Celandines (aka Ranunculus ficaria) are normally one of the first signs of spring, emerging around Easter time when the trees overhead have no leaves and the ground around is clear of competitors. Celandines usually flower between March and May each year.
However, even I was amazed to find celandines in bloom in Bristol on 3rd January on the Bristol & Bath Railway Path at Clay Bottom while coming back from a shopping trip to Fishponds. Gilbert White, the celebrated naturalist who chronicled the natural history of Selborne in Hampshire in the 1800s, only managed to record them as early as 21st February
A celandine in bloom on 3rd January 2013
Is this unprecedentedly early blossoming yet more evidence of climate change? Comments welcome.
Following on from the courts interpreting fiasco overseen by Crapita Translation and Interpreting (posts passim) and Birmingham City Council’s unusable telephone system (posts passim), the BBC now reports that Capita is making a cock-up of its contract with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to track down 174,000 illegal immigrants in the UK. The contract’s value is believed to be up to £40 mn. and what the firm will be paid depends on how many actually leave the UK permanently.
People living legally in the UK have been incorrectly told to leave the country by Crapita by telephone, email and text message.
Those contacted in these ways included a woman with a UK passport (i.e. a full card-carrying British citizen) and a man with a valid visa who had invested £1 mn. in a UK business.
The standard text message sent to victims by Crapita reads: “Message from the UK Border Agency. You are required to leave the UK as you no longer have the right to remain.” Recipients are then advised to contact the UKBA.
When approached to provide a reason for its cock-ups, Crapita blamed the UKBA, stating some of the information with which it had been provided may have been inaccurate.
However, it seems to me that Crapita has merely applied the skills it has learnt over many years from administering TV Licensing, including the harassment those without a television (and thus those who need no television licence) to suspected illegal immigrants.
Crapita clearly cares little about the cock-ups as long as the profits keep rolling in from the public sector.
Good news! Capita, a name not unknown in these hallowed halls (posts passim) has been the major beneficiary of one of the Outsourcers of the Year for 2012 in Private Eye‘s Rotten Borough Awards 2012 for its wholesale takeover of £300 mn. worth of public services from the London Borough of Barnet for the next decade or so.
A honourable mention for Crapita. You deserve it, folks.
Well done, Crapita! You richly deserve the work, of course. As they say in true Private Eye style and as per the post title: “Trebles all round!”
How can local council services in London possibly be ‘delivered’ from Sheffield, Carlisle and Belfast? Answers in the comments below, please.
A protest by women will be taking place today in the Anglican Diocese of Hereford, which covers Herefordshire and parts of South Shropshire.
They’ll be wearing their pinafores and aprons in church in protest at the Church of England’s recent rejection of women bishops.
One of the organisers of the protest, Christine Walters, from Stoke Lacy in Herefordshire, said: “The idea is that women wear an apron or pinafore on top of their clothes as a mockery of the idea that they are fit only for tea making. We all know that women contribute so much to the church and especially our women priests who need our support at the moment. We are asking men to wear a purple ribbon”.
The hardcore pinny protesters of Stoke Lacy
One report also suggests the pinny protest is to show they are not tied to their church by apron strings.
Church of England bishops are due to meet tomorrow (Monday) to discuss the fallout from the lay vote in Synod that defeated the proposal.
News can sometimes travel slowly in the West Country, so it’s only this afternoon that I’ve become aware of this year’s Turnip Prize – the antidote to the better known Turner Prize.
The magnificent Turnip Prize trophy
The Turnip Prize is awarded annually at the New Inn in Wedmore on the Somerset Levels, far away from the glitz of metropolitan London.
This year’s winner was midwife Sarah Quick, from Clutton, who was presented with the award’s customary winnner’s trophy of an old turnip mounted on a six-inch nail, as seen above. Sarah’s winning entry was entitled ‘The Three Tenas’ and consisted of a pack of women’s Tena incontinence pads with three sticking out of the top.
Three Tenas – thias year’s Turnip Prize winner
Competition must have been more intense this year with 86 entries, 17 more than last year. Popular rumour has it that Bristol’s famous son Banksy has entered in the past, but has been disqualified for making too much of an effort!
Durian is perhaps the strangest thing I’ve eaten in nearly six decades on planet Earth. Many refer to it as the “king of fruits” as its taste and texture are wonderful, resembling an aromatic banana custard, but at the same time it has a distinctly off-putting smell somewhat akin to a mixture of rotting flesh and faeces. Indeed, durian is so smelly that it’s not allowed on public transport in Singapore and hotels, hospitals and other public buildings in other countries. In addition, as you can see from the image below, it looks like a weapon or munition designed by a botanist.
Durian – image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
My friend Mr Wong has let me know that it’s now the height of the durian season in his native Borneo and according to a Borneo Post report, “There are so many durians coming in daily that Sibu Central Market is being flooded with the king of the fruits”.
This glut on durians means aficionados in Borneo can indulge their passion for as little as the equivalent of 10p per fruit, as opposed to the prices charged by oriental supermarkets in the UK, which often run to double figures in pounds sterling.
Throughout human history there has always been forbidden food – the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the Old Testament, the various dietary restrictions imposed upon devotees by religion (e.g. kosher, halal, etc.) and the like.
