The Myth of Beef Tomatoes

Nearly 30 years ago, I worked with Keith, a keen gardener, at a printing company in Leeds. Keith’s main interest was growing flowers, but he, like many gardeners at the time, also liked to grow tomatoes. Perhaps it was the novelty of growing something that demanded light and warmth in the wet and usually cloudy north, but he enjoyed the challenge, with the added dimension of being able to claim that he had grown tomatoes that were larger than his neighbour’s or work-mate’s efforts. Keith used to talk about another former workmate who had seen large beef tomatoes when he was on holiday in Spain. This person, whose name escapes me, if indeed, I ever knew it, had managed to dry the seeds of a large Spanish beef tomato, from which he had grown his own tomatoes in his greenhouse back at home. The story seemed plausible, more than that, it set up the challenge: would this successful gardener share his seeds? Keith asserted that the exercise had been repeated for a number of years, but, unfortunately, he had now lost touch with the grower of those wonderful Spanish-originated tomatoes. A few years later, I was working at another printing company, when a similar story reached my ears. This time, it was a machine-minder called Lewis, whose cousin – certainly not the person Keith had mentioned – who was the successful importer of the rare sun-dried seeds, even though the modus operendi sounded very similar: the tomato was eaten on holiday in warmer Spanish climes; the putative grower procured another specimen, extracted the seeds and managed to dry them on a hotel room window sill, before packing them within the family’s luggage for the return journey. In those now far-off days, when we still had a printing industry worthy of the name, printers were inveterate potterers, so this part of the story, which relied on ingenuity struck a chord. Some of my co-workers had turned pottering into an art form and spent years perfecting the skill of obsessively creating things of little apparent use, both in and out of their paid working environments; these strange ‘hobbies’ ranged from complex indoor recreational activities, such as crazy golf or indoor cricket games that could be hastily removed if the boss appeared, while others became factory-renowned experts in cacti and succulents, geneology (years before Who Do You Think You Are? graced our TV screens), and there were also renowned home brewers and winemakers. Some of this latter grouping led me to experiment for a while, until, that is, my then cellar became home to a few dozen bottles of lethally explosive cider. Sitting upstairs of an evening, my television viewing was punctuated by random subterranean detonations, followed soon afterwards by the sharp aroma of apple and the soft tinkle of broken glass falling from shelf to floor, which led me to abandon the project. And yet, thinking back over the eccentrics and the pranksters, for example, the work’s foreman who delighted in wandering into a local DIY shop at lunchtime, where he would surreptitiously set a couple of the mouse-traps that formed part of a long-standing basket display, before loitering in the adjoining paint aisle to await activation by an unsuspecting shopper, you have to mourn the passing of interests and diversions that enlivened the working day, for we were not yet enslaved to desk or screen and prevented from interaction by stress, deadlines and worry; co-workers were ‘mates’, not ‘colleagues’. Collegiality now means isolation for many, as opposed to being alongside others in the collective exercise of labour. We even tolerated those whose productivity was lower than our own. For example, my first boss would urge us to keep the noise down after lunch if one of our number was in the darkroom. It only occurred to me later that my workmate was having a short rest: a power-knapper years before his time, and that the boss, normally such a stickler, was fully cognisant of the fact. We could also cover-up for the unfortunates who suffered equipment or fitting malfunctions or transgressed health and safety norms. In this category fall the paste-up artist who joined with the mythical three old-ladies by becoming locked in the lavatory when the bolt stuck, and had to be rescued by the boss, who effected the release with the aid of a liberally applied hammer that just about drowned out our laughter. Or the camera operator who managed to slip and fall from a darkroom bench when changing a light source filter. The front of the bench was fitted with an exposure control switch that became entangled in his left trouser bottom as he rapidly descended. This caused a rent in his trouser leg that extended from ankle to crotch. The dull thud was heard by many, but he refused to open the door or a while. Indeed, he only did so when convinced that ‘Charlie’ wasn’t in the building: he had fallen so hard onto the control switch that ‘I’m surprised there aren’t two lumps on the back of my neck’ were the first words he said as he shakily emerged into the light, and ‘the last thing I needed was Charlie howling with laughter when I opened the bloody door’. The biggest beef tomatoes ever grown in the north might have been the Leeds print industry’s very own modern myth but I still want it to be true. Now that the indoor games have been packed away and graphic design software has swept away the darkrooms and cameras, even the very businesses where we worked, that the memory of those tenuous claims to fame have achieved the status of waymarkers to a past, where, sadly, we did things differently but with more style and fun than we can ever claim now.

