…I spent most of 1982 in Saudi Arabia, working for Nortel as a “Consultant” on Contract to Aramco in Dhahran on the Eastern province. It was a year of frustration as the job wasn’t quite what it was meant to be, I was effectively on 1st line maintenance with another American who didn’t actually need any assistace most of the time. He was called Barry Hensley and he was a good egg. He came from Nashville Tennessee, he had even fixed Tammy Wynette’s phone system when he worked for the Telco there. He had his family over living on-site and I had a pleasant three weeks house-sitting for him later in the year.

I lived in the Aramco Construction Camp, known as A.C.C. Dhahran North. I had my own room (with sink) and shared a toilet and shower with another room, never actually seeing the resident during the 12 months. The block was built from portacabin-style buildings and had 24 rooms. These were the luxury ones- the next type down had 36 rooms with communual showers/toilets sinks. Then there were the 72 bed twins and the 144 bed blocks where they were bunked four to a room. The higher density blocks were the same size as the 36ers, just more bodies.

I probably wasn’t entitled to a 24 room type room but some strings were pulled as there was a phone in the room (which my predecessor had occupied).

The camp had several dining halls, two of which served western food. The smaller one had American fayre which included a lot of Mexican specials. The larger one was more Brit-based and did a lot more curries!

There was also an indoor cinema, an outdoor one, a couple of recreation halls & a ball park. It was rather bleak, however, and had 10,000 residents.

Saudi seemed a bit crazy back in 1982. I recently stumbled on a Blogger from Saudi with a robust view of the Kingdom, I’m surprised how little has changed over the last couple of decades…

…but now I have a Karate yellow belt. The grading for adults is considerably more stringent than for kiddleywinks and so it should be.

The hardest bit I found was doing the kicks in a 4-stage slo-mo, e.g. knee up, kick out, leg back, knee down for each leg in four directions (front, side to front, side, back). There were the same number of instructors as students and I was relieved to see that quite a few of them wobbled as well as me whilst attempting to balance.

…and once again, many interesting (& probably a few dull) buildings outside the Capital are open for visits from the general public free of charge, from the obsessed to the merely curious.

Today, we went to Halifax, for a chance for me to go inside three buildings that I’ve seen hundreds of times over the last seven years.

Our first port of call was the Magistrates Courts in Blackwall, just up the road from the Halifax Head Office (as was pre-HBOS) and just down the road from Provident Insurance. We were shown round the three main courts as well as the state of the art cell block. Whilst it was good to be guided by practicing Magistrates, their spiel was rather dull, being lifted from a potted history document. When they veered off-script, however, they became much more interesting. Time and “modernisation” haven’t been too kind to the building but it still bears the hallmarks of competent design and construction that I doubt the courts in the centre of Leeds will share in the 22nd Century.

One particularly incongruous modern addition is the secured dock, bullet proof glass and strong mesh ceiling in court 1, with a similar floor to near-ceiling arrangement in the much smaller court 2 which is more chapel sized compared to the more imposing court 1 which is a substantial space. Interestingly, the larger court has been internally reversed through 180 degrees but retains the style & woodwork to the extent that it is not at all obvious other than some unaccounted for space at high level beyond the Bench which presumably was the original public gallery. One visual coffee stain that would pass by the untrained observer is the shadow of the roof space catwalk above the Art Nouveau laylight inserted in the ceiling panel presumably at the turn of the last century.

The cells are a modern re-work of the upper level block (the lower ones being abandoned for prisoner use) but whilst clean and bright are extremely bleak indeed. All they have inside is a long bench on the far wall and that certainly isn’t a place I’d wish to visit in anger, so to speak.

Our second stop was the Town Hall, designed by Sir Charles Barrie best known for the houses of Parliament. Again, this building has been mucked about with internally, although the ornate schemes remain. It has a very large internal hall that we would now call an atrium, although it doesn’t let in too much light from the very peculiar multi-domed ceiling glazed in deep blue starred stained glass. Despite being fairly brightly lit it feels dismal and gloomy, the effect of the high-bay Sodium lighting & the green-ish colour scheme. The Council Chamber was inserted into a rather loft court room in 1901 and is slightly sombre with dark polished mahogany but a well designed and intimate space. The current Mayor’s Parlour is a vibrant room and an antidote to the more sombre spaces elsewhere.

The grand staircase is marred somewhat by a picket-gate style unusual lift (with two entrances at right-angles) that is a period piece in its own right but does distort the openness and balance of the staircase visually. Another much larger glazed dome is above, beyond which is the tower and huge spire complete with an extremely busy facade and statuary worthy of closer study. The clock has a Westminster Chime although the bells sounded slightly sharp to me.

David ensured he sat in the Mayor’s chair of course, a pastime of his in Public Buildings!

Our third and final visit was to Somerset House, a much mangled and almost forgotten Georgian Mansion House in the centre of the Town. It has one remarkable surviving large room with absolutely stunning rococo plasterwork. I took two snapshots of the detail (actually six, with three combinations of flash setting) and here they are below. They are available light so aren’t pin sharp, however the flash ones are much flatter and don’t do the bas relief justice. If you click on them, you can see a much bigger image. You can place these shots in context by following the hyperlink above. It also seems from this picture that there is concealed cornice lighting, although it wasn’t lit on our visit.

This is Britannia above the Mantlepiece. Note the date, 1766.

This is Neptune on the ceiling in the centre of the room, viewed from the entrance door side facing three double height bay windows.

David put up with the visits but would have preferred less talking by the guides and more sitting in the various seats…

In my youth, I spent some time doing acting type stuff with other youngsters associated with the Tyneside Theatre Company of the University Theatre in Barras Bridge. They had a rehearsal rooms practically under the High Level Bridge, known, rather unimaginatively as “The Warehouse”, because it was.

It was generally devoid of anything beyond basic furniture, however a paperback book once appeared in one of the rooms. When it was still there months later, my mate Keith decided to take it home to read. He passed it on to me and I enjoyed it as well.

It was a sci-fi book about an inventor who had designed a futuristic town then managed to get run over by his own automatic lawnmower. The Town Hall Computer (in the basement) whisch seems to control everything is actually a crock of junk, booby trapped and made from random electronics, including a Norden bombsight. Beyond, they eventually find a room where the real power lies & it seems the Town mayor was fiddling things. I also recall this was my first exposure to the word Cupola.

Why am I typing it here? Well, one day, someone else will glide past and tell me what the book was called and who the author was, so that I can read it again.

If I don’t post this up, I’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of my life. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of fat middle aged eccentrics don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that. Now, now… Here’s looking at you kid.

(exits gracefully, singing:- You must remember this / A kiss is still a kiss / A sigh is just a sigh / The fundamental things apply / As time goes by. / And when two lovers woo, / They still say, “I love you” / On that you can rely / No matter what the future brings-…)

(This post was brought to you by random thought processes…)

Click on this link to be informed about the benefits of ID cards to Society.

From, the people that brought us the cute singing dogs, a tribute to the Home Secretary.