I'd like to know what's so attractive about my rear end? It's curvy and lies at the back of me, minding it's own business. It's not special, except that it's all mine ... And I don't want it whacked!
So why do so many other cars want to squeeze up behind me so you could hardly fit a size zero model between us?
If I suddenly stop, the chance of these tailgaters stopping is hardly better than a blind hedgehog surviving a vacation trip across a busy intercity road?
And there are so many of them.
Yesterday, I'm driving through the beautiful West Somerset, UK, countryside minding my own business. The road is wet from overnight rain and lots of skiddy oak leaves have fallen, not to mention the odd tree branch.
At intervals, there are patches of mud from local farm tractors using the highway to travel between their hard working green fields.
A bean brain could see conditions were slippery. A half witted dodo who'd failed first year at high school could see that the road was more like a skating rink than a race track.
Whoops, there he is, a 4x4 with bull bars and he's latched onto my tail.
It's a beautiful sunny day but he's got his headlights full on.
There's a line of traffic ahead as far as I can see, which on this narrow, twisty road isn't far. So, if he passes me, he will only go for a few feet before being slowed down again.
He's so close I can almost lip read the obscenities he's hurling at me for daring to get in his way.
Hey, I'm naturally nervous. I'm the one everybody loves to bully. I love life. I don't want to die!
He edges nearer to me. Perhaps he's lassoed my bumper and has his engine switched off.
I can almost feel his breath on the back of my neck. My eyes are glued to my mirror and every move he makes. Briefly, I flick my eyes forward again. Just in time, I brake gently because the car ahead has slowed down. I daren't brake sharply because Mr Bull Brain is right behind. My normal distance to a moving vehicle ahead is about three street lengths so slowing down is not a problem, even with the distraction of All Engine and Chrome.
Incensed that I dared to hit the brakes, even gently, Mr Bull Bar Buffoon, blares his horn to show his contempt. Presumably, the chances of him ever using his brakes on a country road are about the same as me not dying pretty soon unless I get out of his way.
I give up and pull over into a lay by. Idiots are better ahead of me than behind.
Riding his horn again, he immediately shoots forward and latches onto the next car ahead.
So maybe my rear end wasn't so specially beautiful, after all. I briefly feel mildly disappointed, then, after the stream of traffic has gone by, carefully, pull out into the road.
The green fields stretch all around and in the distance lies Exmoor with it's wonderful walks, deer, foxes and other dangerous wild life.
And, talking of danger, there's another car attached to my tail. It's a small blue convertible driven by a rather good looking blond woman.
Ooh, but she's better than the last driver.
Hello dear! Maybe we can exchange telephone numbers after we've exchanged insurance details when you dent my bumper!
Your car isn't so big as the last guy's so I'd probably live. You might not look so pretty though after they've scraped your face off the windscreen.
Nevertheless, I'd rather get close up and friendly with this damsel than the mouthy bull bar guy.
But, oh help! She's applying her make-up as she's bumper hugging me.
Fear washes over me again, even faster than the make-up she's applying.
There's only one solution. I pull over to a lay by again to let her pass. Immediately she roars forward and latches onto the next car up the line. I think I can now see her eating some yogurt.
Trembling gently, I dimly recollect that the West Somerset Railway has now been connected between Minehead and my local town of Taunton.
Perhaps I'd be better off taking the train!
Bye for now
Rob
(Rob Hopcott - news - fiction)
Tag Archive for 'UK'
In a week that saw Wimbledon Tennis Tournament soaked by regular deluges of rain, good fortune and the sun smiled down on the Priddy Folk Festival up in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, UK.
I'd been put off the camping because it had been included in with the weekend's concerts but was extremely pleased to turn up on a day visit to find parking was only £2. The £2 was refundable against a wrist band for those who wanted to buy a day ticket for the concerts.
Since my main interest was the pub sessions, I declined to upgrade my parking and instead spent the refunded £2 on buying the official programme (still unread, but hey! I was supporting the festival).
My first session was lunch time at the Queen Victoria (Queen Vic) where a number of folk musicians were clustered in the far dining room playing some great English folk dance tunes. Happy to find music on my own wavelength, I joined in until late afternoon.