Playing doctors at the Chemist

Routine collection of a repeat prescription was enlivened by the announcement that the pharmacist on duty wanted to review my medication. This turned out to be a short discussion in a rather cramped 'consultation room' that they've craftily hived-off from a storeroom. Working through a list of my medication, the pharmacist seemed most concerned to know whether I needed to take rabeprozal sodium every day - and what would happen if I didn't?
Now, these questions rather highlight the facile nature of the review exercise: this medication was prescribed several years ago to treat a hereditary condition that affects the duodenum's ability to prevent stomach acid entering the oesophagus. Rebeprozal is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) that stops me enduring perpetual heartburn caused by acid reflux. Asking the question means the pharmacist didn't know the obvious answer, and caused me to wonder why she'd decided to second guess my GP, who also regularly reviews my medication - the key difference being that, whereas the pharmacist dispenses, the physician prescribes. And I'm interested to know who has decided that essential and time-honoured division should now be eroded by the pill-counters.

Bullying lasts

Research showing that bullying victims recall their feelings and sense of humiliation years after the event comes as no surprise to me. Bullied at primary school in the mid-sixties, I can still remember the sense of hurt and alienation. Even now I fear seeing the face of a tormentor in the crowd if visiting the place where I grew up. The effects, for me, are heightened when I remember the inaction of those supposed to protect me. Teachers then handled complaints of bullying by doling out the routine advice 'don't let them see it upsets you'. In other words, they expected the victim to modify their behaviour, rather than challenge or confront the tormentor.
A few years ago, I saw how things can change for the better. Now a teacher myself, I found a Yr. 8 boy crying in the cloakroom. A sensitive and intelligent child, he told me he'd been bullied by another boy. I mentioned this to a senior staff member, who asked that, as there were 'pastoral' issues surrounding both boys,  would I mind writing a short note for 'the record'? Remembering my own humiliation from decades earlier, I agreed, but asked that she take my comments onboard. Her response was swift and effective: both sets of parents called, bully confronted, and effects of his actions painstakingly explained.
We have learned something in the intervening half-century. It's not the victim that has to hide their feelings or the bully that's allowed to carry on unchecked anymore.
And Richard, if you ever get round to reading this, the kid you used as a punchbag in the cloakroom at Beckett Park Primary School in Leeds back in 1966 hopes you somehow learned to change your behaviour on the way to becoming the director of an electrical contracting business. If you didn't, you must have cost the business thousands in compensation claims by now. You see, your primary education failed to prepare you in much the same way that those charged with providing it failed to protect me. Either way, it did not allow us to grow into fully rounded people, capable of empathising with, and relating to, those around us.
But there's another face I fear glimpsing in the crowd, and that's your's, Chris. Because every victim can turn on another they perceive to be weaker or different to them, and that's what my senior colleague saw from my report: the victim had turned on a quieter boy, a victim of his own, to visit revenge of a kind, for the humiliation he'd suffered at the hands of others. Which is what I'd done to Chris - one who struggled at school, who now would have been identified as having needs to be addressed so he could make the most of the education he needed. Yet back then, he was singled out by the teachers and his fellow pupils, made to sit at the back with much easier work than the rest. They might as well have painted a target on him.
The bullied can bully too. I did, though thankfully not for long, because a deputy head intervened, but the harm I could have done shames me as much as the hurt I suffered.

Bullied children still suffer at 50 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27063715

