Traffic, maths and Handel

FAST + SLOW = BANG! We were bedevilled by road safety signs during our trip to the Peak District but excess didn’t end there. On a ten-mile stretch south of Leek there are three dozen speed cameras. One small village was monitored by three pairs. This has the desired effect and traffic adheres to the limits.

Yet local drivers will have sussed it all out. Such cameras cost £50,000 and no local authority could afford that investment so many must be empty boxes. Use the road regularly and you get to know which are which – and speed accordingly. Crashes between speeding locals and slow-moving foreigners have no doubt become a spectator sport.

HAND-HOLD GUIDE No prizes for guessing why I responded to this from the Oppenheimer biography; “Weinberg… observed that mathematical formulas were like temporary hand-holds for a rock-climber. Each hand-hold more or less dictates the position of the next hand-hold… ‘A record of that is a record of a particular climb. It gives you very little of the shape of the rock’.”

LIFT UP YOUR EARS Saw a different version of Messiah at the weekend: Harry Christophers and the Sixteen - a handful of period instruments and a tiny (18 members) choir, albeit all professional, singing with passion, clarity and power. For those unfamiliar with live performances of this work there is a British tradition of standing up during the Hallelujah chorus, the reason being too tedious to recount. Mrs BB and I are dubious about this but, moved by the performance, we joined in - to be rewarded by a significant improvement in the sound quality. Who can understand or prescribe the so-called science of acoustics?

... and now the nuts and bolts

Those familiar with this blog may think the helicopter (previous post) was more of an indulgence for me than for Mrs BB. Not true! She likes taking to the air and even enjoyed a float-plane flight over the mountains of New Zealand. But helicopters are techie and techie is my thing.

The financial side, however, is appalling. Our R44 Raven II (manufactured by the hopelessly mundane Robinson Helicopter Co) cost about £300,000 and demands an insurance premium of – wait for it! - £10,000. Inspections, servicing and hangerage push the flying bill to £200/hour. But it’s fast - 97 knots or, say, a ground speed of 120 mph. At one point Anthony, our pilot, needed to increase our cruising altitude of 1000 ft by half that again. Done in a veritable eye-blink.

But no hovering. It’s too expensive in fuel, I believe, and that’s why we missed our daughter’s village. Nostalgists who respond to quarter-inch plate would have been disappointed by the R44’s fragility. The doors flap like leaves and the joystick (or whatever it’s called) is a mere 10 mm aluminium tube. Weight-saving is apparent wherever you look.

Such a lightweight craft is sensitive to natural forces. We flew through a col in the Malverns where hillwalkers were able to look down on us. The approach was tranquil but the wind beyond the col buffeted our port side. Instrumentation is almost minimal; the top screen above the panel is a humdrum satnav, not much different from the one that guided our car to the Drum and Monkey. Nevertheless, I fear it’s the only way to travel.

Away from Channel gales

Forty-nine years ago Mrs BB and I emerged into a gale from the church of St Mary and St Eanswythe on Folkestone’s cliff tops (there’s a Turner painting that includes it) and stumbled into our married life. Today’s celebration was more tranquil and more uplifting. I’d arranged things secretly and Mrs BB, bemused by an hour’s drive into Worcestershire, swears she thought we were going to buy a sapling. In fact she spent the drive wondering how to dissuade me from this since we already have too many trees in our garden.The rendezvous was The Drum and Monkey near Upton-on-Severn where we later had lunch. Since the pub didn’t open until midday bemusement continued as we sat in the car making forced conversation.All was explained when a small helicopter (belonging to the egregious Richard Hammond of “Top Gear” as it happened) landed in an adjacent field and Anthony Stockman, our pilot, beckoned us over.

We failed to see the tiny fifteen-house village in Gloucestershire where our younger daughter lives. Nor did we spot the equally tiny village of Sellack which accommodates one of our favourite gastropubs. The area’s rural beauty is a constant diversion.But it’s not all beauty. We found Chez Bonden by first identifying Tesco, deservedly diminished from the air. Then up Golden Valley (location of the C. S. Lewis bio-film, Shadowlands) flanked by the Brecon Beacons,

a circular tour of Hay-on-Wye (above), down the Wye to skirt Hereford, pop over a gap in the Malverns and back to the D&M. With time to reflect on the randomness by which couples are brought together.

Why was he born at all?

I’ve had four near-death experiences. Technology was significant in three; absence of technology caused the fourth.
CLOSE KISS ONE Aged six or seven, I caught meningitis. Previously it would have been the Kiss of Death or being left as a vegetable, preferably not an aubergine. Luckily M&B sulfanilamide had just been invented and I lived on, my mental capacities only slightly diminished. Before, I was on course to be a genius.
CLOSE KISS TWO Unable to cure my athlete’s foot, the RAF flew me back from Singapore to Blighty as a CASEVAC (casualty evacuation). We took off in heavy rain from Negombo in what was then Ceylon. At a point close to no-return the pilot knew we weren’t going to make it and slammed on the brakes. The jungle loomed. This was 1957 when planes crashed a lot.
CLOSE KISS THREE Riding my motorbike down a steep hill, with the whole of my LP collection stuffed in the front of my raincoat, I met a car (the make of which I shamefully cannot recall) across the road, hit it amidships, somersaulted over the top, and not an LP was scratched.
CLOSE KISS FOUR I embarked on a solo ascent of a route called Fairy Steps (rated Very Difficult) which I had climbed before. A flake of rock weighing perhaps a ton and which had supported many other climbers over decades, broke off, broke in two and fell with my unroped body into a narrow gulley to form a Bonden sandwich.