As the sun started going down over the beautiful Mendip Hills, I sauntered around the crowded central village green area where people were happily relaxing on the grass and traders were selling their wares.
Morris Dancers were leaping around jovially in a tent.
Kids were climbing a frightening looking wall. (They had useful looking harnesses on.)
A thatcher was thatching
And there was an open mike session in a large tent which looked very well attended and had some really good acts. Some sort of selection process seemed to be taking place because I chatted later to a lady with a very wonderful singing voice who was disappointed not to be selected.
Later on Saturday evening, The New Inn rocked to a mega fast Irish session which I bowed out of somewhat defeated by the speed and the quality of the players. I stayed for a while at the Queen Vic where a similar high speed session eventually developed.
So Happy Hopcott wended his weary way back to the car park, down through the Cheddar Gorge and so home to bed.
Bye for now
Rob
(online author and folk musician who is more at home playing at the speed of a horse and cart than a high speed train).
I'd been put off the camping because it had been included in with the weekend's concerts but was extremely pleased to turn up on a day visit to find parking was only £2. The £2 was refundable against a wrist band for those who wanted to buy a day ticket for the concerts.
Since my main interest was the pub sessions, I declined to upgrade my parking and instead spent the refunded £2 on buying the official programme (still unread, but hey! I was supporting the festival).
My first session was lunch time at the Queen Victoria (Queen Vic) where a number of folk musicians were clustered in the far dining room playing some great English folk dance tunes. Happy to find music on my own wavelength, I joined in until late afternoon.
As the sun started going down over the beautiful Mendip Hills, I sauntered around the crowded central village green area where people were happily relaxing on the grass and traders were selling their wares.
Morris Dancers were leaping around jovially in a tent.
Kids were climbing a frightening looking wall. (They had useful looking harnesses on.)
A thatcher was thatching
And there was an open mike session in a large tent which looked very well attended and had some really good acts. Some sort of selection process seemed to be taking place because I chatted later to a lady with a very wonderful singing voice who was disappointed not to be selected.
Later on Saturday evening, The New Inn rocked to a mega fast Irish session which I bowed out of somewhat defeated by the speed and the quality of the players. I stayed for a while at the Queen Vic where a similar high speed session eventually developed.
So Happy Hopcott wended his weary way back to the car park, down through the Cheddar Gorge and so home to bed.
Bye for now
Rob
(online author and folk musician who is more at home playing at the speed of a horse and cart than a high speed train).
I found myself down on the South Coast of England in the Bournemouth suburb of Christchurch, Dorset, fancied a bit of entertainment, noticed it was the last Wednesday of the month and took the opportunity of dropping in to Ye Olde George Inn for their last Wednesday of the month folk session. (Always check with the Inn to confirm schedule in case of changes).
This well established folk session was held in a dedicated bar with folkies playing all sorts of instruments plus a bit of singing. Types of music included Cornish, Irish and a fair number of English waltzes.
By the end of the evening, I found myself in discussion with a theology graduate who also played an amazing number of traditional instruments including the pibgorn and was explaining to me all about the cabbala or kabbalah (I hope I've got the spelling right), fascinating!
Especially for folk musicians who are keen to grow their skills and are interested in English folk tunes and the interesting people who play them, this friendly Dorset folk session seems ideal.
Bye for now
Rob
This well established folk session was held in a dedicated bar with folkies playing all sorts of instruments plus a bit of singing. Types of music included Cornish, Irish and a fair number of English waltzes.
By the end of the evening, I found myself in discussion with a theology graduate who also played an amazing number of traditional instruments including the pibgorn and was explaining to me all about the cabbala or kabbalah (I hope I've got the spelling right), fascinating!
Especially for folk musicians who are keen to grow their skills and are interested in English folk tunes and the interesting people who play them, this friendly Dorset folk session seems ideal.
Bye for now
Rob
It's official! Totnes rocks! Hopcott was there, was mighty impressed and couldn't resist awarding UK's Totnes the Hopcott Funky High Five Award! Yoh!
(OK, a little less of the exclamation marks!)
