Have a Chat !

janlyn wrote:This is all home to me.  We are really lucky I suppose to live in such an area.

It is a beautiful part of the world ... even if the weather lets you down, the area doesn't.

I hope you get out and about to enjoy the lovely scenery and fresh air, especially if it's going to be a nice weekend for dry, sunny weather!

All the best Jan

Watching a news bulletin earlier today, which featured the plane crash in Sussex, migrants being rescued off a sinking ship, the train attack which was stopped by intervention from American serviceman and a British business man I also happened to see this featured.



Art show on 2.5-acre seafront site in Weston-super-Mare features Cinderella crash scene, post-riot model village and cardboard airport security.

He describes it as a “family theme park unsuitable for small children” – and with the Grim Reaper whooping it up on the dodgems and Cinderella horribly mangled in a pumpkin carriage crash, it is easy to see why.

Banksy’s new show, Dismaland, which opened on Thursday on the Weston-super-Mare seafront, is sometimes hilarious, sometimes eye-opening and occasionally breathtakingly shocking.

Works by 58 handpicked artists including Damien Hirst and Jenny Holzer have been installed across the 2.5-acre site. Julie Burchill has rewritten Punch & Judy to give it a Jimmy Savile spin. Jimmy Cauty, once part of the KLF, is displaying his version of a fun model village complete with 3,000 riot police in the aftermath of major civil unrest.

In one tent would-be anarchists can find out how to unlock the Adshel posters seen at bus stops. For £5 people can buy the tools to break into them, replacing the official posters with any propaganda they please. Is it legal? “It’s not illegal,” said the vendor.

Other highlights include the Jeffrey Archer Memorial Fire Pit where visitors can warm themselves around a daily burning of the local lord’s books; a model boat pond with dead bodies and overly crowded boats full of asylum seekers; and a puppet revue show constructed from the contents of Hackney skips.

In the moat around the castle is an armour-plated riot control vehicle built to serve in Northern Ireland which is now a children’s slide.

Banksy himself has created 10 new works, including the Cinderella crash in a large castle. Visitors walk in to discover the pumpkin carriage crashed, Cinderella and horses dead, and paparazzi madly taking photos. As people leave they will get their own souvenir photograph in front of the carnage.

Visitors will be welcomed by depressed staff in pink hi-vis jackets, all recruited when they answered a local paper ad for film extras. Even to get in requires going through a cardboard version of airport security, guards insisting that all squid be left behind.

Read more here http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/20/banksy-dismaland-amusements-anarchism-weston-super-mare

The above paragraphs are just a small selection I've taken from The Guardian article. Apparently the website has gone down due to the sheer number of people applying for tickets!!!

The news showed queues of people some with small children queuing for up to three hours to get in.

Is it me or has the world just got a little madder?

All the best Jan

Jan1 wrote:

janlyn wrote:This is all home to me.  We are really lucky I suppose to live in such an area.

It is a beautiful part of the world ... even if the weather lets you down, the area doesn't.

I hope you get out and about to enjoy the lovely scenery and fresh air, especially if it's going to be a nice weekend for dry, sunny weather!

All the best Jan

Last time I went was in August and it was full, Lyndhurst was a traffic jam in all directions.

I was intending to go down in spring to visit my cousins who moved to Romsey, and hopefully see the New Forest I used to know and love from childhood holidays, but somehow I couldn't drag myself away from Suffolk.

Jan1 wrote:
Read more here http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/20/banksy-dismaland-amusements-anarchism-weston-super-mare

And this differs from the rest of Weston how exactly? <G>

My last visit to Weston-super-Mare was back in the 80's, and we did have an enjoyable holiday. I can remember that very large expanse of sand and donkey rides on the beach, crazy golf etc.

Over the years a lot of the seaside towns have struggled and perhaps in some way Weston-super-Mare itself will undoubtedly benefit from this 'attraction' and I use the term loosely !! Where dismaland is situated is the old lido, which opened in 1937 and once boasted the highest diving boards in Europe, but which has been closed since 2000.

... we'll have to see, but I will not be applying for tickets.

All the best Jan

PS Yes, Chris Lyndhurst is a notorious bottle-neck, but there are other routes which are much better - cut across country via Emery Down for instance !

I'd rather persuade my cousin(s) to come here to visit, as they did today.

