Overview:

Notes.
I opened this website on 04 / 05 / 2004 and then shortly after I accidentally lost my website files by clicking "reset front page extensions"(kind of experimentally) in my Web Service Provider's selfcare section and then I had to rebuild it again from scratch. Doing that was not supposed to erase all my files but that is nevertheless what happened.........Now I've got that off my chest.
My interests have changed over the course of time, so for example I am not normally writing any poetry and only really did around 1995, nor have I done any pottery or artwork since around that time. However as none of these would otherwise see the light of day and because the web is such an accessible and democratic medium it seemed like a good idea to display some of my stuff here.
This will be a partly pictorial site devoted to various interests. It is also an exercise in creating a website by editing in "Notepad" with HTML code through "Front Page" which exists now only in older versions of Microsoft Office.
I converted all my pages to XHTML in December 2006.

The pictures were taken using a Minolta Dimage E323 camera, bought in early 2004 with 3.2 Megapixels.
See more of my photos on Wikipedia Commons My Pictures and on Wikipedia My Pictures. Some are in higher resolutions than those on this site
Aren't these digital cameras wonderful!
Where I have included photographs, I have usually given ALT references which can be read in Internet Explorer but unfortunately not in Mozilla Firefox.

Notes on Nature.
I have been doing some work for Friends of the Earth since 2003. Global warming has become an issue of paramount importance facing the world today. In fact if we do not succeed in tackling global warming we will not be able to tackle poverty and injustice because the environmental damage will exacerbate poverty and injustice. Human beings are seemingly limitless in their powers of creativity. Unfortunately we also have a huge capacity for destructiveness, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The war in Iraq certainly does not seem to have made the world a safer place - no surprises here then! To see what has been spent on it and where the money could have been spent if more creative imaginations had been making the big decisions, see The War in Iraq Costs. It is a thought - provoking fact that so many of nature's gifts, (God's gifts if you are religiously inclined) can be put to either creative or destructive use by us. It hardly seems to be mere chance that naturally occurring resources made from minerals, dead plants and animals and much more besides can be converted in such ingenious ways to enable us to have ever more complex and ingenious lifestyles. The oil that is the bedrock of modern economies is the residue of the plants and animals that lived and died million of years ago. The minerals and metals used in manufacturing electronic media, for example are the product of geological activity millions of years ago. What would be the chance that these products of nature could be put to such ingenious uses if not by some kind of design? So much that exists in nature can be put to use in some ingenious way or another and has been by mankind over the course of our evolution. This is the best argument for there being a force of creation existing beyond ourselves. Whether that force of creation is called God or Nature it is basically the same. That we can use these gifts of nature to create the economic power houses of the 21st century is awe-inspiring but if we destroy ourselves and our planet as a result of our refusal to respect nature then it all will count for nothing.

My Other Pages:

Here are my pottery men to look at. The pottery men were made in about 1994. There are also a few pots "thrown" on the wheel.
Pottery People Page

These are pictures of some of the cacti that I have that I thought I'd like to share.
Cactus Page

The artwork was done quite a while back, mostly if not all during the early to mid-eighties.
Art Page

The poetry was written around 1995
Poetry Page

This is about Truffle who is a patterdale terrier. She was born on the 22nd December 2002.
Patterdale Terrier Page

Picture Gallery is a new page, October 2006 and contains plants, butterflies and the English Lake District. I hope to add more images to it over time.
Picture Gallery Page

The Berlin Phase:

Ah, it seems like only yesterday...I'm joking...It seems like another lifetime.

