“Jay’s hair is so unbelievably stupid, even the world of comic books could offer nothing close to the abomination occuring on his head. But if he did have a super hero alter-ego, we assume its origins would involve Boy George mating with a Magic Coral Garden”
Response to the Great Lucas Cruft Purge
“I think he just grabbed the first thing he could and it happened to be the chainsaw”
Psycho kitty (HK gets analytical)
…and sometimes, mixed up in the memories, theres a feeling of being a bad person, letting things lapse that shouldn’t be let lapse, walking away when thats the safe option.
I bought a card to write to someone I care about, but then I realised I didn’t have a pen. Even if I did, I don’t know where she lives now. And I don’t know what I’d say anyway.
I hate being this useless.
Nice unusual photos (worksafe, surreal)
Today I went for a drive, my intention was to go to see Orford Ness. First stop was Orford Castle, which is a compact castle, it looks quite small from outside but is somewhat more extensive from the inside, with lots of clever little rooms tucked into the walls. It seems to have been well documented too, with records remaining from the initial building of the keep through to modern alterations.
Sadly Sizewell was shrouded behind a mist of rain, but the (alleged by English Heritage, I can’t find any info on transmitter gallery, but that might be because I don’t really know what I’m looking for) World Service transmitters were close enough to be visible. First Droitwich, now this. I assure you I’m not deliberately touring famous antennae of the UK.
Next stop, Snape Maltings. This is a converted barley malting complex. It now houses a series of shops and art groups. I could tell, from the other people in the cafe, that I wasn’t their normal kind of customer, everyone else seemed to be either part of a retired couple or a family of the sorts of people who wouldn’t consider shopping at somewhere as downmarket as Waitrose.
The food section stood out as far more interesting that the rest of the things on offer, indeed I couldn’t resist getting a pot of chilli jam, which seems like its going to be all wrong in exactly the right sorts of ways, but it might just be wrong.
They have a number of statues and art works in the gardens, too, which I imagine could be great on a less miserable day, things hiding in the reed beds, violins made of bees, all kinds of oddness.
And there was a small collection of old Riley cars [0] along with one poor moggy traveller looking very out of place amongst them. I was amused by the cunning design of temperature gauge, placed atop the radiator, where we now see the leaping jaguar or the silver lady.
Further up the coast and my final stop for the day is in Aldeburgh, I park by the scallop and walk down the beach to the sea. I was hoping there’d be good skimming stones, but by the time I got to where the water was lapping it was just sandy, and it wasn’t so much fun having to run up and down the beach collecting stones. So I walked south, along the line between water and land. You can see how the emptiness would inspire – but I was just revelling in not having to worry about anything but not getting too much salty water in my boots.
After a while of being stuck in my own little world I ascended back into the town, where everything looked dreadfully familiar. I’d been here before. It must have been while I was living in Northampton because I was driving the Peugeot, there were a group of us Norwich lot went camping in this area. I don’t remember much about the weekend, there was a bunny field which wasn’t much fun to drive across, and a pub that didn’t like us “city folk” and decided we were stealing their glasses when actually we were just drinking out of them, and setting up camp on ex-military land (well, we *hoped* it was ‘ex’) and now, this town.
The odd thing about the place was that there were hardly any high street brand names there, sure all the banks were chains and the Co-op had moved in where the post office used to be but everything else was local. I found a weird little cafe which looked like a small kiosk style coffee takeaway but if you snuck around the back of the counter there was a huge room in the back with tables (should I be worried that as soon as I arrived they all emptied?). Then it was time for a walk back to the scallop in the rain, by which point I’d had enough and decided it was home-time.
And, for some reason, on the way back I noticed that one of the big estates in the area was having a “Quilt show”. About which I wasn’t quite curious enough to turn around and find out.
[0] I notice from the Riley Motor Club that they have a meeting at the Fakenham steam museum next weekend. And that that museum contains the fourth largest cinema organ in Europe. And that its not far from Cambridge. Anyone up for it?
Now you can play with the Khronos projector (logs of pictures, dial-up beware)
I got a brand new combine ‘arvester….so I’m going demolish the old one (with grain truck racing in the interval)
Tank cosy – some people really don’t have better things to do, do they?
Watching the collapse of an industry (Elvis impersonators flee in their thousands)
Homebrew phones…the operators won’t like that (make your own mobile phone)
Are you maxed out? (film about debt)
“the Forecast umbrella provides information about the likelihood of rain”
We arrived just before lunchtime, we found Simon and Adelle around the campfire waiting, with their troupe, for their lunch to cook. We went for a quick scoot around the castle, an odd building, a stone keep somehow incongruously placed within what feel like older earthworks. Maybe its because the stone has been restored or enhanced, with sharper corners than rightful for something of its age. Maybe its just newer.
Newer, not new. This is an old building, largely in ruin, but with an odd couple of rooms right at the top which somehow feel like they’ve been inhabited until recently. Kinda reminded me of Stokesay Castle, in that sense, except that is a far better specimen.
The kids were off running around the moat, encouraged somewhat by Martyn, but they weren’t getting into too much trouble. We sat down in the ruins of the 14th century chapel for lunch, flint walls aren’t the most comfortable seats around. Shortly we were joined by two other picnic groups, some small kids attempting to kill each other with swords on one side and a small group of people who’d “Heard about blogs on the radio, what are they?” Dreadfully rude to listen in on other peoples conversations I know, but if they’re broadcast in quite such an unmissable manner there seems little choice.
We realised we were going to be in the way if we stayed there so we packed up the lunch debris and returned it to the car, then retired to a safe distance.
The French took over the chapel, camped out waiting for a skirmish. After a while the English arrived to oblige and the musket rounds started flying. After a while Simons regiment arrived to save the day.
I wonder if its because we’re so used to Hollywood deaths and rifles that we expect lots of injuries and deaths in small battles like this, was the casualty rate representative of the period? There seemed a lot of gunpowder for such little impact on the opposition.
Still, at the end of the battle everyone got up, bowed to the audience and started collecting the spent…no, they’re not cartridges, are they? What are they? Tidying up before they went home.