The Bad, The Ugly and The Good
PLAN A
CLICK
IT
PLAN B
CLICK
IT
BUG
B
B
Funny thing … add letter, lengthen word, shorten syllable, bugger rhyme … as with food to flood!
Takes more than L to make a flood, though. Takes more than rain too, thunk D&G. Takes
blockagement. Plan A, upwardly left shows Croft Farm’s back yard’s diminutive drain, as in singular, at
Ellen’s mercy, 500 feet below said River’s Binsey-Tallentire Hill watershed. January 2005’s postponed
Friday travel decision, re Burntisland, G’s mam, visit for the purpose of, proved the point. Midnight
saw D&G in jimjams bailing out porch and un-mega-blocking diminutive thingy, thereafter maintained pristinely blockless. Saturday 8th’s confident Fife-ward departure reached Thursby Roundabout’s blockedness in the form of a Policeperson, informing of a Carlisle passable only by canoe, or similar. Carlisle-dweller, Martin, missed it all, as did his enoughly elevated dwell-spot, due to absence in Nottingham, (M, not dwell-spot).
That was combined Eden, Caldew, Petteril mercy, lack thereof. In 2008 Ellen double-struck. Already over its Arkleby Bridge banks at departure point, Ellen let itself into Croft Farm during a D Carlisle hospital visit, G assisting therewith. October’s Thursday return home found four inches of wet stuff in back room and kitchen, on account of their equal number of lower inches than elsewhere. In fact ‘twas stuff destined for, rather than ex-Ellen, but same effect … carpets buggered, fortunately nowt other than. A wall-to-wall sunshine day intervened, (drying w-to-w), twixt carpet-buggering and second anti-fortunately attempt. 25th October’s D at Saturday work, left G at home watching raindrops drop then undrop en-masse to door-knock alarmingly. As Keswick’s OMM* was abandoned amid controversy, G v Ellen was being lost by the home side. Unblocking the unblocked … no effect. Bailing against a garden steps Niagara … pointless. Solution? Block the unblocked!
Plan B’s, (rightly upward), makeshift barriers at path-tops A, equalised, making shift a cataract’s course. But Niagara re-entered at GATES, where further makeshift scored the winner. Rain was dropping as it was supposed to, following blue arrows harmlessly down to the road.
A few 2008 hours later council-supplied sandbags replaced makeshift and then came 2009. Wednesday’s 8.00pm sandbag scramble in the dark followed a weather warning, chance Internet-glimpsed. Trouble was both D&G were at November work on 19th, so barriers were trusted against Ellen with trepidation. But this time Derwent made it deep time, draining around a quarter of Lake District through Keswick, Cockermouth and Workington. D was district nursing in W and drove over Northside Bridge’s** swansong, while G’s public exam invigilation In Cockermouth School’s gym had still to run, as evacuees from the town arrived. Meanwhile Croft Farm spectated as sandbags beat Ellen once more.
* Original Mountain Marathon, formerly Karrimor International Mountain Marathon, abandoned in Borrowdale for the first time in its history on Saturday 25th October 2008.
** On Thursday 19th November 2009 the River Derwent flooded Keswick, Cockermouth and Workington. Cockermouth was under 8 feet of water at the height. Workington’s Northside Bridge was swept away, taking the life of PC Barker. (Nineteen Eleven)
U
PRESS, (Pardoe/Robinson Exchange-a-Spouse Scheme), pressed kidlets thereof into crack-jumping, (as in P/R Crack, as in Step Three), until
kidlets thereof settled P-side, as Crack overwidened. Cockermouth hit 2009 world fame Twenty Eleven, West Cumbrians dried everything from
socks up and telephones called from Anthorn to Antipodes re welfare. But seems 3 kidlets thereof lacked world info. Only Simon phoned. Philip made the Big U Big Time Twenty Two Eleven with 5 A4's worth of Katherine-endorsing diatribe. The e-mail to end all e-mail and all e-else. Mark marked time.
