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2018

Buxton
After a long period of dry weather our first day in Buxton featured a thunderstorm and very heavy downpour. The damp weather continued for all but our last two full days and consequently we only had two good walks, plus a short walk curtailed by very low cloud.
We rented the seven bedroom house we have done three times already, but the owner is seriously thinking of selling up and taking it easy, so this may have been our last year...

Hot dry summer, with low water pressure, and we picked the five days of rain. Ho hum.

We had far too much to eat, with regular evening meals from the Tandoori across the road except that the ghee (butter) they used a lot of built up in George and his dairy intolerance meant we had to change our final meal to a Thai meal with no ghee! We ate out at a Ghurka restaurant which offered Nepalese, Tibetan, Indian and Chinese food, but also used ghee. We had the Nepalese Tama ko Jhol and Ghurkali ko sekuwa, and Tibetan Luksha Shamdeh. The Matka Kulfi as desert was a special treat.

We had two lunches at the Hydro Cafe, including a remarkably pleasant gluten free vegetarian fish chips and peas. From the same place we between us also had a jacket potato with daal and curry beans, and a samosa burger with fried halloumi....

Had a look at the Buxton Museum after its expensive redisplay, and it works very well, with excellent use of computer screens for optional extra information. Had an interesting chat with the museum curator. Apparently the commercial development of the Spa in the Crescent will house a commercial Buxton Water museum for which a charge will be made. The Buxton Museum will lend some items but is wary of lending some more fragile items due to unusual risks involved (eg flooding).

Visited the Green Man Gallery and bought some small artworks (lino cut prints and a watercolour) - other shopping included Cathy buying a blouse and trousers, and I bought a small second hand wrench. We visited a second hand book store and each bought a book- served by a lady, who we saw later that evening at a concert in St John's by a local orchestra with guest organist George Herbert (former organ scholar at Wilmslow) who performed the Poulenc Organ Concerto. Other works were Schubert's Rosamunde Overture, Bizet Carmen Suite (the use of a Yamaha keyboard instead of a harp was not convincing!) and Dvorak Symphony 7. We met the same lady at the Green Man Gallery...

Having lunch at the Hydro and evening meal at the Ghurka Tingmo, we were served by the same person. Buxton has a LOT of eating places.

Our walk to Corbar Cross omitted the final ascent which was in very wet mist, but the good dry weather of the next two days saw us back at Solomons Temple, and then a circular walk from Fernilee to the Northern end of Fernilee Reservoir, on to Taxal and then Shallcross, finally back to Fernilee along Bob's Lane. Could not find out who Bob was. Repeat of two years ago - exactly- we got to the Shady Oak about 3pm, too late for the 2.40 bus and the next one at 4.05pm, however the bus arrived just as we were to head into the pub for a drink! The bus timetable is long-term adrift.

Just after the British chocolate maker Cadbury was sold to Kraft who immediately broke their promises and started mucking with the recipes and products, making them very American, a descendent of the original John Cadbury started making chocolate in England- and we found some bars on sale in Buxton. The James Cadbury "Love Cocoa" bar we bought was a 70% Ecuador chocolate- organic, Cacao Nacional bean, "Black Gold". You can now boy REAL Cadbury chocolate, they can't however use the tradename.

Our age is beginning to tell, as Cathy can no longer move a leg exercise press in the adult section of the gym equipment in the park, and we were quite tired after fairly short walks.

There was a television with hundreds of channels plus players, but very little was of interest- we watched a couple of childrens programs from S4C and a short program again from S4C about brass bands- with a short piece from Band Llaneurgain (better known in the English banding world as Northop).

More food- Buxton Pudding. Fitzgerald's in town had a fine Buxton Bread Pudding, but we preferred an alternative recipe from the Pudding Emporium- which also sold some excellent cheese (Peakland White- matured just two weeks so very creamy) from Hartington Creamery- the only current Derbyshire source for Stilton. The Emporium also sold lovely teabread, very tasty with the white cheese. Fruit cake and cheese is a fairly unknown Northern tradition, typically a richer cake is served with a more mature cheese, Lancashire, Cheshire or Wensleydale, Christmas Cake might prefer a Stilton. In Lancashire, Eccles Cakes (and presumably Chorlton Cakes) can be eaten with Lancashire cheese, while in Yorkshire you can have Parkin and Wensleydale. Equal size portions of cheese and cake!

Walking through Fernilee we passed a farm that supplied the Cropwell Bishop creamery with milk for their Stilton cheese. Their cows were the best groomed I have ever seen, full cattle show turn out, quite glossy and clean. And not for a special event. Despite both British and European protections, many creameries make pretend Stilton- in fact only seven manufacturers can do so legally, located in three counties- only one in Derbyshire. Just as you can still buy Cornish Pasties not made in Cornwall ("Cornish Pasty" is also protected).
And so ends another - and our last - Buxton holiday as the lovely house we stayed in was sold for residential use.

Our journey in wasn't too bad, just half an hour late arriving due to the huge numbers trying to get on the train. We claimed our 25% refund for late arrival and were told that the management decision to curtail the train short of its destination was outside the train company's control. We appealed and were ignored, took it to Passenger Focus who asked for more information, gave us a reference- and then ignored us also. Good riddance to Arriva Trains Wales. (Not surprised that Arriva Northern who now run our local service, cancel most trains and have fluctuating timetables with no effective service at all- but they do give refunds.) Update: At Last! We heard from Passenger Focus in March 2019 that we would be receiving a refund...

We had all our evening meals at Barnacles Fish and Chip shop, who have now dropped most of their "roast dinners" which were the costliest meals and hence not popular. Plenty of vegan and vegetarian meals to enjoy, and where the menu indicated "chips with almost everything" there was no problem in substituting peas, baked beans, or carrots and peas, instead of chips. A couple of dishes had rice options too.

Our day of arrival we visited the Wild Horse brewery and had a third of a pint of six of their beers- and as they were all vegan, George tasted them too. Few beers are vegetarian but Wild Horse think vegan beer tastes better (and is far less likely to make you ill if the pub serves the barrel end). Instead of cask, which many pubs cannot care for, all Wild Horse beers are keg with optional "key keg", able to keep for up to a month once the pub has started it. It is a pity that pubs fail to label beers between keg and key keg- the original keg beer is pushed out of the container by gas, which makes for a gassy beer. In the key keg the beer is separate in a foil bag with the carbon dioxide pumped in to press the bag flat, so the beer is served fairly flat. I prefer a cask beer in best form, but it takes a good pub to keep cask beer well and serve it at its best. Many serve poor cask beer.

Wild Horse favour an American yeast, which they feed with oxygenation of the wort, giving all their beers a distinctive feel across several flavours. They also sell their beer in the bottle. The brewer indicated that there was a bigger profit in craft keg beer as they could sell it at a premium price.

Wild Horse Brewery takes its name from an endangered rare local wild horse breed, the only UK wild horses, the Carneddau, living in the hills between Conway and Abergwyngregyn and shown by DNA analysis to have been separated some hundreds of years ago. "The Carneddau ponies have shared ancestry with the Welsh Section A pony, but they exhibit genetic signatures demonstrating that the population has been isolated for at least several hundred years". Due to their rarity (and wild living- strictly feral, rather than wild) they are exempt form the general law requiring all horses to be microchipped and have a passport- as the UK law does not recognise wild horses (Dartmoor ponies for example are rounded up and microchipped), and they have a notional owner in the Carneddau Mountain Pony Association (made up of local farmers whose land they roam) which also shelters and feeds them in harsh winters.

Saturday saw very heavy rain overnight, then on Sunday, we managed to get a short walk along the "Invalids Walk" through Haulfre Gardens, arriving back in shelter just as another heavy downpour arrived.

Monday morning was wet, but we caught a bus to Conway and had a three thirds of a pint of beer at the Albion pub and played bagatelle there. Then to Llandudno for a revival of an old habit- the Llandudno Town Band on the bandstand. Advertised for several years recently but not appearing (absent 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), they have a new Musical Director and seem to have been revitalised.

Tuesday was the ONLY dry day we had, so this was the day for the trip to Abergwyngregyn to see the Big Falls. After the dry Summer the water coming over the top was somewhat reduced. Had our usual cups of tea in the little cafe somewhat up the hill- the hotel opposite the bus stop is now offering teas but we like the smaller establishment. Cathy and George did some rock climbing and George went under a huge rock to a place normally underwater.

Down towards the sea on Station Road is a new distillery - it wasn't open this day. They have bonded whiskey casks already on sale ready to take delivery after a minimum of three years barrelage (choice of oak, bourbon or sherry casks). We bought (in Conway) a miniature Jin Riwbob a Sinsir, distilled at Abergwyngregyn, and a bottle of Gwirod Fioled, with their label but manufactured and bottled elsewhere.

We enjoyed a walk around Happy Valley in Llandudno, whose cafeteria has [2019 update: HAD- ha;ved!] the largest range of Parisella Ice Cream flavours- we all loved the Sea Buckthorn, which might be made from local Buckthorn as it grows locally. The cafeteria had three specials on, of which two were vegan. Not sure how regular this is- unfortunately their main menu has nothing at all vegan, everything being either cheese or tuna!!! [2019 update- no specials, pie and chips]. Happy Valley also has one of the few free toilets in Llandudno. The signposted and mapped toilets mostly do not exist having been closed some decades ago, and the ONLY local authority loo (just 5 doors) is 20p a go. Happy Valley and Craig-y-Don cafes both have free loos nearby, and there are free loos at the end of the pier.

Evidence of disrepair by the Happy Valley end of the pier- the pier owner, already facing ruin due to the council permitting a gross oversized residential development right at the landward side of the pier, simply can't face throwing good money after bad. The pier is likely to lose a significant amount of money due to the development, and may never recover its trade following the totally inappropriate development.

Conway Council is reducing their general waste collection to every 4 weeks, and considering stopping all buses that take over 15s to school or college- and as these are now very centralised in a very large area, this will leave over 15s with no way to get their compulsory education without taking VERY long taxi trips. Ten miles there and ten miles back is not a feasible distance to walk. And some face longer journeys. (We read of a 12 year old who had to walk a mile to do her homework which REQUIRED internet access, from a small village with no mobile signal and no broadband!) The council look to save a few hundred thousand, while spending several millions on a dance studio in Llandudno and a Cultural Centre in Conway. They have also permitted a multi storey apartment block to be built at the pier head, entirely spoiling the view from anywhere. And the beach remains covered with huge "flood defence" rocks. It is hardly surprising that Llandudno is seeing fewer and fewer tourists.

We visited our favourite kitchen shop in Llandudno and bought some silicon scrubbers, more hygienic than the usual washing sponges. Also managed to find a replacement glass tumbler cleaner which I have been looking for for a while.

Another day in Conway, walking the town walls, had more beer at the Albion, and played bagatelle, visited the Cambrian Open Art Exhibition (Cathy's grandparents had four pictures there in 1935!) then walked back to Llandudno via the West Shore admiring the new shelter at Deganwy, replacing one badly damaged in the big storms of 2014.

