Gorillas In London Zoo
I remember the famous gorilla,Guy, who came to the Zoo in the year of my birth, although he was probably born a few months before I was.
In those days his cage wasn’t as spacious as the modern gorilla enclosure, where about four gorillas live happily together.
These pictures show them inside, as it wasn’t very tropical today.
C used to tell a story about one her clients. He was an habitual criminal and every time he came out of jail, one of the first things he used to do was visit Guy in the London Zoo.
He’d tell the gorilla, that he was now out of jail, but he could see that Guy was still incarcerated.
Guy’s reply was not recorded.
What Do You Do With Old Listed Buildings?
The old penguin pool at London Zoo is still there.
It illustrates the conundrum about what you do with old historic buildings, which have outlived their purpose, so well.
In my view it should be taken down, moved somewhere else and used for another purpose. It is totally unsuitable for its designed purpose and it takes up valuable space on a constricted site.
It’s Not Too Cold For The Penguins
I had gone to the London Zoo to see their penguins.
Surely, the Penguin Beach must be one of the best wild animal displays in the United Kingdom. The heron in one picture is a wild cheeky visitor according to this article in the Mail.
Although, I’m generally against a lot of wild animal displays, this one is rather different, in that a good proportion of the penguins were actually bred in the Zoo.
I’ve actually seen penguins in the wild twice; in the Galapagos Islands and South Africa. It has always surprised me that so many people go to Cape Town on holiday and never check out the penguins, that live all over that coast.
A Korean Police Car
There was a time, when the Police always had British made vehicles.
A Korean Police Car
Not any more! But then a trip to Seoul is much more interesting than one to Ellesmere Port to see them being made.
A Load Of Rubbish
Not my words, but those on the side of this truck.
A Load Of Rubbish
We really ought to think laterally more, when it comes to advertising businesses.
Afterv all, this sign caught my attention.
Should We Have A Benefits Cash Card?
It has been proposed by a thinktank, that those on benefit should get a cash card, that they can only spend on approved purchases, that would not include alcohol, cigarettes, Sky television, gambling and other things that the great and good felt were not necessary.
It’s one of these issues like capital punishment, that if went to a referendum, the general public would vote for.
I wouldn’t, as it is just against my beliefs.
We need to cut down the drinking of alcohol and the smoking of tobacco, but this doesn’t just apply to those on benefit.
But the biggest fault in the proposal is the practicalities.
I am a coeliac and if someone like me was on a benefits cash card, would they be restricted from buying good quality food. After all the gluten-free food you get on prescription is generally crap.
And let’s say you are careful and always shop in the local market, where good food is often cheaper. Is every market stall going to have the expense of accepting the cards, when cash is the best method of payment. So will the cards be able to withdraw cash.
I’ve had times in my life, when I wasn’t very well off and I always resort to cash, as I then know how much I’ve got left.
More On Hedgehogs and Foxes
In this post I mused on the decline of hedgehogs and felt that foxes were to blame.
I’ve just found this article on the web from the Epping Forest Hedgehog Rescue. They are in no doubt, that foxes are cutting the number of hedgehogs.
I can also think back to the 1980s and 1990s, when I used to live in East Suffolk, just north of Ipswich. In that area, foxes were not a common sight, and I never actually saw one, although I did smell them, just as I smell them on my doorstep here in Hackney.
When I moved to Newmarket, foxes were much more numerous and hardly a day passed, without seeing one on the stud.
So what is the difference between East and West Suffolk. In the east, they used to hunt hares with hounds, whereas in the west, they hunted foxes. So I suspect that any fox in East Suffolk, got short shrift from farmers and gamekeepers, as they knew the hunt wouldn’t do anything about them.
As I said in the previous post, I never saw a hedgehog in West Suffolk, but in the East, I at least saw the occasional one.
Thinking about the problem more, you don’t see much traditional fox food in London. There are no rabbits or hares, so that just leaves hedgehogs and squirrels. Even scavenging round here isn’t a good idea, as we all have wheely bins.
So I suppose, once the foxes learned to kill hedgehogs, it was just passed on through the generations.
I believe, that must do something about foxes, if we want to save the hedgehog.