ASU
They'd go potty if you called their country backward, (above), but they're happy to get dates arse about face. All horrified by 2001's 11th September, but what about 2005? Started OK for G, with Aconcagua befriended, but Chester Cathedral witnessed Katherine's inability to solve the 4 Parents/2 Graduation Tickets dilemma by the obvious route. Judy & Steve's route, equally wayward, ensured an up of the cock kind and 9th November 2005 entered PRESS Annals, anally! 9th Nov was the C. Cathedral date, and if that isn't Nine Eleven, G'll eat his tah! Nine Eleven closed Molecuar Dog's Rockhenge. Play videos!
Clickable Link Title
Big question for Cockermouth School post Nineteen Eleven, with school shut and town shut, should they go to Oxford?
G G G
G G G
Clickable Mug Shots
reveal the title again
An International, New Zealand run quiz about literature for kidlets of the Year7/8 kind. Cockermouth School’s team had reached their first UK Final in Oxford, by winning the NE Regional Heat in Gosforth on 2nd November.
27th November, barely a week after the disaster of Nineteen Eleven, was the date. Could it be done?
It could, and it was. Cockermouth was a wreck. But now it was a wreck on everybody’s map. The cheer as Cockermouth was announced and the team entered the Town Hall was probably heard in Cumbria!
Gene drove the team to Oxford and back that day. It was beautifully sunny and frosty all the way. Gene’s involvement as driver has been mentioned on Air Styles and he thinks he’s pretty clever. But nowhere near as impressive as Cockermouth’s Lit Quiz Team. To date they’ve reached four* UK Finals in a row, winning in 2010 and 2012 to compete in 2011 and 2013 in the World Final. Take a look at this ..
20th November 2007 NW Heat. Bolton University. Gene drove.
18th November 2008 NW Heat. Bolton University. Gene drove.
2nd November 2009 NE Heat. (Winners). Gosforth Central Middle School. Gene drove.
27th November 2009 UK Final. Oxford Town Hall. Gene drove.
10th November 2010 NW Heat. (Winners). Bolton University. Gene drove.
30th November 2010 UK Final. (Winners). Oxford Town Hall. Gene scheduled to drive.
Road conditions hazardous.
Team travelled by rail.
19th July 2011. World Final, Hamilton, New Zealand. (Third Place).
14th November 2011 NW Heat. (Winners). St. Gregory’s RC School,
Warrington. Gene drove.
2nd December 2011 UK Final. Warwick University, Coventry. Gene drove.
19th November 2012 NW Heat. (Winners). St. Gregory’s RC School,
Warrington. Gene drove.
6th December 2012 UK Final. (Winners). Britannia Royal Court Hotel,
Coventry. Gene drove.
Cockermouth will compete in the 2013 World Final in Durban.
(The schools named are venues. "Winners" refers to Cockermouth School.)
Wayne Mills, the NZ Quizmaster with a funny hat and even funnier antipodean accent, awards spot prizes to the adults in the audience in between proper rounds. Gene won one once on account of knowing the name of Andy Capp’s wife, casting massive suspicion on G’s claim that the only Lit he’s ever read is Biggles and the Black Peril!
* (Asterisk)
4 now increased
to 7
See
STOP PRESS
STOP PRESS
2013
World Final
South Africa
Cockermouth
made fourth place with only 5 points, separating first 4 places.
18-11-13
Pendle Vale College,
Nelson.
NW Heat.
Cockermouth
(Winners)
(Gene drove)
Progress to
UK Final 2013.
(Wimbledon)
17-11-14
Pendle Vale
College,
Nelson,
NW Heat.
Cockermouth
(Winners)
(Gene drove)
Progress to
UK Final 2014.
(Wimbledon)
9-11-15
Pendle Vale
College,
Nelson,
NW Heat.
Cockermouth
(Winners)
(Gene drove)
Progress to
UK Final 2015.
(Oxford)
(Cockermouth had a B team {8th})
6-12-15
UK Final (Oxford)
Cockermouth 3rd.
Tip re clickable pics.
There's a video panel on this page.
