Laying the groundwork - or speculate to accumulate

As hinted at in the previous post, I was planning a piece on CAMRA’s milestone, 50^th Birthday; a proper tribute if you wish, as despite no longer being a member, I still possess a large amount of affection for the campaign.

The trouble is I’ve written so much in the past about CAMRA that it’s hard to know where to start, as well as trying to avoid repeating myself. The other trouble is I’m cream-crackered, to use a bit of rhyming slang, so much so that it’s more common than not for me to fall asleep in front of my computer screen of an evening.

Yesterday, for example, I was woken by Mrs PBT’s coming up the stairs and found myself staring at several pages worth of the letter “k.” My finger had obviously been pressed on that particular key, when I dosed off!

With a significant milestone birthday less than a month away now, I ought to be winding down. To a certain extent I am, but at the moment it’s a case of speculate to accumulate, with my plan being to go part-time, and switch to a three-day week. This new pattern of working is scheduled to take effect from the end of September, which is when Mrs PBT’s also reaches the same milestone.

I outlined these plans a few months ago, even though I haven’t yet found the reference to them, but I’ve had them approved now by our board of directors and agreed them with the rest of my management colleagues. So, as well as guiding a busy department through a period of unprecedented demand for the company’s products, I’m heavily involved with the re-structuring that’s taking place in order to strengthen our management team and take us into the future.

Being a relatively small concern – less than 50 employees, we don’t have an HR department, although we have now outsourced this to an outside organisation. This means re-drafting job descriptions, whilst recruiting three new members of management. One of them will be my successor, so as I’ve invested a lot of time in both my team and the company, it’s important that I help choose the right person.

In the meantime, we’ve got the aftermath of an ISO re-certification audit to deal with, although that’s not too onerous, plus the problems caused by leaving the European Single Market and Customs Union. Now which bunch of numbskulls thought that would be a good idea? So, with all work and no play making Paul a very dull boy, it’s hardly surprising that I’m nodding off in front of my screen – but at least it’s at home, rather than at work!

It will be worth it in the end, I keep telling myself, and I’m sure it will, so apologies for the non-appearance of the 50^th anniversary tribute to CAMRA, as well as a rather more enlightening piece about campaigning during the early days of the group, and a campaign that backfired.

Before ending, there’s another task that’s been taking up my time, and taxing my mind, and that’s the job I have of winding up my recently deceased father’s estate.  Dad’ financial assets, whilst not above the threshold for income tax, still require a grant of probate before the banks will release them. So as joint executor of his will, this job falls to me.

You can apply for probate online, at the UK. Gov website, but there’s a complication as the other executor is the eldest of my two sisters, who just happens to live in the USA! Because of this, I decided to hand the process over to the firm of local solicitors that Mrs PBT’s and I have used from time to time – most recently to draw up our own wills.

The solicitor will sort everything out, including the issue caused by my non-domicile sister, but there are obvious costs involved. Solicitors always seem painfully slow, but it frees up my time, and along with the other beneficiaries, I will know that things have been done properly.

Finally, I don’t want this post to come across as a whine or one of “Woe is me.” I am merely laying the groundwork and preparing myself for better things to come. So, with things such as meeting up with friends, going to the pub or travelling to new places off the menu at present, I might as well use the time wisely. That way I can enjoy myself all the more when we are all released from our cages and can really start living again!

See you in the morning, as I’m off to bed now.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Some significant anniversaries and happenings

I mentioned in a comment, on Retired Martin’s excellent blog, that I am amongst a group of fellow drinkers, who have booked a table in the garden of a Tonbridge pub. This will be for the afternoon of April 14^th, two days after the PM’s official date for hospitality to reopen in an outdoor environment. It will also be the day after a milestone birthday for me – one which will entitle me to free travel on bus services, across the country.

Although understandable for those wishing to enjoy a meal, it seems incongruous to have to book a table in order to enjoy a few drinks, but such is the dystopian world we live in, at present. However, having been denied the pleasure of a few drinks, in the company of friends, for such a long time, it was well worth making the booking in order to be able to do this.

Fingers crossed that, as the vaccine rollout continues apace, and the pandemic gradually lessens its grip on society, we will eventually be able to turn up at any pub that takes our fancy, and even enjoy a few drinks inside – all without making a booking. I suspect that this utopia, that was the norm just over year ago, is still some time off, so being grateful for small mercies and any port in a storm, and all that, I am looking forward to a day that is exactly a month away.

