I didn't follow dad's advice (From Gazette & Herald)

I didn't follow dad's advice

I WRITE this on Boxing Day, and by the time it is read another year will have ended and we shall be at the start of another new beginning - a chance to make a fresh start, although one doesn't seem to hear much about new year resolutions these days. It is perhaps something that we have outgrown as the years have gone by and is now considered to be 'kids stuff'. Nevertheless, if you're thinking it's time to make a fresh approach, what better than the New Year? Best wishes to you!

Talking of time, we had a wooden wall clock in my family as far back as I can remember. It had two springs, the left one for the chime and the right for the clock movement. A pendulum with an adjustable circular brass weight swung slowly from side to side, and still does as I sit here. My dad had told me never to touch his clock, which he religiously wound every Friday evening, and I never did. Except for once when I climbed upon a chair and pushed the minute hand past the hour, after which it struck hours at the half hour, and other such anomalies. Father suspected that I'd had a hand in this state of affairs, and I can't now remember whether I admitted to this or not, but he set to and got it back into synchronisation again, with a further warning I expect.

One day it became mine, and some years later I over-wound the clock spring and broke it. The cost of a new spring at the time was greater than a week's wage, and so I dismantled the clock, took out the spring from its barrel and cut off the broken portion. Heating the end, and putting a new locating hole in, I got it back into shape again. It was great to have its comforting tick-tock back again - I'd lived with it all my life - but now there is a slight snag. Whereas the mechanism had run for seven days, and winding could take place on the same day each week, now, with having a shorter spring, it doesn't quite make the seven days. Rather than wait for Friday evenings, I have to keep an eye open for a stationary pendulum as it slowly works its wind-up day a little earlier each week. From a seven-day clock to a six-and-a-half-day clock, an unintentional achievement, but I still have the tick-tock, tick-tock!

I actually watched TV on Christmas Day, seeing Blind Date followed by Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Throughout both programmes, a background banging noise has been introduced - like the noise you hear coming from the small hatchbacks which cruise round, only fortunately, not so loud. Why, I wonder, do programme producers think that we, the listeners, need to have a constant bang-bang, as the programme unfolds? There is little, if any, variation in the bang pattern, except, just as it finishes, when an extra beat might be included. In fact, an actual drummer is really not necessary, as this could be done by a simple machine with a striker which hits an empty box with regularity, but of course that could be done by electronics today. Come to think of it, I wonder if it is? Meanwhile, local radio will continue, no doubt, to broadcast various news, travel or weather items in a high-speed voice, accompanied by a 'musical' background, so that you can hear neither properly. It's all a bit infantile, and more than one person has told me that they no longer listen because of these problems. Happily, the news and weather on the national stations don't seem to find the need to include background music.

And, whilst on the subject of media, have you noticed how so many of the girls, mostly attractive-looking lasses, have such poor diction. Some hardly open their mouths, others talk with teeth almost closed, some gabble so fast that one often wonders however they were selected for their job. I have a book with the title "Broadcast English" and a forward by the then BBC director-general, J C W Reith, dated June 1928, setting out an attempt at a uniformity of both principle and pronunciation which ought to be recommended reading for all would-be announcers, weather girls etc. Alternatively, they should have to compulsorily listen to H M The Queen's Christmas message or Julie Andrews. Both can be heard and understood clearly. Why? Because they both take their job seriously, with the intention that the listeners shall hear what is said. And they succeed!

Malton held its Christmas festivities in the usual manner. The world's greatest Christian celebration, except that Malton's was overseen by the flag of Vespasian flying from our town hall. Vespasian and his son were the greatest Christian persecutors of them all. I just cannot understand what muddled thinking caused this burden to be placed on us, and why it is allowed to continue. Would the same apathy be shown to a profile of Adolph Hitler flying from our town hall, a man who ordered the persecution of the Jewish people, or Benito Mussolini, or Joseph Stalin, who likewise eliminated all opposition during his Great Purge of 1936-38? So why was Vespasian welcomed by our local civic leaders with smiling faces? 2003 - time for a change!

Have a chuckle: The local drinkers were gathered round the bar in the village pub when the Devil walked in. Frightened, they all left their drinks and rushed outside. Except for one elderly gent.

"D'you know who I am?" asked the Devil. "Of course," replied the local.

"Aren't you afraid of me then?"

"Nay - Ar'm not frightened o'thee". "Why's that?" asked the Devil.

"Ar've been livin' wi' thi' sister for't last forty years," was the reply.

Updated: 11:25 Wednesday, January 08, 2003