If possible scroll to get the video panel off-screen before clicking up pics.
Try it otherwise and you'll see why!
Cockermouth's Kids' Lit Quiz Team in 2012, organised and trained by Helen Farrar, School Librarian, were ......
Adam Greenbank, Alex Tyrrell, Eve Westwood and Madeline Wynne.
Each team had an author to accompany them. Cockermouth's was
Malorie Blackman. Also in clickable pics, (left), Wayne Mills and the Lord Mayor of Coventry, Councillor Tim Sawdon. 3 pics are from City of Coventry's Flickr. More can be seen at
Handbags
Unless placed permanently, sandbags are double trouble … (a) they’re handbags, requiring, with prediction perfection, timely hand-deployment, (b) they’re non-permanent, so permanent placement’s tricky. Post Nineteen Eleven all D&G’s sandbags disintegrated. Sand’s stable, bag isn’t.
Solution needed, and G flirted with the fanciful until Graham pointed to the obvious. Build permanent steps as barriers. The one at GATES is named after G of the Graham kind … The Tomlinson Step. A mini barrier was placed at the top of the subsidiary garden path. The main path received an additional top step, (up and down), while two extra steps were aesthetically inserted twixt top and bottom.
A garden path, in 1983 No-step slope, progressed to Three-step, then, post Nineteen Eleven, Six-step. The video playlist starts with a short garden path history. Much wild water follows, along with a couple of G’s earlier vehicles, to later Molecular Dog music, including Gene’s Missed Her and Nine Eleven.
Pics above and below, (all clickable-upable), at different stages of Step history, appear in the video. If the video panel obstructs a clicked up pic, drag pic by border.
D say Easy G say Yard
D&G disagree about everything. “No we don’t,” says D, “Yes we do,” says G, “Steps Tomlinson, up-down-added, insertly aesthetic , not to mention mini thingy, enough concrete,” says D. “No! We need a Universe too,” says G, “A Galaxy at least!”
G bit the bit between his teeth, which was the only place he could bite it, declaring, “We’ll resurface the entire in-need-of-a-resurface yard and fancify it in the process. Different levels to represent differences in level and a cosmic design to represent the Cosmos.
Sun, Moon and star motifs were easily obvious, (which is obviously Easy, as well as Yard), but how to represent Earth? The symbol chosen … a North-pointing arrow to join the other three in perma-crete for all time! Some future archaeologist might wonder how D&G did it, but not if (s)he reads this webpage.
Getting to the Point
“Need to know which way’s north,” says G. “That way,” points D. “Exactly?” “Good enough.” “No it isn’t.” “Yes it is.” Etc. etc.
“Okay,” concedes D, “Get the compass!” “Not good enough,” G explains as D yawns two yawns in one.
“Accurate magnetic variation, as in declination, for Croft Farm required. Surprisingly easy, in fact.”
“But transfer from tiny dial to line on ground stuffed with error potential, not to mention the ferrous cockup caused by nearby ferrous, of which plenty. GATES for a start! Compass a no-go!
Our Song
D&G ain’t got an “Our Song”. They’ve got 2, Eternal Flame and Moonlight Shadow, in reverse order. Neither has anything to do with North, but Sunlight Shadow does, which, if a song unwritten, shouldn’t be, ‘cos the shadow of a stick at noon will be spot on N to S! Prob solved! Mmm! Dream on, G!
Prob 1 Getting Sun to shine at all, let alone at noon!
Prob 2 Verticalness of stick. OK, replace stick by plumb-line and shield it from waftiness of wind.
Prob 3 G not sure if yard non-horizontalness is prob, so make safe-side-being-on platform, as in can be levelled with screws, shadow vertically transferred therefrom, (platform, not screws), to ground, as in yard.
Prob 4 12 noon might be some other number, as in BST in UK Marchish to Octoberish. Chances are when Sun’s best it’ll be 1 o’clock noon!
