On the 20th anniversary of the worst peacetime nuclear disaster that scattered radioactive fallout across much of Europe between here and the Ukraine, I was bemused to find through cognitive association an image of someone called John Dodds popping into my head. He was a character in Eighteen Plus and I’m not even sure that I had met him in 1986 so the connection seemed at first lacking in reason.

However, about twenty minutes later, I remembered the association. John had told me a fairly lame joke a few years later whilst we were getting changed for something, probably at the former 18 plus headquarters, Nicholson House in Newent.

These are my radioactive underpants. You have to be careful putting them on though, or Chernobyl fallout!

(it’s the way he tells ‘em…)

Three more bits of election stuff. Through the door last week was the glossy full colour double sided folded A3 Labour leaflet for Sherry Bradley. It mainly attacked the Tories for doing terrible things whilst the Morley Borough independents stood by doing nothing. Inside were the obligatory poses with the sitting MP, a closed school, a new library etc. No BNP bashing though, which is surprising as some of the Labour voting share could go that way.

Sherry is very tall with striking blonde white hair, she is much more imposing in the flesh than she looks in the photos. I have never actually spoken to her but obnserving from the edge of the crowd she strikes me as aloof and dismissive with her body language. Of course, that has been at election counts and party tribalism tends to generate an us & them mentality amongst the diminishing faithful.

The second noteworthy arrival was the voting cards. this time we get to brandish our pencils in the Glen Road Changing Rooms instead of the portable building delivered for the purpose. It took the Council long enough, why hire something when you own something else more suitable across the road?

The third noteworthy arrival was the Elliott Battle bus outside our house tonight. People often park there when leafleting as it is a convenient base for the Birdland labyrinth. My gruff “Oi! you can’t park there.” out of the door as they walked away was greeted by surprise and then amusement! Judith brought me leaflet number two which was a suitably dismissive rubbishing of the Sherry Bradley leaflet “facts” and various distortions. Of course it retaliated with the MBI version of “facts” and various distortions which will give the Labourites a chance to dictate some more letters for the local rag. Only 11 more days and then we can have 9 months off until the spin bus starts up again in 2007…

Good weather treated us to a pleasant St. George’s Day Parade and subsequent event at the Rugby & Cricket clubs in Morley. Celebrating being English is not politically correct- after all we are not a repressed minority like the Scots, Welsh and Irish. Rule 1 of PC says that the history and achievements of the majority are trumped by anyone with victim status and should be frowned upon or scorned.

The other reluctance to acknowledge Englishness is the supposed hijacking of the English flag by the “far right”. This is of course a nonsense, the main potency of the image is supporting Eng-er-land during world cups and such.

One thing that struck me at the event today, however, was how much we were celebrating military victory, whether the dark ages or the war. Celebrating being english isn’t about the actual fighting to remain as such, it is a collective consciousness that this is what we are in all of its multi-stranded complexity and we rather like it, whatever the weather.

Being the first warmish dryish day for a while, I finally ventured out with the lawnmower to give my grass bits their first cut of 2006. I wasn’t alone in the task- the distant sounds in the breeze were reminiscent of a rainforest logging operation.

I have a front lawn that came with the house (open plan street scene) and the back garden was turfed by some passing vagabonds who also laid me a wonky patio, having found no opportunity to provide tarmac for the drives of what was a brand new estate back in 1995. The turf has stood the test of time, being lush, green and thick, unlike the tatty meadowturf that Persimmon provided.

However, 2005 was rather rainy in the Autumn and I never had the chance to give it a pre-winter chop. Consequently it has looked extremely rug-like the last couple of months and in need of a tonsorial tidy. When I say rug, I once went to someone’s house who had a genuine shag pile which was a cross between an Afghan coat and a shaggy dog- we had to take our shoes off and they even had a special rake to comb the carpet!

People aspire to a bowling green lawn and I can only think of two domestic lawns I have ever seen that good, one of them by a professional gardener whose busines name is “Weed Free”. I have always been happy with a passable lawn, although over the years I have sometimes gone away on an open ended business trip and returned to something I would half-expect to find Dr. Livingstone in.

Several bags of grass clippings later, the front is OK but the back has simply been downgraded from a disgrace to bloody awful. Henceforth I propose to categorise my grass cutting in the Pentagon style:

Defcon 5 - Wilderness
Defcon 4 - Shagpile
Defcon 3 - Looks rough
Defcon 2 - In need of a cut
Defcon 1 - Tidy (i.e. cut well less than a week ago)

Thanks to the Religious Policeman for the inspiration.

Danish footnote- we went to see the little mermaid, of course, although there was one at the airport, another at the hotel and hundreds in the souvenir shops. The soft focus postcards don’t prepare you for the somewhat industrial background and we were braving freezing sleet and stair-rod rain by the time we got to her. David risked the rocks and possible falling in the water to pose next to her but most grockles stayed in their tourist coaches. I noticed that there was a discreet waterproof camera trained on her near the waterline and I don’t know if it was a webcam or (more likely) a police watch for beheadings- she has been vandalised several times over the years.

One other odd sight- both Karen and I couldn’t keep a straight face when we saw some wittily named sweets in Tivoli. I saw them again at the Zoo so invested 11 DKR in two boxes, the wine gums in the green box and the liquorice in the black box. Both David and Karen liked the wine gums but they both hated the liquorice as it tasted very salty. I thought that it being very salty was somewhat appropriate and find it hard to believe that the author of Pippi Longstocking didn’t know the english meaning of her chosen title.

David was very puzzled as to why I wanted to keep the boxes, I explained it was for my “interesting box collection” which now stands at two.