The Longest Yarn

We arranged a pre-Christmas meet-up with Cathy's aunt and uncle and they suggested visiting The Longest Yarn, an exhibition in Tewkesbury Abbey. 

The Longest Yarn is an 80-scene knitted diorama of events around D-Day, including the beach invasions in Normandy, paratrooper landings, various battles and some re-creations of scenes from the film The Longest Day. 

The crafting on display was incredible. Some of the scenes are surprisingly graphic. There is one just called 'Dead Horses' featuring equine casualties. There are also some very moving scenes - the family with a baby born during the bombardment; a young girl giving flowers to a liberating American soldier moments before a shell struck and killed her; a dropped helmet on the beach.

I watched The Longest Day several times as a kid, even though it was a very long film and was in black and white. Several key scenes are recreated on the exhibition. A paratrooper snagged on the bell tower in St.Mere Eglise; Lord Lovat in his white jumper arriving at Pegasus Bridge; the nuns walking into the battle to bring medical assistance to the Free French forces at Ouistreham; an American platoon and a German platoon walking right past each other in the middle of the night. 

We had a personal connection to some of the events through Cathy's Grampy, Jim. He was in an airborne unit, although he ended up in one of the beach landings instead of being in a glider. (Because apparently they didn't have enough gliders.) It felt strange to think he had been through some of this and saw it for real. 

I didn't really know what to expect from this exhibition and the concept of knitted dioramas. But it turned out to be a very thoughtful tribute to the men and women of D-Day. 

Scary angel and pregnant Mary

I went to Tewkesbury Abbey today and saw a Nativity scene with a scary angel - it looked like one of the Weeping Angels from the most terrifying Doctor Who episode this century.

You may notice that Mary is pregnant and the manger only has a lamb in it. Well it's not Christmas Day yet, so Baby Jesus hasn't arrived!

Meanwhile, the Wise Men were halfway down the church, making their way to the holy crib.  I suspect they won't arrive until 6th January - which is still a decent pace for mannequins. 

Book of the Month - Orbital (Booker Prize winner!)

I bought Orbital by Samantha Harvey in Wolverhampton on our wedding anniversary back in September. It was marked as being on the Booker long list when I bought it. Shortly after I started reading it, it won!

I was attracted to the book by the premise - a team of astronauts completing a 24 hour cycle on board, orbiting the planet 16 times during that period. It felt like sciencey fiction rather than science-fiction, and it was intriguing. 

It has the added bonus of being a short book, but that didn't make it a fast or easy read. There is a deliberateness to the prose - I get the sense this is one of those books where the author lingered over every sentence and rewrote every paragraph. It certainly feels over-written. I've seen it described as 'would have been better as a poem' and there is a descriptive poetic quality to the language.

However, there are benefits in the way the prose mirrors the exacting over-engineered nature of the space station. Firstly, it slowed me down as a reader, forcing me into ponderous progress not unlike the astronauts struggling to keep artificial time in a scenario where time is essentially meaningless - it will be sunset or sunrise soon, they will see both in the next hour or so and then again in the hour after that. 

The second unexpected benefit is a sense of cool detachment. The astronauts are both inhabitants of Earth and not, so their perspective is suddenly wider in its compass, seeing the planet as a whole. 

However, this slowed down detachment gets tedious very quickly. To add to the dreamlike narrative, there is no direct speech. Conversations are reported on the same way as characters internal thoughts, the same way as flashbacks to Earth, the same way as the characters past experiences. The sentences are full of descriptors. Consider this passage and you will see what I mean:

"Blue becomes mauve becomes indigo becomes black, and night-time downs southern Africa in one. Gone is the paint-splattered, ink-leached, crumpled-satin, crumbled-pastel-overflowing-fruit-bowl continent of chaotic perfection, the continent of salt pans and red sedimented floodplain and the nerve networks of splaying rivers and mountains that bubble up from the plains green and velvety like mould growth. Gone is a continent and here another sheer widow's veil of star-struck night." (p.91)

Exhausting, isn't it. 

Back when I was in school we had an English lesson discussing the difference between metaphors and similes. I count six (maybe seven) metaphors and one simile in that short section. And that's not even a complete paragraph. 

