Cold callers

In his “Divine Comedy” Dante assigned various sinners to their particular circle of Hell, the implication being that certain sins were more or less terrible than others and the eternal punishment should be adjusted accordingly.

However, if, while he was penning his masterpiece, Dante’s phone had been constantly ringing with invitations to buy this or invest in that, I rather fancy that he would have been tempted to assign a particularly unpleasant never-ending fate to the cold caller!

These people are the bane of my life! There I am, at my keyboard, just struck with a thought that I want to jot down, or having just hit upon the right phrase to use, or aware that I need to check something, when the phone goes and it’s another s*dding cold caller!

They come in various guises. There are those that start: “Can I please speak to the householder?” or “Am I speaking to Mr Welford?”, to which the answer is always a curt “No” (a lie in the latter case, but it’s a sin I don’t mind committing from time to time). Sometimes there is a long pause, followed by a voice in a very foreign accent; these calls probably originate in India or somewhere similar – the phone goes down instantly.

Some are a bit more worrying. This morning’s was “I’m calling from XYZ Security because there has been a spate of burglaries in your area”. My suspicious mind wonders if the reason for this is that people have been happily discussing their lack of security with perfect strangers over the phone!

My son has suggested a range of fun alternatives to my usual option of putting the phone down almost instantly. Said son is welcome to play silly b*ggers if he likes, but he may have a point. If the cold caller gets the impression that this house is occupied by a complete bunch of weirdos, he or she might reckon that not much business will be forthcoming from it.

Thus an answer along the lines of: “Do you mind, I’m busy mowing the kitten” (stolen from John Cleese, that one) might cause a sharp indrawing of breath at the other end. My son has also tried reversing the call, such as “Actually, I’m glad you called, because I’m looking into finding a way of marketing my line of designer earwigs – could you give me a few tips as to how cold calling might help?” He usually only gets as far as “earwigs” before the line goes dead.

I’ve never been that brave, although I have answered calls from the AA (Automobile Association) with a slurred “I’m so glad you’re there – Alcoholics Anonymous is just what I need”.

Anyway, nuff said. If anyone has any better tips that will dissuade cold callers from trying again and again, I’d be willing to listen – as long as you don’t phone, of course!

© John Welford

Cockney rhyming slang

Visitors to London are often puzzled by the strange expressions used by many of its inhabitants in their everyday speech, as in “Hello, me old china, fancy a butchers at me new jam jar? Hey, I like your whistle! How’s the trouble and strife?” These are examples of Cockney rhyming slang, and there are five in the quote just given.

One thing to make clear is that not all Londoners are Cockneys, but their slang has spread far beyond their “zone”, and many examples have become common expressions in the English of people who have never lived anywhere near London. To be strictly accurate, a Cockney is someone who was born within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church (pictured), which is just to the east of St Paul’s Cathedral. However, the bells are not heard very often these days, and even when they do sound, the noise of the modern city has limited their range considerably. For practical purposes, a Cockney can be reckoned to be a working-class Londoner who lives in the east end.

Rhyming slang appears to have emerged around the 1840s among the local traders who sold goods from carts or stalls and were known as costermongers. It is possible that the slang developed as a form of private language with a view to confusing anyone who was not local, particularly any “toffs” who might have wandered into their patch. Alternatively, it could have started as a sort of verbal word game, with one person trying to guess what another person meant.

The rhymes are quite basic, and stand for everyday words, so “apples and pears” means “stairs” but some of them have a certain relevance to the intended word, so when a Cockney refers to his wife as the “trouble and strife” he has more than just a rhyme in mind!

What really confuses the uninitiated is the fact that the actual rhyming word is often omitted, as in “whistle” above. Here, the full expression is “whistle and flute” which rhymes with “suit”. Indeed, the rhyme is just as often omitted as spoken, so references to a “syrup”, “china” or “barnet” need a bit of working out (“syrup of figs” for “wig”, “china plate” for “mate” and “Barnet Fair” for “hair”).

Many people use rhyming slang regularly with ever knowing that they are doing so. The common phrase “give us a butchers”, has spread far beyond London to mean “let’s have a look” (from “butcher’s hook”), and many a young man has referred to a woman’s breasts as “bristols” without appreciating the original rhyming slang of “Bristol cities” for “titties”.

Sometimes it is not easy to work out the origin of a slang term, simply because the original “rhyme word” is no longer in common use. An example of this is “kettle” for “watch”. This only makes sense as “kettle on the hob” to rhyme with “fob”, although nobody today uses a pocket watch attached to their waistcoat by a fob chain.