And finally a walk around a part of the hilly mound to the East which we have not been to for several years, and as previously when we got to the "open ground" part, with no waymarks, we went astray and missed several bits of the walk, but got safely back to the West Shore passing a mystery spring first recorded in 1880 as "Sadwrn", named after a local saint who discouraged St Winifred of Holywell a millenia ago. This walk is strenuous over quite rocky ground, mostly with no views due to thick mature trees and therefore the area is little used.

And back home without mishap. Our first night in Llandudno was nearly unforgettable, as George went to bed, closed the door- then needed the loo. His bedroom door handle would not retract the catch! Finally used scissors to ease the catch, and cellotaped a plastic clip in the frame to stop the catch closing again. With no mobile signal there were visions of getting dressed, going into town and calling the fire brigade to smash the door- but we avoided that. [2019 update: Door still as George left it with the tape!]

Was a bit worried to see the Penmaenmawr museum sign bagged over, but I find that they are moving from their old former quarry cottage into the old post office, with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund. They are open so little - and there is nothing else in Penmaenmawr- that we have not yet managed to visit them.

This year we travelled around on an Arriva Group Day Ticket- fifteen quid paid for the three of us to travel on any Arriva Wales or Arrive North West buses all day. This was the cheapest way to travel to Conway, which is in walking distance!

Speaking of- if the World Health Organisation says "processed meats" cause cancer, and our government says not to eat it- why does the world permit chemicals to be added knowingly which cause cancer? The chemicals add colour, "flavour" and longevity. They kill microbes and fungi. We are lucky- we have access to bacon and sausage which is fresh made locally with NO additives. NO sulfites. The bacon curer regularly throws stock out due to not using the chemicals, but the meat is better for it. The boiled ham is just that, fresh meat, fresh boiled and cut to order. Vacuum packs and freezing are quite effective. We continue to "risk" untreated milk when we can get it, it is quite different to the factory product normally sold.

Many of our double glazed window units have failed (some are nearing 40 years of age), are misty or fogged- but the heavy wind and rain this year has produced a unit which is half an inch deep in water! No easy way to drain it.

Cadent (contractors for the gas pipeline utility) removed the telephone line pavement covers for a couple of weeks, then one day dug a deep hold alongside a telephone cover- and the crackles are back on our phone line, reducing our broadband once more. Improving broadband speeds lasted a long time- six weeks. The old copper telephone technology is well past it in this area, and no hope of it being dealt with, as the drive is on to have people pay for the exorbitant super speed "fibre to the premises" service. update- later in the year the cable under the A6 between our "fibre- exchange to cabinet" connection and our telephone pole is replaced! And we finally have a broadband speed faster than at any time in the past 5 years.

Two letters from our power supplier telling us to telephone them - at our cost- to arrange for new "smart" meters to be installed - this is a requirement of our stupid government, at a cost of GBP 120 per household (paid for with increased bills). The supplier continues to omit required information and we continue not to telephone them - the regulations allow users to opt out but that has not really been tested yet and suppliers can easily charge users with old technology a premium price, farther down the line. Meters currently being installed are often only suitable for a single supplier and in some ways are barely tested technology, as the drive is coming from central government. Our government has a long and costly track record of technological ignorance and vast sums wasted on inadequate and none functional technology. Then our supplier telephones us- and again - and again - and again... we don't answer and they don't leave a message...

Nearly as bad as the Capita operated TV Licensing people who regularly harass us with threatening letters, having deleted all record of our internet-advice to them and refusing to permit free post or free telephone calls to them. We have no equipment here capable of watching broadcast tv or BBC tv on demand but are considered fair game for state bullying. In a minority? Go to gaol... do not pass go. Do not receive any form of justice.

Bad weather causes us to miss several likely concerts but one we got wet for was a lovely harp recital at Manchester Cathedral, by a young lady we first saw perform back in 2012. Elinor Nicholson, who always brings along her clarsach as well. Very nice.

Back to Glossop for some first class brass band music, this time by the Ashton-under-Lynder Brass Band. Comparatively quite young (only just past its teenage years) this is one of the leading local bands, regularly placing in the top three in the all-venue prizes for Tameside Whit Friday contests. Little wonder- the lead cornet is the daughter of the worlds all-time best trumpet/cornet player, sadly little known outside brass banding, James Shepherd; the conductor is her uncle and his nephew was on percussion... In the 70s it was the Mortimer family leading the way, currently the Childs family lead top English and Welsh bands.

Bought a CD - sadly it was made in 2016, and has the usual problems of modern optical media, with five times the errors of a 30 year old CD-R I have, and two wrinkles in the reflecting layer causing a momentary drop out on one track. Superb music on the CD and at the live concert. The CD included a rare duet between James Shepherd and his daughter, and the music for the "new" Clangers tv series- the Ashton band had played the world premier public performance of this.

Whilst we have bought Systema plastic water bottles to take out with us, these proved a little harder than they should to get the hang of stopping them leaking! They were quite unsuitable for the fizzy drinks that George likes, and the can top sealers we have used for years no longer sealed the thinner metal on newer cans. We did find a lovely alternative, a Swiss made plastic bottle free of those dangerous plasticizers- a Fizzii bottle. Excellent.

Bought some old LPs at a second hand book stall in Manchester, including some fairly rare classical music and some brass band music- in excellent condition. Also bought some good second hand books- I now have almost all the short stories of Francis G Rayer, the first SF author I ever wrote to (1964) and the ones I don't have are really rare. I found a lovely privately published lavishly illustrated book produced for the 400th Anniversary of Twm Sion Cati. Two farmers had produced a story board for an animated film some 40 years ago, and now retired had privately published their pictures in a hard back book (in Welsh or English!). This connects to our holidays in Llandudno as Twm's possible father lived in Gwydir Castle which we had visited. Also a book of the tv scripts for The Glums (I am currently listening to the old radio shows).

When Cathy went to visit her mum and go round Tesco with her, I made some tea for George- mostly fried young jackfruit with black peas, with a little boiled rice with edame and sweet corn, plus some broccoli and peas. Very filling.

Our 40 year old frying pans have lasted well but the bases are not very flat, so we treated ourselves to a new smaller pan with the recently popular ceramic lining- aluminum body- stainless steel base. So far so good- the ptfe coatings we have tried never lasted long and they have fallen out of favour now, so we are trying a thin ceramic to see how it goes. Obviously you don't clobber it with metal utensils or wire wool, you wipe immediately after use, and it is best not overheated. Bacon does well with the hob at setting 1.

The RBS saga rumbles ever on, with a report on the restructuring business. Thank goodness the bank never acknowledged or rewarded the staff who worked on the principles of it. Their names were therefore unrecorded (their innocence in the application of it must be emphasised!). Despite a lack of appropriate bank personnel or records the report is fair and appropriate. Possibly missing was the inevitability that most of the failed businesses were not capable of rescue- just as the larger scale "pre pack" insolvencies now the fad solve nothing and lead to further losses for customers, employees, and creditors as accountants and directors lap up the cream prior to further insolvencies.

Birthday time so off to a lovely organ recital, all Bach played by Philip Underwood, who is an excellent player of music by Bach (and lots of other music too!) after a lovely pie and chips at a new pub to us, with real ale, local prize winning pies (discontinued on our next visit, so Wilmslow back with nowhere to eat), At the organ recital learned of a new recording of music written by Ronald Frost- must pop into Manchester to see if there are any copies left.

Our water supplier tells us our water will be discoloured for the next month and "probably safe to drink", they tell us to run our taps until the water flow is "clear" but don't tell us how to deal with water tanks full of muck or water valves glued open...

Lack of any criminal system or police force is leading to increasing gangs of youths, with one local town sending letters to parents warning it is dangerous for their children to walk to school, and traders in several towns are complaining of widespread theft, damage and intimidation. The offenders laugh, knowing there are no police. Victims of theft have to track down and recover their own property (what personal risk!) as the police do nothing. And the state encourages neighbours to look upon each other as spongers, and cause significant distress to each other with false (85% false from 300,000) reports to authorities- 1984 anyone? We live in an immoral world with only a pretence at religion, where good kind people can still be found, but are discouraged - or punished- by the state.

Back to Glossop for a concert by Slaithwaite (pronounced Slau (as in cow)-itt) who just seven days ago won the 2nd section contest at Preston Guild. Made a note to avoid any appearances by a Yorkshire band not in the 3rd or 4th section - quite the worst concert I have been to with no subtlety, no clear melody or counter melody and a new young conducter clearly in favour of highly amplified drum music- the drummers hardly ever stopped thumping their loudest drums at the highest possible volume. I have heard the simple piece Mr Jums many times by many bands including school training bands- but never so badly played. I did not purchase their CD on offer.

I like to read statutes and statutory instruments as there is now almost always something being pushed through nobody is meant to see, or something the consequences of which have not been considered. My attention was drawn to one "Made at the Court at Buckingham Palace" in the presence of "The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty"- not a common procedure- an amendment to the medicines act, the section on "Protection of purchasers of medicinal products." which originally permitted punishment (up to 2 years inside) of a pharmacist who supplied you with poison instead of a prescription drug. We have recently had pharmacists advising they no longer had the time to follow normal checking procedures, and a case of an incorrect drug being prescribed. The order in council has now reduced the offence to only apply if it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt the wrong drug was intentionally and knowingly supplied. Other statutes and common law still apply.

Then back to St Chads in Rochdale for a bit of classical playing. We were well early due to excellently made connections (which we could not rely on) and stopped off for a tea and teacake at the San Remo Cafe on Drake St, immortalised in an unknown pop song by unknown local pop group The H!gh, not to be confused with the well known Manchester pop group The High. At the church the expected trio was not there as the horn player was unwell but had been replaced by a cellist and clarinetist and we enjoyed over an hour of good music on one or two instruments at a time, ending with a piece by three players, only transcribed two days earlier.

A delightful brass concert by Friezland, a none contesting community band with a young MD. A wide variety of music including marches, hymn tunes and popular music. The final three items being very modern music arranged by the conductor, following attendance at Glastonbury, including his brass arrangement of Sigrid Solbakk Raabe's "Strangers" (BBC Music Sound of 2018) which is pretty up to date for a brass concert! The conductor purchased arrangement rights several months before the pop record release.

The record was released on 10 November 2017 it reached No 10 in the UK Top 10. I think he must have heard the original acoustic version- by the time the record company had finished with it there were synths, drums, tempo and pitch changes... The Friezland band also played "Don't kill my vibe". This brass band seem to be headed into the territory of "Acid Brass" which the Fairey Band made their own some years ago. The name to watch for is Max Stannard. Bought a CD of the band's older music (2004) in the raffle.

