Geese

Something I have to post here: something I should have reported yesterday.

A flock of geese flew overhead yesterday afternoon, as I was heading into the shed. I watched them in their V-shaped flock as they flew virtually directly overhead, on a roughly northerly trajectory. I called Dad out to watch them fly past.

For me, the observation of a flight of geese heading off towards the Wirral Peninsula, Liverpool Bay and points north is the definitive sign of winter's arrival.

And that makes the second call for me to go to that beach this week.

I don't often feel the call to go to the sea. There's usually an element of the stars being right, islands rising and Great Cthulhu receiving his early morning wakeup call. For a' that I'm Cancerian, I'm pretty much a confirmed land crab. :)

But it looks like a visit to a lonely place for a spot of meditation in an empty, desolate, off-season spot looks to be on the cards. And I'd best make plans for a patrol there soon.

I'm always glad to catch sight of the geese, though. I've watched them go every Autumn for more than ten years, and marked the event as a milestone of the year.

Nine times out of the last ten years, I've observed them from a railway carriage coming home from patrol - usually Liverpool, sometimes Manchester, but always whilst I've been on the move. This year was the exception.

Which brings me to my next point. I last patrolled, oh, at the start of October - I went up to Manchester. :) I'd been planning on making another trip out to Liverpool on or about the 22nd, but a sudden yet not wholly unexpected change to my personal circumstances put a crashing and immediate halt to my patrolling anywhere for a time.

Well, that change to my circumstances is still ongoing - but it looks as if, overall, it will be ultimately to my benefit. Not so much in the short term; definitely in the long term, though.

And so, tentatively, I can announce that, pretty soon, I shall be resuming my patrols to these cities again. I might even go so far as to combine my patrolling with some jobsearching - for how better way to prove my wilingness to look for work than by purchasing a copy of the Liverpool Echo, Chester Chronicle or Birmingham Post, or catch a free copy of the Manchester Evening News, on the day they publish the want ads columns? :)

See, I think of everything. >:D

Three Thngs About 1976

So, why am I posting about 1976?

Firstly, 1976 was the Bicentennial, and a big US election in its time. A war had just ended, and a corrupt businessman who'd conned the nation into disgracing itself by installing him as President was ousted, hoist by his own petard.

It was the first year I ever became aware of the US' electoral process. Though, for some years prior, that damned war had been present and growing in my consciousness.

1976 was a record year in the United Kingdom. I remember it being hotter than any year I'd experienced before, or since. We were inundated by ladybirds. Those little black-spotted red cblobs lay in thick carpets everywhere. I loved them - still do. I must've been the only one who did. To this day, some of my contemporaries still shudder at the sight of a ladybird.

1976 was, of course, the runup to the Queen's Silver Jubilee; the year the world was gradually becoming aware through the popular press of things like drugs, punk and the silicon chip. Me, I was so heavily into lasers and the EM spectrum, chemistry, biology, French, Latin and Welsh.

And maths.

All of which brings me to my first linkage; an article which kind of confirms my suspicions ...

Kids of 1976 Were Smarter Than Today's Kids - Yes, We Were

Back in 1976, I became a massive, massive bibliophile. I was known to all and sundry, staff and pupils, as "The Mad Scientist" back then. If I was going through school today they'd be calling me "Grissom," because of what he once said about him being a ghost in school.

Personally, I couldn't have called myself a pupil if I didn't spend my time trying to see. Though I didn't begin dilating until adulthood ...

I was clued in to all of this stuff which modern children today, rather naively, dismiss as "nerdy" or "geeky." It doesn't get you the girl ... but if intelligence and skill lands one a really good paying job, would you be satisfied with a mindless bleached blonde who'll only put out to someone if it'll get her into Big Brother or onto a Heat cover?

So yeah ... we are smarter now than today's kids will ever be when they get to our age.

IF they live to our age.

And now, the final link in this rambling thread: and a very sad one, too. For, along other things, 1976 was the year I first got to read a whole bunch if SF authors I had never read before. Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson ...

and Michael Crichton.

I watched The Andromeda Strain long before I got the book. But I remember going out of my way to buying the novelisation the minute I saw it, even bankrupting myself and having to go without tuck for two weeks because I'd blown all my pocket money to buy the book.

And so, now, today, I have to announce with great sadness that the man whose book had placed me in such financial straits, way back then, has died: Michael Crichton, RIP.

I mention 1976 because there are all these kids wandering about wearing T shirts with "1976" in big, bold numbers. FFS, they weren't even alive in 1976! Chances are, their parents were still in short trousers even then!

Also, just on Monday, I'd been talking to a man in the street about my chesty cough. And I just said to him "I don't normally get sniffles, so when I do get a cold, it's a pretty powerful one to while it might be a sniffle to me, it's the bloody Andromeda Strain to everybody else."

Funny how these things keep coming around to haunt you, isn't it?

Oh, BTW ...

Let's not forget - tonight is still Bonfire Night for us. A night where everyone on these shores gathers together to burn effigies of detested public figures on bonfires and light fireworks.

I can see and hear those fireworks going off outside my window. Lovely. :)

Of late, those detested figures would have been crowding those bonfires. Bush, Blair, Brown, Cameron; there seemed to be no bloody room on top of the pyres for the bastards.

Well ... next year, there'll be just a little more room. This year will be the last year they'll be burning Bush on top of a bonfire.

Burning Bush. How Biblical. :)

Anyway, there you go. Going offline, now, to sit back with my supper and watch V For Vendetta.