Cockney rhyming slang has often used the names of well-known people, and it is a sign of having really arrived in the public’s consciousness when somebody is featured in the slang vocabulary. Winona Ryder will doubtless be delighted to know that she is rhyming slang for “cider” and Britney Spears is “beers”.

Mind how you go as you walk down the field (of wheat, meaning street). Don’t go Pete Tong (wrong), but always be Isle of Wight. You’d better Adam and Eve it!

© John Welford

Coasteering

Not surprisingly, the first thing you need for coasteering is a coast! Not just any coast, but one with cliffs that are not too high, and a sea that is safe to fall or jump into from said cliffs. The aim is to make your way along the cliffs, rock climbing in places and swimming in others.

Coasteering is not a sport that should be tackled alone, but only as part of an organized group that is led by properly trained and experienced instructors. That means that they will not take you to coasts that are inherently dangerous, or in conditions of tide or weather that will put you at undue risk. It is also a summertime activity when the water is not too cold.

Of course, if you scramble along cliffs and jump into the sea, there is a risk that you could be injured. No extreme sport is entirely without risk. However, the whole point of doing these things is to challenge yourself, to achieve something that you never thought you could do, and to come home in one piece.

Within the United Kingdom, the south-west peninsula offers a number of coasteering possibilities, due to the rocky coastline of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. One very popular location is Newquay in Cornwall, which is also internationally renowned for its surfing beaches. The lifeguards who look after your safety on the beach could be the same people who take you coasteering.

The Newquay centre offers a variety of coasteering experiences, from a two to three hour trip along the coast to a four-hour military-style expedition for experienced coasteerers only, this including a swim through a sea cave. Some of the trips include guidance on the flora and fauna of the cliffs, although every effort is made to avoid disturbance to the birds and animals for which this is their home.

The Pembrokeshire coast of south-west Wales is another popular coasteering location, such as Strumble Head near Fishguard. As well as the thrill of jumping off cliffs into safe pools of water, there are seabirds all around and the bemused looks of nature’s coasteerers, although the seals tend not to climb the cliffs a lot!

In North Wales, the cliffs of Anglesey and the Llyn Peninsula offer many coasteering opportunities, and the activity can be combined with rock climbing and other sports in nearby Snowdonia. Abersoch, on the Llyn, is like Newquay in that it is also a Mecca for surfers.

In Scotland, there is a coasteering centre near Fort William, which is overlooked by the highest mountains in Great Britain. Coasteers are taken by rigid inflatable boats to find cliffs and sea caves and experience some of the wildlife that can only be properly seen at sea level, such as otters and sea eagles.

Coasteering is available at many other places in Britain, with around 100 centres licensed to offer this sport. Most of the centres are on the west coast because that is where the most interesting cliff scenery is to be found. However, there are locations in places such as Fife on the east coast.

Although coasteering has been developed mainly in the United Kingdom, it has also become popular in other countries with rocky coastlines, such as France, Croatia and Ireland.

However, it has to be emphasised again that this is not a “go it alone” activity. Jumping off cliffs is an inherently dangerous thing to do, and there are many places where coasteering is far from safe. However, for an adrenalin rush second to none, in the company of similarly-minded people, it is hard to beat!

© John Welford

Children during marital breakdown

Marital breakdown is always a tragedy of dashed hopes, but at least most adults know that they can get over it, build new relationships, and start all over again.

However, for the children of the marriage this is not so easy. If they have spent their whole lives being looked after by two people, and one of them suddenly leaves the scene, the result is devastating. What many parents forget is that children look to each parent for different things----their mother may be the person to go to for emotional support, whereas dad is much better for solving practical problems (or maybe, of course, the other way round!). Take away one side of that equation and the child’s security has been damaged, possibly beyond repair.

 

What parents who are faced with this situation must always remember is that the interests of the children must always come first, second and third. They must also have the humility to admit that they may not be the best persons to make that judgment. There have been too many cases of marital breakdown where one partner has committed suicide and killed the children as well, in the mistaken and tragic belief that the kids would be better off dead.

 

The best coping mechanism is therefore to seek professional help as soon as possible. In the

 

For example, if the family consists of more than one child, will it be best for them to be split between the parents, or should they stay together? The parents will doubtless have their own views on this, but those of the children may well be different.

 

The problems can be even trickier when a marriage between people of different nationalities is involved. In a noted case in the UK, the daughter of a Scottish mother (living in the remote Western Isles) and a Pakistani father decided to fly off with the father back to Pakistan, where she has accepted Islam and adopted Muslim dress. The Scottish court ruled in favour of the mother, but the Pakistani court favoured the father. The wishes of the daughter were being given consideration, and the arrangement now in place does appear to be what the girl wants. This was not easy for the mother to cope with, of course, but the opposite solution would have led to even more anguish for all concerned.

