Hooptedoodle #273 - eBay - Going Cold Again

Hate it or love it, I have to admit that, without eBay and the availability of old, out-of-production wargame castings which it brought about, my own previous interest in wargaming and the collection of the paraphernalia associated with that hobby would never have been rekindled.

I'll say that again, just to emphasise the point - and the emphasis is for my own benefit, because I find this very easy to forget: without eBay, my former involvement in wargaming would have remained a closed book. The question of what else I might have done with my time and pocket money is a separate matter, strictly for discussion in the pub.

All well and good, but I have become aware of some changes in eBay - the markets have changed quite a bit, the systems and the procedures and safeguards have evolved in such a way that they now suit online dealers - people who really are doing this for a living - and my impression is that it has become harder-nosed. You have to be on your guard more, there are more tales of rip-offs.

That's only to be expected, I guess. As more and more people use eBay, the range of experiences will increase, and public appetite for tales of scams and doom and gloom will also grow. I read things and I nod, or shrug, or whatever; I experience things at first hand and I take serious note.

My experience of eBay over the last 15 years or so (I think it's about that) has been really very positive. Apart from buying and selling stuff that I've been interested in, I've also made a number of very solid friendships with people who share my areas of interest. In my case, this has mostly been miniature soldiers and military history books, and it is possible that these categories of buying and selling are dominated by older fellows who are reputable and straightforward; whatever, they seem to be less attractive to the crooks of this world. No-one, as far as I know, ever became rich quickly by buying and selling second-hand soldiers (though a few of us might feel that we have become somewhat poorer by the same process!). The dodgier bits of online auctions seem to be the mass, low-cost markets (like used clothing, for example), but also expensive stuff like computer games and technology and musical instruments - fields where enthusiasm and gullibility can outstrip caution and commonsense.

We recently sold an unused, unopened Sony PlayStation through eBay. It was a competition prize for which we had no real use, since my son's interests have moved on from such devices. The final sale was fine - the item was bought for a decent (though fair) price by a very nice fellow in Manchester, who bought it for his own son's birthday. Everyone was happy, but the risks are there to see. Two of the bidders we had cancelled their bids and pulled out during the course of this auction - something I cannot recall seeing before. In each case, remarkably, the bidder claimed to have accidentally entered the wrong amount - a justification for cancellation which is currently accepted by eBay.

Even more remarkably, each of these two bidders put in multiple bids, to cover themselves against subsequently being outbid (so they managed to enter the wrong amount several times), and each waited a few days - three days for one and four days for the other - before realising their error. We all know that what really happened was that they managed to buy one of these PlayStations elsewhere for a better price, and then cancelled the bid on our auction. Presumably this has become an accepted way of proceeding - if eBay allows it then we cannot complain - but it's outwith the spirit of eBay as I knew it, especially since other watchers and bidders (and there were quite a few) would be impacted. To me it seems, if not actually unethical, then certainly contrary to the traditions and spirit of eBay as a marketplace based on trust. If you attempt to welsh on a bid at Sotheby's, I promise you will be mightily embarrassed for your trouble.

It also became obvious that a good proportion of the people interested in our PlayStation were dealers - people who buy and sell for profit - which is fair enough. I'm glad it went to a private punter who actually wanted it - I realise that my approval is outmoded and probably irrelevant in the overall scheme of things.

Also recently, I attempted to dispose of a portion of my mother's vast library via eBay. I've bought and sold a lot of books on eBay in the past, happily and mostly fairly successfully. Whoa - not so fast. First of all, the market appears to have changed - prices for and interest in books have dropped - and most of the (relatively few) potential buyers were, in fact, dealers just looking to make a profit on resale.

I'd prefer to swerve the inevitable lectures on economics, so please give me a break if you suddenly feel such a lecture coming on - if that is the current market, then so be it. There may be all sorts of underlying trends which explain this, including demographics - oversupply generated by an ageing population with an increasing legacy of old books to unload onto a world that is possibly less interested in collecting or reading hard copy (or anything longer than a Tweet) - we will probably be forced to acknowledge the same trends in the toy soldier market one day soon. Whatever the reason, I gave up - nearly all of mother's books went to the Heart Foundation shop. It's a good cause after all (assuming the money finishes up in the right place - another topic for the pub), but the chief reason was that the effort and the minimal return of persisting via eBay, added to the hassle and the potential risks, made sale by auction impractical. I am no longer prepared to be messed around so much. Not for that kind of money, anyway.