More important (marginally), than the beer itself, will be the opportunity of catching up with friends whom I haven’t seen for five and a half months; although I did enjoy a coffee and a natter with one friend who I met, quite by chance in the town, one cold day in early January – but don’t tell Priti Patel, or Chris Whitty!

Sticking with the subject of beers and pubs, a story surfaced yesterday that the number of breweries in the UK, increased last year, rising by 216, to a total of 3,018. It is rather surprising that this should have occurred during what must be the worst year ever for the brewing and pubs sectors, and does raise the question, where is all this extra demand coming from?

With around 12,000 pubs, bars and restaurants estimated to have permanently closed since December 2019, where is all this extra beer being drunk? Sources within the industry, point to the growth of online sales and the continues long term viability of brewing.

They claim that with the closure of pubs and bars, smaller breweries have had to switch to selling direct to consumers, and with what at times, seems an insatiable appetite for trying new beers, investors in the sector feel confident about a bounce back, once pubs and bars can reopen again.

It isn’t all roses though, as the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA), which represents around 830 UK independent brewers, claimed that 2020 had seen a 34% cut in production, setting the industry back a decade. So, yet again, with beer production dropping by a third, and a worryingly large number of on-sale outlets shutting up shop for good, where is the market, and the punters, for this unprecedented number of breweries?

Finally, yesterday marked the 50^th anniversary of the founding of CAMRA – the Campaign for Real Ale, or the Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale, as it was, back in 1971. I was planning to write my own tribute, having notched up 45 years of membership, before resigning at the end of  2019, but ran out of time.

I will put up a piece in the fullness of time, but for now – well done CAMRA, you didn’t just preserve traditional beer in the UK, you changed beer the world over, and in a way the founders of the campaign could never have imagined.

 

 

More questions than answers

Like most of the nation, I’m heartedly sick of lock-down, and becoming increasingly impatient for restrictions to be lifted. I’m in need of a haircut, a new pair of shoes, plus some new walking boots, and related to the latter is the ability to walk further afield than an eight-mile radius of my home.

It seems incredulous that things as everyday as hopping on a train and heading off for a spot of walking in the English countryside, have been denied to us, as have the opportunity of extending the walk with a couple of overnight stops along the way.

I understand the reasons why freedoms we once took for granted have been temporarily removed from us, but that still doesn’t make it any easier, but not wishing to dwell on this, and looking forward to a return to some semblance of reality, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject and asking a lot of questions.

Countries such as Israel, where the government’s stated aim is to provide a coronavirus vaccine to everyone over the age of 16, by the end of March, are already feeling the benefit. The bars and restaurants are reopening, with night clubs said to be hot on their heels. Closer to home, the devolved nations of Scotland and Wales, have also started easing restrictions, several weeks in advance of what is planned for England.  

These developments have been made possible by the continuing roll out of the vaccine, and with more vaccines set for approval, there is no reason why the United Kingdom as a whole, cannot follow Israel’s shining example.

Why then was the UK’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, so downbeat when he addressed the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, at the beginning of last week? Po-faced Whitty, who looks as if he’s about to burst into tears at any moment, told MP’s he was expecting a further surge in Covid-19 infections, “Involving significant numbers, but much fewer deaths.” This would occur either in the summer or, more likely, the autumn/winter, and would be due to the vulnerability of significant numbers of people who either couldn’t have the vaccine, or because they had refused it.

I really don’t know what it is with this man who, along with his cohorts Sir Patrick Valance and Professor Van-Tam, takes such a delight in being a harbinger of doom. The reported 90 percent vaccine take-up rate doesn’t tally with Whitty’s “significant numbers” of vaccine refuseniks and, more to the point, seems to contradict the idea of so-called “herd immunity” put forward by him and Valance, just a year ago.

Last March, our learned “experts” were saying the pandemic wouldn’t fade away until around 60 percent of the population had been infected, or immunized – even though no vaccine existed back then. Authorities in the US have since upped this to 85 percent if, as seems likely, the more transmissible "Kent variant" becomes the dominant strain of Covid. But with real life studies demonstrating that just a single dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine is 80 percent effective in preventing hospitalisation among the over-eighties, it is hard to see where this pair of jokers are coming from.

