Formal Notice of Possible Euthanasia

If I might deliver a warning to anybody to likes to loaf about here….

I am considering killing off this blog.

It is really only a clone of my main blog (which is here) that I set up when Apple was being a bit arsey.

Anyway, they now appear to be behaving themselves again and that one is much, much simpler to deal with than this one.

Would anybody mind?

I am listening to Got ‘Til It’s Gone by Janet Jackson

The picture is of sunrise and vapour trails

She Played KerPlunk With The Bones Of Her Rivals

 

After all that glamorous air kissing, award receiving and general spiffiness last week things have returned more or less to a precarious normality. Even though the loos at the  Royal Lancaster are not a patch on the Savoy, there is not even an uniformed attendant hovering with towels and clothes brush. If it was a better hotel then I would be campaigning for it to be renamed the Roy Lancaster. The main problem is that it is on the wrong side of Hyde Park: where, according to my Grandfather, people used to keep their mistresses.

My office is freezing cold and the windows are being sporadically whipped by flurries of sleet and icy rain. I sit here wearing a number of layers and with a gas fire pointed strategically at my extremities. The main problem is that when we built this house we ran out of readies and had to economise on various aspects. One of which was to cut out about a third of the radiators. As a result we have a delightfully warm kitchen and an electric blanket and in the winter we scurry from one to the other through icy halls and frosty corridors. 

I have been confined to the office most of the week as I find myself behind in both writing and drawing. I really should rustling around with sharpened pencils and sheets of paper rather than writing this. My only excursions were to set out plants in a small but charming garden in Oxford and a trip to a shoulder specialist – one of the by-products of the onrush of decrepitude. The shoulder chap stuck cortisone into my rotator cuffs (or close, anyway) which was not nearly as horrific as I expected. I had visions of long needles and the sickening crunch of grazed tendon but was pleasantly surprised.

Apart from that I have done a lot of rushing back and forth to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where my Dad has just had a brain tumour removed and is feeling a bit rough. The offending object was about the size of a satsuma: seems very weird that there should be enough room in one’s head for such a thing: especially his head which, like Jeeves’, positively bulges with braininess.

For those of you with time on their hands you could always watch Gardeners World this Friday which is a collation of a whole lot of garden visits re-edited into one cheap and easy programme. It will include snoops around Alys Fowler’s garden, a fumble through Toby Buckland’s passages, a wander around the palatial premises of Cleve West and a bumble through Blackpitts in June. so, if bored at 8:30 on Friday then BBC2 is the place to be: thank goodness we don’t have to compete with Strictly.

Last year I was doing Green With Envy in Clacton, details here.

I am listening to Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin. The picture is the petal of an Hemerocallis Golden Chimes.

Happy Thanksgiving to all you lot over there: may your turkeys be pleasantly basted and your various pies heave with pumpkins. 

Dull Technical note: I noticed when tralumphing around my Statistic counter the other day  that many of you still link here via the old .mac address which, for some reason, does weird things to the comment layer. The deal is that Apple (whom I love dearly and will forgive almost anything: sad but true) had a shake up a few months ago and shifted all their stuff to a new entity called .me (bloody silly name).  As a result everything went a bit tits up. That seems to be behind us now and you will find that all problems can be avoided by entering this website as http://web.me.com/blackpittsgarden/Site_2/Blog/Blog.html on all your RSS feeds, links or whatever method you might use to come here. My only concern is the convenience of you, the dear public. (Well, maybe not my only concern but it is undoubtedly scribbled somewhere on the back of the same fag packet). Suffice to say that if you wish to comment on this blog and find yourself unable so to do, them check you have .me not .mac. End of technical note.

His Tongue Was Not Just Tied But Windsor Knotted

 

Good day from the award winning Blogging from Blackpitts.

Yesterday was the Garden Media Guild Awards lunch: a beano which I have always rather enjoyed (and which I have described previously here). The form is a lot of short conversations and a fair bit of kissing: which (as almost everybody in the very small planetary conglomeration that is professional garden writing is worth kissing) is a pretty good way to spend a long afternoon. Nigel Colborn has already dissected the menu here so I need not go into that part of the proceedings. As with most of these things one doesn’t really notice what you are eating because there is too much gassing and chatting going on: especially if are lucky enough, as I was, to be sitting next to Carol Klein  and the pleasantly pregnant Kay Maguire. We are then all brought to order by the boss, Aunty Planty (aka: Valerie McBride-Munro who is a rather foxy cross between ringmaster and nanny).