A few days after finishing my A-Levels in June 1972 at Stationers' Company's School (I checked the web to get the apostrophes in the right place) of Mayfield Road , Hornsey, North London I walked into Friern Barnet Hospital Psychiatric Hospital formally known as Colney Hatch Asylum and then Colney Hatch Mental Hospital , and got a job as a labourer in the outside maintenance team and became the dumper truck driver and general dogsbody. Stationers' School when I started there in 1965 was generally considered to be the best grammar school in the borough of Haringey. In 1967 it joined the comprehensive system. The building as I remember it, possibly through those metaphorical rose tinted spectacles was a reasonably attractive mock gothic structure; at the very least it was certainly no architectural carbuncle. The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers opened their school in Bolt Court, Fleet Street in 1858. In 1894 the school moved to Hornsey in north London. Incidentally neither the hospital or the school are around any more, Stationers' School having been rather needlessly (not just in my opinion) closed in 1984 and then demolished and replaced with a landscaped park and play area called Stationers Park. The pupils were sent to Langham School off West Green Road. Friern Hospital, a huge Victorian Asylum with labyrinthine corridors and extensive grounds was eventually closed in 1993 in line with the government's "Care in the Community" program. Luxury apartments now occupy the site including the listed building part of it.

But in 1972 little did I know that two years later at the age of 20 I would be an outpatient there and the psychiatrist, Dr Richard A Hunter, who wrote a book about George III would be suggesting I might need to undergo a lobotomy but that's a whole other story and I don't intent to go into that now. As for the labouring job, we had to clock in with our clocking in card and if you were two minutes late you would lose fifteen minutes of your pay. Many of my colleagues were Irish guys who'd been there years. Strange looking patients often talking to themselves would wander round the corridors and in and out of the grounds at will, (this was before the modern drugs kicked in) and their clothes never seemed to fit them. Some had even been given bizarre haircuts, I imagine to make them easily recognisable so they could be brought back if they wandered off too far. I didn't stay there long and six weeks later I was off hitch hiking round the coast of Scotland. The first lift I got after waiting by the access road to the M1 in Hendon, was from Michael Moorcock the science fiction writer and friends. After having gone round the west, north then east coasts of Scotland in a couple of weeks, staying in youth hostels I arrived back in London and briefly sold ice creams in Charing Cross Road before making up my mind to go to Berlin with the intention of living there for a while. This would be a gap year at a time when not many people took gap years. The following September under some pressure from my parents I was meant to be starting a degree course in Modern European Studies at Ealing Technical College.

On October 18th 1972 I left to go to Berlin. Why Berlin? Well German had been my favourite subject, in so far as it could be said that I had a favourite A-Level, Spoken French was even harder to understand than spoken German and economics was described by someone eminent as a dismal science so the idea of getting a career type of job sounded like a life sentence. Berlin just sounded like the best place to go. My dad came to see me off from Liverpool Street Station. The train went to Harwich and from there the ferry took me to Bremerhaven. I cannot now remember whether I then went by train all the way to Berlin or whether I went as far as Hannover and then hitchhiked. I had the address of a student friend of a friend in Berlin who was happy to let me stay with him for a while. After a while he got fed up with having me around and I booked into the youth hostel in Tegel in the north of the city. I spent a few weeks travelling round Germany to Heidelburg, to Munich and to Stuttgart before coming back to Berlin and the youth hostel, Jugendherberge Ernst Reuter. I managed to get a job working as a gardener at the British Army base near the Olympic Stadium. An early start was required for this job which meant getting up at 5.30am to get the bus and then the U-bahn at Tegel station and change trains to get to work and clock in at 7.00 am. Herr Schumann, the warden or Wolfgang the assistant had to get up to unlock the hostel and let me out. To keep out the parky Berlin winter I bought a warm parka in an army surplus store. The foreman was from Somerset and my fellow workers were mostly "gastarbeiters" from Turkey plus a few travellers mostly from the USA. I swept and raked up the leaves and we drove around collecting the rubbish from the base in the morning and transported stuff around the base. When it snowed we cleared the snow. From time to time we would visit the Olympic stadium for work related purposes. This is the stadium used by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympics. At breaktime I would eat bread rolls with what I think was raw mincemeat and onion in them. There were also some nice cakes though I was sick once and never ate them again. I blamed it in the cakes but it might have been the raw mince