 

How parents cope in cases of child custody is less important than how the children cope. The best coping mechanism for a parent must therefore involve ensuring that the children are helped as much as possible. If you are ever in this situation, please bear in mind that although the break-up may be a matter of some relief, even celebration, for you, for your children it will seem much more like a bereavement. If you can cope on behalf of your children you will also do so on behalf of yourself.

© John Welford

Charity shops as second-hand bookshops

The central shopping streets of British towns and cities have been having a hard time in recent years. Many shops, both large and small, have closed their doors in the face of competition from out-of-town shopping centres, central undercover malls, and the Internet with its myriad opportunities for people to shop from home.

As retail premises have become vacant, many of them have been snapped up by national and local charities which have taken advantage of the opportunity to trade donated goods for much-needed funds. Many High Streets, especially in smaller towns, now seem to have more charity shops in them than any other kind of business premise, and the growth trend seems set to continue.

Charities have certain advantages that ordinary retailers do not have. For one thing, all the stock they offer for sale has been donated, so the prices they charge their customers can undercut those of their commercial competitors. Added to that, they do not have to levy VAT (value added tax) on their sales. They are staffed mainly by volunteers, so there are few salaries to be paid (the shop manager is often a paid employee, but is likely to be the only one). Although charity shops must pay rent to the landlord of the property, they will get relief from most, if not all, of the business rates that they would otherwise have to pay.

One of the categories of business enterprise that has almost disappeared from town centres is the second-hand bookshop. Well-established concerns that had been going for generations have found that they can no longer make a profit in times of rising costs and falling sales. They have fallen victim to Internet sales and to national chains such as “Works” that sell nearly-new remaindered stock at second-hand prices. The Internet has dealt them a double whammy by killing off the book-reading and book-buying habit that once sustained the second-hand book trade. Many people prefer to read books on a Kindle than in hard copy.

So where does the dedicated book buyer (there are still a few left!) go when the urge takes him or her to browse for a bargain? Increasingly, the answer is the charity shop.

The general stock-in-trade of most charity shops is clothing, but most also have at least a few shelves of books in them, usually tucked away towards the back of the shop. There are even some charities, such as Age UK and Oxfam, that have set up complete second-hand bookshops of their own.

So what are the advantages of visiting charity shops when searching for books?

As might be guessed from the preceding comments, books sold in charity shops are likely to be cheaper than those in traditional second-hand bookshops. Without all the expenses that a traditional bookseller must meet, not to mention the fact that the purpose of a charity shop is to benefit a good cause rather than offer a living wage to the shop’s owner, prices can be kept very low indeed.

Charity shops are used to people offering to pay more for an item than the price marked on it, or to say “keep the change” at the till, so they can easily afford to offer low prices. The charity is unlikely to suffer from setting prices too low. Besides, it is in the shop’s interest to clear space on the shelves as quickly as possible in order to make room for other stock that is sitting in a box somewhere. If a book does not sell, at any price, it is quite likely to be thrown out, simply so that something else can be displayed in its place.

Due to this rapid turnover of stock, the book buyer will find that revisiting a shop on a regular basis will mean viewing a whole new collection of books to choose from. If there is nothing of interest one week, there may very well be something the week after.


And the disadvantages?

Except in the specialist charity bookshops mentioned above, it is unlikely that the staff will know an awful lot about books. They are unlikely to have much idea about how to arrange the books in a logical way, except maybe a general division between fiction and non-fiction. The browser may therefore have to scan all the shelves in the book area of the shop in order to find items of interest.

More importantly, a “real” second-hand bookseller is in a position to talk to customers about items that he knows might be coming along, or he can promise to look out for specific titles or editions that a customer wants to find and put them to one side as and when they turn up. He is a buyer as well as a seller, and will match what he buys (from house clearances or auctions, for example) to what he knows about the requirements of his clientele. This is not the sort of service to be expected from a charity shop, where what you see is what you get.

In conclusion, if you want to buy second-hand books in Britain today you may have little choice other than to explore what the charity shops have to offer. The experience of exploring the dimly lit recesses of a second-hand bookshop, spending hours getting covered in dust in the hope of unearthing something that might have been there for years just waiting for you to find it, is probably one that will only rarely be enjoyed in future. In its place is the excitement of seeing what has just appeared on the shelves of the charity shop, and then visiting all the other similar shops that may be close by.

