Stones roll on

I just watched a re-run of the Stones at Glastonbury on iplayer. It was way past my bedtime when they were on the telly last night (which is worrying seeing as Jagger and Richards are ten years older than me). Jagger strutted up and down the stage like an out-of-control puppet; Richards wandered around waiting for someone to take him back to his room at the home. Wood looked a bit non-plussed by it all and seemed like was looking forward to being in his slippers enjoying a nice cup of tea. Watts reminded me of some character from Shaun of the Dead. But despite much of the audience being young enough to be their grandchildren, it took just the first two notes of ‘Satisfaction’ from the guitar of Richards to send the thousands into raptures and a shiver down my spine – just as it did when I saw them in Leeds in the early 80s. I thought at that time I could be witnessing their last major tour how wrong could I be?  Shame Bill Wyman wasn’t on stage though – maybe his zimmer broke. They lost their way a couple of times last night and at one point it seemed Richards was playing a different number to everyone else, but by gum they were entertaining. So good to see musicians out there to make people happy instead of being a mile up their own backsides.

Stop the train – it's madness

My hatred of the proposed High Speed Rail (HS2) link to London grows day by day. The plan has no business case, will wreck the environment and the lives of thousands of people on its route… and it could even bankrupt the country.
Yesterday Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced an amazing £9.9bn increase in the costs of the project, just hours after Chancellor George Osborne outlined £11.5bn of ‘essential’ cuts in his Spending Review.
The construction costs for Phase 1 will now cost £21.4bn, whilst Phase 2 will cost £21.2bn. These costs are already out of date as they are based on 2011 figures, with construction not due to start until 2017. Included in the £42.6bn is a £14.4bn contingency, which McLoughlin wrongly announced as being £12.7bn. DfT and HS2 Ltd officials have always said until now that the costs of HS2 would never increase because there was an £11.1bn contingency built into the previous cost.
Stop HS2 campaigner Joe Rukin said: “The casual way in which a 30% jump in the costs of HS2 has been announced by the Transport Secretary, which almost completely wipes out the cuts made in the spending review is unbelievable. We are now looking at a total cost of over £50bn on a train which will only benefit the richest in society.
“The DfT have always said the costs wouldn’t go up as there was an ample contingency built in, but now we know, like everything else which has been said about the case for HS2, that this was completely false. As Frank Dobson pointed out, there are still loads of items which have yet to be added into the costs and the costs for this project will only continue to spiral. To push ahead with HS2 blindly because it sounds like it must be a good idea is simply insane and a kick in the teeth to everyone affected by the cuts.
“The MPs who have voted for the blank cheque have only shown that they are totally out of touch with the common man, and HS2 Ltd have responded to the fact they are ten billion by saying they are ‘broadly within the envelope’. I don’t know what planet they are on, but I wouldn’t want to be picking up their stationery bill.”
Tell your MP to stop this madness now.

Lovely sisters of the Dales

swaledale

Driving through Swaledale this morning I doubted there was a better place I could possibly be. I travelled up Ribblesdale, in amongst the Three Peaks, before heading over Buttertubs Pass and negotiating my way around sheep that had serious suicidal tendencies (they were sunbathing in the middle of the road). Almost got run over myself while taking some photos of the meadows near Gunnerside (shame the Kings pub has now closed). Then, in sharp contrast to the neatly walled enclosures of the dale, it was over the wild open heather moorland to Redmire in Wensleydale and back home via Bolton Castle and Hawes. Yorkshire writer Alfred J Brown (1894-1969) once wrote: ‘One of the charms of the Yorkshire Dales is that they are all characteristically different, like lovely sisters of the same family.’ Nicely put.

Temporary alternative to Yorkshire

actonscott

On one of my forays out of Yorkshire I this week visited Acton Scott Farm where the TV series Victorian Farm was based. The programme was immensely popular in 2009 when it was first aired, attracting an audience of around six million. It’s well worth a visit as is nearby Bishop’s Castle, a quirky little town with a lot to offer – including two micro breweries. On a tour round the Three Tuns Brewery I tasted their incredibly strong 10 per cent beer which put an end to further traveling that day. It’s great to see these small breweries making a go of it during days of recession. In case you ever feel the need to tear yourself away from Yorkshire I can recommend the area around western Shropshire and the Welsh Marches as an ideal place to relax.

Settle down now

Ahh, Sunday evening AND sunshine. The trippers are on their way home and Settle is settling back into a more relaxed mood. I strolled up Castle Hill and through Tot Lord Wood which was peaceful and full of birdsong. Shafts of light picked out ramsons, daisies and bluebells all shouting ‘look at me, look at me’. On top of Castleberg rock the low sun warmed the limestone as I took in a very green, very wide Ribblesdale. Settle resembles a toy town from up here. It must be the same feeling for those living in a tall block of flats – but I bet this situation is a lot more rewarding. Here are the views from Castleberg and t’ other way round…

castleberg

settle

Countryside rip-up is a rip-off

train

The thought of ripping up thousands of miles of beautiful countryside, blighting properties, wrecking wildlife habitat and ancient woodland just to create a high-speed rail link to London (HS2) leaves this normally placid chap seething. That’s before I even mention the cost. As far as I can see the only benefit will be that you’ll be able to get far away from the capital a little bit quicker. If the hypothetical figures about creating thousands of jobs and how the North and Midlands will be so much better off actually comes off I’ll eat my flat cap. I’m not saying I don’t believe in railways, I just think we should be making better use of what we’ve got, improving stock, bringing back more local lines and increasing the number of people working on the railways.

I thought of this while I was struggling up a hill outside Horton-in-Ribblesdale last week. I made the excuse to stop to watch this train working down the Settle-Carlisle line beaneath Penyghent. The line is underused by the quarry owners who prefer to send huge clanking trucks through the villages. And there’s a perfectly good line from Lancashire that joins up with the Settle-Carlisle line at Hellifield… but there’s no passenger timetable for it. Tourists bringing business and prosperity to this to this part of the Dales have to take an hour or more detour.

I assume the locals and landowners were up in arms when the Victorians decided to rip up this bit of the countryside to build the Settle-Carlisle railway but now it’s here – thanks mainly to volunteers – we should be making the most of it instead of pandering to some political pipe-dream.

Water way to walk

canal1

canal2

swans

The stretch of the Leeds-Liverpool canal between Kildwick and Skipton offers one of the best waterside walks in the county. Blank out the never-ending traffic noise from the nearby A629 and you can witness beautiful scenery up and down the Aire Valley as well as enjoying nature at close quarters. With the car in for a service at Kildwick this beautiful June morning I walked the four miles or so on the canal towpath to Skipton before catching a bus back. I lost count of the birds I heard; I watched hot sheep in their inappropriate woolly jackets drinking from the canal, and cows lazily grazing in golden buttercup meadows. The bluebells in Farnhill Woods looked stunning where the spotlights of sun breeched the branches. All along the path wild garlic flowered a brilliant white and the smell was intoxicating. Ducks fussed over their untidy straggle of ducklings while two swans looked a little more serene as they guided a group of cygnets out of harm’s way. Cyclists, walkers, boaters all said a cheery ‘morning’. What a difference a bit of sunshine makes. Mind you, the car service bill brought me back down to earth with a bump.

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