Back in the youth hostel in the evening I was self catering and I would eat rye bread and a kind of cream cheese spread called Speisequark. I would also buy "Pomfrits", chips in a paper cone from outside the U-Bahn and put mayonnaise on them or else buy Bratwurst or Bockwurst in Brotchen which are the German versions of a hotdog. I don't remember cooking at all. I drank rosehip tea (hagebutten Tee) mostly and occasionally peppermint. Some of the visitors to the youth hostel were German teenagers often in school groups though there were a few people from abroad staying for a longer time; sometimes Americans one of whom was a Vietnam Veteran who was suffering serious traumatic stress. I would speak German as much as I could, I was starting to get fluent and even beginning to think in German. I was probably as happy as I had ever been. I think this was because I was truly being independent for the first time in my life, away from family and friends in England.

Two friends from school, Jim Buckland and Mick Brady wrote and said that they wanted to come over. When I had first decided to go to Berlin, Mick had wanted to come as but I put him off as I wanted to do this by myself. As they had basically made up their minds that they were going to come and as they were after all friends I could not tell them not to. When they arrived I remember them telling me that I was acting different. This was partly because I had changed since leaving England and partly I suppose because I had some ambivalence about them being there. I regretted later that they came and it would be interesting to know what would have happened if they had not. I guess I would have been able to integrate properly and might well have stayed for a much longer time. Now I will never know. Of course from then on I would be with them most of the time except at work. Of course I did not speak German nearly as much as I had before. My individuality was being compromised. Maybe to compensate for this loss of personal identity I was growing my hair ever longer. The warden and his wife took to calling me Struwwelpeter after the character in the German nursery rhyme who wouldn't cut his hair or finger nails and they gave me a book about Struwwelpeter which I still have to this day. They even tricked me into having my hair cut, and arranged an appointment at the barber. Of course he cut off most of my hair even though I asked him not to and left me with a distrust of barbers.

At some time around January the three of us, plus Andrew from Maidstone and a San Franciscan called Richard Morasci who also lived at the hostel moved into a rented apartment at 29 Knesebeck Strasse, just off the Kurfurstendamm in the centre of the town. Moving to this flat was the idea of Richard Morasci who organised it all. Though there were five of us living there, there were only supposed to be three of us according to the tenancy agreement. Mick (from school) and myself were supposed to hide if the landlady ever showed up though in fact she seldom did and I only remember having to hide once.

Richard Morasci who was five or six years older than the rest of us, had been at Berkeley University in California and was the most mature and best organised of us and a kind of unofficial leader. He was also the civilising influence and the one who did most of the shopping and cooking and probably stopped the flat from becoming a total tip. I still remember the'Eierkuchen' and granola that he made. Since the arrival of my school friends I had become part of a group of three within a group of five. This was sort off unavoidable simply because of them being there. We had plenty of laughs however. Once Richard M appeared from the kitchen in a rage holding a lump of cheese with a large bite taken out of it with clearly visible tooth marks and demanding to know who was responsible. Why did they not cut off a piece with a knife? why did they not ask first? and in any case it was his own personal piece of cheese that he had worked for and paid for. Mick who had neither work or money admitted he had eaten it because he was hungry. Jim, from school, had like me found a job at the army base but in the officer's mess. Richard M was working in a kitchen somewhere and Andrew I think had a job as well. There was also a place you could go to very early in the morning, the "Arbeit Amt", show your passport and get taken on for a day's casual work in a warehouse or unloading lorries for about forty marks which I did on a couple of occasions. I also sold blood a couple of times for thirty five marks, (now I give it away for free, three times a year). On another occasion Mick and I had an argument and punched each other in a restaurant and were told to leave much to the annoyance and embarrassment of Richard M who was on good terms with the owner. An interesting feature of our flat which was on the second from top floor of a very tall old building was that you could get out onto the flat roof. we often liked to go there and Mick would entertain us on the guitar. On Saturday mornings Mick, Jim and I would play in 11 a side football matches at the army base sometimes, (civvies versus squadies). None of us drank much alcohol but one night we had a party, and I drank too much and passed out. One day Mick bought some LSD, took some and told me how wonderful it was, and would I like some next time. I did on one or two occasions while in Berlin. Talk about easily led at nineteen! The trouble is that it works too well on me, I hallucinate too much, the effects last much longer than with most people and it can all too easily can go from good to bad.