The house at pooh corner, or why I wanted to kiss a Glaswegian drain cleaner

Confusion reigned this week. A blocked drain, and some distressing internal seepage, raised the question as to whether I or Yorkshire Water were responsible for the repair bill. On Monday, a blockage was discovered, which meant we were no longer left feeling flush after a visit to the smallest room. So, I called a company that advertises in the phone book. Assuring me they were specialists in this matter, they advised a CCTV survey. For £140.00 I got to share a viewing of the mystery of our sewers, which the technician assured me were damaged beyond repair. A pavement licence would have to be obtained from the local authority. This would allow them to dig up the path outside the house and replace the cracked and broken pipe from the fall pipe to the nearest manhole.
Fortunately, at this point someone decided to call Yorkshire Water, the 'statutory undertaker' for drainage in these parts. A visit from the aforementioned Glaswegian contractor then followed, which brought forward two pieces of very good news. First, Yorks Water were responsible for all the work because the fall pipe entered the ground on 'public' land; after the first flush, our poo became public property. Then he got his own camera out. This showed that the 'collapsed' pipe our contractor had identified was nothing of the sort, but rather a long abandoned surface (ie rainwater) drain. The poo pipe ran beneath - and was soon unblocked by a high pressure squirt from my new Caledonian best friend. Up to that point, I had been in fear of a four figure repair bill, but with that jet wash blast, my worries disappeared -- the block to happiness vanished along with the very tangible matter that he had freed. Now all that remains is the small matter of the deposit I had to shell out to the contractor for the now unnecessary street works.
Confusion as to whether the statutory undertaker or a private contractor was responsible for the work arose because of rule changes brought in two years ago, rules which neither public nor private sector drainage workers seem to fully understand - with the attendant risk that homeowners are paying for unnecessary repairs that are now the legal responsibility of the private water companies - but who seem rather shy about publicising the fact.

Chuggered on my own doorstep

A guy called from the RSPCA the other day. We don't live on a main road, in fact, you have to travel some distance up a hill to find us, but he was nothing if not persistent. He wanted me to agree to a standing order to protect animals from cruelty and he was very forceful in his delivery and batted aside my comment that, while I knew the RSPCA prosecuted those who harmed animals, I also thought that they were a tad too gung ho in some cases. This was 'political' and he didn't want to go there - all he wanted were my bank details. And I refused to give them, so he left - leaving me with the rather unpleasant feeling that I had been hectored on my own doorstep by a chugger. Meet one on the street and you can sidestep them, but when they turn up on your doorstep, all enforced bonhommie and over-the-top persuasion, they present a very different image. If one calls from a charity I do support - and there are many - I will immediately cancel my direct debit and tell them exactly why I've done it.

A stumble on the stairs

Although I asked him not to laugh, the chap at the till in M&S at Leeds Station apparently couldn't stop himself when I answered his question about my finger. 'I tripped on the stairs', the first part of the answer went OK. But when I followed it up with 'all my weight landed on my right hand and I ended up with a chipped bone in my little finger (not, NHS 111 operator please note, my 'pinky'), the chuckle barrier broke. And when I finished by saying that just about everything in the known universe that I'd encountered since seemed magnetically attracted to the spot, well I don't know if he'll manage to finish his shift.
The break was diagnosed and dealt with by the staff at Calderdale Royal Hospital A&E, a department under threat of closure from shortsighted penny-pinching NHS beancounters. They must be resisted at all costs. Preferably given forced enemas by Linda the capable and friendly nurse practitioner who strapped up my finger hopefully administered in a public place, while an effigy of the excreable Hunt burns slowly in the background.

Spooky, pop-pickers, spooky

Earlier this week, apopro nothing at all, Joe Dolce's 1981 novelty one-hit-wonder Shaddap You Face popped up in my mind. Such things happen at my age so I probably parked it somewhere in my cerebral cortex and carried on wondering what I'd gone upstairs for.
Now forward to this afternoon and I'm waiting to pay for petrol when the cashier, a man of my own age - who also happened to be listening to Tony Blackburn on the chart show, doing a rundown of the chart of this week in 1978, as I had before pulling into the petrol station, looks up and says that  TB had just said Midge Ure was on record as saying that Brian and Michael's Matchstick Men had kept Ultravox's Vienna off the number one slot.
'er no it didn't' I replied: 'it was Joe Dolce with...', and that's as far as I got-because the cashier finished the line for me by adding 'Shaddup You Face', or maybe he was addressing me directly for daring to contradict that colossus of pop, Tony Blackburn.
I checked when I got home, though. Ultravox didn't release Vienna until 1981 and it was Joe who deprived them of the number one slot,  not the cuddly Manchester folkies.

Neanderthal P E Teacher

Just heard my son's PE teacher call him by his surname, 'he always does that' my son replied when I asked if that was usual. The boy doesn't mind, but I do. Brought back unpleasant memories of my own school days, when teachers seemed to regard their pupils as lower life forms. Contrary to all expectations when I left school, I am a teacher myself, but I find respect and cooperation get far better results, and make for more harmonious learning environment then the one I was educated in.
Of course, it would have to be a PE teacher that brought this on; the sweaty trainer brigade never were at the forefront of academic life.

The joy of tumble dryer ownership

A friend complained that there tumble dryer was packing up after only a coup!e of years' use. When asked if she'd checked the filter she replied 'what filter?'. Can you imagine the sheer joy at peeling away all that compacted lint? Simple pleasures, but probably wasted on the filter ignorant....