Prob 5 D&G’s yard ain’t on Greenwich Meridian. Noon’s 4 minutes late for every degree west of Greenwich and Welcome has the Croft Farm info in degrees, minutes and seconds, convertible to 3.3199055 degrees West, translating as 13 minutes 16.8 seconds late! Local noon! Cracked it then? Not if you’ve heard about The Equation of Time. Not if you haven’t either!
Prob 6 The Equation of Time. Earth suffers from many probs, like it hasn’t got a Darts Team, ‘cos the only world we’ve visited hasn’t got one either, and the founder of The Moon Darts League’ll likely be in line for a nighthood. But other Earth probs are to do with dayhood, as in local noon gets buggered about with every day of the year, except four. 2 buggering about wi’ reasons … (1) Obliquity, the planes of Earth’s equator and Earth’s orbit being different, as in non-coincident. You’d think that’d be sorted Day 1, wouldn’t you? (2) Eccentricity, the Earth’s orbit isn’t circularly perfect. It’s ellipticule! Good job the bloke(ess) who invented the wheel wasn’t that awkward, eh? Anyway, it all means that if you’re making a sundial, or ilk, as in shadow plumb-stick, you’re stuffed, ‘cos sun time drifts from “proper” time, to the tune of up to 16 mins plus; long time if you’re busting for a pee.
Sun-drift for any day is available and with sun-local-noon-shining 16-9-10, (same day as D&G gyroplaned, {Airstyles}), D&G sun-shadowed N-S line around midway between 13.08 and 13.09 BST.
Two incidentallies, (1) One of the four non-buggered about wi’ days is Chrimbo Day. If that ain’t evidence for ‘im in red wi’ t’ reindeer’s existence, G’ll denounce all stockings, pillowcases & mince pies fore-ever moreness, except when he’s hungry, lacks case for pillow, or has cold feet. (2) G realised that Pole Star, just North-arrow visible past Croft Farm gable, was visible clear evening 15-9-10. So with Polaris centre eyepiece of Martin’s mounted, (RU allowed to say that?), astronomicule telescope, plumb-lines dropped mid-eyepiece & mid-objective, D&G established a N-S line matched exactly by the sun the following day.
Clickable Pics
Yard and Extra
Steps North Line
C
L '
I E
C M
K
“Look … Loo’s Locked”
Said pee-busting-for Graham to busting-for-pee Gene in late night Cockermouth Main Street. And so it came to piss that G&G were the last to wee-wee into the Derwent from the Memorial Gardens Footbridge. Their contribution had barely reached Sea of Irish kind before Nineteen Eleven’s torrent tore it down, (bridge, not sea).
West Cumbrian excess, as in river, was matched by paucity, as in crossing, Twenty Eleven, and that was just the first day. Lack of bridge was not lacking for megayonks thereafter. Between Keswick and the sea only Papcastle Bridge was usable, with all traffic competing to Derwent cross. Meant kiloyonk queue every dark morn, or Bassenthwaite round trip of the ten hectoyonk sort, amounting to the same bridgelessness.
Workington’s rail bridge was intact in fact, and some folks, puffectly reasonably, pretended to be choo-choos; well you rail-ly would, wouldn’t you, woo woo? Otherwise Northside was cut off from Workington, (rest of) … Northside Bridge had disappeared; Calva Bridge was battered, buckled and buggered, and the footbridge had seen its last foot.
Takes summat like this to champion Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Master & Mistress Human. ‘Cos while some humans don’t realise that not recognising the inability of non-humans to recognise their inability, is related to their inability, others do and simply get on with it.
Them as got on with it constructed (a) Northside Temporary Railway Station, (b) Northside Temporary Tesco, (rail-linked to Permanent Tesco across the river), (c) Temporary Footbridge, (The Barker Crossing ... just upstream of Calva’s bentness), (d) Temporary Road Bridge, (just upstream of Northside Bridge’s ruins).
Took time, of course, but, with the opening of the new Northside Bridge, nearly 3 years on, Workington was more poshly back to where it left off. D&G visited the new bridges on 27th October 2012. Pics 2 click below include views of fells. Can you name the fells?
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