It must not be forgotten that charity shops exist for one purpose only, which is to raise funds that will be used to alleviate poverty, fund research into killer diseases, or provide services that cannot be supplied out of public funds. Buying from a charity shop is therefore a good thing to do. And there is also the thought that, if you don’t like what you have bought, you can always take it back so that someone else can buy it next week!

© John Welford

Canal locks

The canal lock is a simple yet highly effective device that solves the problem of how to get boats to go uphill on rivers and artificial waterways. Navigation on rivers is possible for many miles when the river is slow-moving and only dropping by a small amount as it moves towards the sea, but when the gradient increases and the water flows faster, it becomes impossible for vessels to proceed. Likewise, canals cannot always be level – they have to go up and down hill in order to get from A to B if the places in question are at different heights above sea level or there is a hill that gets in the way.

China had an extensive canal system in ancient times – back as far the “BC” years – but the gradient problem was avoided rather than tackled. When a lock was required, it took the form of a barrier against which the water was allowed to build up. When the barrier was raised the water rushed down and took any boats with it. However, this was not very useful for boats that wanted to go upstream, as they would have to be carried round the barriers or their cargoes unloaded and carried round to another boat that was waiting on the other side.

In 983 AD an engineer called Chiao Wei-Yo had the idea of placing two barriers a short distance apart and creating a pound of placid water between the two which could be filled and emptied under complete control. Although the water could only ever flow in one direction, a boat could proceed upstream just as easily as downstream by riding on the rising or falling water in the pound.

The idea was re-invented in Europe in the fourteenth century, with the first “pound lock” being built at Vreeswijk in Holland in 1373.

However, one problem with early locks was that they relied on gates being lowered and raised into and out of the water. This meant that only boats below a certain height could use them. The problem was solved in the 16th century with the invention of the “mitre gate”, which is a double gate that closes to form a V shape pointing upstream, such that the pressure of water keeps it firmly closed. Water is allowed into the lock via sluices in the gate (or via channels around the gate in many modern locks) until the height in the lock is the same as that outside, at which point the gates can be swung open to admit or release a boat.

The beauty of this design is that thousands of gallons of water can be moved through a lock, together with boats weighing many tons, without any power being needed other than that of the water itself and the physical strength of the boat owner to open and close the gates and operate the sluices. As with most processes, there are ways of getting it wrong as well as right, but most canal users get the hang of operating locks very quickly and with only the minimum amount of instruction being needed.

© John Welford

The Butler Cabin

One thing I miss now that Hootie Johnson is no longer Chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club is his welcome to “the historic Butler Cabin” at the start of that very odd ceremony of presenting the green jacket to the winner of the Master’s golf tournament.

Leaving aside the reason why this ceremony takes place in a room in a cabin in front of an open fireplace, with nobody to witness it apart from TV viewers across the world, it’s that word “historic” that always struck me as being interesting. Agreed, Billy Payne, who conducted the ceremony after Hootie retired in 2006, described the cabin as being “famous”, but Hootie always stuck to “historic”.

So that must mean, presumably, that the cabin is of considerable age, or that some great event took place here. Given that Augusta is in Georgia, perhaps this was the scene of some Civil War battle or siege? Did the heroic Butler family, armed with only pitchforks and a blunderbuss, hold off an army of Northerners until they were starved into submission? Or perhaps Butler was a Confederate general who, with his trusty companions, planned their tactics around the table, in front of this very fireplace, where now last year’s winner turns into a butler for the day as he helps his successor into a jacket that is two sizes too big or too small?

OK, this is golf we are talking about here, so maybe we should limit the history to that of golf. The Masters was first held in 1934, so presumably the Butler Cabin was the original clubhouse, and this was where Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts drew up the rules? Or was it from here that the first players set off for the first tee?

We Brits appreciate that, to an American, history describes anything that happened the day before yesterday, so a building that dates from the mid 1930s could conceivably be “historic”, especially if it witnessed events of great importance to the story of the sport for which it is renowned, but it turns out that the truth is somewhat different.

Indeed, the “historic” Butler Cabin has seen far less history than the course on which it sits, having been built as recently as 1964 and the first green jacket ceremony only took place there in 1965. So when exactly did this ceremony, and its location, become “historic”?

Even allowing for America’s foreshortened view of what constitutes history, there are other features of Augusta National that have a much better claim to the epithet. How about the Eisenhower Cabin, for example, that was built in 1953 for the use of the President, who had been an Augusta member since 1948? At least everyone knows who Eisenhower was!

© John Welford