I went into East Berlin about three times by way of Checkpoint Charlie which was pretty interesting. You had to change five West German 'Deutsch Marks' minimum for five East German 'Ost Marks' and you had to return back through the checkpoint before midnight or you got into trouble, just like Cinderella. This was the middle of the Cold War, fifteen years before the wall came tumbling down at a time when people were still being shot by East German border guards as they ran across no man's land in an attempt to try and scale the infamous wall. Some of the streets were eerily almost empty and the bombed buildings stood as potent symbols of the defeat of Nazism. I visited a deserted museum glorifying the defeat of the evil Nazi Empire by the glorious and heroic forces of the Red Army. They really did like to rub it in, those East German communists. I remember seeing an East German soldier on guard duty periodically performing the goose step around his post, a Prussian march, ironical in such a setting though, indelibly linked as it is to the Third Reich . It was also the time of the Vietnam War with huge demonstrations taking place around Europe. At the time I was fairly unpoliticised, in common with most British teenagers. This was in stark contrast to my far more politically minded German peers. I went to a large anti-war demonstration, as much out of curiosity as opposition to the pointless war, footage of which was perpetually broadcast on our televisions back in England at the time, and saw hundreds of people whose faces were painted in the colours of the North Vietnam flag among the tens of thousands of protestors. The police were dressed in riot gear and armed with guns (of course) and water cannons. At the end of the demo American flags were burnt.

By the summer I had left Berlin and come back to London. Mick had gone back first as he had run out of money. Jim stayed a bit longer in Berlin after I had returned to London. I hitchhiked back to Berlin from London in 24 hours and stayed for a few weeks before I left for good. The magic had gone and I was back in England again.

Cycling on London's Waterways:

On yer bike on the towpath.

I have two inexpensive but adequate bicycles. One is a mountain bike, bought for fifty pounds after the previous one was taken and the other is an old dropped handle bar road bike which I was given by someone who didn't use it. I also have a middle-aged car, (Vauxhall Astra) which I drive when I need to. I would really like to see more bicycles and less cars. I read that Enfield, the London borough where I live, came out bottom in a survey of places where people cycle. This is a shame, though inside Ken Livingstone's congestion zone in central London there are far more cyclists. With less cars on the road, the roads would become more cycle friendly, there would be less pollution, less accidents, people would be healthier and less stressed and London would be a better place as a result.