The awards were amusingly presented by Andy McIndoe from Hilliers and, for the curious, the full list is available here. There were some great recipients in particular the delicious Andrea Jones was Photographer of the Year. She was the first photographer ever to venture into one of my gardens and is really clever. She was then whisked off to live in Scotland hugger mugger with a load of sheep and her porridge munching husband, Alasdair. The racy cosmopolitan set around Kew mourned for hours. I never realised until now how she has a slight look of Sarah Palin about her – although much more attractive and with less reliance on creationism (says he hastily).

Also Roy Lancaster who won Best Journalist. There is an almost universal weakening of the knees at his approach such is his wisdom, enthusiasm and demeanour of general chirpiness. Mind you Joe Swift was squeezing his face as if he was a chubby baby which I am not certain is the absolutely correct way of treating a national treasure.Would you do that to Dame Judi Dench or even  Len Goodman? I think not.

Best television was Rachel de Thame’s mooch around the cottage garden. I’m afraid I missed it at the time but it looked charming – as did Rachel though I have no idea who the bald bloke standing next to her is, he may be one of the cloakroom attendants.

Best Magazine went to Gardeners’ World who, of course, I love dearly and not only because they (a) give me lots of work – I should actually be finishing something off for them right now instead of writing this and (b) because they invited me to this binge in the first place but also for lots of other reasons that will, I am sure, come to me at some moment. While I wait for the muse to strike here is a picture of a clutch of them.

Anyway, congratulations and love to all concerned.

The Award?..Ahh……..

No, you did not mishear and I am not exaggerating: I have won a real live award. Not a charming (though hideous) virtual award like the Arte y Pico Award sweetly given to me by the Manic Kate and the Happy Mouffetard or the coveted Fork ‘n Monkey award but a real life one that can be hung on the wall and sporadically dusted.

The Garden Media Guild have seen fit to give me the Digital Media Blog Award – a category that unexpectedly materialised without anybody knowing – which comes with a cheque for £250 so a result all round. It all came as a bit of a shock. There was I slipping into a bit of a post prandial dream when the nominations were announced (Jane Perrone, The BBC Chelsea Blog and Me). Loud applause and a rather startled JA-S caught in a spotlight. I then made a slightly fumbling speech, trousered the proffered envelope and bob’s yer uncle (although, actually judging by Bob Sweet’s expression in this picture one rather hopes he is somebody else’s).

I should, of course, have spoken eloquently about how this was a breakthrough for new media and blogging is the future (and not just digitally removing shaved carrot from one’s navel). How no household should be without one and that we should all rise up and cast conventional print into the burning fiery furnace. But, when the moment came,  all such stuff trickled from my mind like cocaine through a colander so I didn’t. 

However, I will say a big thank you to all concerned and for you lot for reading what I write. Your presence and comments are greatly appreciated by all except my bank manager who would rather I did more things for which I was paid better. Also huge thank you to those other bloggers out there who make me laugh. 

I am listening to Let The Good Times Roll by Shirley and Lee. The picture is of Carol Klein’s shoes (cunning photographed by the gorgeous Lila Das Gupta.)

With Nothing but A Tub Of Cauliflower Puree She Ventured Out

 

My apologies for the lack of attention. I have spent the last few days laid low with some annoying virus thing that has left me feeling wan and lethargic. Hence lack of bloggage and general lack of enthusiasm for life great riches.

The constant drizzle has not helped a lot as every paving stone and plant has dripped with water and, apart from the occasional flash of sky, all has been generally dreich (an excellent Scots word that means exactly what it sounds like: other good Scots words include Brosie-faced = fat faced, Abstraklous = obstreperous, Glabber = clay or mud and Hutcheon = hedgehog. There are, of course, lots more: most of them impossible to say while smiling.)

On the positive side I have succeeded, while lying in my bed, in watching two old St Trinians’ Films: The Belles of St Trinians and The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery – which I vividly remember first seeing at school in 1968. (An old boy used to come in occasionally with what seemed like an enormous projector and show films – the other two I remember were Dirk Bogarde in A Tale of Two Cities  and North West Frontier.) I also packed in The Ladykillers  (orginal version), Brewsters Millions (the sixth version made of the same story) and The Wild Bunch (a film of which I am very fond although the similarities between Robert Ryan and William Holden’s moustaches leads to occasional confusion as to which one is which.)