It's lovely, beautiful, evocative language that effectively replicates the grandeur of seeing a continent slip below your window as you sail past in low earth orbit. But, my goodness, it's draining to read. 

And the spaceship makes a complete orbit of the Earth every 90 minutes. Each chapter of the book is an orbit. There are regular updates of which parts of the planet the space station is travelling over. I like geography but even I grew tired of reading lists of countries, continents and seas. 

Amid all the metaphors there are the stories of the individuals in the team of astronauts. Two main stories dominate the book - one personal, the death of a parent; the other a personal connection to a disastrous typhoon that the astronauts observe building up into a colossal fury unleashed on part of the world that isn't built to withstand typhoons. 

As they go about their various jobs and tasks, ranging from examining the effects of life in space on mice through to taking their own blood samples to examine the effects of space on them, we learn about each character's drive to get into space. We discover their inspiration, their similar personalities that carried them through astronaut and cosmonaut programmes. They have wildly different origin stories but their common humanity shines through.

The base shared humanness of the crew is the central underlying theme of the book - that actually we are all astronauts, travelling through the hostile barrenness of space on an amazing spaceship that happens to be a planet called Earth. The theme that we should be taking better care of this precious home of ours permeates the book, with a hard contrast to the cold vast emptiness of space. (I did smile at the description of the Voyager probes "wimbling into wayless dark".)

There is an urgency to that message that contrasts cleverly with the pace of the story. The detached astronauts orbiting overhead can see that we are one world, that frontiers are stupid, useless, arbitrary things that can't be seen from space. But can those of us locked to land see it too? And see it in time to avert disaster? That's the question that Orbital is really asking.

Snack of the Month - M&Ms Crispy chocolate

First up, an announcement - I think this is going to be my last regular snack of the month post for a while. I've been blogging monthly snack posts for four years now so it feels like it's time for a break.

So, let's make it a fun, Christmassy one. This is another snack that Cathy found for me. There is a bit of M&M character confusion because Yellow M&M, who features on the wrapper in a Santa hat, is usually peanut. But there aren't any peanuts in this. Instead there are teeny tiny crispy M&Ms in a fondant centre.

The moulded character on the actual chocolate is well done, complete with giant Santa hat!

The chocolate shell is reasonably thick with a relatively decent shell-to-filling ratio.

The chocolate and filling are both quite sugary and sweet, as you'd expect from a Mars product. But as it's a small chocolate bar, it's not overwhelming. 

The Christmas snack market is over-saturated and I don't really think this will stand out much. However, as something quick to snaffle over the festive period it would be a welcome treat in my Christmas stocking!

When packaging commits to the joke

Froot Loops are one of my favourite cereals. The proper radioactive American cereal, not the anodyne, watered down version sold in the UK. 

Anyway, knowing I like Froot Loops, Cathy gifted me this pair of boxers made by Swag.

Don't worry. I'm not doing a review of the pants. What I really liked about this novelty gift was the way the packaging took the gift to the next level of humour.

Including the 'nutritional information'...

And adding in some puzzles for that retro 'something to read at the breakfast table' feel. (And, yes, I was one of the kids who would read the cereal box at the breakfast table!)

Feel free to do the wordsearch!

A beanie for me; a cap for Bloopy

Cathy recently ordered some gear from a company specialising in American sports. This included a new beanie for me so I can represent my favourite baseball club in cold weather.

Cathy's order also included a keyring Padres cap.

Which turned out to be a perfect fit for Bloopy the Blue-footed Booby. 

Bloopy arrived in our home as a result of sponsoring a blue footed booby through the Galapagos Trust - a great charity protecting wildlife on the other side of the world.

I'm a big fan of animal sponsorship. We started sponsoring animals during the pandemic when several trusts and charities needed an extra bit of support. (I wrote a post back then about the virtual menagerie we collected.) 

I don't think it would be possible to get a real blue footed booby to wear a cap, nor should we try to make them. Bloopy looks like a dude in his, though. 

Some cheery Chrimbo things

With all the work going on in the house, Christmas decorating has taken a back seat.

However, my sister sent us a festive dinosaur diorama that is on the side in the kitchen.

