Real England

The Mucky Duck restaurant is in Drakeholes? How does Drake feel about that?

In my childhood, I spent many hours, over many years, in the Mucky Duck at Drakeholes, then known as the White Swan. They had a side room where children were allowed to sit, while their parents boozed at the bar. Oh the boredom.

i misread that as "boxed at the bar" for a moment which put a different spin on it

i'm seeing scampi-in-a-basket in this memory mike

imago were you in cumbernauld?

Scampi in a basket would have been beyond our wildest imaginations; Coke and crisps were the order of the day. The pub is by the Chesterfield Canal, and we had a mooring there. At Drakeholes, as a toddler, I fell in the canal in full view of a boat rally; my father jumped in to save me, and the story made the front page of the local newspaper. Happy days.

A cry for help?

cumbernauld it was, home of the new best sycamore and the soon to be former greatest town centre in these isles

now back to your scheduled drakeholes daredevilry

What's it ca'ed? Cumbernod.

They had that advert playing on a loop on a TV in the little Cumbernauld museum in that astonishing building

Also in the loop was a short film about placing pineapple bombs all around Cumbernauld. Real Scotland

I thought the same thing, it didn't look like an experienced woodman's cut

Not according to this retired lumberjack who said it was a "brilliant cut" but then he would say that as he cut the tree down.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12580169/Former-lumberjack-investigated-felling-Hadrians-Wall-sycamore.html

"you can tell a good lumberjack by the way he cuts a tree down. I haven't seen the cut obviously, but I have seen it on the computer.'

HE ADDED HASTILY.

'My chainsaw's down here by that barn door, but you can see that it hasn't been used for ages.'

AND I HAVEN"T GOT ACCESS TO ANY OTHER ONES NEITHER

just realised this is NOT what americans call a sycamore but a "sycamore maple", which is essentially invasive. i have one in my back garden. it drops thousands of little helicopters everywhere in the autumn, and an ungodly amount of sticky pollen in the spring. i spend the entire summer pulling out the little seedlings, which are able to grow even under tarps, with zero light. so like... i mean yes sad etc but there are BAZILLIONS of these trees in england

Evicted by Jesuits it appears. Case closed.

(xp)

woke jesuits

lmao

He said it had been the “perfect night” to do it because it was a full moon. “The wind would have meant there was barely any sound,” he said.

but... I don't know why anybody thinks I, a former lumberjack who'd just been kicked off my property that day, and have clearly thought about the right conditions for chopping down this tree, would chop down this tree

If I Chopped It

saw

an ungodly amount of sticky pollen in the spring

that's most likely honeydew aka aphid excretions! you can sometimes see it coming down from under sycamores like a miniature rain shower.

Sick Amor

i don't think so. mine produces these large yellow tufts of pollen that when they fall become little sticky balls that almost act like chewing gum. if you step on them they stick to the bottom of your shoe and are hell to get off.

but i am aware of the "honeydew" too! it gets all over the leaves of everything underneath it. delightful.

Earlier in the summer, Widget got a load of that sticky tufts pollen stuck to the fur between his toes. It was not fun for either of us to have to remove.

ah right, that stuff! anyway, til that in real england a scarf cut is known as a GOB.

a what and a what

this

all these fancy words its just tree murder

I fed an A.I 10,000 melancholy hauntological essays about the Sycamore Gap tree. the A.I is now calling itself Brother Soil and says I am 'an enemy of the moss'

— Stefan Mohamed (@stefmowords) October 3, 2023

When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie, sycamore

I have become more apprehensive about zebra crossings over the last year. Specially when I visit my mother (who lives in Kent though also true in inner London) I assume drivers (white van or not) are getting a kick out of not stopping for you.

Had this yesterday from some twat in a van when trying to cross at a zebra crossing. It's getting to the point where using them is legitimately dangerous - a lot of them just refuse to yield

— Tom Blackburn (@malaiseforever) October 5, 2023

Guess the question is whether this is recent or just my mind playing games: things are getting worse so it impinges upon your judgement on things like this.

This is one of the reasons why I hate dopey pedestrians thanking motorists for stopping at pedestrian crossings - you have right of way don't thank the cunts for following the law of the land. Not only do I never thank motorists for stopping I make sure I saunter as leisurely as possible when crossing.

I've felt like speeding and road rage have increased since Covid too, even before media framing of LTNs, ULEZ etc.

Still occasionally have a chuckle remembering the time Mr White Van Man yelled some sexism at me on Clerkenwell Road, but had to wait at the zebra at Hatton Garden to let me cross. I did the Hustle in the zebra for about five minutes, incorporating obscene gestures into the dance routine. This was deeply, deeply satisfying.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/12/atrocious-behaviour-visitors-accused-of-sabotaging-batley-library-1-book-sale

Batley hasn't been so unruly since the great black friday riot of 2014, where people fought to the death over discounted hd tvs at Tesco.

there's a Carnegie library in Hull, i didn't realise they were a thing

i mean it's probably not functioning as a library any more but there's a building

Ummmmm, I can think of another event…

Mair had already stolen all the Hitler books from Batley Library

last time I signed on I was sent to a *career advice* interview at Dewsbury Library, this was pre UC. Not many books there and it is a way too small a space to host a library, it's an ugly and grim 70's glass and concrete monstrosity of a building that is joined on to the job centre and seemed more to be purposed for shit like the Citizen's Advice Bureau. The og library was a large and attractive, actually quite stunning sandstone building that is a rundown unused banquet suite now. It got damaged and flooded during a fire and whoever owns it probably hasn't got the big bucks required for a renovation. This destruction happened under a Labour council, in the Blair years.

not that it didn't seem weird at the time, but the whole Captain Tom Moore phenomenon feels really incomprehensible three years on with covid lockdowns long over

https://cdn.ecommercedns.uk/files/9/243909/1/13739141/il-fullxfull.jpg

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2FND49N/bronze-resin-statues-of-the-late-sir-captain-tom-moore-who-raised-over-37-million-for-the-nhs-the-statues-were-created-by-clark-sculptures-2FND49N.jpg

https://l450v.alamy.com/450v/2fnd4ek/bronze-resin-statues-of-the-late-sir-captain-tom-moore-who-raised-over-37-million-for-the-nhs-the-statues-were-created-by-clark-sculptures-2fnd4ek.jpg

https://imgs.heart.co.uk/images/218698?crop=16_9&width=660&relax=1&format=webp&signature=5p3JzkcISAy9d_1ViBL9uzsZjMs=

have they signed on Michael Caine for the biopic?

never before was do much grift committed on so many by so few

xp they haven't announced a lead for this yet, but it's being directed by the guy who did Slade In Flame and the Sting version of Brimstone and Treacle

https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/captain-sir-tom-moore-to-begin-filming-autum-2023-director-richard-loncraine-b1082443.html

No-one (apart from on here) wants to admit the whole thing was organised as a grift by the psycho daughter to pay for her house extension! I guess it all spiralled out of control.