What's Swap Shop?

Isn't it amazing how a casual comment can make you feel old?

As we were having dinner one evening my daughter - who's doing inventors and their inventions at school - asked me about old-fashioned telephones.

I confirmed to her that my parents did indeed have a black Bakelite telephone with a dial.

I then mentioned to my husband and daughter that I could never get through to competitions on Swap Shop because by the time I'd dialled 01 811 8055 - at least that's the number I think I can remember from 30 odd years ago! - somebody else had already got through with the correct answer.

'What's Swap Shop?' both of them asked me.

Now, fair enough the ten-year old has no memory of Noel Edmonds other than on Deal or No Deal.

But really, I did hope that hubby might be able to share the 70s memories.  Apparently not.

No memories of Noel and his jumpers, Keith Chegwin trying to swap a chess set for a Chopper bike, Maggie Philbin doing whatever she did, Posh Paws the dinosaur sitting on the desk looking slightly menacing - nothing.

While we're on the topic, whatever happened to Saturday morning TV for kids - or hangover TV as it became known as we reached our late teens/early twenties?

Surely there's room in the schedules for a modern day Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore, Number 73, SM:TV or Tiswas? 

Then again, maybe not... I'm not sure how today's 'health and safety' world would cope with the Phantom Flan Flinger!

Life skills, 2013



Life skills.

What would make your list?

Cooking, driving, good manners, being a decent human being perhaps?

Well apparently top of the list of 20 skills essential to know now is Googling.

Yes, using the Google search engine is the top essential item for life according to a new survey released.

Next is operating a mobile phone, followed by connecting Wi-Fi, online banking and only then does learning to cook feature.

Scary, huh?

Using electronic devices is more important than knowing how to cook – quick, somebody tell Jamie or Nigella!

Turning to the skills now considered to be redundant, top is darning, followed by knitting, polishing the brass/silver, baking fresh bread and putting up a tent.

Other skills thought to be no longer necessary are being able to service your own car, change a tyre and speak a foreign language.

Now, call me old-fashioned if you like, but there’s no point in being a whizz on Google if you can’t sort out a flat tyre on a deserted country road late one evening.

Yes, I know a lot of cars don’t even have a spare wheel now, just a can of ‘jollop’ with which to fill the punctured tyre so you can drive on it a bit longer until you get to a garage.

But that’s no good if you get a shredded tyre is it?

Plus, should this scenario occur whilst driving abroad on your camping holiday, not only can you not change your tyre, but you can’t ask anyone for help as you can’t speak the language, and when you eventually arrive at the campsite in the dead of night you can’t put up your own tent!

Still, I expect you can Google all that and find out how it’s done on YouTube...

Seven Wonders of Northamptonshire...



Can you name the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?

I could remember two at a push, but apparently I’m doing quite well as most people can name only one, according to a recent survey by travel agency Bonvoyage.co.uk

Just in case you’re interested they are the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (the two I could recall), the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

As most of these now don’t exist, it’s hardly surprising people can’t name them is it?

This survey then also asked people to suggest their modern wonders and the resultant list is the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Great Barrier Reef, Table Mountain, the Northern Lights and Mount Vesuvius.

This then got me thinking, what could be considered the seven wonders of our area of Northamptonshire?  I came up with the following:

Harringworth Viaduct

Kirby Hall

The Triangular Lodge at Rushton

Lyveden New Bield

Boughton House

Rockingham Castle

Corby Cube

Yes, I appreciate that the Corby Cube is perhaps a controversial choice, but it is a very striking building. 

But it also made my list because it made me wonder why it went so much over budget, wonder when it would actually be finished, and wonder why another £600,000 is needed to fix what is, in effect, a flat roof?!

Everyone's a critic...



Do you ever read the reviews on TripAdvisor or similar sites?

Everyone’s now a budding ‘Alex Polizzi’, passing judgement on everything from a hotel’s décor to the service they’ve received and the quality of the food.

Personally, I think it’s brilliant.

It means that hotels and restaurants are almost instantly accountable (particularly in the age of the smartphone-equipped client) to the whole world, and I feel that it’s made them ‘up their game’ with regards to customer service.

A recent example, if I may.

My family and I headed off to North Norfolk for a brief break after the August Bank Holiday weekend.

We stayed overnight in a nice hotel, having first, of course, read the reviews on TripAdvisor.

The welcome from Reception was good, the room was fab and everything was going swimmingly – until we had dinner.

Now, a bit like my Labrador, I can eat most things.  However, the main course I was served was pretty much inedible.