OBSERVATIONS (1) No previous-life flashes. (2) No curses. (3) No Arghhhh. (4) I was being saved to write this blog.

PS: My brother, having read this post, sent me a photo of the Fairy Steps climb before the I unwittingly modified the route.

Saving bikers and my pocket

Back from the Peak District national park where they have a problem. On the narrow curvaceous roads motorbike riders have the life expectancy of a second-lieutenant in WW1. To ram this home accident spots are flagged with yellow Biker Crash Zone notices (in one case a mere 15 m apart), reinforced with others saying, typically, “39 bike riders have been killed or injured on this road”. Turn off that road and another notice announces that 22 riders have been turned into mince on the new road.

Very laudable. Bikers are more sinned against than sinning and always come off worst in a car/bike symbiosis. Regard them as a threatened species. But there are limits. When it doesn’t rain the Peak District is beautiful if austere territory. The frequency of these proclamations detracts from what one sees. Of course the scenery could become so yellow-spotted bikers won’t be tempted to go there.

TOO MUCH, I SAY Following a post about the irritations – financial and dermatological – of shaving, Avus put me right and I shall continue with the swivel-head Bic he recommended. However, in a gesture parallel to Christ being tempted by the Devil, my daughter bought me, inter alia, a Gillette Fusion Power for my birthday. This not only has a five-blade head and a trimmer for the bit under my nose but is also battery powered so that it jiggles across my face.

It has one big advantage – it requires almost no pressure and I finish shaving without feeling flayed. But I shall eventually discard it. The blades cost £2.40 each! I do not – could not – love my face that much.

The editorial mangle

Journalism is fun when you’re learning something new, especially if the interviewee is reluctant. But more time is spent re-writing than digging out news.

As a professional gesture to the local community I create a quarterly newsletter extracted from council minutes. This involves two imperatives: to make the minutes more zippy and to reduce the raw material into a presentation printed on two sides of A4. Briefly, I shrink 6000 words down to 1000.

At school it was called a précis and there were rules to be learned. Faced with such a task most people would thrash around a bit whereas it took me 2½ hours. And so it should. I’ve done it for 44 years. Fifteen years ago it would have taken me longer because I’d have had to keep re-adjusting the wordage to fit the magazine space available. This morning my output went straight into a template I’d already created and I was re-adjusting as I was writing. All hail the benefits of DTP.

Because after those 2½ hours I not only had the finished text but it was shaped, coloured and headlined in a file suitable for emailing to the company who will print the 1700 copies for distribution.

Publishing, as much as any industrial activity, has profited enormously from the computer. Much drudgery has disappeared, leaving the writer to concentrate on writing. Of course computers have also removed some of the hidey-holes that bad writers used to conceal their incompetences. OK for a hard-nosed editor, less so for the shy debutante who’s just joined the ship. But then I enjoyed being a hard-nosed editor too.

Onions deconstructed

In a kitchen the onion is second only to the potato in importance; in the wider world it seems a limited basis for entertainment. Hence an investigatory visit to the Newent Onion Fair.

We could easily have missed the onions. The streets of this little Gloucestershire town were host to carousels, a Ferris wheel, slides, stalls selling cheese, wine and sausages and stalls run by charities and local organisations. “In the community hall,” we were told.

Stepping inside I stepped back fifty years to my weekly newspaper days when vegetable shows ruined many a Saturday afternoon I’d have preferred to devote to rock-climbing or motorbiking. This was the original nucleus of the larger event in Newent: a gardening competition based on onions. Produce arranged in a layout as far removed from nature as possible. Rosettes had been awarded; condemnation too. Against one exhibit was attached – rather cruelly I thought – a note saying that one onion’s diameter had exceeded 30 mm and was therefore disqualified.

Zach slid, rotated and consumed a whistle made out of sweetmeats. He also climbed enthusiastically into a fire engine. This reminded me of our local fun fair intended to gather data for a parish plan. I quote from the newsletter: BARRETT BONDEN. General dogsbody. Accosted at 11.30, and then every 20-minutes by a ten-year-old who wanted to know when the fire engine would arrive. Told the ETA was 2 pm, he showed up at 2.05 pm to register what was clearly an official complaint. “The engine might be attending a fire,” BB said. The lad’s frown suggested this wasn’t a plausible excuse.

Kids love fire engines

An ageist bike and a new mag

I drive an old man’s car – ie, with an automatic gearbox. However it is a car for old men who appreciate technology. The auto-box is light-years away from the power-hungry “slush pumps” of yesteryear and incorporates two conventional clutches which ensure very speedy changes up and down the six gears. If I flick the lever sideways I can change (and hold) gears manually, useful when travelling down steep winding roads.

Amazingly Honda now offer such a box for their heavier touring bikes. I admire Honda but this may be a step too far. An important feature of bike-riding, apart from a willingness to fall off every now and then, is the speed and ease with which one can change gear. A veritably sensual experience which even old men should not be denied. I foresee a mouth-foaming reaction from one biker who isn’t even old – Avus, are you there?

NEW TITLE Wired is a successful American magazine devoted to technology (plus Ideas, Culture, Business, according to the strapline). Now there’s a UK edition which, most recently, tests slim laptops, the ultimate chair, and “lawn mowers vs. sheep”. Major features include the search for dark matter, the physics of skateboarding, trials riding and free running, and an explanation of synthetic biology. Another major feature – which I avoided – explored Richard Branson’s greenness.

I like it because it slots in underneath pure science for which I lack the education. But I worry about its sustainability. The emphasis is cutting edge and I’m not sure there’s enough of that to go around. I hope it doesn’t lurch into history or repetition. A Christmas present?