Sikhs
Everybody knows that Monty Panesar, the England spin-bowler is a Sikh. He has a beard, wears a turban and adheres to the rules of his religion. But England played two Sikhs in the last Test Match in Cardiff, as Ravi Bopara is also a Sikh.
I first came aware of Sikhs, when as a child I was watching the Commonwealth Games of 1958 on the television. Milka Singh, running for India, won the gold in the four hundred metres. I can’t remember him in the Olympics in Rome, where he ran barefoot with his hair streaming behind him and became the darling of the crowd and favourite for the gold. He came fourth in a photo-finish. Now he is most remembered as the father of the very capable Indian golfer, Jeev Milka Singh.
I am not a religious person, but I do admire what Sikhs stand for. Unusually, their religion doesn’t have an afterlife. Perhaps this is why they work so hard for success, as it only matters what you do on this earth!
But the principles of the religion are very much what I stand for; women are equal, there is no priestly class, anyone can join, regardless of race or gender etc. Only when it comes to God, do we disagree, but then if you live your life well and for the benefit of others, who cares?
But there is one Sikh tale I want to get to the bottom of.
Jimmy Langley, was an officer in the Guards, who lost an arm at Dunkirk and then evaded the Germans before returning to the UK through Spain and Portugal. He later organised the escape routes for hundreds of airmen, who were shot down in occupied Europe. These tales were then documented by the BBC, in the series Secret Army, for which he was an adviser.
I met him about twenty years ago, on a ferry from Harwich to the Hook, when he was promoting his autobiography about his wartime exploits. He kindly signed a copy and we chatted for a few minutes.
A couple of years later, I bought another of his books called MI9: Escape and Evasion, 1939-1945, which he had co-authored with M. R. D. Foot.
In that book, one short sentence says that the first “Home Run” by British forces from Germany was by two Sikh sergeants in the Pioneer Corps.
That must have been some tale.
Plantpot from 78rpm Record
This is a horrible thing to do.
Plantpot from 78rpm Record
Someone might have needed Island in the Sun by Harry Belafonte. But not this one as it had a crack. And they certainly wouldn’t want it now.
But they make good plant pots as they’ve even got a drainage hole.
If you want to make one, just heat them up in the oven and then give them a good bend.
Richard Dunwoody Finishes
At 2:20 in the afternoon today on the July racecourse in Newmarket, Richard Dunwoody finished his heroic walk.
Richard Dunwoody Finishes
This is the moment when he crossed the line. Richard is in the white t-shirt behind the guy in the blue shirt. Lester Piggott is on his left in the grey suit.
Interviewed by the Press
I hope that the public have been generous in their donations.
Walking With Richard Dunwoody
I should say that at the moment, I’m to use a horse term, lame.
I trod on a razorshell on Holkham Beach and the doctor had to remove it. Because of the discomfort, I’ve been holding my lower leg muscles tight and now they’ve all seized up.
Yesterday, I contributed to Richard Dunwoody’s 1000 Mile Charity fund and felt that it would be a good idea to go and support him and perhaps walk a mile.
Richard Dunwoody on the Bury Road
As I suspected it would, my leg did seize up badly, but I did finish.
I asked Richard whether on not he would do this again. He said that it was very boring doing the same half mile of the Bury Road! At least he’s less than twenty four hours to go.
It was all rather poignant for me, in that my late wife used to swim and run every morning from the Bedford Lodge Hotel. If she had still been with us, she would have probably done two miles with Richard every morning.
I’ll be seeing Richard again, when he completes the walk by walking down the racecourse this afternoon.
There’s still time to contribute.
Clarkson Rubbishes the Mercedes SL Black
Just watching the repeat of last Sunday’s Top Gear on BBC2.
Clarkson has just said that the new Mercedes SL Black is not worth five times a standard one.
He’s right. Anybody who buys the car needs his head examined. My Lotus is a hell of a lot more practical and I can’t see the Mercedes still being around in twenty years, like my little yellow friend.
How I Met My Wife
My wife and I were together for forty years before she died in 2007. I say together, as we were effectively living together for a year before we married in 1968.