One more day of illness and I would have had to wheel in the big guns The Wild Geese and The Karate Kid  which are my great comfort films in times of stress, trouble or a desire not to think much. I have writtenb about both films before but, in order to save time there is a reference to both films in one post here – when I was responding to being tagged by the divine Kate.

When I am too decrepit to garden any more, I shall lie in an extraordinarily comfortable chair watching films – old and new – and I will be happy. I will also probably eat quite a lot of cake.

Anyway am feeling perkier now so should be back on track very soon.

I am listening to Kooks by David Bowie. The picture is of a Teazle.

Two years ago I was thinking about Mud, Petitions and Eyes. Three entries that did not attract a single comment: such wasted words. It was lonely over here in those days – in the three months September, October and November 2006 I got four comments. One of which was a criticism, one a sympathetic word from Joe Swift, one was my own and the last wasn’t registered until September 2008. 

On The Bridge At Teatime With Her Boots On Backwards

 

Most of you will be aware of Amanda Thomsen’s Kiss My Aster blog. If not then you are missing a pippin. She has an excellent mixture of tat, nonsense, books, plants and eloquent drivel. All the elements of a perfect blog. 

She lives in Indiana and  is married to a chap called Kiss My Aspen. I assume that they will have children called Kiss My Asphodeline (who will have a melodic singing voice), Kiss My Aspidistra (who will be a keen pilot),  Kiss My Asystasia (who will be a ballroom dancing champion) and  Kiss My Askidiosperma (who will get thrown out of High School for dyeing his hair an inappropriate colour and snogging a Lithuanian exchange student during algebra.)

She also guest blogged at the Monkeyhouse the other day about Master Gardeners. An idea that I got quite excited about – as did Nigel Colborn who, I hope you realise, is not only the proprietor of Silvertreedaze but also the Vice-Chairman of the RHS Council: un grand fromage mais aussi un bon oeuf  (a bit of French that makes even Claire at the Ecospot seem fluent). Lets hope something interesting happens.

Anyway. She made a list of punk rock related plants the other day made me think what a very simple way that was to fill a post. 

I considered posting this as a comment on her blog but then decided that I might as well hog it and post it here – I hope that I have bigged her up sufficiently in the previous paragraphs to stop her suing for plagiarism (not only that but as, for some weird reason, she cannot comment on this blog then technology has effectively disenfranchised her *). My top ten list is of bands/musicians connected to garden pests:

1: The Bollweevils – punk band from Chicago

2: Kid Slug – recently defunct punk band from London

3: Aggressive Snail Attack – Croatian Band

4: The Aphid – track by The Fall

5: Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits – track by The Magnetic Fields

6: The Groundhogs – 1960s British Blues Band

7: Adam and the Ants – British band **

8: Deer Stop – track by Goldfrapp

9: Life Like Weeds – track by Modest Mouse

10: Rat Scabies – drummer in the Damned

11: Poisoning Pigeons In The Park – track by Tom Lehrer

Please feel free to add anything else: there is lots more out there. You will notice that my top ten list goes to eleven: this is yet another Spinal Tap tribute.

*Those still having trouble commenting I urge you to make sure you are logging into a  .me not a .mac address. The Monkey changed his entry point yesterday and was miraculously cured. Hallejulah!

**I used to follow Adam and the Ants around in 1977-78 before they went all Prince Charmingy. There was a fair bit of leather and  only song I can remember was called Deutsche Girls. Jordan was their manager and used to scowl grumpily from the wings: I don’t think she approved of the gross and sweaty mass of spitting, posturing humanity, and who can blame her? She later starred as Amyl Nitrate in Derek Jarman’s dire film Jubilee. She is curently working as  veterinary nurse and breeds Burmese cats.

I am listening to A Soldier’s Tale by The Good,The Bad and The Queen.

The picture is of an Acanthus at Hatfield House.

Parchment And A Lightly Boiled Swede

 

Some weeks there is a whole skip load of things that happen that I consider blog fodder. Other times are equally busy but not interesting enough to write about – and considering the quality of tripe and drivel that I have written about in previous entries you can imagine how extraordinarily uninteresting these rejected incidents must be. Therefore, I have decided not to write about any of the following: 

Bulb planting might have been on my list of topics – but I think I have adequately covered that in previous entries. I have now only got about 500 bulbs left in the barn and another 1200 in the post so the end is very close.