We  "did" part of the Saxon village at West Stow and had a walk around part of the Country Park before the rains came.

I might get down to the New Forest next spring, remains to be seen. Last time I rented a cottage near Beaulieu. We dropped by what used to be a "family hotel" near Burley where we used to stay but it had gone incredibly upmarket and even had an indoor swimming pool where the TV lounge used to be. A meal would probably have cost what we paid for a week's holiday 50 years ago.

West Stow looks great and I hope they have a 'good weather day' for the British Warriors through time event on 30 August. (do go back and use Chris's link to find out more)

Summer is a great time of year but I do often think it unfair when hotels's, B&B's put their prices up for the six weeks when the children are off school !!!

Do try and get down to The New Forest next year ... we are hoping to get to the Eden Project.
It's always good to have a plan

All the best Jan

Hopefully it won't be so bad out of season, I'm not used to crowds and traffic jams! I've been looking through some of my father's old colour slides including a steam train on the Ringwood to Brockenhurst line.

I can remember when steam trains were for real! We went up to London on one once, and forgot to shut the windows as we went through a tunnel, and all the smoke and soot blasted into the carriage.

Back in the day, Battersea was still a power station too!

My father could remember steam ploughing - the plough was hauled back and forth across the field between two steam engines running on the headlands. He could also remember Sentinel steam wagons which were very technologically advanced and could do 60 mph and I believe the same in reverse, though they needed a two man crew and had to stop every so often to top up with water.

I'm just old enough to remember genuine steam rollers too, though most were diesel by then.

chris c wrote:I can remember when steam trains were for real! We went up to London on one once, and forgot to shut the windows as we went through a tunnel, and all the smoke and soot blasted into the carriage.

Back in the day, Battersea was still a power station too!

My father could remember steam ploughing - the plough was hauled back and forth across the field between two steam engines running on the headlands. He could also remember Sentinel steam wagons which were very technologically advanced and could do 60 mph and I believe the same in reverse, though they needed a two man crew and had to stop every so often to top up with water.

I'm just old enough to remember genuine steam rollers too, though most were diesel by then.

For some reason Fred Dibnah came into my mind reading your post here.
He certainly was a larger than life character - we used to watch quite a few of his TV shows, he was so enthusiastic. He had a great interest in steam power which stemmed from his childhood observations of the steam locomotives on the nearby railway line ...


More about this character here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Dibnah

All the best Jan

Oh yes, I knew someone in Real Life and someone else on the internet who knew him personally. He was exactly the same as on TV, except possibly he used the f word more, and could allegedly become VERY boring when he was in his cups and kept repeating himself, but he was incredibly knowledgeable. I'm sad I never met him myself, I think we'd have got on. My mother loved "deep history" but I was always more interested in the changes that occurred from the Industrial Revolution on, and the way technology has evolved.

He would probably be gobsmacked at some of the stuff that has occurred since he died, largely due to computerisation. Combine harvesters that more or less drive themselves using GPS, and constantly monitor the crop output, then feed the information to the fertiliser spreader the following year so the fertiliser only goes where the yield is poor and isn't wasted where the soil is still good.

Rumour has it the next generation of machines will be crewed by a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to bite the man if he touches any of the controls . . .

Change of subject

Had to get some sorting out done today ... paperwork and stuff  

Had lots of different piles on the table - now all sorted and put away

Oh yes, I'm smiling

Now where's my glass of Pinot

All the best Jan

Jan1 wrote:

Wow have just watched Usain Bolt win another GOLD this time in the 200m

Now I'm zooming off to the shops  

All the best Jan

Man's a legend ! Did you see him fall over the cameraman lol !

I LOVED Merlene Ottey. Like most of the Jamaicans she did it through sheer skill and no drugs. Look closely at how they run, no wasted effort at all.

I just went round the nature reserve again after doing the remnants of my shopping.

Over the weekend I will be mostly doing MY paperwork, Jan guilted me into it! Well I need to pay some of the bills before they become Williams.

.............................. hope the paperwork is going well Chris?

This morning I did some dusting

This afternoon some shopping

This evening some cooking (the chicken dinner is smelling lovely )

Has anyone else had an exciting day    

All the best Jan

I glared at the garden a few times willing the piles of crap to dry out and feed themselves through the shredder, and the lawn to mow itself, but too late it started to rain again.