In hindsight, I perhaps shouldn’t have gone with a dish described as Vietnamese Shakin’ Beef – not sure why it was called this, perhaps the chef named it as a tribute to Shakin’ Stevens? – but I thought I’d try something different.

Of course, when the waitress asked if everything was OK, I did that typically British thing of saying ‘Yes thank you’ when I really should have said ‘Actually, no’, but credit to her, when she collected my nearly untouched meal and asked if I couldn’t manage it, I then told her that the meat was tough and I couldn’t eat it.

She told the chef, who agreed with me and sent his apologies.  She offered me a free dessert, which I politely declined, and then she told me my main course would be deducted from the bill.

I thought that this was very fair, and felt better about the whole episode – and wished I’d complained in the first place!

However, I did also wonder to myself would this great piece of customer service have happened in the days before internet accountability?

Or would I have been left feeling disgruntled and merely been able to mutter just to family and friends about the experience, having first bought a bag of crisps from the bar to stave off the hunger pangs?!

Autumn, blackberries and life...

Ah, Autumn – season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and all that.

I love this time of year.

One of my favourite Autumnal activities is picking blackberries.

I always did this as a child with my family and it reminds me of those happy, carefree days when all you had to worry about was going back to school after the long summer holiday and what your new teacher(s) would be like.

As I was picking this year’s crop, battling with the briars and nettles, I was musing that picking blackberries is a bit like an analogy for life when you think about it.

The best fruit always seems to be on the highest briars, just out of reach.

To get them, you really have to put in a lot of effort.

Sometimes you stumble and injure yourself in the process, but if you persevere it’s usually worth it in the end.

You have to check your fruit though, because even if it looks good on the outside sometimes the one you’ve selected has a grub hiding in it.

Also, occasionally no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get reach the one you want.  That’s when you need to know it’s time to give up.

As a great philosopher once said (I think it was Kenny Rogers in ‘The Gambler’), you got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.

Or, if you prefer, there’s the Serenity prayer – God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Both of which I think are good pieces of advice for life from very different sources.

So, to summarize from my ramblings above, always try your best, learn what is attainable, find out what it isn’t, don’t judge by appearances, know when to give up and walk away to enjoy the fruits of your labours (or perhaps run if a pesky wasp is chasing you!)



It’s my birthday this weekend.

I won’t tell you exactly how old I am, but I’m old enough to remember all of the 1980s and I did ‘O’ levels (just), so you can work it out if you really want to.

I was reading a magazine for women recently in which there was an article entitled ‘Rules for the over 40s’.

Most of it was fairly sensible, although some points made me raise a quizzical eyebrow.

The main piece of advice was to add three years onto your age, when asked.

This is to provoke the response ‘Wow, you look good for that’, but, conversely, how disheartening would it be if you didn’t get that response, and the person you were talking to actually thought you were three years older than you were?!

Other advice included don’t go to nightclubs – well, that’s a given really as I’m generally asleep by ten thirty – wear sleeves to hide your bingo wings (yes, thanks for that) and join Twitter.

Now, I must admit, I quite like reading some people’s Tweets (particularly Rev Richard Coles – God bless The Communards, one of my favourite bands of the 80s!), but I do think that too much tweeting makes a twit, so, you’ll all be relieved to know, I shan’t be following this advice and letting you know my every movement and my thoughts on everything via Twitter.

But I would like to say have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend – remember, it’s the last until Christmas. 

Now there’s a thought – perhaps I should have Tweeted it!  Hx

ODE TO BROOKFIELD PLANTATION



There’s a place near here where the white deer roam,

The stag and his herd, they call it home.

Tall trees grow here too, reaching to the sky,

The red kite cry as they soar on by.

It’s beautiful, wild and quite untamed,

Yet lurks beneath buried waste, unnamed.

An industrial past, buried deep,

But nature’s reclaimed it while we sleep.

It was green fields before then, and should stay that way

And should be forever, but sadly who can say?

Greedy developers want to build on it

To construct a waste plant to process .... rubbish.

The trees will be destroyed, gone for good,

A ‘waste recovery park’ instead, replacing the wood.

Where will the deer and the wildlife go?

Ask Corby Council, see if they know.

An industrial past, a waste plant future –

Corby a dumping ground – how does that suit you?

Please say ‘NO’ before the trees are gone for good.

Stand up for your rights, you know you should.

Wake up – save the deer, the birds and the bees,

Do what you can to save the trees.

We need to have green spaces for the future generation,

Let’s make sure we save the Brookfield Plantation!