I discovered last night that a very dear friends mum passed away last week. I don’t want to say too much about it, because it is a personal matter, but I would just like to say that she had been a presence in my life for what must have been nearly 3 decades and despite, at times, behaving like the sort of person that mothers steer their children away from, she always welcomed me and on many occassions went that extra mile to help me out. While it is almost impossible to fully measure the impact of one persons life, I know that hers was a positive one for all those who had the pleasure to meet her.

I can’t begin to imagine how my mate must be feeling but he’s in my thoughts. Take care matey.

I know I am a few days behind the times but I was struggling to find a suitable thing to say, and as is often the way the best thing to do is to let someone else speak for you. The song is called ‘Overcome’ by a band called Live who I was a fan of for a lot of years, but have somewhat lost touch with recently. If memory serves the song was to be a single release from their fifth album and came out about the same time as the WTC attacks of 9/11. It’s funny how two completely seperate events can come to share a significance with one another beyond what was ever thought.

Hopefully my first attempts at embedding video don’t let me down.

No longer is the simple walking stick the preserve of the elderly and infirm. A renaissance is taking place and once more the humble walking stick takes on the mantle of fashion accessory and must have item. So maybe now the time is right to reiterate the basics of taking care of your walking stick so it lasts a lifetime.

Getting the sizing right
Good stick care begins the day you purchase your stick. Wander in to any store selling walking sticks and you’ll find a range mostly the same sort of size (generally around 35 – 36 inches). Now step back and look at the people in the store, not an average size amongst them I’ll bet. So the first thing to do is get a stick that suits your size, this reduces the risk of doing yourself some damage by using a stick that is too long or short and uncomfortable to carry, and you also run the risk of reducing the life of the stick.

A suitable ferrule
For those with a quizzical expression, a ferrule is the generic name for the ‘thing’ you use to cover and protect the end of your walking stick. The best, and most suitable ferrule, for you will be determined by the intended use of your stick. A rubber ferrule is by far the most common seen out and about and provides the best safety for those relying on their sticks to offer a high degree of support and stability. These will provide the best (and safest) grip on concrete and stone but will, from time to time, need replacing as they do wear down.

A metal ferrule (be that brass or even silver) provides the best degree of protection for the stick itself but obviously when pressure is applied on a wet surface has a greater tendency to slip. In my humble opinion the metal ferrule is the hardest wearing and most attractive finish to a stick, but isn’t always the most practical.

For the rugged outdoors person, why not finish your walking stick with an alpine spike, perfect for garnering greater purchase on soft ground while rambling out in the countryside, but practically useless in the city.

Caring for your walking stick
A well made stick should require only the minimum of effort to remain at its best. Simple soap and water will refresh the look of your cane after a hard days work, while an occasional coat of linseed oil will not only restore the gleam of your stick, but will provide a little extra coat of protection for a stick that has been long in service.

Repairing your stick
If your stick should become damaged it isn’t always necessary to replace the whole stick. A skilled stickmaker can often rescue the handle of a favoured stick and attach a new shaft, giving a new lease of life to a long treasured stick that is well past its best.

I consider myself very lucky. I live in a city that is surrounded on all sides by hills and moor land and some of the best rambling to be had in the country. And so, regardless of weather, most weekends will find me packing up the family and the dog and heading out into the Peak District to exercise the legs, lose a few calories and free the mind from the stresses and strains of the rest of the week.

No matter how old or physically fit you are, whether you’re a walker, a rambler or a fully fledged hiker, the must have piece of equipment these days is a good hiking stick. Whenever you are out walking you’ll see all manner of people carrying all manner of sticks. This is because the hiking stick is very useful in all manner of situations. The stick can be a godsend when hiking hills or climbing as it provides that extra point of contact with the ground and offers a further degree of leverage as you work your way upwards. And once at the summit or the end of a good walk your stick provides a welcome rest and support for tired limbs and sore backs.

So you can see that the advantages to owning a hiking stick are clear, but just what stick to by? It seems the popular trend at the moment is towards the cheap, mass manufactured skiing poles, simple aluminium pipes with plastic handles. As a cheap and easy option this is certainly the way to go, and there is no doubt that they do an adequate job, but if I may state a personal opinion, in this arena (as in many others) I think traditional is best.