Friezland played several solo pieces, with most of the soloists performing solos for the first time. In one case the soloist was playing an instrument they had bought and self taught themselves in the past six weeks! and a very creditable performance it was. This being Glossop, gateway to the infamous Snake Pass, which had been closed to traffic just after mid-day, it was not too surprising to leave the bandroom to find a covering of snow on the parked cars. We were able to reach the railway station before the sky fell with a Dark Peak blizzard. Better weather the next week for a fine performance by Tintwistle, then Fairfield (Buxton)- who also played a more modern piece of music. 1990's pop is now making inroads to brass bands, who are discovering melodies which might not have been apparent in the commercial releases (recording companies take a nice tune and then rehash it with drums, breaks, massive tempo changes... it takes a good music director to reverse engineer the damage...).

Quite a busy month with concerts, with TWO organ concerts at Holy Name (hurray, Oxford Road is now open!), the first was a rehearsal for a CD recording the next week, with Simon Leach on organ and Benedict Holland on violin. The church acoustic was superb for a solo violin, and even worked for a very quiet violin piece by Mark Dyer, who was in the audience. Afterwards as the audience went to say hello to the players I was the only one to greet the composer- such is a composers life. As it was a rehearsal there were no church expenses apart from the night's programme, and I found myself as programme sponsor, as I was moved to hand three tenners to the priest for three left over CDs by Gordon Stewart! The single violin and organ played together for two pieces by Hakim.

Just a few days laters there was another organ recital by Benjamin Sheen from New York, a very English player who played pieces by Parry, Whitlock, Mullet, and of course Bach.

Then after a coffee morning organ concert at the Plaza on the 1932 Compton, on to Albion in Ashton for a pleasant organ recital by Elin Rees, and two unusual CDs purchased- one of the Adlington Hall organ and one of German organs. Elin played four short pieces composed by the late Ronald Frost.

We concluded our busy organ week with a concert by Nigel Ogden at Stockport Town Hall's Wurlitzer. Discovered that the Compton organ from Stockport's Davenport Cinema (seen in the movie Yanks) has found a home- the Davenport was demolished in 1999 to make room for a car park! and the organ is now being fitted into a small building in Eccles- almost impossible to get to by public transport from Heaton Chapel.

And then Winter arrived. Cathy and George were both badly affected by the cold, and we had to miss our Monthly Ashton market. The monthly Heaton Moor market was cancelled. Days of blizzard gave us more snow than we have seen for decades and killed local transport. Our local bus service, the infamous 192, operating "18 buses an hour" (6 convoys of 3) was running two hours late- with no extra buses this meant average waiting time was half an hour, further extended as when drivers ran out of driving hours they had to abandon passengers and drive empty to depot. Trains from Manchester to Buxton were getting as far as Stockport, and there was no bus service to Buxton either. Even the old big railway snowplough held at Buxton could not help as the powdery snow was constantly being blown into (and filling) the railway cuttings. The fifteen foot icicles in the tunnels were a major hazard. Glossop concert cancelled.

A small break in the snow allowed us a quick dash to Aldi for essential food, as our usual weekly trip to Cheadle Hulme Waitrose was also not possible, and letters for posting just didn't get posted. We missed going to four concerts. At last rain and a thaw!

The no-snow weekend Cathy and George got in two concerts - one on the new Wilmslow Parish Church organ followed by a brass concert in Manchester while I trained it to Loughborough for the annual TI99/4A Users Group AGM. Fell in love with a tiny 32k ram expansion and ordered one- only six times more than the last advertised price of the printer sized official 32k ram (many years before). Trip home was fun- standing all the way from Sheffield to Stockport with a train full of football fans - the ones near me were very knowledgeable, fair, and made excellent comments on the game!

Next day off to Glossop for a brass band concert, but we didn't make it. Out in the middle of nowhere the train lost power and was halted near to a signal (at green!). It became apparent that a group of Kurdish refugees had invaded the tracks in Manchester in a well organised mass act of criminality, to protest that country T was being belligerent to country X. A strange way of saying thank you to the country and people offering them shelter. So we didn't make the concert, and had to catch a bus home- well, three buses as Glossop is not well served. Buses to Stockport were stopped a long time ago, buses to Manchester more recently, so we had to first catch the bus to Ashton, then to Stockport and then home. Six hours travelling. From A to A. Trains started to run again about half an hour after we got home.

The following weekend a concert in a local parish church with two world premieres! Instruments were a harpsichord, a flute, and a recorder. One piece was to be recorded orchestrally and presented to the royal family ("Balmoral Suite"). The next day the ground was covered with heavy snow again and there were no buses to Glossop. The trains ran but the band couldn't make it so the event was cancelled. That's three weeks in a row without a Glossop concert...

Inevitably while we seem to have avoided the flu we all have heavy colds which then keep us indoors for a few days, meanwhile our 16 year old Central Heating boiler starts dripping copious quantities of water - and we have no maintenance contract as the installer has a new job. Three of the young men he trained are in business on their own (separately) and one of these was able to come out the next day but needs to order a new seal. Unfortunately, once the rotted seal came off and a new one went on, it was obvious that after 16 years of gradual erosion, there was inadequate metal left, and we had to decide to go for a new boiler. As this cost LESS than the one we bought 16 years ago, I anticipate its life will be much shorter. The predecessor boiler had lasted 28 years!

With the enforced inactivity I made a four way connection - I supplied some texts I had to Q who scanned them and supplied them to a US University. I then had access to the scanned files and others held by Q and supplied them to Liverpool University. And in return, Liverpool supplied me with some rare SF texts I have been looking for. Benefits all round.

I have also been transferring more of my audio collection to computer hard disk AND memory card, and discovering the the latest digital physical technologies are the worst, as more CDs (and DVDs) exhibit failure mode, while tapes are generally recoverable if the appropriate hardware can be found- I even recovered some audio from tiny Philips Mini Cassettes. Computer floppy disks generally have not been stored archivally, and the rate of loss is quite high. Computer hard disks seem to have a very short life (usually under ten years). Protect all media from humidity and heat for longest life. Older vinyl may be affected by dust but if properly stored and played remains an excellent storage medium with sixty year old records still sounding as new whilst two year old CDs may be unplayable.

A more successful musical weekend- George and I went to see the new organ at Manchester Cathedral, where the design target seems to have been to cram as many pipes into as small a space as possible, leaving some sounds rather lost and muffled. Overall the organ was voiced for French music and the Vierne toccata was pretty good. The Bach on the other hand was lacking clarity and the Baroque music did not sound at all right. The quieter pieces were excellent- music for example by Harold Darke. The flute stop seemed a trifle overloud..

Evening concert at our local Parish church by the Telemann Baroque Ensemble (a seven piece ensemble tonight) with two pieces by J C Bach,and pieces by Handel, Fasch, Pergolesi and Quantz, all very good and much enjoyed.

And after a long seeming break we made it back to Glossop for a splendid brass concert by Sale Brass, including a piece I have not heard for over 30 years- and never as a pure instrumental: "Captain Beaky and His Band.". Lovely playing and a good variety of light music.

Good Friday was a rare opportunity to hear a small 2 manual Jardine organ at the Methodist Church in Prestwich, played by the church organist Alan Beedie for an hour. Very pleasant, ending with Faure's In Paradisium (not heard that on solo organ before) at just 3pm. An interesting church, alas with a second communion table brought forward from the East wall. Also something the Wesley brothers would have not been keen on- the organ music was "illustrated" with a slide show of the Stations of the Cross, an odd fiction created for tourists, becoming recently common in Anglican churches, but quite out of place in a Methodist church. I did notice that their modern East stained glass window had been designed by a none-methodist, the traditional last supper scene having included an incongruous 19th Century "sanctuary lamp" - not a Methodist tradition at all.

Once more the English shops idea of citrus fruit is a monoculture of mandarin oranges from Mr Nador of Murcott, carrying a wide and impressive variety of names but all identical. It was a pleasant surprise to find an Indian shop selling the Kinnow from Pakistan, an easy peel form of Mandarin orange, with only small amounts exported, and only a small amount of that coming to "developed" countries. This was the original form, full of seeds!

Fed up of so many stores selling dates only from one country (usually Deglet Noor and Medjoul species) I choose not to support, and Oxfam not able to stock dates from another land due to lack of sales, my date supply is limited to dates from Tunisia if I travel afar to purchase them, or sometimes a local grocer sells fresh Iranian dates (Probably Mazafati). My Indian store came up with no less than EIGHT varieties of dates, and I bought three varieties from Saudi Arabia- Khudry, Shallaby and Safawi dates. Pure dates, no glucose added.

Saw a double decker parked on the pavement in Manchester- not at all apparent what it was doing there as there was a handful of people by the door ignoring passers by and not giving out leaflets. The bus had the name "Science Museum Group". Apparently it was advertising an expensive commercial entertainment elsewhere in Manchester. Looked on the Manchester Science Museum website and discovered that in addition to destroying their permanent exhibitions, they had TWO entry fee exhibits for families to visit at Easter, total cost per person fourteen pounds with no child discount. Personally I consider six quid for ten minutes is not acceptable. This claims to be a "free" "charitable" museum, asking you to "donate" additionally three pounds to say thank you for a dead empty site. There are a mere handful of "objects" left (temporarily) in the Air gallery, the Power Hall engines no longer operate, as originally they always did. The textile machinery remains but seems to be rarely used. Then we have desultory temporary exhibits. Very much a failed commercial venture which should now be closed and a new museum, recognising the vast scientific (and engineering) work coming from the region - owned and run by Mancunians - opened.

Also in the news is an Easter exhibit at a London "free" art gallery with admission over twenty pounds. These supposedly charitable and free places (who have various tax payer funded exemptions) have lost all of my support.

Our HP inkjet colour printer stopped printing in black- the fourth time it has done this. In theory HP would have had us buy a new printer the first time! This time the "rinse the head" trick seemed not to work and we ordered a Brother Laser Printer (cost per sheet is lower than for an inkjet). On the day it arrived the HP started to work again.
We retired the Epson FX80 dot matrix printer and the parallel cables and parallel switch box to storage (it still works and they still make ribbon for it, 25 years on...) and in its place the laser printer goes with a new ethernet switch box, to be used by Cathy and George for black only printing if there are no images. For colour printing and/or image printing we will use the HP inkjet (we can still get ink for it) and for my black printing I will finish off our old Epson inkjet (connected by USB), which we have not been able to buy replacement ink for for several years.

The new Northern railway timetable from May is obviously the work of an arbitrary and random chaos routine, with a very irregular and unusable service. Some trains will omit Levenshulme, some will omit Heaton Chapel- and one train will be express from Bramhall to Heaton Chapel, not stopping at Cheadle Hulme or Stockport. And so on. Many trains will now run through Stockport without stopping. Ticketing is also being made far more complicated and punitive especially for younger people (as it already is in London where in some cases a 12 year old may find it cheaper to pay an adult fare).

