We did that!

Taken very hurriedly outside my house this evening. The black line is a telegraph wire. The white line is the International Space Station.

True story: Last year, my mate Karen received a phone call from the International Space Station. She was out. So the astronaut left a message that he'd call back later. Which he did.

(Stuff came out my nose.)

An oddly garbed gentelman yesterday.

It turned out that the gentleman in question was this chap to the right: Les Cutts, the Halifax town crier, who is in town to compère the Hebden Howler competition, wherein town criers from the length and breadth of the country compete to see who can shout the loudest. Or something like that.

Town criers are like morris men, people who pretend to be statues, and Big Issue sellers: I am glad that other places have them, but I don't particularly want them drawing attention to themselves in my hometown, thank you very much. (And don't get me started on so-called mime-artists.)

Then it occurred to me, what kind of ridiculous job is town crier anyway? It's the twenty-first century for Pete's sake! We all have iPhones and RSS readers these days. We don't need some loud-mouthed hooligan yelling the news at us. We can get that off the telly.

Still, though.

I wonder how they recruit town criers. Advertising for them in the local paper would demonstrate the utter pointlessness of the job: we've got a local newspaper; we don't need a town crier. I suppose, if they were going to do it properly, they would make the outgoing town crier yell out advertisements for their replacement. But that would mean that no town which didn't already have a town crier would ever be able to recruit one. Which is fine by me.

I've been thinking about this a lot, you can tell.

I didn't get to see what the Halifax town crier was buying in the chemist's. I more than half suspect it was throat lozenges.

It's not every day that someone new earns their place in the pantheon of all-time Great British Heroes. But that is exactly what Mary Bale (spinster, 45) did yesterday when this moment of selfless bravery came to light:

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by such heroism.

Come on, Your Majesty: a damehood is surely in order.

Craparazzi photographs are photographs of celebrities taken off-guard, which are so ineptly taken that you can't actually tell who they're of…

Comedy legend Les Dennis grabbing a quick coffee in Liverpool on Thursday.

As I approached, the lad stuck his head out of the shelter and announced, "'ey, mate! Me girlfriend reckons you look like one of them movie stars!"

The lad's girlfriend went scarlet. I suspect what she had actually said was something more along the lines of "Who does this fat tosser think he is? Some kind of movie star?"

I turned to the blushing girl. "Happens all the time," I said. "You're thinking of either Sean Connery or George Clooney."

I'd forgotten he were in Enter the Dragon.

R u going 2 your dads on Tues. & can u take your camera?m

I don't know when Carolyn started spelling in such an appalling way, or what the 'm' at the end stood for. Perhaps it should have rung a few alarm-bells. She went on to explain (I use the word loosely):

I wanted u 2 take a special picture of a field of flowers. If I can get a key to the field gate.

What the dapper beekeeper is wearing this season.

I replied that photographing a field full of flowers sounded right up my street.

In other words, I walked straight into it.

Read what Carolyn texted me again. Read it again very carefully: Field… Flowers… Photographs…

Do you see any mention at all of bees? Or of bee-suits?

Carolyn recently took up beekeeping, and, it turned out, she wanted some photos taking of her bees in action. But it was all right, you see, because she had a spare bee-suit, you see.

Her own bee-suit is a rather dapper affair, sensibly camouflaged to make it harder for the bees to spot her. Her spare bee-suit—the one she expected me to wear—was what can only be described as honey-coloured. It was also, it transpired, about 17 sizes too small. Carolyn literally cantered back and forth, jumping up and down in a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt at containing her laughter, as I tried to clamber into her spare bee-suit. I know I'm not exactly the sveltest of chaps, but there was no way on Earth that I was going to be able to zip it up. I couldn't ever stand fully upright in it.

So I stooped at a respectful distance, with my stomach hanging out of my borrowed bee-suit, taking photographs, while Carolyn did whatever it is that beekeepers do. Then we returned to her car, where I tried to get out of the damn bee-suit. In the end, Carolyn had to help me.

"Wait till I tell Jen that you took my clothes off!" I said.