It’s now five weeks since Mrs PBT’s and I received our first dose of the vaccine, and whilst we feel much more relaxed about the situation, we will continue to follow guidelines such as mask wearing and avoiding close contact with others. We do wonder though, why we are not now permitted to meet up with friends and family members who have also been vaccinated, especially as we suspect there is no valid scientific reason for this ban.

It all calls into question the snail’s pace of Johnson’s “road map” out of lock-down. I would go as far as saying that significant numbers of people are now only paying lip-service to the restrictions, although the evidence for this is still anecdotal. There are certainly far more people out and about, and a lot more traffic on the roads – back to pre-March 2020 levels in the mornings, with the return of the school run.

This all begs the question, who is right and why haven’t factors such as the damage to the economy caused by lock-downs, and the serious effects on people’s mental health, caused by locking them away inside their own homes, been taken into account by those driving government policy.

Whitty and Valance also need to come clean and explain why their previous predictions for herd immunity haven’t so far come to pass, a disturbing question given the predictions was based on the same type of computer modelling they are still using to scare us into staying at home and living like hermits - answers that are long overdue.

Much of the Covid-related information in this post came from an article that appeared earlier last week in the Spectator, a publication seemingly unafraid of asking a few searching questions, of those who would rule over us. 

 

 

Ground Force

The arrival of spring heralds the start of the gardening season, and whilst I’m not a fanatical gardener, by any stretch of the imagination, there’s plenty of tidying up to be done, along with preparation for the summer months.

So, with the weather dry and fair, albeit a little on the cold side, the chance to get out into the fresh air was not one to be missed, especially after a hectic week, couped up in the office. Also, with lock-down restrictions still in place and exercise limited to within a certain radius of one’s home (who monitors this sort of thing?), it wasn’t as if I could go to the pub or continue my walk along the North Downs Way.

Instead, I spent the majority of the weekend digging, raking, sawing and pulling. I ached all over, in muscles I never knew I had, but I accomplished quite a lot and have to say I am pleased with what I’ve achieved so far. The weekends that started from the beginning of the year, have seen two trees getting a severe cut-back and pruning. These are a coppiced hazel in the front garden – the one which the squirrels strip the nuts off, before we’ve even realised they are ripe.

The other tree is a horse chestnut in the back garden, that grew from a conker which came from a tree in my parents’ garden. That tree was also grown from a conker which yours truly found sprouting. Despite the sentimental attachment to this tree, it’s growing in the wrong place and if left to grow freely would end up shading out a large section of the garden, so every few years it receives a severe haircut.

I’ve also got the truncated remains of six leylandii conifers that stand in a row in front of our new fence, to remove. Seeing them there, minus most of their foliage and topped by the remnant of a crown, reminds me of those photos of the Battle of the Somme, so much so that they’ve got to go.  

I managed to get rid of one over the weekend, but it involved digging away at the roots and then cutting through them with a pruning saw. That task completed as best as possible, it was then a case of rocking the tree back and forth before pushing against it with my entire body weight.  Fortunately, the remaining piece – a difficult to reach tap root, gave way before I did, but I’m not looking forward to repeating this process with the remaining five!

So, what happens with all the twigs, branches and thicker sections of wood, I hear you ask? The twigs and smaller branches are cut into shorter lengths using secateurs and/or loppers and placed in the garden waste bin. This is a container that households wishing to make use of this service have to pay for, but the fortnightly collections are worth every penny in my book.

The larger branches are cut into suitable lengths, with the really thick sections of tree trunk split with an axe, before being sacked in my log store, be seasoned and eventually burned in our log-burner. We’ve only lit the burner a couple of times this winter, as apart from a cold spell, earlier in February, the winter has been relatively mild.

Some individuals claim that log burners aren’t environmentally friendly – probably the same people who heat their home with gas. Both are fossil fuels, but the logs we burn are sustainable – being home grown, and if that excess wood was removed for chipping say, it would still release CO2 as the chippings slowly rotted.