We have been drinking Waitrose tea as our backstop tea drink for some time, augmented by speciality teas (especially the variety of Indian chais). We opened a new pack of English Breakfast Tea, had a cup, threw it out, made a fresh cup with new milk, threw it out and smelled the packet. Yuck. Freshly opened foil pack smelt very strongly of sour milk, quite unusable. Waitrose gave us a refund but what could make tea smell (and taste) of old milk? Cathy cannot tell sour milk but detected a metallic taste and had difficulty drinking it. The English Breakfast variety is a blend of tea from Assam and Kenya - it looks like quite a long chain of failure of quality control and possibly even food fraud.

Cathy and I went to Wilmslow to enjoy the new 3 manual organ, which really does sound quite superb and is good at playing ANY style of music. The sound is absolutely clear. The next presentation is a live organ accompaniment to a Buster Keaton silent movie (has this been done on a church organ before?). We planned to eat a local pie at a nearby pub but sadly the notice outside said it all "new chef, new menu" and on offer was the usual unhealthy pub grub, burger and chips, no prize winning pies. So we had to get what little the local Waitrose had to offer- a tiny and disappointing range. Need to take our own food on future trips to Wilmslow.

Then I took Cathy to Manchester Cathedral for a lunchtime organ recital on their new organ and her reaction was the same as to the Bridgewater Hall organ - where has the sound gone? The first piece by Bach was unsuitable as the organists hands were dancing over the keyboard and we heard nothing, the melody was lost in the general mush of the badly designed organ. The last two pieces were more suitable to the French voicing of the organ. It is arguable that the Cathedral could have got a similarly limited organ sounding a great deal clearer for an awful lot less money.

We were aiming to have some jackfruit for lunch but the servery had installed mind numbing loud music and didn't get our business. Our next port of call, a vegan cafe, had decided to close for the day for staff training. So we had to go to Spar for some wraps. If you don't love burgers and chips, eating anywhere is very hard.

A notice appears at our local station- significant changes to timetables from May 20th : New printed timetables will be available from 1st June. Hmmm. Northern Rail are on record as having advised that people should use their smart phones, and printed timetables are to become scarce. The service is being significantly reduced, and already "stopping" trains are passing through none-stop due to overcrowding. While the busiest suburban station faces a reduction in service, the quietest (one train per week) is to receive a doubling of its service.

Instead of waiting maybe 20 minutes for a train we face perhaps having to wait 50 minutes, as the frequency is being reduced and the remaining trains are being clustered together. Local services are being hit very heavily by a reduction in train paths, which have passed to other operators. For the first time some trains will call at Levenshulme but not Heaton Chapel and vice versa. The sole hourly Northern Rail train using the very expensive link between Victoria and Oxford Road is disappearing- but a different operator Trans Pennine will run a half hourly link instead. The weekly one direction only train from Stockport to Stalybridge is being moved from peak time Friday morning to Saturday- ideal for pensioners with passes. And it will run both ways, making a quick return trip Stalybridge-Stockport-Stalybridge.

For our summer holidays, officially rail timetables will be available not the correct 12 weeks before, but six weeks before- - - but local Manchester announcements are that timetables will be available two weeks before. We are travelling to Wales- in Wales the announcements are that timetables through to the end of July will only be available FIVE days before. On a single web page the line we need to use is closed until 1st July, and also until further notice. We have an interesting journey to look forward to.

Our local hardware store has its door sledgehammered open in the small hours, more damage than theft, they make good use of their stock to repair the damage. A short period later our local ATM is exploded in a successful attempt to get at the cash inside- the buildings windows are quickly replaced but the damage to the lighting, ceiling and internal chillers takes somewhat longer.

A 12-year-old girl was beaten up in a park - but Manchester police said it was not 'cost effective' to investigate- "just kids fighting" - 'a successful conviction would be unlikely' (stranger attack, 15 to one). A business with a burglary of 20k pounds has good video with sound but the police close the file without taking any action or any interest in the CCTV. The business is told to go round their local pawn brokers shops. The police say they do not deal with burglaries. So - criminal behaviour is widely rewarded and encouraged and our government claim to have no idea why crime is rising.

Official statistics (ONS) reveal that in Manchester crimes are reported at 120 per 100,000 population, against a national average of 82. Robberies are up 55% year on year, violent crime up 53%, and possession of weapons up 61%. Police numbers have been cut 25% as the police budget has been reduced every year for eight years.

I am appalled by the bare faced racial discrimination by our prime minister and government departments in their disgusting treatment of Caribbean "Windrush" immigrants and others whose skin is not white. Not having a UK passport (a mere 8 million don't) is now worse than a crime and merits detention without charge or appeal for an indeterminate period. "Guilt" is assumed and must be disproved. This is NOT a surprise story as it has been raised many times in Parliament over many months and basically ignored by the Tories. Having a physical UK passport is not enough if it has expired.

Children brought into the UK on their parents passport 40 or 50 years ago who do not have a UK passport (and potentially anyone else without a current UK passport!) are being refused medical treatment, jobs lost, accommodation refused, bank accounts closed, driving licences revoked, some even detained without charge- for the sin of not being able to prove with original documents that they were in the UK every year since 1977, expected to supply original wage slips- as the Home Office refused to check tax records, and had already deliberately destroyed the ONLY central relevant records. The Tory refusal to even discuss the matter with concerned Caribbean governments (subsequently reversed) indicates an evil mindset. Our Conservative party has NOT moved on from their "river of blood" days in any way.

If you do not have a current passport you do not exist. It is a criminal offence for someone to give you a job, let you a flat or give you medical treatment - are they going to take risks? This is citizen set against citizen, way beyond the 1984 novel. A nation of informers. Groups of people to demonise and outlaw. Nasty.

The "labour" party at the time the law was enacted were too busy fighting to maintain "B-ite" leadership to bother with citizens rights and were then without a leader.

During a visit to Manchester discovered and entered (for the last time) a Chinese Contemporary Arts centre, where "contemporary" always means something awful. In this case an extended high resolution video of animal cruelty by Hu Xiaoyuan, clearly a very disturbed person to be avoided at all costs. To add a waiver "no animal was harmed" is not credible - I will spare the details, extremely unpleasant. Departed very quickly.

In the Chinese part of town we visited a Chinese supermarket. Our local takeaway lists several green veg which they don't seem to actually stock, but the supermarket had them all plus some. The ones our take away seem to omit are about three times the price of pak choi. We bought some Glebionis coronaria (previously named chrysanthemum - you buy the seeds to grow it as "Shungiku") which was excellent- and fairly easy to grow - but only edible (stem and leaves) before buds appear as it can become woody (keep it cut back to encourage bushy growth). Perfectly safe for healthy people but the extremely high vitamin K means it should be avoided by anyone taking warfarin.

We were also attracted by a tray of Nephelium Lappaceum (Rambutan). Readily available in cans stuffed with pineapple, but these were remarkably fresh, probably flown in yesterday and picked only two or three days before. (Hence, not cheap).

A lovely organ recital at St Anns after bad weather and necessities kept us away a while, a recital by Marc Murray, from Bury which included two pieces by Gordon Slater. Also at last bought Simon Passmore's CD of music composed by Ronald Frost. Marked as Volume 1 and definitely another CDs worth to go, Volume 1 had a principal work and several fairly short pieces, preludes and variations.

One of those rare opportunities - a long silent movie (almost 90 minutes) with live organ music - at St Bartholomews in Wilmslow, music played by Donald Mackenzie. This is continuous music with no music score, quite a feat. Was this the first silent movie with a CHURCH organ (in a church). The film was The Cameraman, possibly Keaton's last great picture before his life fell apart with his signing to Warner Bros and a failed marriage.

Brass concerts at Glossop one weekend by the City of Chester band, and then the next week, Besses Boys Band (now older and multi-gender but the name persists). On the way home by train saw a couple of muntjac near Hattersley station- in the 7th Century Hattersley meant deer enclosure ("heahdeor-leah").

A lovely concert by Simon Passmore at St Anns in Manchester, with a well balanced program of music.

At last a new central heating boiler is fitted, costing less than the 16 year old boiler it is replacing, so very unlikely to last as long (sigh). Lots of extra rules now though so some internal wall has had to be removed to allow access to a flue joint, and there are several new bits and pieces. Due to the age of the radiators and pipework we have added a sludge trap. The pipework taking the condensate away has fairly loose push fit joints and is dripping on the cellar floor but that does not harm boiler operation at all and is a fairly minor inconvenience. A small drip tray keeps the floor dry. I'll tape the joints up one day...

The final concert in the 2017-2018 season at the band room of Glossop Old Band sees the second annual beer festival, and music not - as originally planned - by the home band, but by a high ranking championship band who live very close to us- the Fairey Band. In Manchester we saw someone taking their ferret walkies.

Just five days later they were to compete at Utrecht in the European Brass Championship and treated us to the set piece ("Time for Outrage") and their "own choice" piece, written especially for them, "Defiance" written for the anniversary of the May 22nd murders in Manchester (these things get very confusing but I think we heard it "pre-world-premiere"). This supposedly had themes from the 30s when Fairey was founded, and some more modern music- if there was anything based on an Ariana Grande piece, I missed it, as I don't know any of them. Good beer and lovely music.

The band lead cornet was played by the principal trumpet player from the RPO.

At the band room recital, which was absolutely full, the Fairey conductor recognised and pointed out a member of the audience- David Morris. Abba has just made a new record and apparently David played some part in it. He is also featured in tv adverts for BMW and the TSB and the soundtrack of the film "The Shape of Water". I know him better as I bought one of his CDs at a Rochdale Brass Festival - David is Britain's champion whistler. At the contest Fairey did not do very well and were placed 9th out of 12 bands earning a low score for both the set piece and the own choice piece. Second place was however won by Welsh band Cory..

As the anniversary approaches, we learn that Manchester Cathedral will be closed to the public on 21st and 22nd May for an invitation only civic memorial service. It was closed 22/5/2017 as it was inside the exclusion area. The Manchester Arena has video facilities and is very big (22,000 capacity) and could easily have been opened for people to watch or listen to the Cathedral service nearby - but it didn't. Manchester people not invited could not even watch on a screen in a public square (Albert Square, Piccadilly Gardens, St Anns Square)- but instead had to go to the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool (or York Minster). St Anns Church which had an organ recital on 22/5/2017 and was the initial focus for floral tributes, has the 2018 organ recital cancelled to make way for a "flower festival".

Cathy had serious problems with her walking sandals last year and was looking for some new shoes to walk in - and in a charity shop found some unsized likely looking shoes, which turned out to be absolutely right- ECCO Exceed, a discontinued style but when new they sold for 115 pounds. Cathy bought them for a tenth of that.

And just as the brass concerts at Glossop finish for the season, organ recitals start in Wilmslow. So off to Wilmslow for several organ recitals, starting with one featuring five world premiers, two by the church organist, one from Australia, one from America and a British one. The new organ has a lovely tone and is very clear. Another concert- by a former student of the organist, a young man not yet at University who has won (with record marks) all the UK organ prizes, George Herbert. (Then the Sunday train service is cancelled to provide an improved service).