A simple carved or patterned wooden hiking stick can be not only functional but extremely attractive. Praise unlikely to be heaped upon your skiing pole. Opportunities abound to personalise your stick in all manner of ways while at the same maintaining a closer relationship to the land and environment your stick is aiding you to enjoy. Wooden sticks can provide just as much support as their man made counterparts and with the addition of an alpine spike to the end can be just as useful to the hill climber and adventurer. A wooden hiking stick, handmade by a craftsman, is a unique item that with a little care and attention will last a lifetime, and what’s more will provide a talking point for your friends and fellow walkers.

I’ve had my wooden hiking stick with me for a lot of years and as the seasons and terrains have changed my stick has changed with me. It may be looking a little weathered and beaten now, but then so am I.

While stickmaking has quickly become a passionate vocation, I’ve felt something missing for a while. Finally I allowed myself a little spare time to think it through and I reckon I am missing a more literary outlet. So, for the time being at least, I shall ressurect my writing career, but this time as more of a hobby. If I come up with anything even remotely interesting I’ll post here for comment (or to be totally ignored, whichever that may turn out to be).

I’ll also try and find a moment or two to recap the last 3 months although not a grat deal of anything happened. Does it ever?

In an effort to try my hand at some DIY SEO I’ve also published one or two articles at Ezine which I will republish on the blog as well. They are all stick related and pretty dry and really little more than an attempt to drive up my Google placement. Didn’t work!!

Well, Sheffield is under water and for the first time probably since Hillsborough my city is the central focus of the national news. Living on the upslope of a hill we missed the worst of it and until we caught the news late in the day was actually quite enjoying the whole experience.
We had quite severe rain a couple of weeks back and I happened to take the dog for a walk at Endcliffe Park where the river was really high and raging, so we decided to do the same thing yesterday (with Rach and Joe in toe) so I could show them how bad it was last time. Unfortunately things were a little more severe this time as we couldn’t access the park at all from our usual spot has the river had burst its banks and flooded most of the walkways. We wandered around the perimeter and finally found a way in but there was just water everywhere. The dog (and child) had a whale of a time splashing around while Rach and I just looked on in awe at the amount and speed of the water. Having got a thorough drenching we headed back home and switched on the news at which point the severity of the whole situation became even more apparent. Needless to say we spent the rest of the evening glued to BBC News 24 with an ever increasing sense of disbelief. It really is rather odd to see places you wander every day under feet of water.
What was really quite funny though, was the way the news was desperately trying to turn it into a natural disaster of biblical proportions while the eyewitness reports from middle of the road Sheffielders didn’t really give them much scope to do so. Most folk seemed to be taking a fairly laid back approach to the whole situation, but if you only heard the newscasters ’spin’ then you’d think the city was on the brink of collapse.
Saddly there were fatalities. A 13 year old was drowned in Millhouses Park after being swept away. A tragedy for sure but during the brief stay we had at Endcliffe Park there were untold idiot children trying to cross waterlogged bridges that really weren’t safe and laughing hilariously when there footing slipped. Rach even went so far as trying to warn off a couple of girls but to no avail. The ignorance of youth I guess.

 And so just like that we shall have a new PM, a new defender of the faith, a new El Presidente. I know that an unopposed coronation gives some people pause for thought but truth be told it isn’t the first time and is a natural occurence under the terms of our own little democracy. We vote on manifestos, not personalities, which is probably just as well as we are now under the control of a dour Scot.
For all those years we spent looking over the channel for invaders, it turns out that our national sovereignty was most at threat from our neighbours to the north. They skillyfully gain their own parliament and then leave one of their own behind to run our parliament too. I joke ofcourse.
So what sort of PM will El Gordo make? Frankly I don’t have a clue though I reckon we will have a good few years to find out as we still seem to be bereft of a viable opposition in this country. The one thing I do hope is that, as the architect of the abominable tax credit system, his new position of power wont delay getting the bloody thing scrapped once and for all.