So what's this Totnes stuff? Well here's the recipe for a 'Happy Hopcott' (oh no not capitals too).
Take one interesting, attractive, small harbour side town, fill it with small streets and fun looking shops, add the widest range of poets, authors, artists, musicians and practically anything and anyone that is officially or unofficially 'off this planet', drop it into the sunny South Coast of England and you have, allegedly (doffing cap to Hopcott's lawyer), .... Totness.
For years Hopcott has been saying to his nearest and dearest that life amongst the fields, gorse and heather was OK but just a bit lacking in the finer aspects of brain food. ("Yes dear, why don't you go down the public library, if you're so bored, or wash the car ...")
Long nights, which should have been ... well perhaps we'd better not go into that ... were instead spent fruitlessly analysing the UK sociological and cyber landscape for signs of mind nourishing Bohemia, only to find, instead of novel ideas, speculative thought processes and visions of alternative living, that, in every direction, stretched an apparently limitless media desert of modern mass produced numburbia.
Then into the Hopcott consciousness, like a breathtaking new paradigm, swooped Totnes in full sail and it all started with a routine search for a new pub music session.
Here's the time line. Tuesday dawned and Hopcott was feeling bored ... again. Yup, tag clouds and technical geekmanship such as creating planet hopcott just weren't doing it for the inner man.
It was time to renew the quest for the undiscovered and exciting perfect session where Hopcott could assault the tender ears of hitherto unknown musicians with his personal brand of ill assorted English and Irish folk disharmony.
A quickly typed "Tuesday session folk music" in his Ubuntu powered search box yielded the excellent Flaxey Green and a quick scroll showed Tuesday sessions headed with the Bay Horse Inn, 8 Cistern Street, Totnes.
Innocuously, it advertised a ' Mixed folk session'. Interestingly, on the telephone, the landlady confirmed that it was actually mainly an instrumental session with often up to fifteen folk musicians turning up and that it hadn't been cancelled. Hopcott was hooked.
In a flash (well actually an 80 mile motorway dash accompanied by the tuneless hammering of a very loud camper van diesel engine), and Hopcott was leaning nonchalantly against the bar of the Bay Horse Inn getting the low down on the artistic high life of Totness from the landlords.
Voted by BA In Flight magazine, according to Totnes Town Council web site, as one of the top ten funky towns in the world, it seems Totnes is renowned as a centre for artists and those committed to progressive or alternative life styles.
Apparently, nearby Dartington College of Arts has a lot to do with this. The word is that creative people are drawn to the town by the College and ... just stay.
The packed pub folk music session that followed lived up to it's promise with violins, whistles, flutes, Uilleann pipes, bodhrans, mandolins, a piano accordion, a concertina and the occasional intervention of the lilting Hopcott soprano sax.
The music was fast, vigorous and loud. Genres included mainly Irish with some Shetland and Hebridean tunes.
Of particular mention were some devastatingly wonderful Eastern gypsy flavoured musical treats from some of the members of the Signs of Life folk band. Their music is the sort that rips apart musical convention and splices it together in ways beyond the imagination of mere mortals with searing tunes and songs in widely ranging languages from Romany to Yiddish to Cajun French.
Perhaps, if Totnes genuinely encapsulates all that is best in the creative and alternative Bohemian life style, Signs of Life with it's fiery and independent spirit should be nominated as it's official mascot band.
One thing that is sure is that Hopcott can't wait to pay a return visit which will be the first of very many.
So watch this space!
Have you participated in the cultural and alternative traditions of Totnes or elsewhere?
What do you think?
Bye for now
Rob
(Rob Hopcott - online author and wannabe bohemian)
(OK, a little less of the exclamation marks!)
So what's this Totnes stuff? Well here's the recipe for a 'Happy Hopcott' (oh no not capitals too).
Take one interesting, attractive, small harbour side town, fill it with small streets and fun looking shops, add the widest range of poets, authors, artists, musicians and practically anything and anyone that is officially or unofficially 'off this planet', drop it into the sunny South Coast of England and you have, allegedly (doffing cap to Hopcott's lawyer), .... Totness.