We find a replacement pub for a meal in Wilmslow, a rather secret part of a chain which does not advertise the chain name very clearly, all their places have one word names ending in O and are open 9am-11pm or midnight. Widespread (including one in Stockport we would not have looked at as the name sounds Italian, which we are not fond of). They actually sell no pasta or pizza! Since founding in 2012 they have made a point of offering a full vegan menu as well as a full gluten-free menu. When we went to the Wilmslow pub -no real ale- there were no less than 14 children under 4! George tells us that another branch he passes late at night is at that time rowdy pub with loud people outside. We later checked out the Stockport branch, which had few customers, had pounding music, and untrained unsupervised unmotivated staff, what a difference! We did notice that the Wilmslow pub had called the police in for some reason.

Meanwhile another organ recital at Holy Name in Manchester, a large 3 manual organ with a good clear tone, this time played by New York organist Daniel Brondel. A couple of French pieces I wasn't too fond of, but as he was French born we shall allow him those! Pleasant to hear the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on that organ. He also played Yon's "Toccatina" and several other works.

A really beautiful - but too short - harp recital in Manchester Cathedral by Elfiar Grug.

Interesting- in Manchester there is a demonstration by a self styled socialist group seeking the resignation of the PM, no police. Not far away a few Palestinians have a small demonstration - watched by two "Police Liaison Officers"- an unfortunate choice of initials perhaps. There are two police vans and a police car nearby in case of need.

Stockport Station has an annual open day, in other years visited by running steam trains, but there is no longer room on the rails for them. The day was to have had a visiting small loco on a trailer, but the police insisted 1) it must have a police escort on its road journey 2) there were no police to escort it... so that was that. There were two visiting diesel engines, a refurbished class 57 and a newer Spanish built goods loco. Plus a double decker Stockport tram from Heaton Park, and two vintage buses- one a former Stockport bus which was the last open platform double decker to enter service in the UK.

A number of community organisations had stalls and there were a few rather costly sales stalls selling railway niche DVDs and books. Discovered that our reduced train service from May is to have a further reduction in September! The good folks at Reddish South station (for many years one train per week in one direction) will shortly have their early Friday train replaced with a better timed Saturday train (both ways!!), but they will miss the innaugral train as they will be travelling on a steam tour calling on the same day- which will give Reddish South four stopping trains in one day! On the day, the train did not run due to strike action, which rather wasted the booked music they had arranged and the early opening of Stalybridge buffet.

A good organ recital at Wilmslow on the Sunday afternoon- Philip Underwood playing two pieces that he had written, one a suite for weddings and another a set of 30 preludes.

It took us just 15 minutes station to station, but under the new timetable we shall have to change in Stockport and our journey there will take 30 minutes but the journey home will take 67 minutes!! The train service is only hourly so a worst case would see us waiting 59 minutes for a train and then 67 minutes to get home. A total shambles and nobody is interested, councillors, mayor, Transport for Greater Manchester- not their problem. In practice we will stop using Heaton Chapel station and travel by bus to Stockport or Manchester, which of course takes time.

Off to Rochdale for an organ recital from an organist from very far away, Kemp English from Dunedin NZ, with an excellent program of music. Bought his CD of his Dunedin Town Hall organ. Discovered some new composers- Kemp seems to enjoy promoting long lost and new composers and his choices are pretty good. He had just recorded a 12 CD set of piano sonatas- and every piece is a world premier recording, although the composer died in 1818. He has also recorded a CD of music by M L Takle, who has composed some very lively and interesting organ music.

Our final Sunday train travelling from Heaton Chapel to Wilmslow- now no longer possible with the new downgraded service- for a lovely concert by Philip Underwood of his own music on his new 3 manual organ at St Barts- "Peover Saturdays" (with a wedding theme) and "Eric's Endchiridion", a collection of thirty short preludes in a variety of styles (Philip describes it as a modern Orgelbuchlein").

To get away from a couple of national events that bored us, we went one sunny weekend to Etherow to see the bluebells but after several days of hot sunny dry weather, we had missed them. But we did hear a "knock knock knock" and after sitting a spell finally saw our first ever woodpecker.

Whit Friday and after a couple of weeks of splendid dry weather, we have rain. Still we had a lovely Indian vegetarian meal in Ashton and the next door grocery with its huge choice of dates. With Ramadan in progress we bought a box of Alya Ajwa dates- a variety not a trade name, and mentioned specifically in the Hadith.

Then on to the Tame Valley to hear 42 brass bands. The evening started very busy with three bands waiting for the 4.30 start time, but at 9pm, after 38 bands, it dried up and in the next two hours there were just four bands! Very strange. Before 9pm it was looking as though the venue might beat its previous record number of bands by a wide margin, but it was not to be. Some splendid music, some tunes and bands were new to us. (Last year we heard 40 bands out of 43 that played. )

Roberts Bakery Band attended and their coach was full of bread which was given out (thick sliced white) as well as some iced biscuits from their bakery. They had two players borrowed from Black Dyke and their conductor was the composer Paul Lovatt-Cooper, who had started his brass banding as a percussionist with Fairey. The longest journey was probably Pangbourne, who don't seem to have taken any prizes home from Tameside but picked up a small prize at a Saddleworth venue. The only foreign band we saw was Northop who took a few prizes across the border.

This Whit Friday was very close to the anniversary of the Manchester 2017 bomb, and one band wore bee lapel badges in memory.

The bands who came 1st 2nd and 3rd at our selected venue also came 1st 2nd and 3rd at the other Dukinfield venue- and they had the same positions in the overall Tameside results. As usual Ashton came first - for 18 out of 19 years! The year they failed was when Fairey came to Tameside- since then Fairey have only played in Saddleworth venues. One year Fodens came first at all 11 Tameside venues.

Fodens will have to watch it though as this year the next band was just one point short of them - Northop Silver Band, who very nearly became the first none-English band to win Tameside!

Due to Saddleworth venues often having over 70 bands each, there are long queues to play there and few bands can manage to play at Tameside and Saddleworth these days. We were told some bands struggle to play the six Oldham venues they need to win the area prizes due to queues. I identified five of the bands we saw at Tameside who had played at a Saddleworth venue. It looks as though bands who played their ten or eleven Tameside venues first may have dashed to play at one or two Oldham venues. Bands coming the other way were too busy trying to play at 6 Oldham venues to come later in the evening to a Tameside venue. Leading to the long quiet spell at the end at Tameside.

George saw a big yellow thing in the garden- always worth checking out. It was a broad bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa) taking advantage of a stake near our small garden pond, probably a female. Got a great photo- apparently they are a favourite for photographers as the females are fairly docile. First I've seen.

The month of Ramadan is here and we return to our local mosque for a shared iftar. All lovely people of faith. At my age learning Arabic is a bit of a none starter... although for this special occasion the Imam provided a translation of the pre-iftar reading of the Holy Q'ran and the prayer that followed.

Despite continuing weather warnings we went in brilliant sunshine! along to the single brass band concert to be held this year at Cale Green Park, where Stockport Brass played a good program. As we are close to the anniversary of the Manchester bomb, they played the piece written to raise funds for the victims, "Manchester", arranged by the same composer who wrote "Defiance" for Fairey to play at the recent European contest.

The following Sunday was also fine for a brass band performance in Marple Memorial Park by the Glossop Band and by Hawk Green Band- who also played "Manchester", and also paid tribute to former band player Mark Singleton (former Ring O Bells landlord and canal boat captain), who died last year.

Some friends brought along a fun game to play- very popular in Kuwait, where it is known as Jakaro, the superb hand crafted board had a strong similarity to Ludo- but moves were controlled by playing cards. Its origin was not known but using the internet I tracked it down to a version of "Jeu de Tic", a traditional French-Canadian game from Quebec, thought to have arrived with the French settlers. Quite a bit of strategy involved in playing the cards which include swapping pieces and moving backwards. As rules in English were apparently not readily available I used some French rules and put up a page on my own website.

A large replacement filling has been causing me problems on and off for some 15 months, and at last the decision is made to remove the tooth (large molar, three pronged root...), to avoid the problems of recurring abscesses (sinal and jaw infection)- which leaves me NO molars! Soup it is then... my eye teeth are not in the best of shape for heavy work.

Newspapers have reported that the East Coast Mainline rail franchisee walked away leaving the management in the hands of the government, again (third franchise holder to fail) but the newspapers have not widely reported something much more interesting. Due to the fiasco of May 2018 rail timetabling, Northern cancelled ALL trains between Oxenholme and Windermere for four weeks, laying on replacement buses. Which don't take large luggage or wheelchairs or prams. Result: The Department for Transport are paying 55000 pounds per day to West Coast Trains (who normally run charter trips) to run a rail service- and passengers travel for FREE. Also National Rail (the government body) are to pay for extra tourist publicity for the Lake District.

On 15th July our local rail franchise Northern appeared to have cancelled ten trains- not so. The day before they cut an additional 170 trains from the timetable (no drivers), in addition to the 165 trains cut previously- which meant NO local trains to Crewe or Hadfield. Due to the very late imposition of a new timetable these extra cancellations simply did not show up and were not shown as cancelled.

Amongst the papers of my aunt who died earlier in the year we find a photograph of a US infantryman- inscribed "William A Shaw, Ohio, 1948"- the photo was taken in Mold where my Aunt then lived. I have been able to track down that infantryman together with a fulsome life story - he died in 2014 in Ohio.

We are 15km in direct line from Saddleworth Moor, and some days from the start the moorland fire there continued, the smell is reached us, and the moon was red.

With a big tooth extraction coming up, and days of misery and possibly loss of serious chewing ability, went off for a good meal in Ashton's vegetarian Indian restaurant, then on to an organ recital at Albion URC by Malcolm Archer. He finished with what is now a rare occurrence, an improvisation on themes presented on the day. He played an improv based upon four themes: Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory, the Match of the Day theme, and Roll out the Barrel. As we left we could see the blackened moorland above Ashton, at least not smoking here.

And the following day off to Cheadle for another concert by Stockport Silver Band- very hot weather and football matches caused quite a small audience but they raised over 250 quid for the local foodbank plus (they supply other necessities as well as food).

Hardware breakdowns continue with our microwave seeming to put its full 1KW+ into heating the top of the oven not the food so we buy a replacement, the same 800W microwave power, power usage 1250 wattts- some of the 800 watt ovens used as much as 1450 watts.

Sunday 15th July and our local rail operator (Northern) cancelled 330 services! (Lack of train crew!). Except they are not listed as cancelled as they issued a new timetable for the day without the services. Basically no trains at all to Hadfield or Wilmslow and many other places. At the start of August, Sundays saw a mere 122 Northern trains removed from the timetable.

Even better the following Thursday when NO trains ran from Manchester to Stockport due to a trespasser on the line, spotted at 5.30am. He was finally removed at 0340 the following morning! Buxton trains were initially turned at Hazel Grove then turned at Stockport; Chester trains were turned at Stockport, Crewe trains went via Styal. Stoke trains were cancelled until about 10am when a very limited service was allowed Northbound only, travelling over the viaduct at about 2 miles per hour, and drivers given firm instructions NOT to hoot at the many people on the Southbound line, by no means all wearing hi-vis vests. After doing our shopping we returned to Heaton Chapel on the very first train of the day to stop at Heaton Chapel, surprising the ticket office somewhat. The final four trains scheduled Manchester-Chester were sent Manchester-Styal-Alderley Edge-Stockport-Chester. Subsequently the entire viaduct parapet has been fitted with substantial spikes.

