this dream, the lyrics of “Like a Hurricane” are extremely apposite. After all, it’s one of those rock masterpieces, especially the live version on RUST NEVER SLEEPS.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I said, I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

The nurse was early yet again, and with there now being the pressure on the streets with Carnaval, he didn’t stay long. I could then push on with breakfast and read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples

He’s busy picking holes in Mortimer Wheeler’s excavation report, disagreeing with many of Wheeler’s conclusions and accusing him of making reports based on speculation and stating that "it is really a testament to Wheeler’s imagination that any clear pattern could be claimed.". However, he’s not above making a few assumptions and speculations himself.

This book, like almost all of the others that I’ve read, is a digital scan of a hard copy in someone’s library. And interestingly, though, certain entries and references in it have been redacted. I wonder if another author in the field of archaeology has been mentioned in the Epstein diaries, because it’s certainly bizarre. I’ve no idea why the owner of the original book would not want these names and entries revealed.

Back in here, we had a footfest – the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League. Nothing much exciting happened, except that Llanelli, hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table, picked up a surprising point away at Cardiff Metropolitan.

Having done that, there were a few other things to do until it was time for a disgusting drinks break.

This afternoon, we had football. Penybont, fresh from their 6-0 mauling by leaders TNS, were at home to second-placed Connah’s Quay Nomads.

Penybont played better today but they were still clueless in attack and for all the work that he had to do on the field, Nomads’ ‘keeper Kit Margetson may well have brought a book onto the field with him and spent the ninety minutes reading it. There were several lengthy periods when he was actually playing centre-half in a back four rather than a goalkeeper behind a back three.

But the Nomads weren’t much better. They made Penybont ‘keeper Luke Armstrong work hard, for sure, but they could be still playing now and they still wouldn’t have any idea about how to score. For a team second in the table, they should be doing much better than this.

The score was a 0-0 no score bore draw, and both sides were lucky to get nil.

Later on, I’ve been in an internet discussion with my faithful cleaner. I’m in the middle of writing out a work schedule for my joiner who will be coming back soon, and my cleaner wants a change to the rubbish arrangements.

No, she’s not talking about deleting the blog, but about a new set of rubbish bins that fit under the sink. So we’ve been discussing different alternatives and when she comes down here on Monday, she’ll be measuring up.

After that, I attacked a set of radio notes that I’d dictated a week or two ago and began to edit them. I’d almost finished too when I had to knock off for tea.

Tonight it was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, followed by jam roly-poly from several weeks ago and vegan sorbet. And it was all delicious. And now, I’m off to bed, ready for my lie-in tomorrow … "he hopes" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about not having any particular work to do today "well, one of us has" – ed … the five day week has been around for longer than you might thing. Several centuries in fact.
Someone once asked me "who was the first person to work a five-day week?"
My answer was "Robinson Crusoe"
"Why was that?"
"Well, he had all of his work done by Friday."

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Friday 13th February 2026 – DID YOU KICK …

… any black cats today? Or break any mirrors? Or walk underneath any ladders? Today was, of course, one of those days when you don’t need to do any of that to bring bad luck upon yourself.

Take my faithful cleaner, for example. She walked out of the building this afternoon at 14:30 only to be drenched in a torrential downpour that began ten seconds later.

My bad luck today … "so far – the night is still young" – ed … has been with this perishing fibre optic cable installation, but more of this anon. Let’s start with last night.

And last night was bad enough. I forget how many times I fell asleep trying to write my notes and doing everything else that I needed to do before going to bed. As a result, what should have been a reasonable time for going to bed turned into a rather late one, much to my regret.

Once in bed, though, I was asleep quite quickly and that’s all that I remember until the alarm went off at 06:29. And what a time I had trying to haul myself out of bed. It’s definitely becoming more difficult as each day goes on.