"Just as long as you don't mention it on your website," replied Carolyn. "My niece would be mortified if she knew you'd been wearing her bee-suit."

A thought occurred to me this week:

If Lady Gaga's middle initial were an 'O', she might be mistaken for a Japanese Queen tribute band.

That is all.

Don't worry, we that we can still rely on the Telegraph to take a somewhat distorted view on reality. For instance, it looks as if the unusually dry summer is going to lead to a serious hay shortage this winter. My farmer friend is certainly praying for lots more rain. When you've got scores of organic beef cattle and sheep to feed over the winter, the price of hay is a major issue for a hill-farmer working hard to make ends meet.

Credit to them, the Telegraph has picked up on this important rural issue. But what slant do they choose to put on the story?

Telegraph: Cost of owning a horse soars as hay crops suffer in dry summer

Yes, the Telegraph still understands its readers' priorities.

Me (L), Stense (R) and prophetic sign (centre).

As of today, my babe mate Stense and I have been friends for twenty years.

H O L Y   S H I T ! !

Happy anniversary, mate. I believe a present made out of china is in order. Our upstairs loo has certainly seen better days. How are your false teeth bearing up?

Admit it, you're impressed.

Jen and I won seventy quid!

Hebden Bridge Times, 22-Jul-2010, p.5:

Metro rated best operator in region

A NEW survey of bus passengers in West Yorkshire has revealed that 91 per cent are satisfied with their journey.

The bus passenger survey, conducted by Passenger Focus, looked at how different operators and passenger transport executives handled key areas such as punctuality, frequency, provision of information and facilities at bus stops.

"I'm pleased that so many West Yorkshire bus passengers are satisfied with their bus journey," said Metro chairman Coun Chris Greaves.

"It's testament to the way Metro, the bus operators and the district councils work together to meet our aim of providing high quality, accessible transport for everyone in West Yorkshire."

"I was looking at your website the other night," she blurted. "It's not as good as it used to be."

With friends like that, who needs enemas?

I pointed out that, if Carolyn had anything constructive to say about a particular Gruts item, she could always add a comment on the website itself. "How do I do that?" she asked. Good grief! You click the comments link underneath the item in question, I explained. Sorry to make it so complicated.

For the record, Gruts has never been any good. Indeed, that's pretty much the whole point. But I got where Carolyn was coming from: too many YouTube videos and Flickr photos recently, not enough original, insightful, inciteful comment. What can I say? I've been busy.

I've been toying with the idea of making a few tweaks to the design of Gruts. Don't worry: nothing as utterly disastrous as the new-look BBC News website; just a bit of tidying up and stuff. This will no doubt encourage me to get back into the general swing of things. Longer term, I'm considering migrating the site to a proper database-based platform—but that sounds a bit too much like hard work to me (I did it for part of my Darwin site, and swore never again). A project for the long, winter nights, perhaps. Assuming I don't have some drying paint which needs watching.

Needless to say, if you have any comments (constructive or otherwise) to make on this subject, there is a rather prominent link for doing so immediately below.

On the whole, I'm all for people being allowed to do whatever the hell they like, provided they don't inconvenience anyone else. But that's the problem with guns you see: being shot by some legal gun owner who's thrown a wobbler is definitely inconvenient. I want to be protected from people like that. And the most practical way to protect me from people like that is not to allow them to own guns in the first place. Guns don't kill people; homicidal nutters with guns kill people.

Which brings me to hydrocortisone cream. Hydrocortisone is a steroid used to treat skin inflammation. I use it occasionally for the mild eczema I get behind my knees and in my elbow joints during hot weather. It works wonders. Along comes the hot weather, along comes the irritating itchiness, on goes the hydrocortisone cream, away goes the ichiness, on goes my life. Fantastic.

Last weekend, I was getting low on hydrocortisone cream, so I went to the chemist to buy some more. No problem: they had plenty. Then, as an afterthought, I made the mistake of asking for a second tube of the stuff to keep at work…

The chemist looked at me as if I'd asked to shag his wife. What sort of psychopath would want to buy two tubes of hydrocortisone cream? He explained that selling me two tubes of hydrocortisone cream was against Sharia law, the Hippocratic Oath, and three of the Ten Commandments. A definite no-no. I told him that I was 45 years old, and asked what on earth he thought I was going to do with the stuff. The chemist wasn't interested in providing an answer; he was too busy trying to repel me from his shop with a homeopathic dilution of wolf's bane. So I said I'd see him next week and left, solitary tube of hydrocortisone cream in hand.