And another weekend of outings, starting with a return visit by Galina Vale the flamenco guitarist to Manchester Cathedral, followed by a double bass/piano duet at a local church (three composers in the audience and a commercially recorded soloist) and then a silent movie (first Oscar winner) with 144 minutes of live organ improvised accompaniment by David Ivory. The film was Wings, made in 1927, with 300 pilots and 3500 extras- an immense film. Only one life reported lost during the nine months of filming. Due to the high cost, the studio shoe-horned in their leading lady, Clara Bow (Betty Boop original) (who retired three years later!) . Cary Grant made an initial film appearance. Although a silent movie there was a full orchestral score and our organist played the "Overture" section from published music. The monochrome film used hand-coloured details in places, plus some overall tinting.

Then the following day, more organ music, moving from the cinema's Compton to the Town Hall Wurlitzer, for a concert by David Shephard and John Mann, who announced he was retiring at the end of this year. Bought a CD of 1936-1938 organ music by Henry Croudson, the first professional organist to play the organ now in the town hall, the recordings having been made on it whilst installed in the Manchester Paramount Cinema.

One of the hottest days of the year and our central heating comes on and stays on!!! I had to turn off the power to the boiler. On restoring power the water thermostat worked still but the house heating was manual on/manual off only.... After returning from a wet holiday I had time to look at this- the secure wireless link between the room thermostat and the boiler had failed. Further investigation and I restored the link by initiating the "link control" procedure and everything now works fine- except that I anticipate the heating thermostat is going to need to be relinked at some stage. The technical explanation here is eeprom "ion migration" which caused the thermostat code to be lost but easily reset- and now probably good for another ten years or so. With an increasing number of "securely linked" wireless devices in houses I can see that this - as much as the usual software bugs- may become an issue. We didn't need to replace the receiver and the two thermostats!

Is Manchester dangerous? This is the news in July 2018: "Greater Manchester Police have issued a safety warning advising visitors to the city centre to travel in groups". This sounded a little extreme - but the actual police advice given (after 30 robberies in a few days) was:[quote]
Police would encourage people to follow the below advice:
Be aware of your surroundings. If you want to use your mobile phone, make it quick and don't get distracted.
Travel in groups - there's safety in numbers.
Stick to well-lit areas and avoid shortcuts.[unquote]
The advice does not specify the city centre, although it was issued by "City Centre team Operation Valiant".

Stockport town centre "police station" is now a telephone outside the town hall, where you can make free 101 calls, or "attend" a prearranged visit (does this include court cases where you have to report to a police station every week?). This of course fits in with "probation supervision" which can now amount to a one minute phone call every six weeks.

Just when you think the UK has gone as far to the right as possible up comes something else- not only is the government refusing innocent people health treatment, welfare benefits, making it unlawful to give them jobs or accommodation, with free indeterminate detention without trial - when people in work use food banks and sleep in shop doorways because they are paid so little- and have zero hours contracts- then along comes news that "agencies" are using children (from age 12) PLACED in drugs gangs, exploitation rings etc to "obtain intelligence". Clearly against their human rights and certainly not placing the safety of children first. (Official report and relative Official letters) Aaaagh.

Meanwhile, vast sums are spent on building expensive nuclear power stations guaranteed double the normal generating fees for fifty years; an enforced new "smart meter" power system costing billions and also putting power costs up; a nuclear submarine of no use to anyone... but we can't afford to give you a hip replacement, repair your hernia or send an ambulance for you as two broken legs are not life threatening. We will send an ambulance if you have stopped breathing--- hello. Double aaagh. Stockport has spent over 20 million on a "leisure centre" with an unsocial ten tiny screen cinema, and lots of eating places and a gym. The area seems mostly unused although the lack of anywhere to eat in Stockport ensures the very indifferent expensive restaurants some trade.

I would like to support retail stores but it is very difficult when they don't sell all the things I want to buy and my only retail possibility is Amazon. I called into one of the few remaining department stores and selected four shirts- two were reduced, one from a rack that said 70% off and one that said 50% off. The retailer attempted to sell them for the original marked price, and I left the store with my money. There was NO shop in Stockport selling short sleeved shirts in my size that were not Hawaiian or black.

I found some good quality shirts from several Amazon traders. Then Amazon as usual let me down- apparently now even Marketplace traders can have goods delivered by the Amazon none-delivery service. The drivers receive little money but worse have no sense of how to deliver goods. One did a good (but failed) job of putting his fist through a glass door pane (it would possibly have killed him if he had succeeded) and the next sent emails saying the goods had been left with a neighbour after handing them to me. One package seems to have gone astray completely (delivered 8 days after supposed despatch, and it was the wrong item!).

Ordering a replacement keyboard was more interesting. Supplied by Amazon, ordered from the UK for a UK address- it turned out the order was actually sent from Amazon in France. The packaging showed a UK layout keyboard- but inside was a Spanish keyboard, which has very different punctuation keys. For both the wrong shirt and the wrong keyboard I received a refund- but it is sloppy supply and not needed. For a paisley bandana I claimed under the Amazon guarantee when the merchant was deliberately advertising a false size, requiring return of wrong size at my expense and of course not receiving the package. Amazon will only refund what you pay through them so I ended up out of pocket by the amount of the postage.

Nice one off organ concert in St Paul's church,Heaton Moor- a debut recital by Henry Johnson, who had a well planned program of works well suited to the organ. In addition to JS and CPE Bach there were works by Gounod, Stanley, Franck and Rawsthorne plus more recent composers Lang and Solomons, but still very pleasant works.

My big tooth extraction of 11th July required two further visits- one to pack the socket after cleaning it out. One large bit of broken tooth came out followed by a small nib and then five slivers. Then later there was a check with X Ray and flexible probe to ensure there was no air/liquid coming from the sinal cavity into the mouth through the socket - and suggest an off the shelf mouth wash to clear up some declining infection.

A splendid opening to the winter season of brass music in Glossop with a well attended concert by Fairey band, who were off to the Open the following weekend to try for a win or a place. Next month they head for the Nationals for the same. I didn't buy their latest CD- the last one I bought went to the charity shop while the music and playing were good, the recording was very unbalanced- brass bands are hard to record, but I can do better.

The earliest TV program I recall is from Winter of 1956-1957 just after independent (with adverts) tv came along (May 1956) and we visited a neighbour to watch the now long lost "The Trollenberg Terror" - later made into a film. I don't expect to see that again. But the earliest radio drama I recall was broadcast at 5.30pm on the BBC Light Programme (Long Wave 200m) - on Sunday 11th March 1956. "Butter in a Lordly Dish". It has never been rebroadcast but in 2018 I find a lovely crisp copy to make my hair stand on end! An original radio play especially written for radio by Agatha Christie. We then had a KB "toaster" mains valve radio which got quite warm. Just the one radio in the house- when first sold in 1950 this model was Eleven Pounds - in 1950! Applying the increase in RPI that would make it equivalent to 350 pounds by 2015 prices (medium and long wave only) - when there were still plenty of working models that changed hands for about eighty pounds.

Ongoing press statements from various sources calling the leader of our opposition party "racist" are sublimely crackers. It is worth investigating: Where and when did the concept of a separate state get a large boost? Who first drafted the Balfour Declaration? What was the important second clause (after "it being clearly understood")? What was expressed in the 1922 Churchill White Paper?
Consider the 1939 White Paper, (read the full document) passed by both Houses (but voted against by Churchill and all of Labour), and the warnings it contains. Consider Churchill voting against his own party and subsequently sabotaging the White Paper. Look at what happened, and the result. Which group of people did what to who? Which group murdered a British politician(Leader of the House of Lords)?

I dislike labels, especially when groups are given generic labels- this creates us/them and reduces the humanity of them, giving rise to misunderstandings and conflict. I prefer treating each individual alone. Labels can change their meanings (their meanings may be deliberately changed!), labels can be abused, and can be used negatively. Great shortcuts to really thinking, but ultimately not good. I may have negative thoughts about a country impressed upon me by a destructive press, but still very much like every individual I meet from that country.

To refuse to talk to A because 10 years ago they said "This" and 20 years ago spoke to X, is silly. If we only dealt with groups in which everyone was always fully and totally innocent, and never spoke to anyone we disagreed with, then we would be very lonely! A group of half a million individuals will have a lot of people we may disagree with, possibly some who really rub us the wrong way- but you don't ignore that group.

Disagreeing with someone is OK - being aggressive and calling them names is not so helpful. Shouting at and insulting your boss is not on. If you really feel that strongly resignation is the way to go. Your resignation.

Another concert- a decade ago we went to hear Nigel Ogden play organ at St Elisabeth's in Reddish to raid funds for work on their organ. He played a couple of fund raisers there. Now in 2018 he comes to play an inaugural concert on the refurbished organ. Perhaps it was a little lacking in volume, but unusually, the quiet notes were crystal clear and audible. After many years of theatre organ broadcasts, the BBC closed down Nigel's radio programme in May 2018 and no longer has any theatre organ music at all.

The BBC also closed down its sole surviving brass band programme and no longer has a regular brass band radio programme. A small community radio station is now broadcasting brass music for an hour a week, and somehow BBC Radio Devon is managing a programme.

A pleasant organ coffee morning at Stockport Plaza, next one in three months. Several organists, two new to the venue- one only 11 years old and playing very well indeed. At St Elisabeths, Nigel had played an Abba medley on the Church organ, atthe Plaza we heard a very similar medley on Theatre Organ and at Glossop we had heard a brass band playing a different Abba medley.... may be something to do with a film which we have been recomended to miss, and will miss.

A few years back our local cinema, facing closure, was taken over by a small group, done over and seems to be doing well, although there are never any films suitable for us. Many years ago the cinema in Wilmslow closed and became a book store and then a furniture store. The furniture store closed last year- and the small cinema chain is to take it over, and possibly install two screens. At present Wilmslow film fans have been enjoying a free mid-week film at one of the town centre pubs. We went to Wilmslow Rex once I think- to see Roy Kinnear and Leslie Philips on stage in a farce (Roger's Last Stand)- a long time ago.

A Cliff Richard concert in Manchester in October sold out- and possibly for the first time, the Heaton Moor Savoy had a live link to Manchester for a screening of the event live on its 4k screen.

Glossop brass band concerts began again for a winter season, but now we have the appalling May 2018 railway timetable to contend with. Our station has lost trains and what runs is little use. In September more trains were cut and weekends became almost unuseable with just five trains on a Saturday and not much better on a Sunday- worse in fact as the timetable was "ad hoc" and published just the night before.