So another season is well underway and I have renewed my membership to Red Sox Nation. I also got in on the MLB.TV act a lot earlier this year and paid a preseason subscription. Thus far I’m catching more games than I’m missing and it’s been pretty good going so far. Analysts and those in the know reckon that this years Red Sox are the best team in baseball and if results are anything to go by, they could just be right.
As I predicted, we probably have the best rotation in baseball. Schilling has been pretty hit and miss but thankfully more hit than miss, though you can’t sit as comfortably when he starts anymore. Beckett has bounced back and has been unstoppable, almost literally, storming out to a 9 and 0 record to start the season. And Matsuzaka, while not exactly the phenom hoped for, has been one of the best pitchers going and looks to have settled into Boston baseball pretty well. After much Spring Training debate Papelbon went back to the bullpen as the closer and fits that role like he was born to it. The guy is going to be a legend for a lot of years to come.
Despite watching him throw away a few games late last season, the fifth starters spot went to Julian Tavarez and I’ve got a major soft spot for him now, a personality with some talent.
The only real downside thus far has been a slightly dodgy offence. Some days they fire on all cylinders and hit 10 or more, other days they can’t score a run. Worryingly of all Big Papi has looked a little out of sorts but Pedroia and Youkilis have been stellar and pretty much led the way. Long may it continue.

It appears that regardless of the weather I am to be cursed with a streaming nose, sticky ears and sore eyes. Bloody summer. I had always assumed that hayfever sufferers only suffered on lovely sunny days but it has been pissing it down for two straight days and yet I am still sounding like some demented halfwit. Maybe my allergy is to life, who knows.
If I can manage to get enough ‘puter time today I think I might get a little adventurous and try and jazz this old blog thing up a bit. I’m wanting to post some piccies in a section of their own but I’m concerned about the amount of space my free hosters are going to allow me so I might have to try a third party picture hosting site. I’m gonna try sticking some video clips on YouTube (or some such variation) and sticking them in a post here. You’ll be able to tell how well I got on by the posts above.

Okay so the last blog died a death, but I’ve find a little spare time again so with a new look and a new ethos we shall begin again.
Enjoy.

As you may have noticed this blog thing has kind of died a death. I’m just really busy with my new business…

http://www.deadwoodsticks.co.uk

Notorious holocaust denier, historian and academic cause celebre, David Irving, hosted a press conference today after being released from prison in Austria having served 13 months for holocaust denial. Both Sky News and BBC News24 showed less than 2 minutes of it and then returned to the studio for a quick rant from a token Jewish guest.

Now I share no views in common with Mr Irving, at least I think I don’t which is my main argument. I know nothing about the man. I know the central tenet of his thinking but nothing more. No fine detail, no background, no analysis, nothing. For me you have the images of the holocaust, the stories of survivors and the buildings themselves, now this is quite a lot of very tangible evidence to deny, yet Irving does and due to the ’sham’ of free speech in this country I have no idea what spurious or otherwise facts or ‘evidence’ he supplies to back up his arguments.

I don’t particularly want to put money in his pocket by buying any of his books but I am assuming that the guy has some form of historical pedigree, however discredited these days, and that at some point he must have had some involvement with academia. I want to know how firm his beliefs are, how he justifies the soundbites we get to hear on the news. But it seems I am denied this and Mr Irving never has to face confrontation. I can’t believe that anyone has anything to fear from a two sided debate, even if that debate descends into little more than a pratfall for Irving and his ilk. Or maybe he has a point, either way I’d like to know.

Bloody Christmas… that is all I have to say on the subject. Christmas is for the kids and I ain’t a kid no more so christmas has become a time of stress and anxiety (which is not good news for someone who suffers with stress and anxiety on good days). This time of year I have the overwhelming urge to run away and hide but the buggers wont let me.

For me christmas isn’t like the pictures on the cards, or the xmas specials on the TV, it’s more like an extended episode of Judge Judy.

This year I figured I would make an earlier start than normal and look into doing some of it online. Not the mad 5.30 dash on Christmas eve anymore. So I take a couple of weeks to figure out exactly what I am going to get everyone and hit the net and the usually reliable Amazon is suddenly out of stock of everything I want and a week later I’ve bought nothing and the panic is setting in again. Bah Humbug.

If you’re wondering why there hasn’t been many entries of late (and why the site hasn’t shown much movement of late) it’s because I have found a new passion / hobby / future career path. The other day I was suffering pretty bad with my back so I decided that maybe the time was right to invest in a decent walking stick. Admittedly on most days it would be little more than an affectation, it is desperately needed on others. Anyway, after a decent hunt I found that really nice ones are very expensive, and the really cheap ones aren’t very nice. So, ever the inventor, I figured why not make my own. A rather sizeable financial investment later and I’m making sticks, really enjoying it and actually quite good at it. Got about three finished so far (one test run, a crimbo gift for Jim and a native American styled one) and will post photos as soon as.