Which brings me back to one of the things that's wrong with this country: I want to be protected from homicidal, gun-wielding nutters; I don't want to be protected from myself.

The deal is, Google's computers read your emails to work out what sort of things you might be interested in, then present you with relevant advertisements down the right-hand side of your GMail page. That's the idea, at least. But Google also let people pay to advertise to you based on your presumed interests. Google has, for example, worked out that I have a thing about Charles Darwin, so I tend to see a lot of advertisements from creationist nutjobs hoping to convince me of the error of my ways. This is fine by me: I would rather Google have the creationists' money than the creationists have it.

OK, so I fully accept that Charles-Darwin-related advertisements are probably relevant, as far as I'm concerned. But I must admit that I was a little pissed off, to say the least, when, last week, I was presented with an advertisement for Help the Aged stairlifts.

If I wanted nonsense like that, I'd be using HotMail.

Whoever dubbed soccer the beautiful game had clearly never seen women's beach volleyball.

One fat lady: number 8!

(Pity I only had my iPhone to hand: worst camera ever!)

Best goat for the 2nd year running

WINNING best in show - and best milker - in Todmorden Agricultural Show's goat section for the second year running, this year's event proved a very successful one for a teenager.

Michsica Capricole, owned and bred by 15 year old Jessica Hagain of Halifax, once again, defeated the competition.

Best Goatling was Philday Darcy owned and bred by Mr R Parkin of Howden, and Best Kid was Maxson Shamuti owned and bred by Mrs M Hagain of Halifax.

GOAT SECTION RESULTS

Saanen milkers: 1, Philday Foxiqwif - Mr R Parkin, Howden, East Yorkshire; 2, Philday Fabergone - Mr R Parkin. British Saanen milkers: 1, Philday Dressage - Mr R Parkin; 2, Wadehouse Jasmine - Mrs C Luty, Shelf, Halifax; 3, Philday Lidierlust - Mr R Parkin; 4, Micean June - M M Boocock. Shelf, Halifax.

Anglo Nubian milkers: 1, Morphie Rigmarole - Mrs L Maughan, Hamsterley, Co. Durham; 2, Kaprikel Kurdus - Mrs L Maughan; 3, Poplartime Fanella - Mrs L Maughan.

Any other variety milkers: 1, Michsica Capricole - Miss J Hagain, Hipperholme, Halifax; 2, Michsica Capriclair - Miss J Hagain.

British Toggenburg goatling: 1, Philday Statusfour - Mr R Parkin; 2, Philday Statusthree - Mr R Parkin.

Saanen goatling: 1, Philday Follyeva - Mr R Parkin. British Saanen goatling: 1, Philday Darcy - Mr R Parkin; 2, Wadehouse Lilly - Mrs C Luty; 3, Micean June - Mr M Boocock. Anglo Nubian goatling: 1, Trago Roona - Mrs L Maughan. British Alpine goatlinng: 1, Hunningley Esme.

Saanen kid: 1, Michsica Talulah - Miss J Hagain. British Saanen kid: 1, Michsica Bethany - Miss J Hagain. Anglo-Nubian kid: 1, Tragomarly Maisie - Miss C Maughan, Hamsterley, Co. Durham; 2, Trago Idhaya - Mrs L Maughan; 3, Tragomarly Mungo - Miss L Maughan. British Alpine kid: 1, Hunningley Fantasia. Any other variety kid: 1, Maxson Shamuti - Mrs M Hagain, Hipperholme, Halifax.

Further reports and pictures from Todmorden Agricultural Show will be published next week.

Nobody was more surprised than me when the damn thing actually worked:

(No, I don't know what any of it means either. So what else is new? 5 stars, obviously.)

"he was as sharp as a button"

See also: Gruts taglines