When the Glossop lineis affected at the same time, we have to miss concerts- we missed the Stockport Brass Band also, and two in October are affected by total line closure to lengthen platforms.

We enjoyed the first half of a concert by Trentham but for the second half they went into "audience participation" mode, which I don't like. Another brass band at Glossop, Burbage (Buxton)- now a Section 1 band so quite loud and lots of drums but not too bad. A lot of young players which is nice to see in a brass band. Our journey not at all helped by Northern Railways "not" cancelling trains but instead issuing a one day only replacement timetable a few hours before. Despite many issing trains these are not counted as cancelled. Many Northern trains pass Heaton Chapel without stopping (it would be so easy...) and by 4.30pm Heaton Chapel had just five trains (same number as the one carriage station at Llandanwg!) going north, with time intervals of 3 hours, 3 hours, 8 minutes, and 2 hours. An impossible service and completely useless, with no cost penalties to foreign owned Northern trains. The following Saturday Heaton Chapel also had a total of 5 trains to Manchester.

We made a concert at Glossop by Poynton band- again a high ranker so loud and percussive, but generally well balanced and rather good playing. Unfortunately for the two "funky" numbers the percussion lost subtlety and clarity. This was the third time in a short interval we had heard "Up Town Funk" so we were able to compare versions- this was the muddiest and loudest. The percussion simply did not have the complex rhythms of the number and the important bass line was lost in the thumps. The other funky number was "Happy" which was really "Very loud and murky".

Over the warm Summer months we regularly saw an odd cat sheltering under our bamboo bush. As Autumn approached he seemed to be getting listless and fading away- he seems to have lost a tooth and had a damaged lip which may have been affecting his feeding- he seemed to have problems eating from a deep bowl but we found a six inch saucer did the trick. One neighbour with cats reported that he regularly sneaked in to eat their cat food. No idea if he belongs to anyone but for a few days we fed him and he seemed to recover well and became quite alert and spritely, although seemingly an elderly cat he looked much younger after several days of feeding. Although most cat feeding bowls are fairly deep and rounded (small versions of dog bowls), we find that this is a shape cats generally do not like as they can't reach farther food or their whickers are caught by the sides- they do prefer shallower bowls, and oval bowls.

He was house trained and seemed to have shelter in the evenings and when wet- but we seem to be his principal feeders. We leafleted the nearby roads but a healthy tom can have a large round. He may well have several homes! Someone put anti-flea oil on his nape. He is a chimera cat, black shorthair at the front and mahogany (tortie?) long hair at the back- which unfortunately does make him look rather rotund, but running your hands down his flank shows just how little is under the hair.

Chimeras seem to occur more when the early cells of unidentical twins combine. Cats can have large litters. Micro chimeras are seen in humans (possibly up to 60%) but not so visible- some of the mothers cells can transfer to her infant and vice versa, and are not rejected. A subsequent infant may have cells from its mother which include some cells from its sibling. About 30 cases have been found where a mother at first does not appear to have a DNA/tissue match with a birth child- it depends where you take the sample cells as the different DNA is not evenly spread. (2002-"DNA in Fairchild's skin and hair did not match her children's, the DNA from a cervical smear test did match. Fairchild was carrying two different sets of DNA, the defining characteristic of chimerism."). And raises all sorts of interesting questions about dna tests, transplants, auto immune illneses, and gender identity as well as lots of others.

Just as my removed left molar socket is recovering, oops, something wrong on upper right- initially thought to be a "trauma" to the gum through trying to chew hard cabbage with my soft gum but after a month an X Ray shows scurf around the root probably due to a dead nerve, and I am booked in for a root canal job- but such is the state of our nation, it has to be in a months time!

Brass at Glossop continues, although much harder with railway problems- for one Sunday, over a three day period, there were 4 different timetables up. The last one on the website is the one that counts. Totally undependable. We hugely enjoyed a concert by Flixton Band, although the journey home had the usual discomforts, the 3.50, 4.20 and 4.50 trains to Manchester were cancelled and there were only trains every 3 hours to and from our local station at Heaton Chapel (the headline service is "at least hourly" but the franchise only specifies end to end frequency, NOT whether the trains make any stops in between!!!). The following week was a very different band, a small community band with a very different level of playing- but the local brewer was back from his holiday and the beer was in good form.

Our "new" cat celebrated his 4th night in the house (he usually sleeps outside by his preference) by catching a mouse!! He has a lovely nest in a bamboo clump in the garden, which in most weather is dry, warm, and sheltered- and it is a true nest, which I can't recall hearing of in books or tv. It makes you appreciate why cats have a love of cardboard boxes- or pre-cast nests if you wish to look at them that way. He generally just comes in for a morning and evening meal and seemed to be an outdoor cat.

As he is partly long hair, for which human grooming aid is usually appreciated, I went to the pet shop in Stockport to buy a disentangling grooming brush. I do try to support the handful of local shops still left, and am usually disappointed. Again. It is principally a shop for dog owners, with NO cat grooming aids at all, so yet again I am forced to shop with Amazon- there is simply no other choice. Also bought from Amazon a couple of special design cat feeding saucers- really very cheap. The cat seems appreciative of an odd little bit of help with the long hair, at a (short) time of his choosing, and it evokes a purr and look of heaven!

We had asked neighbours and leafleted nearby roads- nothing, so we started feeding him, bought food and bedding- and after three weeks our next door neighbour alerts us that her young son has a friend at school whose cat is not spending much time at home- just the next road, which we had leafleted. There is too much junk mail, torn up and discarded without being looked at. We checked and yes, that is is home, and he has a cat flap to get in when he wants to. So we took the food we had to them, won't allow him in for a week and won't feed him again. His real name is Charlie, and although he has a cat flap, as with so many houses around here, he has to scale an eight foot fence to get to it. When he was unwell and couldn't, he came to us for shelter and water (we have a pond). He will take a little time to lose the habit of our feeding him. It is quite normal for cats to sleep in four or five houses, but we did our best to check if he belonged to anyone before we fed him!

Now we won't have to worry about what to do regarding long days out, holidays, and freezing weather. We know where his home is! and we have their telephone number if we think he needs help. We also learned that about the time we started seeing him there was a new baby in the house- it can be quite disruptive to a cat.

Our local pub has lost its cook- now moved on to her own pub- and we can no longer go for a caribbean patty or curry. We have now changed to our local pie shop, who do some excellent beef or lamb or vegetarian pies, with an alternative option in a dish. Then we can go to the pub- one week we had two single hop beers made with fairly recent American hops. One was Jarrylo, brewed in Rochdale. A bittering hop said to be difficult to manage in a single hop beer, Pictish had managed an intensely bitter beer with a splendid smooth feel, my beer of the year! The other beer, which Cathy preferred, was Ekuanot from Mallinsons, a complex aroma hop and even with little sense of smell Cathy still savoured the complexity. Apparently also difficult to use as some brewers get an unwanted sour aroma but Mallinsons certainly made the grade.

October means Rochdale Brass Band Contest, down to 34 bands entered this year, with 5 dropping out, leaving 29, and due to public transport difficulties we saw 23, missing the top 4 bands and two of the fourth section. We didn't hear all the 4th section, but of the four bands that turned up the two we heard were not competing last year anywhere- and one, the winner, was founded less than 12 months ago! In the third section we had no problem in picking the same winner as the adjudicator.

We tend not to agree with the adjudicator in the 2nd section, which is a difficult one to score, but we came close this year as our selected band came 2nd.

We have started to eat more new food taking advantage - once a month- of the very fresh produce at the farmers market: raw milk only hours from the cow; craftsman made raw Cheshire cheese; vegetables only hours from the ground- which enables us to eat- for one or two days a month- the leaves from beetroot. We also tried carrot tops -to be avoided by pregnant women except perhaps in the final week- but found them a little too munchy. Beetroot leaves to be avoided by anyone with kidney stones, or gall bladder problems. Anyone on warfarin should always check Vitamin K levels in new foods as they conflict. Very tasty- beetroot leaves may have more iron than spinach! Don't eat carrot leaves unless you see the carrot below them, they are very similar to leaves that won't agree with you.

Stockport is given a new bridge across the River Mersey, in the narrow gap between the A6 bridge (Wellington Bridge) and the railway viaduct. In due course this is to take traffic coming from the nearby motorway away from the town centre.

Stockport wins an annual architectural award for its 24M pound "leisure centre" of gym, cinema and fake Italian restaurants- plus a "couldn't care less" franchised restaurant with menu ingredients omitted from service (or no service), staff with no interest.... the award is the infamous CARBUNCLE AWARD for the ugliest major construction of the year....

Age is catching up as another tooth dies on me- this time we are going to try for a root canal, and if that is stable after 6 months, for a crown- although the eye tooth has little bone support and nothing is certain.

News that a required University text, written 30 years ago by a British University professor, NOW comes with several health warnings, students have to fill in and sign a statement of intent and are warned not to have the document on personal computers nor to share it with anyone. The work is NOT banned or censored. But Universities will tell the government about anyone reading it, as considering or discussing the causes of political revolution now mark you as a terrorist. Oh dear. Our government has lost it- they really should study political history and see how past governments- no less terrified of unrest- dealt with the risks so much more smoothly. 2019 is the centenary of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester- small scale compared to the Poll Tax Riots, but at Peterloo more demonstrators were killed. Buy or borrow, and read Paul Foot's "The Vote".

The document was of course harmless. Lenin observed the conditions required for a revolution, and declining living conditions and extreme repression were not to be considered- perhaps why the world has declining living conditions and growing repression. Stalin duly noted this to the cost of the Russian people. Only a tiny number of people need to be sidelined, easily done. Marx was interesting but his ideas much misrepresented and abbreviated- and perhaps he was a bit of a dreamer. The Unions have always tended towards supporting lightly controlled capitalism. Comments in the press by readers regarding the "Brexit agreement" make it clear that modern politicians can make up stats ("80% of the British public support the agreement") and tell whopping big lies without harming their credibility. The public will believe whatever they say.

Peel was concerned that his new police force should not appear to be military, but today we have Manchester town centre openly patrolled by men in black, carrying machine guns, and are told there are men NOT in uniform legally carrying guns to "keep us safe". Allow me to feel utterly unsafe. Due to the armed police.

The Christmas market this year is somewhat smaller than previously- a whole road has been closed for building demolition and subsequent erection of a multi mile high building seemingly loved by our current city leaders. One trader we have purchased from for many years who usually had two stalls, was missing. Still the Dutch Edam stall and the Dutch bulb stall were there- we bought some cheese and will return later for more. There was a German stall selling raw cheese but as they did not offer taster pieces, we left them with it.

We don't need censorship- we have it already due to the climate of fear encouraged by our leaders. A food store is prevented from showing a tv ad, not because it is banned, and not because of its content. The commercial broadcasters, employing a commercial advice service, are advised that the source of the material may breach a code- it was supplied by Greenpeace, held to be a political source. The name of Greenpeace was not mentioned anywhere in the ad. Aaagh. The ad has now been seen on their Facebook page and youtube by many more people than would have seen it on tv- and a petition to have it shown on tv quickly gathered hundreds of thousands of names.