What with the disaster of the grand US trip, and a slump like none seen before, it’s been a good long while since I made any mention of the dear old Red Sox, but with winter well underway it wont be so long before the new season starts and Boston has been a hive of rumour and activity.
As ever, the off-season has been filled with trade rumours surrounding Manny Ramirez, but as of right now the smart money is on him staying for another season. Of course, after the Damon horror of last off-season one really shouldn’t take anything for granted but no-one managed to make a suitably impressive offer for Manny before Theo’s self imposed deadline for trying to do a deal for him. Naturally they are still open to offers (so you never know) but the FO will be taking a passive approach to the issue from here on in.

While Manny may be staying, a couple of defensive stars from last season wont be. Gonzo has gone to the Reds from short and Loretta wont be returning at second (to be replaced by Pedroia, who didn’t look too shabby during the playing time he got last year). It also looks more than likely than Nixon will be leaving right field and that Mirabelli is off again. A shame to lose both of them but it seems to be for offensive purposes. Then again, if no-one else manages to handle Wake then Mirabelli may be back after all.
Coming in through the ‘in’ door, we have JD Drew and Julio Lugo at right and short respectively. Again, offensive replacements really. Of much more excitement is the possible signing of Japanese phenom Matsusaka. The Sox outbid everyone to earn the exclusive rights to negotiate with him (some argued this was primarily to stop the Yanks from getting him) but have been courting him since so look serious in wanting to add him to the rotation. With Schilling in his swan song season, Beckett looking for a hyper season after the disappointments of last year, Matsusaka looking to make an immediate impression in the US, Wake being Wake and Papelbon moving out of the closer role where he dominated last year I think (touch wood) that we might actually have the best rotation in baseball and the pitching quality that we were promised last year. Admittedly the bullpen is still weak and we have no recognised closer (as Foulke looks likely to go) but with a little added punch in the line up and hot starters, we might not need to worry.

Spring Training round the corner… let’s go Red Sox!!

The news has been full of late of news regarding the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, Russian spy and hated opponent of Putin. I know it’s a horrible thing to say but the first thing that I always think of is that the Russians know how to do things.You step out of line with the man at the top and wherever you are in the world, they’ll get you. It is all very reminiscent of the ‘glory days’ of the Cold War, spies and epionage. Who needs Jame Bond when you’ve got BBC News24.

The latest developments, however, are a little more worrying on a personal level. Apparently they are checking out a heck of a lot of people that flew in from Moscow on BA for radiation poisoning. This is a little worrying on two levels, firstly that the Russians had no problem smuggling radioactive material onto a flight into London, and secondly that if the Russians could do it why not somebody else, with a more largescale devastation in mind. I’m picturing maybe only one or two carefully placed government security guys at crucial points at Moscow airport, a nod and a wink as an agent with an atache case boards a plane and away you go. We may be very stringent at this end but what about the other end? When the government is involved absolutely anything is possible. If the Russians do it why not, say, Saudi Arabia or China? Frightening prospect.

Now you may believe this or not, but I am now to be known as Reverend P.J. Morledge having been ordained by Saint Luke’s Evangelical Christian Ministeries. My ordination papers arrived on the 27th and I have to say it has created quite a curious feeling. I can’t exactly place it but there is something going on.

The piccie to the left is of their headquarters in Georgia. Quite nice looking, if not a little modern for my tastes. I’m not altogether sure exactly what I am intending to do with my new found status, but only time will tell.

It’s a little after 4 in the morning and after a little more than 4 hours sleep I’m sat downstairs with a steaming mug of coffee and a peed off frame of mind. Rachel decided to take herself off round to her friends house for a few hours (another Rachel) and for the first part she took Joe with her, not that she wanted too but he kicked up a fuss and I hadmade it clear I didn’t see why she couldn’t. Anyway, she told Tom to head across when he took his girlfriend home and bring Joe back if they weren’t home already (some chance). So Joe is home and in bed for 10.30, as is Tom and so am I.

Scroll forward a lot of hours and I hear the bedroom door creak open and the door sidle in and into her bed, Rachel did her usual trick of heading for the bathroom. I checked the clock (as I always do) and saw it was three in the morning (dirty stop-out). As I waited… and waited for her to come to bed there was all manner of bizarre noises issuing forth from the bathroom and a full 20 minutes later she appeared, claiming total ignorance for why she was so long. By that stage I needed to go myself and was hit as soon as I left the bedroom by the strong smell of vomit. The dear girl had got herself so sozzled on whatever poison was available she’d puked all over the bathroom (and not done too good a job of cleaning up after herself).