In addition to these there are other prohibitions imposed by other considerations, such as the cost of getting something to market. Other factors include whether something is (or is regarded as) a local speciality and is hence doesn’t travel – or not very far anyway. One such English local speciality is not available as far south as Bristol*, although it does travel north into Lancashire (it’s available in Sainsbury’s in Darwen by Blackburn. Ed.); and that’s the North Staffordshire oatcake.
North Staffordshire Oatcake awaiting filling
According to Wikipedia, a North Staffordshire oatcake is a type of pancake made from oatmeal, flour and yeast. It’s cooked on a griddle or ‘baxton’. The oatcake is a local speciality in the North Staffordshire area of England. They are normally referred to as Staffordshire oatcakes or possibly Potteries oatcakes by non-locals, because they were made in this area. In and around Staffordshire and Cheshire they are often simply known as oatcakes.
North Staffordshire exiles are fortunate that they can now order this local delicacy online from such companies as Newcastle’s North Staffs Oatcakes Ltd and Biddulph’s Povey’s Oatcakes, to name but two.
As regards the location of oatcake shops in the Potteries and surrounding area, My Tunstall has helpfully provided an oatcake shops map. Earlier this year, a legendary oatcake shop, the Hole in the Wall closed due to a council compulsory purchase order. It was so called because the oatcakes were served to customers in the street via the front window and Stoke City Council should hang its head in shame at its destruction of the area’s heritage. Vic, my late stepfather, used to buy his oatcakes at the Hole in the Wall.
The furthest recorded oatcake shop from the banks of the Trent can be found in Auckland, New Zealand, where an expatriate Leek resident has set up business.
My oatcakes were bought from TJ Oatcakes & Sandwich Bar of 589 Leek Road, Hanley, ST1 3HD (map), just a short walk down the hill from my mother’s place. At TJ’s the oatcakes come in half dozen packs and are packaged in unbranded, anonymous clear plastic bags.
Turning to the oatcake’s history, the oatcake is believed to date back to at least the 17th century when the oatcake was the staple diet of North Staffordshire people. It is thought that due to long hard winters, farmers grew oats instead wheat; the farmers’ wives would then bake the milled flour mixture on a bakestone for family members and farm workers. At that time oatcakes were quite likely to be eaten with lard, fat or cheese. During the 19th Century a cottage industry sprang up, with oatcake makers often making more than was needed and taking them in baskets to sell in the markets and streets. In the 20th century the more successful bakers built brickrooms in their yards in which to bake oatcakes from. Their front rooms would then serve as the the shop front, selling oatcakes through the sash windows, as in the Hole in the Wall above.
Oatcakes are traditionally served with fillings such as cheese, tomato, onion, bacon, sausage and egg, plus brown or tomato sauce. They can also be eaten with sweet fillings such as golden syrup, jam or banana, but this is less common and is frowned upon by traditionalists. Mine were consumed in traditional manner, but with mushrooms added to the sausage/bacon filling. 🙂
* = If anyone does find anywhere in Bristol selling North Staffordshire oatcakes, please let me know. Thanks!
The Assistant Pirate should be confident and outgoing with a bubbly personality and be ready to meet and greet visitors to Bristol from across the world, from children and families to corporate groups.
This is a part-time role with full training given on the history of this port, and would be of interest those who enjoy meeting people and leading walking groups around the harbour.
Cutlass supplied
As pirates are typically portrayed as folk whose speech requires little grammar, I wonder if the “full training given” will include lessons in ignoring English syntax. 😀
Of course, Bristol, being a port city, has close associations with the sea and hence maritime crime of all kinds, including piracy, as well as having pirates amongst its sons and daughters. Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard, was born in the (now comfortably fragrant and middle class) Redland area of the city in 1680.
Hundreds of locals have complained they are unable to get through to council services, such as the rent arrears department. To add insult to injury, when callers encounter difficulties, the recorded voice of a woman with a Geordie accent tells them: “I can’t understand that, could you please repeat it?”
Victoria Square, Birmingham, with the city council headquarters. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Indeed the system is so abysmal that each call is costing the city council – the UK’s largest local authority – the equivalent of £4.
Last year the council axed its call centre, which used to employ 55 people and contracted Capita IT Services (whose home page reads: “Capable. Our experts are able to create improved business performance with our customers”. Ed.) to supply the new, unusable system.
Could this be a sister company of Capita Translation and Interpreting, the outfit responsible for the court interpreting fiasco (posts passim)?
Bristol may be unique as a city for many reasons. One of these is the city’s tallest building: how many others can boast their tallest edifice dates back to the 12th century? Well, complete with its spire (built 1442), St Mary Redcliffe church – the one the tourists mistake for Bristol Cathedral and the selfsame one described by Queen Elizabeth I as “the fairest, goodliest, and most famous parish church in England” – still towers over every other building in the city at 89 metres (or 292 ft if you still work in old money. Ed.).
Every now and again, some work needs to be done on the building’s fabric and I was extremely fortunate on Wednesday to spot some in progress way above my head.
Bristol’s tallest building complete with human ants
If you squint up the spire, you can see two steeplejacks at work, with the lower one actually carrying a ladder.
The steeplejacks are from the family firm of Dawson Steeplejacks of Clutton in North Somerset. To coincide with the works the Bristol Post carried a feature on the 175 years-old firm and its work. The Dawson family have been steeplejacks for seven generations: now that’s is something to which to aspire!
Every now and again there’s a job advertisement that’s so unusual it deserves wider circulation: and there’s 