Anyway - let's get to the point. I read in the Guardian of some poor chap who sold a guitar on eBay for well over £1000, it was paid for by Paypal and the courier delivery was signed for, but the buyer subsequently claimed that the case was empty on receipt and raised a dispute, which resulted in the Paypal payment being refunded - in these cases, it is simply a matter of the buyer's word against the seller's, and eBay and Paypal will normally find in favour of the buyer. Ah, you say, but the courier has the recipient's signature. That's not too promising either - this is only for receipt of some sort of package - damage or missing contents would not normally be discovered until later, and - maybe worst of all - if the buyer claims it is not his signature, there is not much can be done about it. There is a lot of this sort of stuff around, apparently. Worrying.

In how many ways could you be dissatisfied...?

I think I am finally convinced that my use of eBay will be firmly limited in future. I shall continue to look out for cheapish wargame items from established sellers, and I will happily continue to trade with people I know and trust, but the selling of valuable items is becoming unattractive. I can always insist on payment in cash on personal collection, of course, but since I live on the backside of the moon that is not really going to work.

I realise that my career on eBay has involved more retirals than Frank Sinatra, but I think this time I really am convinced that the game is pretty much up.

Hooptedoodle #272 - Not Much Here Either

With various disruptions caused by the continuing work of the house painter (and his frequent non-appearances) and other inconveniences, another fairly humdrum week has passed. My current batch of French ADCs is still not finished - any day now. Promise.

It occurred to me that I should trot out some routine listing of irrelevant stuff - just so you know I am still around - maybe it could be termed a miscellany. I shall limit this brief outpouring of trivia to two items - my editor will be pleased that I have restricted myself to the key house themes of Tragedy and The Social Whirl.

Topic 1 - RIP Steve.  I regret to say that Steve the Other Goldfish has passed away. Steve was never very lucky - he has had a long series of mysterious ailments, including problems with his eyes and some malfunction of his swim-bladder, and has been reputed to be on The Way Out for at least a couple of years. He got off to a bad start when he shared a fish tank with Jeff, who was much more robust and had a very bad attitude, and who spent some weeks roughing Steve up - sometimes biting him, sometimes merely knocking him about. Naturally we had to split them up, so since then we have had the dubious blessing of double maintenance, double overheads, and two separate tanks in different rooms.

Maybe, come to think of it, Steve was not so daft. He had a tank to himself, with all the fittings, and he was in a stress-free environment in which to perfect his one great talent, which was eating. However sickly he might have been, he grew far larger than we might have expected - thus, whatever problem Steve might be blighted with at any given moment, you could rely on the fact that there would be plenty of it.

He'd obviously been very unwell for the last few days, and we reached the point at which a strategic decision was required - the Contesse would place him in his little isolation tank, and we'd keep an eye on him. If he didn't buck up within a day or so, we would euthenise him - this being a politically-acceptable word, apparently, meaning snuff. [Quick aside, I am pleased, in an unfocused and probably irritating way, that "euthenise" and "euphemise" are such similar words - possibly we have the makings of an unusually pretentious and pointless joke here - I'll leave it with you.]

Right then - today's interesting field of research: how do you put your goldfish out of his misery, and still be able to live with yourself afterwards? After some online reading, our favoured suggestion was as follows (don't ever say this blog does not address the problems of real life):

(1) Add some drops of clove-oil to the water - this will put Goldie to sleep.

(2) After some minutes, add some vodka - this will kill him in his sleep. Painless. Humane.

The Contesse went off to buy the necessary supplies - we have neither of these exotic poisons in our storehouse. In passing, clove-oil is quite interesting - it has a long-held folklore role as a remedy for toothache, which as far as I'm concerned is very debatable - bollocks, in fact. Maybe killing goldfish is what it is really intended for, and the dental fallacy is just a cover story for the kids. Vodka? Hmmm. At least we can comfort ourselves that the little fellow will end his days free from toothache, and blitzed out of his tiny skull.

While she was out buying supplies, Steve, obligingly and astonishingly, did the one sensible thing he ever managed in a lifetime - he died peacefully, without assistance. Good for him. I buried him up in the woods behind the house this afternoon - without ceremony. Naturally we wish him luck on his way into the darkness, but we could hardly have laid on any celebration of his life - I'm not sure how much he noticed of it, and it was mostly dismal.