Work experience?

15 year-old son's high school has declared that next week is work experience week for Year 10 (14-15 year-olds). In his case, this is to consist of visits to three universities. Parents were asked if they could arrange work placements, but only given a week to do so, and subject to the proviso that they were to take place within the LEA area, to cut down on traveling costs for teachers who needed to conduct risk assessments and supervise activities.
Would have thought uni visits were more appropriate to Years 12 and 13. On present showing, by time we reach that stage they'll tell them to stay home and watch day time TV in mornings in preparation for the real student experience.

Co-operative Group - time to show we really care.

In his satirical observation of 70s Northern life and social mores, Peter Tinniswood's Brandon family reflected the decline of traditional working class culture and the aspiration - as voiced by the upwardly-mobile but socially inept wife, Pat, to middle-class values. Most frequently expressed in her urging her hapless, and largely disinterested spouse, Brandon, to be a 'young executive'. Pat embodied much of that generation that would later embrace Thatcherite values of self-interest and later materialistic excess. The demands of the executive class have now 'evolved' into a demand for ever higher pay, without the justification of hard work or measurable success criteria that are accepted or understood by few outside the immediate 'charmed circle' at the top of an organisation. If Carter Brandon ever did climb the greasy pole to become an 'executive', he would now be one of those - like Euan Sutherland - who argue that high salaries and bonuses are justified merely on the basis of job title, without a corresponding increase in corporate value or profitability. News that the Co-operative Group now wants to award Sutherland with a pay and bonus and pension 'package' worth £3.66 million, with similar increases for the rest of the board, means that the final bastion of non-shareholder led endeavour on many of our high streets has now fallen victim to the prevailing, though ultimately illogical, business ideaology that management should be rewarded at levels that are out of all proportion to pay levels endured lower down in the organisation, but justified by remuneration committees on the basis that 'talent' has to be retained - even though there is no evidence of a demand for it elsewhere in the general employment market. Tinniswood's Brandon family books - A Touch of Daniel, Mog, Except You're a Bird and I Didn't Know You Cared were turned into a TV series by the BBC under the title of the final book - I Didn't Know You Cared: when it comes to the Co-op that title could prove to be highly prophetic - Co-op members should care, and show they do, by refusing to countenance the inexplicable rise of the 'executive' in an organisation that has hitherto prided itself on being led by them, not some mystical charmed circle remote from the shopfloor and answerable to the Stock Market, not the membership.

London property rental prices - good for a laugh

Checked rents charged for residential property in Bloomsbury yesterday on way back from British Museum. Saw a 'studio' flat (one, not very big, room) for £750.00 per week. Laughed all the way to king's Cross. Who has that sort of cash to play with? Certainly not hotel and shop workers or museum staff which seemed to be only employment on offer. Time for a social housing revolution, methinks.

I am the target

Reaching some age milestones are accorded special status, the 40th birthday, the joyous 60 year-old, for example. Hitting the half-century, in my case, has brought me into repeated life assurance advert-related contact with Parky himself, courtesy of Google targeted advertising.
Plebs are supposed to stalk celebs, but Parky -in yet another twist to his long and illustrious career - has gone for stalking the great mass of 50 to 80 year olds that he feels are in desperate need of no frills, no questions asked life cover.
Parky, you were the doyen of chat, king of Saturday night TV, the chat show come back kid - hey, you even reversed boomeranged back to the UK after taking Aus by storm. But please, from one Tyke to another, call off the cyber ad blitz. Otherwise I'll be forced to seek out the emu...

Jeremy Paxman's War

Although Paxo gave some good insights into the way WWI affected life on the home front, the overwhelming coverage given to the Western Front gave a rather one-dimensional aspect to the series. He only seemed to mention the Dardanelles briefly and failed to give any coverage to the fighting that took place in Palestine, Mesopotamia and Salonika-Macedonia. It was on this latter front that, arguably, the Central Powers began to fall apart, after first Bulgaria and then Austro-Hungary sued for peace, leaving Germany, in Hindenburg's words to 'wage war alone against the world'. It was also irritating to hear him shoe-horn the phrase 'all in this together' into his commentary in a couple of places. The centenary is far too important for politicians - or those who comment on their activities - to use for their own narrow ends. Don't want Paxo to start a trend that Cameron - with his desire to turn the whole thing into a 'commemoration' - can use for party political tub-thumping in the run up to the 2015 general election.

