Let's hear it for Wetherspoons

The Wetherspoon chain of pubs is much derided. I know people that wouldn't be seen dead anywhere near one of their outlets, on the grounds that they are filled with layabouts and alcoholics. I am sure that there are many layabouts and alcoholics that frequent them but who can blame them when the prices are so much lower than anywhere else.  I have heard it said that they have a bad atmosphere and no music. Well,  no music these days has to be a good thing. What passes for music in so many establishments has become a throbbing cacophany of Afro Carribean nonsense, the nasal whinings of the latest pop chick or the bleatings of pre-pubescent boy bands.  As for atmosphere, Wetherspoons take over old places and bring them back to life. I recently visited Whitstable and there, an old cinema has become a Wetherspoons pub called The Peter Cushing. It is a lovely art deco building and the interior is lovely. In Tunbridge Wells, they took over the old Opera House and have restored it to some of its former glory. It is a beautiful place and the quality of service, the value for money food and the cost of drinks make it, and so many like it, a worthwhile venue for breakfast, lunch or evening meal.   Yes breakfast at Wetherspoons can be had for less than four pounds. If you haven't had a full English breakfast in a pub atmosphere, then you are missing a treat.
Even the inner city Wetherspoons have their charm, and yes I am sure that many livers are damaged much more cheaply and effectively there than most places, but hey - we all make our choices and some of us cannot afford to be snobbish. 

A long weekend

"People are bloody ignorant apes."  I think is was Estragon who said it in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

 Millions of people descended upon the capital this weekend in order to catch a glimpse of the Queen and her ever growing family. People stood in the pouring rain for hours waving their flags and worshiping from afar, perhaps catching a glimpse of expensive clothes or even more expensive security that surrounds the entourage.

The 60th anniversary of her Coronation has been hyped by the press for many months. The publicity machine that is the establishment, has done its job and millions have been sucked into the massive diversion that has cost the public purse a vast amount of money at a time when it can least afford it.

The public is very easily mobilised and manipulated even in these cynical times, and for some reason, a significant proportion seem to think that the Monarchy is significant in their lives.  Yes there are trusts set up in the names of various royals, but their actual input into those organisations are about as significant as HRH's contribution to Gordon's Gin or whatever commodity bears her coat of arms.

I have heard so many people say this weekend, how proud they are to be British?  Why? Why this weekend?  Why not when we lose at football? Why not when our wonderful Sun Readers run riot in the streets or smash up bars on the costa del whatever?  We have Her Majesties Government that sees the poor as inconvenient and an economy in tatters, none of which has anything to do with the Crown. The Crown does not interfere, the Crown does not influence, it just is, and costs the country a small fortune to maintain.

People say that the Royals bring in tourists and help the economy. How then do cities like Paris, Rome, New York and all the others manage? Would they benefit from having monarchs?  If so then we could rent ours out for months at a time and perhaps then they would become affordable.

Hard to believe that he is just 2 years old

T Rex

Oscar had his first trip to London the other day. When I say first, I mean as a cognisant person; baby trips don't count. The outing got off to a bad start, I carried him onto the train and accidentally bashed his head into a luggage rack that I just hadn't seen. So even before the train had departed, we entertained fellow travellers to an Oscar at near full volume. No real harm was done however and the rest of the journey turned out to be trouble free and we arrived in the big city armed with everything that he needs.
The primary object of the day was to visit the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. Being exam season, I had hoped that it would be quiet. Of course i had forgotten that there are such things as Primary schools, and also forgotten just how loud a group of kids can be, especially in the confines of the long walkway from the tube station to the Museums.  It was a reminder, that if there is a hell then we are already there. I am sure that primary kids en masse would make a wonderful weapon.
We accelerated past the long multi coloured noise machine and made a break for the museum, knowing that they would catch us up sooner or later, but even a few moments respite was so welcome.
Oscar loved the dinosaurs, skeleton after skeleton, bone after bone, he was in his element for at least five minutes. Then we turned a corner and cane face to mouth with a life sized animatronic T Rex. Now Oscar loves his T Rex models and knows the name very well, but he was not prepared for meeting one in a darkened room.  I have never seen him scared before but now I have. His whole body tensed and he climbed up and around me like a squirrel up a tree. He shook and trembled and steered me away from the thing and we found ourselves ploughing against the noisy tide. Once away from sight, he calmed down and so grasping him tightly I more or less ran through the gallery, past Tyrannosaurus and out of the display and into the gift shop.
All seemed forgotten and he was told that he could have one more dinosaur to take home. So he chose six and was negotiated down to  a Parasaur and a Triceratops at ten pounds a head. He settled for that and so we left the museum all smiles.  Hyde Park was a short walk away and from there a tube to Trafalgar square where he chased the few remaining pigeons for a good half hour while the adults flopped and rested.
The train home was busier than the one in and we shared a seat with a serious looking woman conducting her business on her smartphone. Oscar sat and looked at her in his usual charming way and soon had her entertained with his dinosaurs.  She maintained a straight face as he babbled on and eventually asked him what dinosaurs ate.  He pondered a moment and then told her that they ate bouncy castles. At this point all hope of her getting anything worthwhile done, evaporated and she fell under his spell as people tend to.

It was a lovely day and I think he enjoyed himself. He certainly enjoys his dinosaurs which are rapidly dominating his house. Better that than his other obsessions, lawnmowers and diggers.

Photoshop

What a wonderful tool Photoshop is.  Its ubiquity is demonstrated by the fact that, like Google, it has become a verb in common parlance. I photoshop frequently is a statement that would have made no sense not so many years ago and yet today, most people would know what I mean. I am a rare person in that I have a legitimate and paid for copy of the Adobe Creative Suite. It runs on my machine because of an inbuilt translator that was standard in the Mac OS a few years ago. However the latest upgrade to the system software no longer includes this software and should I choose to upgrade I will have to repurchase Photoshop and the rest of the brilliant software that I use most frequently. The full cost of that runs into four figures and I don't think that I can justify the expense. So I am stuck; I cannot upgrade my operating system without incurring huge losses and looking into the future, it is almost certain that I will be disadvantaged and left behind as software will move further and further away from what I have now. In the meantime I will continue to use my old outdated versions and hope for the best.