Upon my return to the boudoir I happened (as chance would have it) to ask again what the problem was with the toilet and after another denial finally coughed to having thrown up, with a rather spurious tale of a didgy pizza. Bollocks!

Now it is fair to say that I have something of a condescending nature, and that a strong Puritan streak runs through me, and anyone who knows me at all knows that alcohol, and its abuses, is one of my little bug bears. So as I lay, wide awake and fuming, she drifts off and does her customary post piss up impression of a warthog. Now just imagine how unimpressed I am! I give it half an hour but I ain’t sleeping and she ain’t stopping so I figure sod it, I may as well get up and vent my spleen to you guys (whoever you are). It wouldn’t be so bad but not sleeping really screws with my metabolism and pretty much leaves like a zombie the following day so I’ve had to cancel the usual sunday get together with the boys and willinstead catch up on sleep and quiet seeth on my own.

What’s wrong with a drink, you might ask, just to be social. By and large nothing. Personally I don’t see the point but some people do so I exercise my right not to do so and leave the rest of you to go your own way. What I don’t see is the need to drink so much the bodies self defence mechanism kicks in and repels the poison, all over my bloody bathroom floor. Frankly it’s self indulgent, purile and not a little bit stupid. It’s completely unnecessary and to be honest, childish. If you ain’t learnt some bloody self restraint by your mid thirties then clearly you have a problem, though exactly what that problemmight be I really don’t want to guess.

The other thing that really annoys me is that she thought I wouldn’t notice. I can’t abide lying. Honesty is something I demand from all my friends because anything else is just an insult to my intelligence.

In revenge, the first child to appear downstairs (which should be Joe at about eight) will be instructed to wake mummy in the noisiest most brutal way possible. The only good think about drinking? The fun we non partakers can have on the morning after.

It’s friday morning and I find myself alone again in the house and considering the purchase of a digital dictaphone. If I’m being honest with myself I’m not sure what need I have for a digital dictaphone, beyond the fact that it’s gadgetry and I want it. As a younger me I was proud to consider myself something of a Luddite. I stuck with vinyl and tapes when the CD revolution happened. I was one of the last people to give up the VHS ghost and buy a dvd player. Mobile phones and MP3 players were an absolute mystery to me for the longest time. But now, a little older and I have developed what can only be described as a fetish for all forms of electrical goods, I can’t resist. We have computers and laptops, MP3 players and phones that play MP3’s, we have DVD recorders and camcorders and digital cameras and phones that take pictures, and a freeview box. Yet here I sit, all alone, flicking through the Argus (forced edit by awardspace.com) catalogue and the pages of Ama don (yet another awardspace.com restricted word) comparing prices on a digital dictaphone that I don’t need. The insanity of it is I have a phone that will voice record, I have a microphone that’ll attach to any of the four computers in the house and record digitally, for pitys sake man I even have a dictaphone!!! Yet still I browse… I need help.

Lets see how long this post stays up shall we.

Well it has taken me a week to sort this bloody thing out. It took about three days to diagnose exactly what the problem was and then another four to work out how to fix it.

It appears that the lovely people at Awardspace.com have an extensive banned words list and if you happen to put one of them in a post then whenever you try to open a page that contains the word it will boot you to a default awardspace page. You would think that this is not necessarily a bad thing, keep the bad language down. Problem is the filter isn’t designed for swearing, it’s designed to weed out posts with references to other sites. For example, a popular method of paying for your items online, lets call it ‘pay friend’, mention that site in a post and you’re blocked. The same with a popular online store that sounds a little ‘ama con’. So, when a little while ago I posted an entry entitled ‘Age… and the art of buying consumer durables’ that dealt with me looking into purchasing a digital dictaphone, awardspace kindly blocked out the post.

The dificulty I then had was in finding exactly what post had caused the problem, and as I don’t like their ideas about restricting my freedom of speech I wanted to back up that entry somewhere so that I could repost it (which i shall do next). All told not an easy task as whenever I tried to access anything to do with that particular post, awardspace frustrated me. I don’t understand what the purpose of this policy of theirs is but I know that it stinks. As soon as I can I’m off somewhere else and they can stick their free hosting where the sun don’t shine.