For years Hopcott has been saying to his nearest and dearest that life amongst the fields, gorse and heather was OK but just a bit lacking in the finer aspects of brain food. ("Yes dear, why don't you go down the public library, if you're so bored, or wash the car ...")
Long nights, which should have been ... well perhaps we'd better not go into that ... were instead spent fruitlessly analysing the UK sociological and cyber landscape for signs of mind nourishing Bohemia, only to find, instead of novel ideas, speculative thought processes and visions of alternative living, that, in every direction, stretched an apparently limitless media desert of modern mass produced numburbia.
Then into the Hopcott consciousness, like a breathtaking new paradigm, swooped Totnes in full sail and it all started with a routine search for a new pub music session.
Here's the time line. Tuesday dawned and Hopcott was feeling bored ... again. Yup, tag clouds and technical geekmanship such as creating planet hopcott just weren't doing it for the inner man.
It was time to renew the quest for the undiscovered and exciting perfect session where Hopcott could assault the tender ears of hitherto unknown musicians with his personal brand of ill assorted English and Irish folk disharmony.
A quickly typed "Tuesday session folk music" in his Ubuntu powered search box yielded the excellent Flaxey Green and a quick scroll showed Tuesday sessions headed with the Bay Horse Inn, 8 Cistern Street, Totnes.
Innocuously, it advertised a ' Mixed folk session'. Interestingly, on the telephone, the landlady confirmed that it was actually mainly an instrumental session with often up to fifteen folk musicians turning up and that it hadn't been cancelled. Hopcott was hooked.
In a flash (well actually an 80 mile motorway dash accompanied by the tuneless hammering of a very loud camper van diesel engine), and Hopcott was leaning nonchalantly against the bar of the Bay Horse Inn getting the low down on the artistic high life of Totness from the landlords.
Voted by BA In Flight magazine, according to Totnes Town Council web site, as one of the top ten funky towns in the world, it seems Totnes is renowned as a centre for artists and those committed to progressive or alternative life styles.
Apparently, nearby Dartington College of Arts has a lot to do with this. The word is that creative people are drawn to the town by the College and ... just stay.
The packed pub folk music session that followed lived up to it's promise with violins, whistles, flutes, Uilleann pipes, bodhrans, mandolins, a piano accordion, a concertina and the occasional intervention of the lilting Hopcott soprano sax.
The music was fast, vigorous and loud. Genres included mainly Irish with some Shetland and Hebridean tunes.
Of particular mention were some devastatingly wonderful Eastern gypsy flavoured musical treats from some of the members of the Signs of Life folk band. Their music is the sort that rips apart musical convention and splices it together in ways beyond the imagination of mere mortals with searing tunes and songs in widely ranging languages from Romany to Yiddish to Cajun French.
Perhaps, if Totnes genuinely encapsulates all that is best in the creative and alternative Bohemian life style, Signs of Life with it's fiery and independent spirit should be nominated as it's official mascot band.
One thing that is sure is that Hopcott can't wait to pay a return visit which will be the first of very many.
So watch this space!
Have you participated in the cultural and alternative traditions of Totnes or elsewhere?
What do you think?
Bye for now
Rob
(Rob Hopcott - online author and wannabe bohemian)
The community of West Somerset, UK has propelled 16 new Independent Councillors into power, overthrowing a longstanding Tory majority.
It is now vital that they continue to make full use of the energy and e-democratic collective intelligence of the West Somerset community to overcome the policy challenges that have bedevilled West Somerset and Exmoor for too long.
more
It is now vital that they continue to make full use of the energy and e-democratic collective intelligence of the West Somerset community to overcome the policy challenges that have bedevilled West Somerset and Exmoor for too long.
more
In my Google alerts today, I received exciting details about The New Local Government Network think tank who are running an NLGN lecture at the end of May 2007.
The subject of the NLGN lecture is
Looking further, I see that
However, sadly I won't be going because the event appears to be taking place in London which is a long way away from rural Somerset, UK. No doubt Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP and many others who attend on behalf the great and good will have their expenses paid. Not me. I'm just a poor member of the public.
