It sounds lovely, and as I said before you and Dark Star make a perfect team.


He was on top form last year, but this year I think he must have had the flu (or flulenza as we used to call it).

Let's hope he's quite recovered by next season.

Thanks Biz, I'll pass that on to him Concerning the apple tree man, I worked on an orchard once, thoroughly enjoying it. I think that may have inspired the poem

Time's up

Dumbing down TV ensures
That minds are rarely taxed,
Sadly Channel 4's joined in
And Time Team has been axed.

Cheer up! There are still some very good programmes mixed in with the dross.

This World's programme on Spain last night was worth watching, if chilling..........and you've always got Emmerdale.

Not many in my opinion Biz. On the rare nights that I do watch telly, it's generally one of my own films. Time Team was an excellent informative show and it was depressing to witness the dumbing down. Regular experts like Stewart, Helen and Victor were dropped and they brought in some plastic grinning bimbo who knew bugger all about history or archeology. I felt vindicated when the team's Professor Mick Aston resigned in disgust at these changes.

Never mind - as long as The X Factor, reality rubbish and the soaps carry on, why should the powers that be worry?

Which are your own films - sounds interesting?

I've finally collected my 101 favourite films Biz They range from The Odd Couple to Jaws, The Elephant Man and To Kill A Mockingbird

Viking attack on Lindisfarne, 793 AD

Northumbrian believers here
Took comfort from religion’s well,
At Lindisfarne, a house of God
In peace they used to pray and dwell
Yet destiny was soon to steer
Events into a violent hell.

As kings of naval mastery
The Vikings conquered every mile,
Great navigators of the sea
Who didn't rest and in a while
To impose their supremacy
They came unwanted to this isle.

From longships moored off Britain's shore
Eyes sharper than a blade that cleaves
Stared full of longing, bent on war
And tethered sails like evil leaves
Flapped in defiance, not one law
Could keep out these invading thieves.

The humble pilgrims who’d been warmed
By gospels had no chance as they
Were massacred by those who swarmed,
The house of God fell on the day,
With treasures ransacked, rooms were stormed
And shackled monks were led away.

That swift incursion cut the cords
Of local Christian faith and then
Installed victorious Norse lords,
A zealous breed of pagan men,
At Lindisfarne the Viking swords
Were mightier than any pen.


©

Wow! One viewing of Jaws was quite enough for me - give me Astaire and Rogers, or Doris Day. I'm a real lightweight.

By the way I hope you saw Panorama last night - terrifying.



It's the age-old story of the strong bullying the weak isn't it. If only the human race had changed.

Great one for the school history book though. I can imagine your history poems in the junior school, with the knowledge seeping into children's unconscious and providing a strong basis for more formal learning. Actually you've provided a lesson in one short poem. A gift.

Thanks Biz The Vikings and their longships captured my imagination when I was a child, I guess the fascination stayed with me.

I never saw Panorama, what was it about?

Pass it on.


The subject of Panorama was "The Tax Haven Twins". They are the owners of The Telegraph newspaper. If you don't have access to iPlayer on your television, do watch it on your computer............while it's still accessible!!!!

The Trials of Greycroft

There's a circle called Greycroft delightful and grey, which has suffered abuse for so long,
Over thousands of years farmers had their own way, changing Greycroft and yet it stayed strong.

In the Cumbrian landscape surviving serene with its stones of fine volcanic lava,
But the view isn't champion, now in the green something spoils the serenity rather.

Only four hundred yards off depressingly stands the Nuclear Sellafield Station,
One more building of science and like most of them, it's a vision of true desolation.

How sad that the magic of Greycroft shares land with such an establishment waste,
Here you'll learn what both ancient and new minds create; I know which is more to my taste.

http://www.cumbriastonecircles.co.uk...ria:Grey_Croft

iPlayer Biz? No chance I'm going to check out Panorama though

Gosh they are close aren't they. Of course you see anyone with power is able to remove themselves from the eyesores.............and dangers.......... of lesser mortals. As we all know.


Hahahaha. I think they must only have got away with screening the programme because it tells the absolute truth.