A person (sorry) on daytime tv took issue that the store had only taken action with their own products (!) but were continuing to sell other brands(!) - said tv person describes himself as a close personal friend of Donald Trump and Donald Trump has called him "ruthless, arrogant, evil and obnoxious". Nuff said.

A few more outings- lack of public transport is a major hassle, with little in the way of local trains now and bus services in decline- George has lost two bus routes home from work, and if one more goes, will have to walk into Cheadle to catch one remaining bus, which is also liable to be cancelled.

St Elisabeths in Reddish were host to a joint concert by Fairey Band with Stockport Schools Brass Band- excellent. We met a neighbour from nearby Chandos road with a boy on lead cornet in SSBB, we sat in front of the Fairey lead Euphonium player's parents.

Two days later a visit to Glossop Band room for a splendid afternoon of music by the Glossop band themselves, with assistance from players from other bands- Marple Band, Bollington Band and Fairey- including a solo by the Euphonium player from the paragraph above. The band ended the first part with a lovely rendition of "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" from the ballet "On Your Toes" - I once had the 78rpm recording of this by Paul Whiteman (may still have it...) and enjoyed the filmed dance by Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen, in the film "Words and Music".

Also an organ recital at Holy Name by John Kitchen, the Edinburgh City Organist, who played an interesting program including a Toccata by Pachelbel, an amusing piece by Cor Kee (Merck toch hoe sterck) and some nice Elgar including the Severn Suite. Learned of recent changes to Catholic liturgy with the congregation now taking communion of "both kinds", standing, and bowing NOT genuflecting. And another (now) rare visit to Chethams for some relaxing Clarinet and Cello music. Followed by another Chethas concert with some Bach on violin, Haydn on trumpet, some nice Pierne on Bassoon (by Phoebe Masters) and a truly remarkable rendition on saxophone of Quate's "Light of Sothis" by Emma Rawicz-Szczerbo.

Found Manchester has a Spanish food shop- with lots of very high quality sherry and wine, biscuits and most things Spanish- I managed to buy their last bar of Blanxart Brazilian 76% chocolate.

As UK exit from Europe approaches with dire consequences forecast as likely - and the army gearing up to intervene (sorry, "support") I note a little plaque in Manchester remembering the four killed in the 1757 Shude Hill Fight - or Food Riot. Napoleon and industrialisation brought much suffering, and more riots ocurred in the area in 1812. Already we have homeless corpses picked up from our streets, disabled people left to freeze to death in their unheated homes, cancer sufferers refused chemotherapy for lack of thirty thousand pounds, and sick diabetics left with no funds or income permitted to starve to death. Makes you glad to live in a civilised.... ah.

I have agreed to take part in a cancer research project, looking at breast cancer in men, a little studied area- next year, principally answering lots of questions- in the new year.

Glossop Band room hit an empty patch when two out of four bands cancelled at the last minute, and with Christmas and New Year we had ten weeks with only two visiting bands. Alas the last band of the year was Delph, another band with an untoward drum kit, not my type of music really. Some very young players and a program more aimed at the "entertainment" side of brass bands- not what I like. They had won the second section at Rochdale earlier and I had noted their heavy percussion then, so sat farther from the front at Glossop. Hardly heard any brass instruments for the drums.... ah well. They were popular with everyone else.

Did some work documenting a really ancient TI99/4 module which had not been noted in the annals, possibly one of the first modules made, written in GPL - in small quantities and using EPROMS instead of GROM chips. I was working with an image from Germany and had some sample programs written in February 1980 by TI in France. This was a unique module with no menu entry and no autostart program: it had been made only to extend the computers on board Basic. Perhaps the very first demonstration module, possibly a proof of concept, it was used around 1981 as an interactive display advert at trade shows etc. Then with George's help we modified the image so it could be used in today's surviving machines by adding an autostart and a jump to the computer title screen, enough to make it work from a 2018 module. Finally located an English set of documentation which had a few errors and needed extending but gave me all the hints I needed.

A short and rather odd solo marimba concert at the Cathedral- apparently the modern marimba is somewhat younger than I am, so there are no older works for it, and newer works are- contempory. A more interesting orchestral concert at Holy Name, quite short but with the sort of oddball classical music we like- the sort no-one knows! This was the premier public appearance of a new grouping of musicians, based on the University. We had the overtures from "She stoops to conquer" by Macfarren, and "The Boatswains Mate" by Ethyl Smyth, plus a premier performance of Leonov's trumpet concerto (for piano and trumpet) arranged for orchestra by Joseph Matthews, and Professor Barry Cooper introduced and spoke about his "artistic recreation" of the first movement of Beethoven's Tenth Symphony, based upon sketchbooks (composers notes) found in Europe and and the UK.

A local area Christmas party was quite well attended in the local scout hut, and quickly followed by a brass band concert by Stockport Silver band- as last year the baton was taken by Jim, who had been asked just the evening before! Alas the band have recently imploded, lost their MD, committee members and players and are now just a dozen players and one comittee member so it may be a while before we see them again. These things happen with brass bands (even the mighty Fairey suffered a bad patch several years ago) and they are either reborn or disappear forever. The programme was quite ad hoc, fairly short, and bizarrely had four pieces played on solo piano by a player of restricted skill. I would have preferred some euphonium beginners pieces. Jim made it all (mostly) fun.

Stage one of the root canal treatment went well, although the bicuspid root was found to have a basal crack, which is probably what did the nerve in. Makes a crown more important in due course, and increases the odds of failure.
One branch of the nerve was quite smelly. First time I've had a dental dam, quite odd and undoubtedly looking like a horror movie. Lack of rotting tooth for the first time in several months makes me feel much better... Normally the crown would be left for six months in case additional work was needed, but the cracked root brought this forward to just a short few weeks. I opted for an all metal crown (a metal/ceramic was offered) as this was a stronger repair.

The roofing over the station steps at Heaton Chapel collapsed in 2016, and the steps were closed for a year or so. By December 2018 the remaining wooden window frame is made up of hope but little wood, water running down the inside walls has rotted the wooden skirting board, and there are large fungal growths on the new plywood ceiling and the brickwork. The tens of thousands of pounds that our local council bragged about being spent on the station did not go on the promised improvements and the essential maintenance work was clearly botched. We had been told by a surveyor the structure needed to be taken down and rebuilt- instead plywood was put over the wet walls, a layer of roofing felt with half inch seams... and water penetrated from day one.

Our visit to Manchester Christmas market was short with just Dutch bulbs and Dutch Edam cheese purchased. The Dutch biscuit seller was not there this year- last year he had none of George's favorite, toffee waffles, so with his failure to turn up this year, we bought some German waffles from a Vegetarian supermarket, and later found some Welsh toffee waffles locally. We have not seen English made toffee waffles anywhere. The French (olive oil) soap maker was there, but we are still using the bars we bought two years ago- superb value for money and the best soap - except we have now found a UK made vegan soap which also has no palm oil, and also lasts a very long time.

A tiny statue is unveiled in Manchester to celebrate the first UK election at which women could vote (some women) one hundred years ago. It looks like a statue you could pick up and walk away with- and in a tucked away corner. We shall see what happens to it. We have visited Emmeline's old Manchester house, toasted her memory with a cuppa, and I am reading a book produced in 1928 - Ray Strachey's "The Cause", written for the 10th anniversary. I have already enjoyed Paul Foot's excellent book "The Vote" which also covers the issue. These works do much to explain why the government "others" minorities, and how widespread injustice is so easily accepted (and indeed encouraged!) by the general populace. Strong similarity between government repression of the populace and the fate of domestic violence victims. Rehabilitation and recovery really hard.

The presence of police with machine guns in Manchester does NOT make me feel safe- quite the contrary- and Manchester regularly demonstrates that it has no interest in welcoming anyone, and would prefer workers not to come into town - football matches now regularly feature fans being walked miles across Manchester, closing roads and causing grid lock- just as most people leave work. The official repeated advice to workers really is "don't work in Manchester".

The streets are checked in the mornings and bodies found to be breathing left, none breathing removed. A large protest sign hung in Market Street Manchester reads "No more street deaths" but it is rather wishful. Although no official statistics are kept, it is clear that 50 homeless have died on the streeets of Manchester last year - quite probably more. Many many people are now sleeping in the doorways as the benefits system (and the educational system, and the health system, and the justice system...) is deliberately destroyed by our government as citizens are convinced that only the elite are human and everyone else trash. Aggh.

A Christmas tradition here has become a visit to the pub for almost three hours of brass band music from our local championship band, Fairey. Excellent. This year the Shaw family "sang" "six geese a laying" before the band finished the night with the Snow Waltz and "we wish you a merry Christmas".

We also had lunch with old friend Chris with his partner Emma at Pear Mill in Stockport- our first visit. You can buy strange things there- electrotherapy machines, tweed jackets, a British Rail Bardic signal lamp, a pitchfork, sewing patterns and fabric, a harpsichord (needing a huge amount of work), harmoniums, concertina and accordian, silk neckerchiefs (just 12 quid each), buttons, pottery, furniture- old, second hand and mostly not too costly. There was an unusual Chad Valley "Rocket" bagatelle for 65 quid, but it was in poor shape and missing too much- in good condition it would have been worth 130 quid. A lot of old ivory which may soon be unlawful to sell (including knife handles, keyboard keys etc)

As Christmas draws near, our next new tradition, a date with the Scott Family Christmas Organ Recital in Rochdale, a splendid hour of seasonal music on a magnificent century old Town Hall organ. Rochdale Town Hall will be providing the 6pm Radio 4 time signal on 24th December! Normal difficulties crossing Manchester as the cross town centre trams are closed down due to a broken down tram at Shudehill, with its pantograph broken and requiring first all power to be turned off, then a working tram at each end to shunt it to the depot. No trams Piccadilly-Victoria between about 10.40am and 3.30pm. Good job it's a short walk! Jonathan Scott has several overseas bookings next year, including Taiwan, and has a booking for 2020 in Singapore. But still the family book the Town Hall for their local fans and supporters. Nice folks.

Christmas is a time when everything is closed, no trains, no buses- absolutely no idea why shops decide to run a Boxing Day Sale on a day with no public transport. A time for eating far too much and not getting out very much - means putting weight on. This Christmas we had a leg of Lamb which was very nice (George had a vegetarian mediterranean pastry wrap, cous cous, raisins and spices). While George enjoyed an alcohol free Shiraz, we had a seven year old barley wine.

Our last beer of 2018 is "Have your cake and egret", a real cask beer, by Nottingham Womens Institute- the WI being famous for their homemade cakes (and the film Calendar Girl)- Cathy has little sense of smell and George says all beer smells of nothing but alcohol, but both correctly identified the aroma of this beer- victoria sponge, with raspberry jam and cream! Not too sweet, and perhaps more aroma than flavour, but a very drinkable low alcohol beer.

On to 2019.