However, not to be deterred and still wanting to get involved, I looked around on the NLGN web site for a place to comment and participate. Unfortunately, apart from contact email addresses, there appeared nowhere for me to comment on policy or anything else.
On their web site they say about the NLGN Policy and research Unit
Looking further into the site, I came across information about previous research completed by the NLGN. Yippee, I thought, now I can find out all the great stuff they have discovered from their research. Whoops no, apart from a few articles, I've got to buy books. Another dead end for me, as I have no budget for book buying. If I want to know something these days, I look for it on the Internet. Most things are there, if you look hard enough.
According to the 'About NLGN' section of the web site
The subject of the NLGN lecture is
'After Devolution: Building a new contract between citizen and stateExciting stuff, I thought, I want to get involved. It's my chance to help frame the future of local democracy and e-democracy!
Keynote Speaker: Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP (6:00 pm)'
Looking further, I see that
'Places at the event are free [but] operated on a first come first serve basis.'That's great! All are welcome, providing I get in quickly. It looks truly democratic.
However, sadly I won't be going because the event appears to be taking place in London which is a long way away from rural Somerset, UK. No doubt Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP and many others who attend on behalf the great and good will have their expenses paid. Not me. I'm just a poor member of the public.
However, not to be deterred and still wanting to get involved, I looked around on the NLGN web site for a place to comment and participate. Unfortunately, apart from contact email addresses, there appeared nowhere for me to comment on policy or anything else.
On their web site they say about the NLGN Policy and research Unit
One purpose of our research is to discover and disseminate best practises across the range of challenges faced by local public services and their political leaders. NLGN research team apply this practical knowledge to develop solutions to the key public policy challenges of today and tomorrow.Surely 'best practise' in the Internet age must involve some form of interface with the concerned public? Yet there appears to be none.
Looking further into the site, I came across information about previous research completed by the NLGN. Yippee, I thought, now I can find out all the great stuff they have discovered from their research. Whoops no, apart from a few articles, I've got to buy books. Another dead end for me, as I have no budget for book buying. If I want to know something these days, I look for it on the Internet. Most things are there, if you look hard enough.
According to the 'About NLGN' section of the web site
NLGN’s work has been recognised by the Prime Minister:
“Modernising local government is vital to the future of our communities. NLGN contributes innovative and thought-provoking ideas to the debate on how we achieve that.” Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP
So why, I thought, aren't the NLGN using a Wiki or a Corporate Blog? These tools are becoming essential to a growing number of corporate organisations internationally.
A very nice description of corporate blogs and how they can help thinking and decision taking can be found at wikipedia.org
Whether tapping into the collective intelligence of the public will produce better results than the traditional cloistered and conference approach has yet to be proved.
However, for an 'innovative' and 'thought-provoking' corporation, I would have thought a blog or wiki would be a small step to genuinely opening up the issues to public debate.
If 'Building a new contract between citizen and state' is genuinely important to Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP and the NLGN, shouldn't the citizens get a chance to talk about the contract before they sign it?
Bye for now
Rob
It was lunchtime and I was feeling frustrated having spent all morning sitting in my driveway uploaded the articles I'd written the previous Friday from my camper van via my wireless link into the Internet connection in my home.
This was not the way it was supposed to be. Uploading was only supposed to take half an hour and then I would be free to wend my way into the countryside and find somewhere nice to sit and write my next batch of articles. I must find some ways to speed the process up or, perhaps, do the uploading at the end of the day.
However, I reflected that lunch times are for getting out, taking a walk and relieving the frustrations and tensions created by the morning's hard work. So I pulled out of my drive and headed for Dunkery Beacon with my sandwiches and flask of coffee to where I knew I could find some very pleasant wood carvings amongst the trees at Webber's Post.
Guidelines have just been issued seeking to mitigate damage done to vulnerable persons by the liberalisation of gambling under the UK Gambling Act 2005.
Many who saw the liberalisation of gambling under the Gambling Act 2005 as a measure that encouraged a fundamentally harmful activity, will doubt whether these advertising guidelines can be effective.
Even though advertising professionals are past masters at targeting specific groups of people, the reality of advertising an activity to any part of the population is that the activity inevitably will be promoted to the wider population as well.