Life Observed

Well beyond Uranus and Pluto, we find the Hipster belt where the planets orbit in eccentric circles and are more in touch with their inner beard.

Ah, we English. We happy few, we band of brothers. While Trump winds up a nutcase in North Korea, we are Morris Dancing in the street.  In August.  In the rain.

Alas, progress has brought us the modern coffee shop and every  high street is full of them.  We gladly join the back of the inevitable queue to be served slowly and overcharged for strangely named coffee and a foreign biscuit by an intense young man with a Captain Haddock beard.  I fear this same progress will ruin the lovely British tea shop soon. Pictured: A Butter Betty with Grimshaws .  That will be eight pounds seventy five pence please.

Once upon a time it was difficult to start the average family car. There was a special procedure in winter and a different method in summer. You needed to pull out the Choke knob just so far and no further. You also needed to have a plan if this method failed to start the car. You needed to know when it was safe to push the choke in, because doing this too early could cause the car to stop in the middle of the road. Worst of all, you would not wish the choke knob to spring back into place before you were done with it. The safest approach, and the universal one, was to pull the choke out, and fit a peg behind it to prevent any such problem. It is nice to see these old traditions still upheld at classic car shows.

Watching the canal as the narrow boats go by - at slightly less than walking pace.

I always suspected the neighbours were up to something in their garden shed with its smoking chimney and strange nocturnal smells .  One day it exploded and all that was left were these part filled bottles of moonshine. Naturally we didn't say anything. Were British.

Back in the nineteen fifties Britain was in the grip of post war austerity. Everything was in short supply and the government tried hard to raise the national morale in every way possible. Clearly the 1953 Coronation was a great opportunity to lift the people's spirits, and this was the ideal event to showcase the new Television network . So the Coronation was the first National Event to be televised.  However there was a problem.  Industry was instructed to turn all the melted down Spitfires back into aluminium saucepans and wrought iron railing. Thus there were no materials left over for the emerging TV aerial business . This is why many of the earliest aerials were in fact made of wood. This is a rare remaining example located close to Alexadra Palace.