If I detect even the slightest whiff of clove-oil in my bath in the near future, I shall immediately be on my guard.

Topic 2 - Sylvia. On Saturday night I was at a birthday party - quite a big bash, really - mostly arty, cultured people - all very civilised - not my usual circles at all. While there, I bumped into Sylvia, whom I have known for over 30 years, now I come to work it out. A good egg, Sylvia, very loud and always cheerful, and eternally opinionated. Good value, in fact, though you have to cope with the fact that her conversation is mostly along the lines that her family are the wealthiest, happiest, prettiest and most successful people who ever lived. That's all OK - I think it is only right that the Sylvias of this world should be provided, to keep us humble, and to remind us of how we would like to have been, if only.

On Saturday, Sylvia was not well pleased. She is involved in a small circle of ladies who take it in turns to treat each other to cultural outings - one detects a slight edge of competition. Since it had been Sylvia's turn, she had been encouraged to get tickets for something uplifting in our local arts and music festival, which has been on recently. It was suggested that there was a very nice Italian operetta show which would be suitable, and, in a bit of a rush, she obtained very expensive tickets for it.

We may come up with any number of reasons or excuses, but it is obviously an easy mistake to make if you are short of time to check your facts; whatever, having duly turned up at the show in their concert-going finery, Sylvia and her friends now know for certain that The Rezillos are not an operetta at all, but an ageing punk band, and most definitely not to their taste. It would be mean-spirited to find this amusing, of course, but I feel that my efforts to keep a straight face and not choke on my vegetarian paella on Saturday earned me the right to enjoy a brief chortle now. In fact, I may run a bath, add some vodka, climb in and roar with [ignorant, common] laughter.

Hooptedoodle #271 - McKeown's Law of Collecting

We've discussed this stuff before, but I was rather taken by McKeown's Law, which comes in 3 parts. Though this law originates in the world of camera enthusiasts and collectors, it definitely has wider application. The picture is borrowed, shamelessly and without permission, from the excellent blog of Arnhem Jim, to set a context. If you have seen the Law before, here it is again - smile and move on.

McKeown's Law of Collecting 

1) The price of an antique or collectable is entirely dependant upon the moods of the buyer and seller at the time of the transaction.

2) If you pass up the chance to buy an item you really want, you will never have that chance again.

3) If you buy an item because you know that you will never have that chance again, a better example of the same item will be offered to you a week later for a much lower price!

Hooptedoodle #270 - The Sock Cull

Time for another post about socks, I think. [No, no - terribly sorry, vicar - I said socks.]

Some time ago I published a lament about the state of modern socks. It was heartfelt (if that is an appropriate phrase) - I had increasing problems with shrinkage of the ribbing tops of socks, which tended to compress my lower calves (on occasions my lower legs would develop an ominous, waisted, hour-glass shape which I would prefer not to dwell upon, but you will appreciate this is far from ideal.

Bad Guys - and there's masses of them - they are GOING AWAY

The Contesse tried valiantly to obtain socks for me which were comfortable - with little success. Even when we avoided certain brands which we have grown to distrust, I regularly ended the day with sore swollen ankles and calf muscles. Ah, I hear you say - it is not the socks, it's your circulation - it is the ancient veins, the game pie, the chips, the beer, the Armagnac, the excessive salt, etc etc.

Not so. One cannot hold off the ravages of field rations and tempus fugit forever, of course, but the change is mostly in the socks themselves.  

Almost a year ago, we went on holiday to Mayrhofen, in the Zillertal, Austria. It was a good holiday anyway, but one unexpected bonus was that one day I picked up a pack of cheap socks in the Spar supermarket in the village - just off-the-shelf jobs to help out with the demands of hillwalking - and they were a revelation. If I'd fully appreciated them in time, I'd have bought a load more before we came home.

They are comfortable, they do not strangle my legs - they are terrific. They are, I believe, how I remember socks used to feel. Is it possible that Austrians just expect their socks to be comfortable? Is it possible that Mike Ash***'s crusade to to buy up reputable brands and make everything cheap and nasty has not yet reached the Tyrol? The questions, of course, are rhetorical, but one wonders.