How we met was unusual, but before I say how, it is worth adding a little bit of interesting history to this note. At the time, along with many of the other students at Liverpool University, I filled in the forms from Operation Match, which was one of the first computer dating agencies.
Two Harvard students — Jeff Tarr and Vaughan Morrill — came up with the idea for Operation Match, a computer dating service, in the mid-1960’s. But they had some help from a Cornell dropout named Douglas Ginsburg.
Did it work? No! I got some names, but I don’t think I ever even met any of them.
In my second year at the University, I shared one of the world’s worst flats with three other students in Princes Avenue in Liverpool 8. Upstairs lived Mike Davidson, who was the Entertainments Secretary of the Students Union. He was trying to get more students to go to Guild Ball and had the idea of running his own Operation Match.
When I heard of this, I asked if I could have first pick!
And that is how I met my wife.
Interestingly, Douglas Ginsburg seems to have dropped in and is now a senior judge in the United States.
Another Suffolk Hoard
Suffolk is a place where buried treasure seems to be found more than most. Most famous is perhaps the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, but there is also the Mildenhall Treasure and the Hoxne Hoard.
Now they have found a cache of gold coins at Dallinghoo, very close to where my late wife and myself used to live just north of Ipswich.
How many other examples of buried treasure are there in the county?
Interestingly when the BBC did a serious program on the top ten treasures in the UK, three were discovered in Suffolk.
Time for a Moan
So Murray’s finished with Wimbledon for another year and life can back to normal.
Perhaps a night in watching the television. But then if today’s Pick of the Day from The Times is anything to go by as to the quality of what’s on, I suspect we should give that a miss.
Horne and Corden – The golden boys of Gavin and Stacey, Mathew Horne and James Corden, were rewarded with their own sketch show on BBC Three, which attracted a record audience of 817,000 for the first episode. After that, it was downhill all the way. Directed by Kathy Burke, the show was roundly slated for being amateurish, crude and aggressively unfunny. Viewing figures collapsed, with only 434,000 bothering with the final episode. In one sketch, two teachers give a joint lesson to a class on how to draw penises; in another, James Corden keeps shouting “I’m going to come!” while having sex. Elsewhere, he pulls up his shirt and rolls his stomach in front of a burger bar as a form of consumer complaint. The acting is accomplished enough, but that’s as far it goes. Viewers on terrestrial television can now find out what they haven’t been missing.
There’s no decent sport on the box either.
So perhaps, I could go to the cinema. In Haverhill, there appears to be nothing on and anyway, I hate going to the cinema by myself. I’ve only done it a couple of times and that was usually in somewhere like Boston, when I had a couple of hours to kill. I remember, that I saw Crocodile Dundee there and they laughed in different places to everybody else, such was their view of New York.
Then I could go for a walk. But at present, I’m crippled with a foot that I cut on Holkham Beach. I’m now on penicillin for it – gluten-free of course!
So I’m reduced to watching Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads on UK Gold.
Such is my lot. At least I can waste time trying to cook something nice.
The Sky at Night
The Sky at Night is the BBC’s longest running program.
I used to watch it as a child and when I went to my Grammar School, we were lucky enough to have a six inch refracting telescope, and I was able to spend evenings watching the stars. I have a telescope now, but I never seem to get time to use it.
I also saw Patrick Moore at the British Astonomical Association in Piccadilly, where he gave a talk on the non-effect of the moon on earthquakes. He really boomed out his message!
Tonights program on BBC4 was about the moon and as ever it was fascinating.
In the program, they showed images of the moon sent in by amateurs. Not one was sent in by a woman.
Where are the women scientists?
Hands Off Our Banks
Our banks may have not been friends of the general public, but they are going to get a lot worse if the US government has its way. Just read this article by Carl Mortished, entitled the Long Arm of the US Taxman.
It is all part of the relentless drive to treat us all like criminals. I pay my taxes and I resent having to fill in forms just to make sure I’m not money laundering or stashing fifty pound notes in my socks. Today, I’ve got to drive into Cambridge to get a lawyer to certify that I am who I am. Apparently, my word is no longer good enough.
Don’t get me talking on what our MPs got up to. And what are they doing on all these invasions of our privacy? Baa! Baa!
It is far better to analyse what is happening and target those who are up to no good!
The Anonymous Widower 