The Warwick Hotel, New Barnet
Before I went to university, when I was still living at home, I used to go drinking in this pub, with an old school friend called Pete.
The Warwick Hotel, New Barnet
In those days in the 1960s, it was called the Warwick Hotel and although it is now closed its last name seems to have been The Bell And Buck.
I really don’t know why we went there. it might have been, because I looked under-age and they would accept any customer with money. But we’d usually have some beer and a couple of games of cribbage.
Little did I realise that my future wife was probably tucked up in bed, just round the corner.
My Mother-In-Law’s Funeral
After Oakwood, I thought I take a bus through Barnet and come home on the Northern line, but I got off near where my mother-in-law used to live.
This picture shows St. James’s church in New Barnet. which was where my mother-in-law worshipped.
St. James’s Church In New Barnet
C, my late wife, also used to worship there as a child, but as a teenager she just didn’t get on with the vicar, so she moved her patronage to the church where we got married at Cockfosters.
By the time my mother-in-law died, there was a new vicar, who we’d not met until her funeral. He was incidentally an ex-policeman and we did know that my mother-in-law liked him a lot. She was taken into the church and the vicar started to go through the funeral service. Every time, he spoke of my mother-in-law he called her Frances and her many cousins in unison would chant her birth name of Edith.
After the cremation, we came back to her house round the corner and sandwiches and soft drinks were partaken. Most of the cousins left and we were left with a couple of my mother-in-law’s half-sisters and their family. We did then have a bottle of wine and about an hour later, when everybody had left, we were drinking by ourselves in the empty house, when the door bell rang.
It was the vicar! He’d been unable to come to the cremation or even back to the house, as he had had two funerals that day!
He congratulated us on our drink, as he felt it was a good practical idea. He then asked us, what all the hissing was about and we told him, how my mother-in-law had hated her first name and had always used her second. but the cousins had continued to use Edith.
He then said, that the first day, he’d met her, she’d walked up to him and said hello, indicating she was Frances and in the six months they’d known each other, he’d not used anything else.
So as she was virtually a friend, he felt that he didn’t need to check with the family. As it was, we’d have given the same name.
Today was probably the first day since then, that I’ve gone anywhere near that church.
The Place Where The Bottom Fell Out Of A Drawer
Whenever I go to Oakwood station, just seeing the parking in front of the station reminds me of a very funny story.
The Place Where The Bottom Fell Out Of A Drawer
Our next door neighbour, a rather pompous Mancunian, who thought the world revolved around him, just after the Second World War, had a Rover, very much like the one you see in the James Herriott programs on television. My doctor, the wonderfully named Egerton White had one too, as doctors in those days always did. just like they had three-piece suits, a good size corporation and a pocket watch on a gold chain.
Our neighbour, had a garage that was basically a store for his junk. in the middle of the back wall, was an old chest of drawers with large round knobs. He also had the habit of going in a bit close, so that he could shut the garage doors. My father, who was a bit of a comedian, once joked that. his junk wasn’t worth nicking.
One evening, he wanted to get an evening paper. The easiest place to get one, for our neighbour was Oakwood station, where he just parked outside, left the engine running and walked inside the station to get one of the Star, News or Standard.
The Entrance To Oakwood Station
The picture shows where the papers were sold, from the bench just inside the entrance.
Anyway, he duly backed the Rover out of the garage and proceeded to drive to the station. He always sat high in the car, to emphasise his own importance and was surprised to see people waving and pointing to the front of his car. He just waved back, as my father used to say, when he related the tail, in the style of the King.
When he returned to the car after buying the paper, he realised the reason for all the attention on the trip to the station. He had gone into the garage just a little bit too far, the night before and the bumpers of the Rover had hooked themselves under the knobs on one of the drawers. They were so firmly locked, that when he backed out to get the paper, the car extracted the drawer from the chest and it had stayed balanced there, all the way to the station.
He then took a fateful decision. He decided that as the drawer had stayed there on the journey to the station, it would stay there on the way back.
It did stay there, but as he moved off, the bottom decided to part company from the rest of the drawer and thirty years of accumulated odds and ends, were deposited all over the forecourt of the station.