And this year I have a Star Wars Droid Factory advent calendar again. It's taken five days to get all the pieces for the first droid - a gingerbread R2 unit with a mixer tray of drinks. I hope it's mixing whatever the version of egg nog they drink in a galaxy far, far away.

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas!

Music makes Christmas feel more Christmassy for me. For years we had a few Christmas CDs that were on heavy seasonal rotation in our house. However, in the last couple of years we’ve been collecting Christmas CDs by a range of artists.

Some of our Christmas albums...

Christmas albums almost always include several covers – and compilation CDs often include different classic Christmas songs covered by lots of different people. So, for example, I have fourteen different versions of White Christmas. Meanwhile I have eight different versions of Blue Christmas. (The colours don’t stop there – The Muppets did a song called ‘Red and Green Christmas’ and Barenaked Ladies recorded ‘Green Christmas’ plus I have two different recordings of 'Purple Snowflakes'.)

In the past month a couple of people have mentioned the Christmas Card audits that I used to publish every year. I’m not planning on restarting them this Christmas but I thought I could share some ‘stats’ about Christmas music. It’s not really an audit, more some number-crunching. (And if you want to enjoy the ACCAs of Christmases past, then they are all collected on this page!)

I currently have 34 different albums or compilations of Christmas songs and music entered onto a spreadsheet. It doesn’t include film soundtrack albums for The Muppet Christmas Carol or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Some of the compilations have multiple discs (anything up to five!). The total number of songs across all the albums in the spreadsheet is 821.

In terms of most popular songs, I decided to count this as different recorded versions. For example, Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens appears on four of the compilation CDs but would only count as one version of the song. It also throws up some quirks – I have five different versions of All I Want for Christmas is You, but I don’t have the original sung by Mariah Carey. Clearly, Mariah doesn't want to license it cheaply to the people compiling albums. 

So, with that in mind, I’m sure you are wondering what the most popular Christmas recordings in my collection are. Here are the songs that I have the most versions of by different artists.

Top of the heap is Winter Wonderland. I have sixteen different versions of this song, by a variety of artists. It also lends its name to one of the compilation albums – with tracks by different country artists.

White Christmas, Silent Night and Santa Claus is Coming to Town are in a three-way tie for second place with 14 different versions. Meanwhile, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is in third (or fifth depending how you count these things) with 12 recordings. The First Noel and Jingle Bells are both on 10 recordings. Only one version of Jingle Bells, by Barenaked Ladies, includes the alternate lyrics about how Batman smells. 

So, if you are picking up a collection of Christmas songs, I predict the most likely song you will hear on there is Winter Wonderland. I have enough versions that I could create a mixtape of just that song, sung by different people. Although you might yet hear it sung by someone else who I don’t have in my collection of tunes. Here’s my list of Winter Wonderland warblers for you to compare:

Kylie Minogue, Connie Francis, Darius Rucker, James Taylor, Macy Gray, Joy Electric, Johnny Mercer, Jason Mraz, The Saturdays, Elvis Presley, Norah Jones, Doris Day, Mickey Mouse & Friends, Jerrod Nieman, Louie Armstrong, Bill Doggett.

There are some famous names on that list! (I’m not a hundred per cent sure it is actually Mickey Mouse and the Disney CD this is on doesn’t give a list of vocal performers, as far as I recall.)

I’m hoping to blog some reviews of my favourite Christmas records. In the meantime, crank up the Christmas tunes!

Monthly round up - November 2024

It feels like every month I say 'another busy month', but November was busy, including Cathy's birthday, a work weekend in Northern Ireland, World Diabetes Day, the start of the last stage of our year-long home improvements, and setting a new personal best for football matches in November.

The trip to Northern Ireland was for an event organised by 'young leaders' in our programme. Because of flight scheduling I ended up there for two nights. I visited Antrim for the first time and saw Lough Neigh, which is the largest lake in the UK (top pub quiz answer knowledge there!) The event went really well, I enjoyed meeting the team and the young people out there, and it seemed like everyone who attended was very positive about the content the young leaders had scheduled.

I even got to meet Mr Tayto at the airport when I left!