The Bishops are being pastoral again

So, the Anglican bishops chose St Valentine's day to have another go at gays in the church. In what they refer to as a 'pastoral statement' they state that those in same sex marriages can't be ordained and those gay clergy already serving can't enter into same sex marriages. Alright, we know they've got form in this area, but seeing as its now law, wouldn't you have thought the 'established' church (ie the denomination that's headed by the Queen) would accept the law as passed by parliament? Are the bishops so far removed from reality that they believe they can issue a pronouncement from on high that the rest of society will meekly accept?
And they wonder why their pews are getting emptier.

Mind the Gap - Tonight it Starts in Leamington

At times a train manager's lot is not a happy one. Liaquat explained - several times - that the delayed departure of the 17.33 from Birmingham New Street to Oxford was due  to a 'driver shortage'. One was finally rounded up and we left Birmingham at just before six. The first stop was Leamington Spa. It was to be the last stop too. On arrival, Liaquat's best oratorical efforts could not detract from the plan and bitter truth: a complete power failure at Banbury meant everyone had to leave the train.
Somewhat shamefaced, I made my way through the throng of disappointed passengers. I'm here for a work-related meeting and was pre-booked into a rather shabby guest house. The Stucco's fine, but in place of Betjeman's oft-quoted chintzy chintzy cheeriness, I'm faced with grungy grungy carpet-stainedness.
Can't help but think that the delayed Brum departure was down to a premonition that had spread amongst the drivers. South of Leamington on this storm-tossed night, lay danger and peril for the traveler.

The Casino, the Church and the Page 3 Model - Northampton Goes to Hell in a Handcart, For a Fee...

The decision by Aspers Casino to project a 30 foot tall image of a page 3 model on the front of All Saints' Church in Northampton has led to a bit of confused thinking by the Diocese of Peterborough. The image was projected without permission being sought and is intended to advertise a St Valentine's Day Strip Poker 'event' (touching, eh?) but the diocesan spokesman's response proved interesting - to say the least. He was "disappointed that Aspers Casino has sought to use a church building for advertising a commercial event without offering payment and without even having the decency to seek permission first". Presumably if they'd paid it would have been OK? What was that about a den of thieves - in Peterborough Diocese it looks like a den of strippers would be allowed in, or more accurately, 'on' the church - but only as long as they paid first. Fetch the cord, start the whipping...

Without a human care in the world

Defending the Coalition government's decision to remove the clause imposing human rights standards on private care providers from the Care Bill, my local representative of the swivel-eyed loon faction saw this as a victory for cost and complexity reduction.
Ruling out basic standards of human rights for some of the most vulnerable in society, on the ground that it was too complex for the private sector shows just how far the government is prepared to sell its own people short so that it can promote the interest of corporatism. And the patients? Well, my MP felt they were more than adequately protected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the doughty and fearless regulator regularly shown  up in the media for its inability to spot dehydration or pressure sores in patients, or even signs of physical abuse.

Like Nam - the food, the choppers

More a case of not a Goodnight Saigon last night. After a first - and very favourable - experience of Vietnamese food at Pho at Trinity Centre in Leeds yesterday evening (Ok, but I've only got myself to blame for the bird's eye chili overload - they give you a whole bunch of herbs and fruit to add to the noodle soup...), returned home and went to bed, only to be wakened in the wee smalls by the West Yorkshire law enforcement community's helicopter hovering near my house. In the cold and wet light of today, work, thought, even breathing, seem to involve wading through treacle. Two lessons this afternoon; hope there aren't any flashbacks.

Superfast broadband in Bucharest

Had to call Microsoft for help earlier today. The month-long Word trial on my new laptop had ended and the download of the paid for version wouldn't work. Not even our resident 15-year-old IT wizz could get it to load, so I called the 0800 number and found myself talking to Adrian, who, by the wonders of 'remote-working' sorted the problem and waited with me while my UK-based service provider's broadband took an age to download the correct version. While we waited, I correctly guessed that Adrian's accent was Balkan, then narrowed it down to Romania. This seemed to impress him and he then commented on our respective broadband speeds - 'theirs' is much faster and more reliable than 'ours', apparently. So, taken with emergent xenophobia and UKIP-inspired hostility, efficient and fast broadband provides another reason for 'them' to stay 'there'. 'They' can do 'our' IT jobs from the comfort of home.