Apart from the tree and brushwood removal, my main project was finishing the preparation of the seed bed for our wildflower garden. This is a large rectangular plot, close to the house. I’d dug it over and removed the bulk of the weeds, over the Christmas recess, and then spent the past two weekends given it a subsequent weed, before raking it over a couple of times.

So, with the soil levelled and raked to a fine tilth – as all good gardeners would say, I set about sowing the seeds. I sprinkled several varieties of mixed wildflowers and other native species into some kiln-dried sand in the bottom of a bucket, gave the whole lot a good stir and then scattered the mix onto my carefully prepared piece of ground and lightly raked it all in. Now all I’ve got to do is sit back and wait, whilst nature takes its course.

That was my lock-down weekend for early March  – not particularly exciting, but needs must and all that. At least I’ve used what is effectively dead time, wisely, but how I long to start seeing people, go places and do something rather more exciting!

The final photo shows 2019's effort on the wild flower front.

 

Random spring ramblings and a magical mystery tour re-visited

Another short, non-beer related post for your entertainment on these dark, early spring evenings, where thankfully the days are starting to lengthen. It happens every year, but it’s still a pleasant surprise when it does. I’m talking of course about the luxury of driving home from work in daylight, rather than picking my way along the country lanes in the darkness.

Continuing the spring theme for a while longer, the daffodils are now out, joining the snowdrops and crocuses in adding a little colour to a countryside that has still to cast off the dull yoke of winter. Completing the final reference to spring, are the lambs that have arrived in the world, just as the temperatures dipped, and the sunny weather of a week ago, gave way to cold north-easterly winds, overcast skies and the odd shower.

Last December, I wrote about the new desk-top computer that I’d purchased and that whilst I was pleased with it, I was disappointed there was no CD/DVD drive fitted to the base unit. I wrote about this omission at the time, asking why manufacturers saw fit to remove what, for many people, is a useful feature of a computer, especially if, like me, you like listening to the odd piece of music whilst typing or surfing the net.

It turns out that omitting the CD Drive from modern computers, is quite common, and whilst I can perhaps understand not fitting one to a laptop – where space is often extremely tight, there’s no excuse for leaving this feature out from a desktop.  As one commentator pointed out, it’s rather like not supplying new cars with a spare wheel!

All was not lost though, as last week I splashed out on an external CD/Drive, which fits the bill in every respect – apart from the single power lead/connector being too short! The latter point is because these external drives are primarily designed for laptops where space IS a problem, unlike desktops. They are also light and compact – a feature that makes them portable.

So far so good, and for just under 24 quid, I now have the facility attached to my PC, to listen to music and watch DVD’s and seeing as Mrs PBT’s seems to have a monopoly on our main TV and DVD player, I’ve a lot of catching up to do. One particular DVD I watched the other night was the Beatles 1967 classic, Magical Mystery Tour.

This was the first time I’d seen the film in its entirety, and the first time I’d viewed it in colour, since its Boxing Day airing, on BBC1, 53 years ago. It was slated at the time, by critics and the public alike – the latter included my father who described it in his usual blunt manner, as “A load of old codswallop.”

As a 12-year-old schoolboy, I too found it both strange and somewhat disjointed, but half a century on my opinion has changed. Yes, it is on the surreal side, but then there’s supposed to be some “magic” about it – the clue is in the title, after all!  Viewed in colour, instead of monochrome, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and feel that not only has it stood the test of time, if anything its surreal and off-beat theme, was rather advanced for the  age in which it was created.

If anything, the film reminded me of the Only Fools and Horses classic “The Jolly Boys Outing.” The basic premise was the same; a coach trip with a group of disparate passengers, all boarding a bus for a fun day out. The same clichés are there – the crates of brown ale, swigged out of the bottle, accompanied by the inevitable semi-drunken sing along.

Originally shot on 16mm film the production has been restored and transferred digitally onto DVD, with some additional background information, including Interviews with the two surviving members of the band. Ringo Starr said that coach trips were a regular feature of growing up in 1950’s Liverpool, allowing working class families the chance of escape from the bleakness of the city.

Paul McCartney admitted that whilst there was a basic plot, much of the film was ad hoc. Advanced arrangements for both cast and crew. Were minimal, and in the main they just turned up, and allowed the camera to role. This anarchic chaos was described by the two women who ran the Beatles Fan Club, back in the sixties, who were invited along on the bus as extras. 