World Diabetes Day was on 14th November. The organisation I work for decided to use it as an opportunity to start conversations about diabetes stigma and highlight how damaging it can be for people living with the condition. I don't talk much about my personal experience of diabetes, honestly because I have experienced those feelings of being judged and blamed for developing it. A few years back I blogged about my experience of  living with diabetes after being diagnosed. In January it will be ten years since I was diagnosed and I might blog more about it then. 

In Wales, my colleagues organised a World Diabetes Day celebration event and awards evening in Port Talbot. It was a fun night with former NHS colleagues, people from local support groups, colleagues and the programme's young leaders from Wales. 

Hard on the heels of World Diabetes Day came a very important date in our calendar - Cathy's birthday! I had the day off work and we had a nice, quietish day together. We went to the cinema to watch The Wild Robot, which we both enjoyed, and had a meal out in the evening. We have discovered somewhere new that Cathy can actually order something off the menu, which means we have options for a meal out locally now!

The final stages of our home improvements have started. Our old hall carpet has gone, replaced by tile- effect flooring. 

Of course, nothing is simple with our house. When the carpet was lifted, we discovered a ridge in the concrete that meant we had to have the floor levelled, adding another day to the process. We are also getting a new cupboard built under the stairs. Considering this all started with our new roof in February, it has been a very long sequence of getting thongs sorted. I have decided that unless there is a disaster, we aren't having any work done in the house next year!

Football-wise, I made it to seven games in November. This was a new record for me. It included seeing Shrewsbury Town benefit from 'new manager bounce' with a glorious 3-2 win over Birmingham City in Gareth Ainsworth's first game in charge. 

It was the same weekend as 'Storm Bert' and I had some trouble getting home on the Sunday after the game. It felt like I couldn't get out of Shropshire, with roads blocked every time I crossed the county boundary. I ended up having lunch back at Mum's house and then driving home via the motorways. All told, I spent eight hours trying to get home!

The other games I went to included a trip to Seven Sisters Onllwyn to watch Cardiff Draconians - it was a new ground for me and my friend Matt joined me there. Every five years or so I get Matt to come to a game with me even though he is more of a rugby fan. 

I also watched two women's games, Barry Town away at Cardiff City, and then at the end of the month Wales v Ireland in the final round of the qualifying play off for the European Championships next year.

I went to the Wales game with Steve - and it was the second time in a week we had been at the Cardiff City Stadium. Two days previously we had been in the away end watching Queens Park Rangers beat Cardiff City, along with another friend, Andy.

Randomly at the Wales game I was sat right next to my friend Ruth, who I saw a couple of months back having not seen each other for several years before that. So at this rate we might well be seeing each other in January!

December is always a busy month as well so I expect it won't feel like very long before I am blogging a review, and some reviews of the year that has sped by. 

Maps courtesy of the algorithm

I love a good map. I enjoy books that have a map in the front of them. I like looking at old maps, obscure maps, made up maps... 

Some of the maps in this post are more like data visualisations. They are all maps that have popped up on my social media feeds that I've liked enough to save. The algorithm now knows I like maps and keeps showing me them!

If anyone finds a map on here that belongs to them, then please let me know and I will credit you properly.

Let's start with this beautiful graphic of African river basins.

I found it interesting to compare the map of natural features with this map showing which European colonisers laid claim to parts of Africa in 1914. 

Moving to another continent altogether, here's a map showing the relative populations of humans and kangaroos in Australia. The roos seem to have the upper hand in most of Oz. 

Meanwhile this agricultural map from 1920 firmly divides Australia into terrain suitable for sheep and inhospitable to sheep. 

A friend of mine commented this would make the good basis for a remix of Insomnia by Faithless. "I can't get no sheep."

This map of placenames in Tasmania is done purely for puerile amusement. It amused me.

Coming closer to home, this is a map of the western edge of Europe during the last ice age. A person could walk from Britain to Denmark across Doggerland. 

A map showing Cymraeg names for places in England. 

And another map showing castles - note how many were built along the border between Cymru and England. 

It's almost as impressive as this map showing Gregg's locations across the UK.

Back to castles, this cute map of castellau Cymreig isn't very accurate.

And to bring the post full circle, here's another map of rivers, showing all the rivers in Cymru. 

I wonder what maps the algorithm will push my way next.