A good alternative to the roads are the towpaths of canals and rivers. I live quite near to the river Lee (Lea) in Edmonton where the Lee passes underneath the North Circular Road in north-east London. The Lee has it's source near Luton in Bedfordshire though I have never been out farther than Ware. The towpaths of London's river and canal systems are good places to cycle in terms of air quality, places of interest, scenery and lack of traffic. The quality of the paths is mostly good and they have improved with new paths being laid. They are still rough in some places so a mountain bike is preferable and the tyres are much less likely to puncture . At a few places there are barriers to prevent motorbikes being driven along the towpath . From Hertfordshire one can cycle through Ware, Broxbourne and by the gravel pits lakes at Cheshunt. The gravel pits lakes at Cheshunt support a wide variety of different birds. These lakes are more important than ever as traditional wetlands have been lost because of drainage and development. They are a major inland wintering area of the UK and support over 10,000 birds annually. There are also several different species of orchid growing in this area on former gravel pits which may have been filled in with pulverised fuel ash which is a by-product of coal fired power stations, or else created using the sandy soil left behind after the gravel had been extracted. Both these environments provides the right kind of poor-quality soil for the orchid to flourish. After cycling a few miles past sheep and horses in semi-rural Enfield a point of reference is the tall chimney of the Edmonton Incinerator on the North Circular Road (A 406) which is the point where I get onto the Lee. Cycle south past Tottenham Marshes (now drained), Stonebridge Lock, Tottenham Lock, Springfield Park, Springfield Marina, the swans at the Leabridge Rowing Club, the Leabridge Weir where the old river Lea goes off to the east round the marshes at Leabridge Road, the Middlesex filter beds (which is now a nature reserve but used to provide clean drinking water to North London), the playing fields at Hackney Marshes (now drained), the disused Matchbox Lesney toy factory (below left), to reach the junction with the Hertford Union Canal (below centre).

Cycle past Old Ford Lock, where the old River Lea rejoins the navigation part, (right) and you come out at the Bow Interchange at Bow in east London where the A11 crosses the Blackwall Tunnel approach road . After crossing the road you rejoin the towpath in what is called the Limehouse Cut and pass Three Mills studios. At Bow Locks (below left) the Lea splits again and the non-navigation part of the Lea makes it's meandering way along Bow Creek to the Thames at Canning Town to emerge opposite the Millenium Dome.

The navigation part, after passing under Commercial Road and the Docklands Light Railway enters the Limehouse Basin and ends in the River Thames (centre) . This is an area of much high-priced redevelopment, situated at the western end of the Isle of Dogs which is not an actual island, more a peninsular .

The Thames Path is a cycle route, much of which is on the Thames waterfront which will take you eastwards past the site of Ropemakers Fields, past where the huge Millwall Dock Locks used to stand and the place where the enormous Great Eastern Steamship designed by Brunel was launched 150 years ago. A little further on the Cutty Sark comes into view on the opposite side of the river. Signs point to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel which exits on the south side close by the Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum (above right).

Alternatively back on the river Lee you can take a west turn three or four miles before Limehouse to take the Hertford Union Canal at Hackney Wick and join up with the Regents Park Canal. A mile or so further on at Victoria Park the canal system splits again. Here you can go south-east and cycle towards the Limehouse Basin, or else go west towards Islington. Going west you come to a tunnel at Upper Street in Islington which has no towpath and have to rejoin half a mile further on at Muriel Street . The canal runs through Camden Town and past Regent's Park Zoo (so you get to see a few animals), south-west to Little Venice and then turns north-west and as the Grand Union Canal past the historic Kensal Green Cemetery, between the railway sidings at Willesden Junction and Old Oak Common before it passes over the top of the North Circular Road at Park Royal in north-west London. See also The Lea Valley walk.

Actions:

Friends of the Earth's new website The Big Ask was launched in June 2005. All the major political parties say climate change is the biggest threat we face. They all have ambitious targets for cutting the main cause of it - carbon dioxide gas (20% by 2010, 60% by 2050). Yet emissions of carbon dioxide keep on rising. We need a different way. A new law is needed to make the Government cut carbon dioxide every year by 3% from now on.

The success of Friends of the Earth's campaigns depends on people getting involved. And there's lots you can do. To quote Friends of the Earth "When an MP receives a hundred letters they take notice. When a company director gets a thousand emails direct to their inbox, it makes things happen." There are actions here for Climate, Biodiversity, Corporates, Global Trade, Real Food, Safer Chemicals, Transport and Waste. Press for change.

If you are a US citizen support Senator Boxer's campaign to pressure oil companies to stay out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If you are a US citizen please sign this petition in favor of the Kyoto treaty.