Anyway, I was eventually in the bathroom having a good scrub and a change of clothes too because I’m going to run the washing machine later.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and had my medication and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was round at a woman’s house. She had a son in his twenties who was one of these manic depressive types. This woman and I were talking, and she pulled out from underneath her pillow a box which had a collection of gold coins. She called her son up and he came, and she showed him this box. She asked “what do you think of these?”. He looked at them and he was completely disinterested, and in the end, he went away. His mother said “I told him this morning that I was going to have someone round to knock a few nails into the foot of your bed but he’s obviously not made the connection and he doesn’t know what these are” so we carried on talking. A while later on, the son came back in. He told us a story that he’d met a famous actress. It was while he was canoeing on a lake with a friend. The wind rose up, and these two girls in this canoe were feeling very uneasy and wanted to be helped, so he and his friend helped them. He’d been on a date with this woman once or twice but this affair was in the throes of petering out because he wasn’t willing to take things any further. His mother tried to encourage him but it didn’t really work and he couldn’t seem to generate a spark of enthusiasm. Later still, we were in her room again and her son was there. He was a guitarist, quite well-known with a recording contract who’d opened one of these fundraising events for charity along with a few other big names. Again, he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic but he suddenly realised what this box contained and he’d come back up to talk about it again and to talk about the money that he has that he hardly ever spends. His mother gave him a huge box of chocolates but instead of eating it, he just took a few and said that he didn’t want the rest so the woman ate a few and gave me one or two too. We were then going to tidy up around her bedroom so I pulled a pile of paperwork down from a shelf on the top. It was all her university coursework with exams, assignments and everything. I noticed that a few were in different names so I asked her about them. She replied that her mother was a typist and her mother had intended to type all of them out so that they were neat and proper but unfortunately, her mother hadn’t survived.

In the past, I actually knew a guy like that, but there would have been no chance of him dating a famous actress, and neither would he have been a guitarist. And any romance of his would have petered out sooner rather than later.

The pile of university paperwork is extremely familiar from the past, and the gold coins are presumably something from the various excavations described in the books that I’ve been reading.

A few of us had in the past been talking about buying an island. While I was chatting to someone on the internet, it turned out that he owned an island off the coast of Newfoundland and was interested in selling it. I found out some more about the island and said that I wanted to talk to my solicitors, to which he agreed. However, I realised that I was in no health whatsoever to do that kind of project, but I would still have a share in it, simply as a foothold if I were able to recover, which would be nice. So I started to tidy up everything away and found some things that I’d bought from the shops, a loaf of bread, some carrots, things like that, and began to reorganise everything. I’d realised that I’d paid over the odds for carrots because there was a flood on the market and the price was coming down, but everyone is keeping the price high for the moment. I also sent a letter to my friend in Newport telling him about this island and expecting a few comments coming back. I’d finally sorted out everything that I needed, and then I had to change. I had some scruffy clothes lying around and also some much more tidy, casual wear that I could wear while I was getting dirty rather than my best clothes. I put that on and then had a look at the map to see where I would have to go to drop off some of these things, but the map wasn’t very clear and there was a printer’s error down the centre of the page that confused everything so I had to look very closely to find out where all of this was going to go. Then I could go out to the van ready to load it up, put some petrol in and do these deliveries.

Buying an island is actually something that several of us have been considering. It would have been a good plan fifteen or twenty years ago, but not today, unfortunately.

The story about the carrots seems to relate to a news item that I read the other day about potatoes. It’s been such a bumper year for potatoes that Europe is awash in them and prices have tumbled dramatically.

There’s also an ongoing project involving my friend from Newport too.

Did I mention that a group of us had decided to go to Edinburgh for a wander around? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I’d been doing something with my Welsh, like cutting and pasting a few exercises which in part talked about Edinburgh. Then someone decided that we’d go. We all met up, and I had a big picture under my arm. It was something that I’d seen in a shop that I thought would be really nice in my apartment so I was carrying that around. Everyone was interested in the fact that it was quite heavy and we’d probably planned a whole day out, and this was going to be something of an obstacle but we carried on and we were walking around a couple of shops, looking at different things when the alarm went off. There was something in the middle of this dream about meeting up with cars and because there were so many of us, we’d have to use two cars but we could park them up at the top end of the city somewhere

Edinburgh was a city that I used to visit often with Shearings. Shearings had an arrangement with National Express Coaches in the past and occasionally ran a duplicate service overnight from Manchester to Edinburgh via Motherwell, Glasgow, Airdrie and Falkirk, with the return the following afternoon. If I didn’t have anything better to do, I would volunteer for it and I went up there quite a lot. It was a lovely run through the night.

It beats me, though, where the cars and the picture fit in with this, but the shop reminds me of the dream a couple of weeks ago … "22nd January" – ed … about being in Montreal.