Good Guys - the first of the "diabetic" socks [L] and one of the Austrian
cheapo pairs from SPAR [R]

Since then, a further discovery for me has been a whole new world of special comfortable socks - some of them made with bamboo fibre (which sounds faddy, but is OK), some of them marketed as "diabetic socks", which is new to me but I'm sure well known to people who need them. The Contesse has done admirable research in this field, and I am well pleased with the new arrivals.

Thus far I am still feeling my way - some of these are about £8 a pair, which is a bit steep by my usual standards, but we are discovering cheaper ones - the choice of colours is not all it might be, maybe. There are also hiking socks of the same type. Better and better.

This morning's delivery...

Just as an aside - how would you feel about marketing black socks badged "SS"?

A further shipment of the "gentle" socks arrived this morning, so I have had a quick look in the chest of drawers and have emptied out the old socks - and there are dozens of pairs. I shall reduce the stock to about 4 pairs of the conventional socks, and replace them with the new comfortable ones. Perhaps we'll recycle the rejects - they can go to any needy people who have very thin ankles, or maybe they can just go on the tip.  Either way, they are going.

That's worth a glass of wine with my supper, I think.

Hooptedoodle #269 - Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure and various other topics

A lot of work going on in these parts - fortunately, most of it is being carried out by an excellent Australian chap named Luke, who is almost certainly the best house painter around here. Some of the more tactical, fiddling-about work, though, falls to me.

Luke the Painter

As often happens, we had a small accident which has made things a bit worse than they might have been. As part of this mighty painting project, I have agreed with St Luke that he will also take on a couple of inside jobs, so he has something else to get on with if it rains. Sorry - that should have said when it rains. One of these jobs is the downstairs toilet/shower room, which will probably need to be out of action for a few days while it gets sorted out. During the lead-up to this, of course, we managed to break the mounting for the shower-screen in the upstairs bathroom (i.e. the one which will not be out of action during the painting), so it has become necessary for me, moi, Comte Maximilien S Foy, former General de Division and military hero of the First Empire and subsequent leader of the liberal opposition in France, to apply my many years of experience to installing a new shower screen.

As long as you double-check that everything fits nicely, and check for snags before you hit them, this is not a formidable undertaking, and I am pleased to say that the job has gone well. Shower screens, however, involve the dreaded silicone sealing mastic, which is right up there with Nitromors on my personal list of pet hates.

While I was poking about in the garage, falling over gardening tools, and wondering whether my existing tube of bath sealant would have solidified (it had), and whether the white spirit would be filed away with the weedkillers or the things for washing the car (do you have a garage like this?), I came across this faint blast from the past. It might be just the thing, I reasoned, to prevent water seeping into the fine joint line between the screen and its supporting stand.

Chortle now - thank you

That must be worth a chortle, surely? The Contesse thought it was funny enough to feature on her personal Facebook account, which must be a very positive indicator. I have this stuff in store because once - many years ago - I spent a fair amount of money on getting my old Land Rover 90 repaired and smartened up, and when it came back I was disappointed to find that the windscreen still leaked. This is stupid - I realise this - it is like choosing to live in Scotland and then finding fault with the weather; however, I tried various products and gizmos to eliminate the leak, not realising that a Land Rover 90 without a leaky windscreen is a fake.

Horace the leaky Land Rover 90 - this is what Defenders were called before
they were Defenders - on account of the 90-inch wheelbase. Photo taken circa
Autumn 2004, when his days were numbered.

Captain Tolley's magic brew did not eliminate my problem, but after a quick succession of further mechanical problems I solved all my difficulties with the LR90 by selling it and buying a modern Mitsubishi. Sorry about that - it's painful but true. If you have an old Land Rover and you love it, then you have my respect and my undying sympathy. I never looked back. My banker was grateful too.

Hooptedoodle #268 - Juveniles in the Woodshed

If you can see them then they can see you - hirundo rustica, as ever was

Just to prove that Nature gets the job done, I have to report that our visiting swallows - clumsy builders though they might be - appear to have produced some chicks. Noisy little beggars, and not exactly beautiful in absolute terms, but possessing a certain rough charm.

Many thanks to the Contesse for the photo - a difficult commission - best we have to date.