Maybe there was an opportunity to have continued with my RHS/Radio 2 comparison – by bringing in Jonathan Ross’s replacement: a man called Richard Allinson who, apparently, asked people to ring in with their mundane stories (for example driving to Tescos or having trouble with a bunion). There are equivalents in the world of gardening. For goodness sake…. bring back random offensiveness. (Another reason why I refrain from this tack because I notice that, two years ago, I wrote another blog laying into the RHS and it is getting a bit much: I also met the the heavenly Hayley Monckton for the first time that day.)

I could have gone off on a flight of fancy-pantery about the light catching the gilded branches of ancient oaks. Or the bronzed leaves of the noble beech falling to the ground like the burnished bucklers of slain heroes. Or even the sunrise skimming across tumbling icy water like a coked up swallow.

I might have chuntered grumpily (a process known as Colborning) about fireworks night and how things are not the same anymore. One of my more surreal experiences was watching the world firework championships on a black and white television. It used to be that fireworks were only seen once a year on November 5th (on burn a Catholic night) but now they seem to be all over the place. There is a large and extremely unattractive hotel in this village – looks like a Greco-Roman Macdonalds – that hosts lots of weddings. Every Saturday night is interrupted by a fusillade of explosions and whizzes: all very well except the woods are in the way and we cannot see any of the accompanying flashes and oooooh moments. All the noise and none of the satisfaction: a bit like the music of James Blunt or sharing a moment of extreme intimacy with a disgruntled chicken. 

As a nod to popular culture I could have mentioned how Louis Walsh is perhaps the most annoying man in the world and how satisfying it is that every time he speaks on the X Factor the first seven sentences are always lost amongst the cheering. I think Simon Cowell very clever to have dreamed up such an exquisite torture. (Sorry, lost the Americans again for a moment).

I toyed with the idea of telling you what a delightful lunch I had in Oxford last week with most glamorous Russian in Worcestershire. We were plotting all sorts of exciting tit-bits for next year’s Malvern Spring Show.  Joe Swift will perhaps be wearing underpants woven from broccoli.

Perhaps I should express my concern that the divine Kate (The Manic Gardener) is looking for action so no-one is safe. In the words of Rodgers and Hammerstein “Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry…” Some of you will have read her (slightly partisan) account of the sock wars and will know the extent of her capabilities when roused. I feel that such energies could be used to power a small Himalayan village or maybe the rotisseries at Ted’s Montana Grill in downtown Bozeman. However, I think it best not to mention anything and just keep my head down.

I could have done many of these things but, after careful and cool consideration decided that that would be too dull so, instead I am going to treat you to some music. 

This is a Barry Gray song called Aqua Marina which was the song over the closing credits of Stingray. Marina, you will doubtless know, was the daughter of  Aphony, ruler of Pacifica. She was kidnapped by the evil Titan (heh,heh) and rescued by the lantern jawed Captain Troy Tempest. She swam at great speed but couldn’t talk lest her people be destroyed – or something like that. (If you are reading this on the WordPress clone then there will, I’m afraid, be no music: you will have to use imagination.)

There. You must be terribly relieved that I decided not to write a blog about any of those things. More time for other occupations – I have noticed that there is quite a large blog crossover between gardening and wool based handicrafts.

I am listening to At Night I Dream Your Bedroom Is Crammed With Ducks by Merz. The picture is of cornflower: unseasonal, perhaps,  but undoubtedly lovely. 

The Only Available Solid Fuel Was A Sack Of Avocados

 

Congratulations to that nice Mr Obama. I hope he doesn’t regret taking the job. One of the, many, remarkable things about the whole election, I thought, was the sight of people queuing to vote,some of them for many hours. Two things, firstly I admire the dedication of the American voter (if there were queues like that at a British election people would take one look and go home) secondly, why on earth are there such queues? can’t be that difficult to get people through the poll booth quicker. Voting here takes approximately 22 seconds – mind you counting the votes takes an awful lot longer. Anyway, I hope he gets to go and lie around doing nothing for a while before he becomes leader of the free world. I feel rather sorry for Mr Bush: it cannot be very comfortable having quite so many people dancing joyfully on your grave.