Apart from some scenes filmed in the West Country, primarily at Newquay, the bulk of the filming took place at RAF West Malling, a decommissioned military airfield,  just a few miles up the road from here. The car and bus racing scenes were all filmed here, and the concrete "blast walls" formed the background for the group performing “I am the Walrus.”  One of the large hangers was converted into an indoor studio, and was used for the scene where the Beatles, dressed in their white tuxedos, descend a large staircase into a massed assembly of ballroom dancers, whilst singing “Your Mother Should Know.”

All in all, Magical Mystery Tour is a good time film, and you can see the four Beatles clearly enjoying themselves and their roles in this slightly maniacal production. There are certainly no signs of the strains of the competing egos, and petty jealousies that were to tear the group apart, just a few years later.

Anyway, apologies for this indulgence on my part, but it’s good now and then to take a look back to time when life was simpler and more relaxed. If you like the Beatles or, like me, remember them from their heyday, back in the day, give the film another look. The same applies if you want to catch a glimpse of a long-vanished England.

 

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It's not just the pubs I am missing

It’s not just the nation’s pubs that I am in a hurry to see reopen, there’s the so-called “non-essential retail” sector as well. Like much of the country, I am in desperate need of a haircut, and whilst I could just allow it to continue growing – as in my student days, the fact that it takes so long to dry in the mornings, is real nuisance.

I also don’t like going out in the cold, with my hair still wet – a sort of hangover from my teenage years, when my mother would forecast all manner of sticky ends for me, should I be foolish enough do so!

Apart from barbers, there are several other retailers with the misfortune to fall into the “non-essential” category. High amongst them are shoe shops, as a shoe with a split sole that lets in the rain, is driving me crazy. It is one of just two work pairs I possess, as like most blokes, my shoe collection is somewhat limited, unlike my good lady wife. She has sufficient shoes to wear a different pair each week of the year, in fact she’d give Imelda Marcos a good run for her money, but we won't go into that!

Given the importance of footwear, I am surprised to see this in the “non-essential” category. With schools due to return next week, there must be hundreds of parents out there, desperate to kit their little darlings out with new shoes, and given the way that children outgrow or wear out their current pair(s), I would definitely have placed shoe shops in the essential retail category. 

The same applies to waking boots – perhaps not quite as essential as children’s shoes, but with the government encouraging us to exercise more, those of us into our walking do need the correct footwear. I wrote at length about the problem with my boots, back in October, and with outdoor and leisure shops still closed, the situation hasn’t changed.

The only thing that has is, after much online research, I now know the brand of boots to go for. My determination to wait until the shops re-open remains, as despite plenty of YouTube videos advising purchasers on how to measure and size, their feet, and what to look for when trying on a pair of new boots, there is no substitute for doing this physically, in store, under the guidance of a suitably qualified fitter.

 Patience then, remains the watchword, but I do wonder about the arbitrary way in which the retail trade has been divided into essential and non-essential.  I am also concerned that this process has dis-proportionally discriminated against small businesses who are far less able to weather the storm of closure than their larger counterparts.

Government advertisements propaganda continues to thank us for staying at home, conveniently ignoring the fact that an increasing number of us are out working at our various jobs. They also ignore the damage being done to local communities, caused by the closure of “non-essential retail.” It’s all well and good, instructing us to stay at home and shop online, but this in itself is creating a worrying trend. If proof of this was needed, just ask Mrs PBT’s as it’s a rare day I come home and discover that the Hermes or DPD driver hasn’t dropped off yet another package at our address!

By the time this post is published, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, will have delivered his budget. If the leaks are correct, we can expect a wide-ranging package of support to help both retail and hospitality sectors, but after a year where both have been unable to trade for large periods of time, will these measures be sufficient?

The supermarkets and online retailers have done very well during the pandemic, and I am not knocking them for this. Many people would have struggled to get through the past year without their presence, but please spare a thought for the little guys; the small independent retailers who bring variety, interest and above all, personal service to the High Street. They have been particularly badly hit during this crisis and deserve our support once they are permitted to reopen.

As for those shoes, boots and much needed haircut, I shall be amongst the first inline on 12^th April – the day before my birthday, and coincidentally the day we will finally be able to enjoy a drink in a pub garden. Bring it on!!!