Indeed Biz While the power station does ruin the view, we should be grateful that monuments like Greycroft are still around after so long

Wilde Regrets

Oscar Wilde and diverse
others lived in never worse
times to be freely as happy
as they were inwardly gay
for Law saw in an adverse
way, their bent as if to say,
abandonment of the norm
a disinclination to perform
morally with due propriety
in their Christian society.
Which forebade a sexual
act, hidebound to a man
by a certain Biblical tract.
When Bosie took Oscar's
fancy he dared to defy it.
If any called them nancy
this was the low tittle-tattle
of particularly bovine cattle
Against a Wildean true wit.
too clever by half our Oscar
couldn't resist looking for the
easy laugh, even at his trial
he wouldn't a jot tone down
the famed debonair witty style.
Couldn't sublimate his certain
feeling giving it away in a literal
display. Was wont to flaunt it
dauntlessly under no bushel
no not he, when asked did he
kiss a particular guy he would
answer why would I? Wasn't this
chap too ugly. Laughter in his
Court which he had sought but
on the part of the prosecuting
counsel: a chance to pounce
extracting every ounce from
his pounded flesh, long time
would the writer reflect and
regret at a majesty's leisure
loss of freedom and so hard
fought for pleasure henceforth
denied those two years inside
in Reading jail where he was then
heading; regarding his tent that
prisoners call the sky, asking why
oh why, oh why, oh why, oh did I?

(the oh why's echoes OW his initials).
.

A superb tribute to Oscar Wilde Frank The way the establishment destroyed him is one of the most shameful stories in our history. So dirty had the name 'Oscar' become that no child in Britain was given it for fifty years after he was sentenced. The time served was no easy ride either - solitary confinement and silence at all times made it very hard.

The Beat

Before a scroll of paprika
Or hieroglyph was used
The beat began in Africa
Where tribal instincts fused.

There echoed through the jungle deep
A solitary bongo,
The first repeated sound to creep
Along the silent Congo.

At Uluru the progeny
Picked timber up and pounded,
To every aborigine
The Mother Earth resounded.

And long before the west was won
The beat created trance;
Beneath a boiling prairie sun
It steered the native dance.

Adopted by some lesser gods,
When days of hate were coming
Aloud for Nazi firing squads
The sticks of death were drumming.

Essentially the soundtrack to
Whatever stage we’re at,
New rhythms leading straight back to
Each era we begat.

And when the cities filled with crime
And guns became our masters
It soared above the urban grime
On rebel ghetto blasters.

From stone age to computer age,
From cave to penthouse suite
We’ve always needed to engage
With one eternal beat.


©

The latest one seems to be Gangnam Style - so sophisticated we are these days.

Office Parties.

Jump up and down!
Jump up and down!
Wave your arms in the air
Like you just don't care!
Pull a silly face!
Now get back to work.

I've heard of it but never seen it


I'm glad I don't have to suffer those any more

The Tavern Called The Star

Though modern pubs seem plastic
My favourite saves the day,
Historic and fantastic:
The Star down Rusper way.

Good ale, fine wine and cider,
Old timber beams of pride,
At times a horse and rider
Goes trotting by outside.

West Sussex situated,
The rooms somehow record
An atmosphere elated
With early beer pumps pulled.

Back in pre-Tudor Blighty
Poor serfs here bought a round,
Before the eighth and mighty
King Henry's head was crowned.

It's even got a hatch where
Priests hid and stayed to rest,
For centuries the latch there
By grateful ghosts was blessed.

Today, home cured pancetta
With salad is a smash
And what on earth could better
Star sausages and mash?

The steak and kidney's able
To make all taste buds soar,
Sea bream to grace each table,
Beer battered cod and more.

'Pub of the Year', deserving
That trophy on the bar,
Forever worth preserving;
The Tavern called the Star.


©

Sounds cosy - just right for this time of the year. Shall we have mulled wine round the fire?

Why not Biz - the drinks are on me

I always churn out a festive poem and I've entered this year's effort in a competition in America It's for comedy odes - I'll be posting it here on Xmas Eve