Now, and this has nothing to do with Mr Obama but, if you will forgive me I will deliver a short polemic. The Americans among you may retire to celebrate/commiserate as it will make little sense. I am sorry, this is the second post that has been transatlantically exclusive. I will repair the damage at the earliest opportunity.

I am quite fond the RHS – not just because there are some talented and delightful people working there but also because, although imperfect, it is the only one we have. Many of you will have read Frank Ronan’s piece about the RHS in Gardens Illustrated (unfortunately it is not yet available as a podcast but will be soon, I hope). The most interesting bit of a very thought provoking article is the last couple of paragraphs which pose the question – A charity benefiting whom?

I thought a bit more about this when truffling around Matthew Appleby’s blog over at Horticulture Week. (Incidentally Matthew receives a regular whipping from Lionel Blair over there which is often quite entertaining.) Matthew remarked that the RHS website is clumsy, tricky to navigate and being full of inaccessible information. Geoff Hodge, the chirpy RHS website editor responds that ‘being a charity, the website budget is tiny’.

Think about that statement for a second. The avowed purpose of the RHS is to spread knowledge. The most effective way to disseminate such things is, in this day and age, through a well run and easily navigable website. Therefore, why is the Society not spending its money on this? it seems so darn obvious. It should have the best, glossiest, swingingest website in town. There is a lot of stuff about education but that is not very interesting to the bulk of the membership – nor, actually is it very interesting to most children above primary school age – who are basically not getting much value for money. They don’t even get the warm fuzzy feeling that they are helping the disadvantaged and the starving. I get to talk to a fair few gardeners and what they want, more than anything, is information. How to grow stuff, how to stop stuff dying, how to kill pests, how to make their gardens the envy of the world etc, etc. The RHS should be supplying this information in an easily accessible fashion to their membership in every part of the country – simplest way? via the website. In Geoff’s favour the site has just had a bit of souping up and looks better but think what he could do with more wedge?

The RHS has a lot of common ground with Radio 2. Traditionally both organisations attracted the middle aged, middle of the road, relatively traditional, well behaved and respectable end of society. The problem is that the market has changed dramatically. For example: I am, I admit, a (nearly) fifty year old man (in my defence I am younger than Cleve West) with a wife, three children, a job and a reasonable garden in the countryside. I am the perfect market audience for both Radio 2 and the RHS. However, unlike my parents at the same age, I hope that I still retain a slight vestige of youth. I share much more with my children: our musical tastes dovetail frequently (my father considered all music that was not steadfastly classical to be ‘blaring pop’), we like the same films, I go to festivals (provided I do not have to share a tent with Ann-Marie Powell), so far I have resisted the call of comfy slippers and a pipe and I am unafraid to dance in public. Fifty year olds nowadays are different. My personal theory is that everything changed in the 1960s when suddenly children were no longer wearing the same clothes as their parents.

So, my contemporaries should be the perfect audience for the RHS but, a short survey reveals that remarkably few of them are members, would ever consider becoming members and see no reason why on earth they should join. On the other hand their parents are all members. The RHS needs a bit of a shake. It needs a bit of irreverence and to get rid of that knee jerk, pompous, old fashioned image.

Similarly, Radio 2 has always conjured up visions of cardigans,the Cliff Adams Singers and the vacuous twitterings of lamely bearded, lightly paunched DJs. It is the personification of onrushing middle age. At the same time Radio One is equally appalling. So where do I go? I could go to Radio 4 but that has no music, I could  go to Capital Gold but I have no wish to be subjected to a stream of oldies and never want to hear Hotel California ever again. Radio 3 is frankly a bit heavy so what is left ? Not much. Radio 2 has the right idea. By updating its playlist a bit and employing people like Jonathan Ross it is changing its image to gently encompass a new tranche of listeners. The fact that Mr Ross and Mr Brand go over the top occasionally is just a risk you need to run in order to prevent the whole thing from collapsing into a Daily Mail driven slough. 

There is no alternative to the RHS except not paying your subscription at all – which would cause few inconveniences to the average member. It needs somebody slightly edgy and unafraid of controversy to speak out on its behalf: where is the RHS’s Barack Obama? I vote for Matthew Wilson in gold hot pants.

Enough blether. I am listening to Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living) by the Eels. The picture is of  Asparagus seeds.