A link to the Bernard Ingham page. Bernard Ingham in an article in the Yorkshire Post, falsely accused Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace of linking global warming to the recent Indian Ocean earthquake, and alleged that the two organisations were seeking to exploit the tragedy for publicity. Sir Bernard Ingham was Press Secretary to Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative UK Prime Minister. Bernard Ingham is also an outspoken opponent of Wind Farms in the UK. Sir Bernard Ingham is chair of national anti-wind farm group, Country Guardian and is a paid lobbyist for British Nuclear Fuels.

Changing a tap washer:

I recently needed to stop a bathroom basin tap from dripping. I had only replaced a tap washer once before and that was several dozen moons earlier. So I thought, The good old internet will come to my aid. One DIY website DIY Doctor said quote, "Here is a secret ! 99% of the time a dripping tap has nothing to do with the washer which, because is it rubber, is as good as the day it was installed. The problem is normally the valve seat which the washer sits on when the tap is closed. The pressure of the water tries to force it under the washer and little by little it erodes the brass from which the seat is cast....." It then offers to sell you a valve seat grinder to grind down the valve seat with for only £ 8.39 including VAT. So I guess that the time before when I replaced the tap washer was one of those one chance in a hundred occasions.

In any case I buy a washer for 20 pence and take out the old washer of which there is very little left. Another one in a hundred occurrence of a dripping tap being caused by a worn out washer, it seems. I put in the new one. I turn on the cold bath tap and the water comes out in a trickle. Erm...it seems like an air lock. I have a mini brain wave and manage to flush the toilet. Ah...now the water runs OK. Better check the hot tap...trickle, trickle, gush, gush, trickle...My girlfriend had been running water downstairs in the kitchen and none of the DIY websites had said not to run taps. I suppose it's common sense but when you don't do this often it's not immediately obvious. Now I cannot get rid of this second airlock so easily and after an eternity of running various combinations of taps I go back on the web. Here I read about disconnecting the washing machine cold hose from the washing machine end and reconnecting it to the hot water valve, so as to blow out the airlock with the high pressure mains water when the taps are turned on but I cannot do this as there is no hot pipe valve that I can close to prevent me from flooding the kitchen. The next day and the air lock is still there. I return two days later with a piece of car hose that I think I might be able to connect to the bathroom basin taps to try and blow it out. After chipping off the limescale from the taps and putting some soap on I am able with some difficulty to attach the hose, albeit a little precariously (I have no jubilee clips). I doubt if the hose will stay on long enough once I run the water. It suddenly occurs to me to turn on the hot tap on the bath just in case and.............. the airlock has gone and it's nothing I have done.

Flushing the central heating to get rid of air-locks:

The central heating pump had been changed by a proper plumber and he said that I should clean out the central heating system. As the top of the header tank was touching the ceiling there appeared to be no room to pour in any sludge remover so I applied it through a bleed hole in one of the radiators after draining the system. This meant I had to buy the type that comes in a cylinder and is pressed out by a 'gun'. After refilling the system I ran the central heating at full blast a few times prior to draining the system again in readiness for applying the inhibitor in the same way. This time however I drained the system while it was still hot which was probably a mistake. With the inhibitor in the radiators and after refilling I checked for air-locks but found that the radiators were not filling up with water. I was able to ascertain that the header tank had water in it for certain by squeezing my hand through the gap under the ceiling and discovered that the tank had some flexibility. However when I turned on the boiler it would not stay alight. This is because water was not getting pumped round so the water in situ got hot and the boiler turned itself off. The next day some water had got into radiators so I felt a bit more hopeful that I could get rid of the air-locks but still the water would not circulate. I flushed the system again but still it would not fill up. Having consulted the internet for ideas and not wanting to be beaten I borrowed a length of garden hosepipe and managed to pump water slowly back into the system from the bathroom sink. Luckily the hose was the right size. After putting the pump on full power and a deal of radiator bleeding the system gradually began to heat up and we had hot water and hot radiators for the first time for three days.