As Flat as a Millpond

I'M NOT the world's best photographer but, when I finally take a decent one, I become inordinately proud and want everyone to see it. Consequently, it's my desktop picture and now I've put it on here.

This was taken on a beautifully still day in February 2008, and is a view of the Ladybower Dam and Reservoir in the Peak District, near my home in Sheffield. The Ladybower is the lowest of three interconnecting reservoirs, the Howden and the Derwent being the other two. The Derwent Dam is probably best known as the training ground for No. 617 "Dambusters" Squadron during WWII, but more of that in another post.

Many people unfamiliar with Sheffield are surprised when I tell them that although I live half an hour's walk from the city centre, I am also barely ten minutes' drive from this place. It's a wonderful place to go hiking, so look out for pictures and posts from my walks!

If you're interested, this photo was taken with a Pentax K10D, standard zoom lens as supplied, but with a polarising filter attached. In fact, it was my first day out with the new filter. I'm not sure I've taken a better shot since.

Doctoring the Challenge?

I LOVE 'University Challenge'. It has become a fine British institution, with teams from two universities each week pitting themselves not only against each other, but also against the prospect of being found wanting before the witheringly unforgiving gaze of inquisitor Jeremy Paxman.

Surely I can't be alone in thrilling to the prospect of an Oxbridge college being trounced by one of the 'new' universities, or relishing the depth of disdain that flavours one of Paxman's put-downs as a student gets an answer so terribly wrong? That's part of the programme's charm, along with its 'split screen' format that places one team above the other during the 'starter for ten' questions. As young teenager, I used to think they really were on top of each other, and thought how wonderful it was to be the 'top' team, like getting the top bunk bed.

The Challenge has been going for over forty years, and I've always thought of it as a game for undergraduates, most likely in the second or third year of their studies, anxious to show their parents and the rest of the country that they knew not only stuff, but pretty clever stuff too. They could answer questions on physics, literature, mathematics and art. They knew the name of Bill Sykes' dog and how many Champagne bottles make a Jeroboam, but they were also pretty adept at Boyle's Law and all things biological, and they were probably only just out of their teens.

But now it's all changed, and not for the better in my view. The playing field, such as it is, is no longer level. More often than not, the line up of four team members will include one or more postgraduate students, studying for PhDs in any number of esoteric topics. Some of them even look old enough to be, well, if not my Dad, then at least my older brother. And they don't just know how many bottles make a Jeroboam, they've lived long enough to drink several more of them than the undergraduates they replace.

What next? In an effort to gain victory at all costs, will the team selectors bypass the undergraduates altogether and just get their professors in?

The lights are on, and somebody's home...

WELCOME to the new place! Can you smell the fresh paint? I know eggshell finish stinks for a while, but it's harder wearing than your usual emulsion, and it has a touch of classical elegance to it, don't you think? It's a memory of times past, of stately homes and school corridors, redecorated over the summer holidays, waiting to be filled with the clamour of fresh-faced pupils, scrubbed clean by their parents and sporting razor sharp creases in their regulation grey trousers.

Tomorrow is my 50th birthday. What started sometime in February 1958, possibly even with the words, 'Oh, go on then, if you're quick', has now managed a half century on the planet. So, to commemorate the occasion, I am starting this blog. It's my first venture into web publishing, so please be gentle with me.

Becoming fifty has made me aware of two things: that I'm realistic enough to know that no-one will have the slightest interest in anything I've got to say, and that I'm curmudgeonly enough to say them anyway and hang the consequences. I've also realised that 50 years is plenty of time to accumulate a vast array of things I don't understand, or don't like, or make me laugh in public at inappropriate moments. And, I suppose, that's what I feel like sharing with what will surely become, given time, a readership numbering just slightly less than one.

I'm guessing it will be a mixed bag, so if you do happen to stumble upon this by mistake, please feel free to have a look around, and check back from time to time - you may find something to amuse or annoy you!

In the meantime, though, I have a birthday celebration to go to.