The nurse was early today. He had a lot of work to do, so he said, so he couldn’t hang around. That suited me fine, because I had things to do too. For a start, I went and made breakfast and began to read my new book.

It’s called MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples. It related to further archaeological excavations that were carried out at Maiden Castle, to re-examine and develop the work by Mortimer Wheeler.

They aren’t just excavating the hill fort but are also casting their net much wider into the surrounding farmland and chalk downs.

And after reading the first few pages, I regretted having criticised Wheeler’s rambling preamble because it has nothing on the preamble in this book.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve commented in the past … "and on many occasions too" – ed … about the criticism that Wheeler received about his claims of battles and war cemeteries taking place at Maiden Castle, with people denying that there are traces of battle up there.

However, one of the comments in Sharp’s book is that, examining the sites of arrowheads discovered up on the chalk downs, "the distribution of arrowheads in the present survey can be seen to cluster around Maiden Castle", which you might expect if the place had come under heavy attack.

One interesting fact about this distribution that, surprisingly, he seems to have missed is that there’s another concentration of arrowheads around a ford over a river down in the valley. He seems to think that this was the site of a settlement and they may have been lost by the inhabitants over a period of several centuries.

However, it also seems to be possible that any attacking army coming from the north would try to cross the river wherever there was a ford and any group of defenders would do their best to stop them crossing. Hence the concentration or arrowheads.

That was something that I would have loved to pursue but I was interrupted, and before I’d finished my breakfast too. The man from the fibre optic turned up to have a go at installing the cable. And just like the first one, he was confounded, and at exactly the same point too.

The person at the estate agency who manages the building had given me her ‘phone number to ring if there is a problem, so we rang it. And as you might expect, there was no reply. Consequently, I telephoned the President of the residents’ committee and let her speak to the technician.

This question of fibre optics isn’t my problem. It’s a problem relating to the infrastructure of the building and that’s a problem for the residents’ committee and the estate agency to resolve. And it’s a problem that has been known for years, apparently, and no-one has lifted a finger to resolve it in all this time.

Over this past couple of weeks, I’ve wasted enough of my time, enough of the technicians’ time and enough of my internet supplier’s time. It’s long past the time that the people who have stood for election and the people who are being paid to manage it should have taken it in charge so they had better make a start before I become completely fed up.

This is the kind of thing that I’ve seen happen so many times before, and I know exactly how it’s going to end up because it all follows the same pattern. This time, however, I’m too ill to take on the running of the show myself, as I have done in similar circumstances in the past, but I’m not too ill to deliver a few hefty kicks into the nether regions of a few people and propel them into action one way or another.

So still seething after yet another good rant, I came back in here once everyone had gone, and begun to work on the next radio programme. And by the time I was ready to knock off, I’d finished it – at least, to the point where I’d written all of the notes. The next time that I have an early start, I’ll dictate them.

There were a couple of interruptions to my day, though. Firstly, I filled the washing machine with all of the clothes that were lying about, and set the machine off to wash them. Secondly, my cleaner came along to do her stuff and she brought with me another neighbour who wanted to know how things went. And had I still had a spleen, I would have vented it at that moment, but I managed to restrain myself.

Once the neighbour had gone, my cleaner hang out the washing. That’s another job that I can no longer do unfortunately.

Tea tonight was chips, sausage and baked beans with cheese and black pepper. It was the tin of French baked beans that I’d bought last week, and I do have to say that they aren’t a patch on British baked beans. They use these large beans that I tried but didn’t like.

The only answer then is that if no-one is going to come over from the UK in the near future to visit me, I shall have to bite the bullet and buy some online.

But that’s something about which to worry another time because I’m going to bed ready for tomorrow; And for once, I’ve already finished all of the work that I needed to do so I can have a weekend catching up on the arrears.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Friday the 13th and good and bad luck … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a club that I visited once, many years ago, and there was a bingo game going on.
The caller was on the stage calling out the numbers
"clickety-click, sixty-six"
"two fat ladies, eighty-eight"
"the Brighton line, fifty-nine"
"unlucky for some …"
"HOUSE!" shouted a voice from the assembled multitudes.
"House called on ‘unlucky for some, number twelve’" said the caller
"What do you mean?" roared the voice. "’Unlucky for some’ is number thirteen! Twelve’s not unlucky!"
"It is for you, madam."

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