Every time you do, you hold a piece of history in your hands. Literature from the past and an object of some merit.
Now you know in what esteem I hold my bloggettes. You are the ladies and gentlemen who constantly make my day by reading my rubbish. I cherish every message I receive and occasionally somebody passes on a piece of history to me.
So it was when I met Shelagh who wanted to give me a book written by Lilias Rider Haggard. It was entitled Norfolk Notebook. It's a slim volume but I'm carrying it with me to dip into when I have a few spare minutes on the bus etc
It's better than continually staring at a mobile phone.
I particularly cherish this book as many of the articles included were originally published in the Eastern Daily Press Newspaper - a paper I used to work for.
I believe the book was published after the war, although the entries are from the years immediately leading up to the Second World War.
That means the book I now have is almost 80 years old.
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I have seen two excellent and very contrasting films in the past couple of weeks. I mentioned how funny I found Next Goal Wins. On Sunday at our latest village screen offering it was a very different film but just as good.
Director Ken Loach is now 87 and has intimated this may be his last film but has underlined the word maybe.
The Old Oak is set around a rundown pub in County Durham. A former mining community has fallen on hard times, so you can imagine what happens when a large number of Syrian refugees move on. Some of the locals are hostile but slowly and gradually the community comes together through the friendship between the struggling pub landlord and one of the refugees.
This drama isn't for the feint hearted as four letter words litter the dialogue. Most of the cast aren't professional actors and this makes the whole thing feel like a documentary at times.
Despite this the acting does add gritty realism to the story. Loach makes his usual political points but this film has a humanity and warmth to it. Do catch it if you can. It had me mesmerised although I'm not sure that some other members of the audience quite shared my enthusiasm and sometimes the Geordie accents are a little difficult to understand.
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It's been a bit of a late do this year. Taking down Christmas decorations that is. Only finished taking down ours on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon I took down those at the new Memorial Playing Field pavilion. No bad luck because we just about made 12th night.
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Is darts a sport? That's another of the discussions we have had over Christmas as we watched the World Finals. Same goes for snooker - a sport or a game?
Time was when darts and snooker players were, how should we say, scarcely the fittest human beings on the planet, drinking beer as they played.
Things have changed of course. Players of both now have to be fit. Both require both physical and mental toughness. So it's all down to how you define the word sport and I'm not sure I have an adequate definition but somehow I feel that both darts and snooker deserve to be classified as sports. I have played both and am equally useless at both. They both require a huge amount of precision and skill.
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Before the main film on Sunday we had a short. It's nice to have these as they have long disappeared from the cinemas. Who remembers the days when you got two films for your entrance fee? Now all we have is plugs for coming features and adverts and more adverts and more adverts.
At Hethersett we had a feature on Swinging London of the 1960s and the new coffee culture which the film claims began in 1952 with the introduction of the first espresso machine.
So I had to look it up on the internet and here's what I found.
"London’s first proper coffee shop – one equipped with a Gaggia coffee machine – opened at 29 Frith Street. This was a place where teenagers too young for pubs could come and gather, and it is said by some that the introduction of this coffee bar prompted the youth culture explosion that soon changed social life in Britain forever."
The film featured youth culture, a bit of obviously set up comedy and the famous 2is coffee bar and so back to the internet.
"The 2i's Coffee Bar was a coffeehouse at 59 Old Compton Street in Soho, London, that was open from 1956 to 1970. It played a formative role in the emergence of Britain's skiffle and rock and roll music culture in the late 1950s, and several major stars including Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard were first discovered performing there."
Many years ago I edited a book by friend Alan Mann on rock musician Tony Sheridan who used to play the 2is and who later teamed up with a certain band on Hamburg by the name of The Beatles. Sheridan originally came from Norwich.
My friend John H was much taken by a quote from a TS Elliot poem used in the film. He challenged me to name the poet and the work and I could do neither.
But for those still intrigued, here it is:
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
It comes from a poem by T.S. Eliot entitled "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
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Tomorrow I will have a piece from the Lilias Rider Haggard book I mentioned earlier which I think resonates with what we are experiencing today.