Yes, our swallows have laid their eggs on top of an electric lamp. Yes, that is dumb. That's nothing, in about 12 or 13 weeks they have to fly to South Africa. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Hooptedoodle #267 - Throw It Away

Must be about time for another whinge, I think. It is a constant source of sorrow to me that our lives seem to be dominated by the need to dump items - especially electronic items - since they are no longer supported, and/or cannot be repaired economically - and buy nice new ones. This process is enforced by the dictates of fashion; the message comes across when the young man on the other end of the support line actually snorts when he learns that my telephone (or camera, or sat-nav, or radio, or washing machine, or whatever) is almost six years old. The implication is that only a dreadful dinosaur would have a product of such age - how can such a person show his face in decent, tech-savvy consumer society? Sometimes the trained engineer [HA!] on the other end of the phone has never even heard of that model number - that's how old and uncool it is.

Well, I've thought some more about this - my thoughts are heavily influenced by two recent examples which I shall share with you in a moment, if you are not quick enough to spot what's coming and move off elsewhere. I have been doing some thinking, and my thoughts are summed up by one word.

Bollocks.

Recent Example 1: Tom-Tom. My wife has a new car - well, it was new some six months ago, and it has a built-in sat-nav system. Very nice. This renders her old Tom-Tom unit, which I bought for her about 6 years ago, redundant. I spotted an opportunity for shameless personal gain here, so I offered to take the old Tom-Tom off her hands - I could happily use it in my van, which would avoid my having to switch my own Garmin sat-nav between my car and my van (which may not seem like much of a hardship, but hey).

I quite like the Tom-Tom - it's friendlier than my Garmin - only problem with it is that the maps have never been updated since the unit was bought. This is not entirely due to hopeless inertia on our part - until recently, our domestic broadband service was so poor that a download big enough to include a complete motoring map of Northern Europe would have taken days and days. In a state of some excitement, I now did some poking about online, and found that a map upgrade would cost me about £35 - fair enough - ordered it and paid by PayPal, but the download wouldn't work - nothing happened. A lot of further searching revealed an appropriate support number (Tom-Tom's website, by the way, is a nightmare - lots of closed loops where links point to the page you are already on, or the one you just came from etc). Nice young man (NYM) explained to my wife that the sat-nav unit in question is now so old that they have withdrawn support for it - in any case, the latest maps are too large to fit the on-board storage. He very kindly arranged a refund of the PayPal payment (which took a week to come through), and offered us a discount on one of their new models. Some thoughts at this point:

(1) Everything must come to an end - it is not unreasonable that Tom-Tom should withdraw support for an old model, though 6 years might be considered rather indecently quick - well, in my world anyway, but...

(2) At any point between 6 years ago (when it was bought) and some time later (when support was withdrawn) there must have been updated maps on sale which would fit the storage - it is quite likely that if I had attempted this transaction last year (say) then it would have worked nicely. This point extends into...

(3) Withdrawn or not, supported or not, there must be a number of past updates still on file which would be an improvement on the map which we have at present. Any one of these would have been useful - we could negotiate a fair price? Well - no....

(4) I realise it doesn't work like that. If they sold me a replacement map which was more modern than the one I have, but not fully up-to-date, then I might trustingly drive into a newly-constructed reservoir and be extinguished. The important point is that if this was simply a consequence of my being too mean or idle to buy an up-to-date map then that would be entirely my problem, but if they had sold me an outdated map which did not show the reservoir then things could get sticky. Hmmm.

(5) OK - accept that. What really pisses me off about this is that the decision to withdraw support for an old product is pretty much arbitrary - the owner has no reasonable idea when this might happen - and it is heavily weighted commercially in favour of forcing existing customers to buy a new replacement. All good economic sense, of course, but - even with a discount - this line of reasoning would discourage me from doing further business with such people.

(6) The way ahead - Ze Plan:  I shall happily continue to use my pre-owned Tom-Tom with its outdated maps, I shall keep my eyes peeled for unexpected reservoirs, and I shall chuckle to myself at the prospect of having diddled Tom-Tom out of - ooh - several pounds. One day you may read about the tragic accident which claimed my life.   

Recent Example 2: Pure. I am a big fan of DAB digital radio. Only concerns I have are that the hardware - certainly from the market-leading brands - is too expensive, and (I am learning) the sets are not wonderfully reliable. I had a small Pure unit which died miserably, about 2 months past the end of the guarantee period, and I rather disappointed myself by buying another Pure radio to replace it. Before she moved out of her own house into a care home, my mother had a surprising number of Pure radios - she liked to have one in each of several rooms (kitchen, sitting room, bedroom - in fact she had two in her bedroom - one on the bedside cabinet, one on the dressing table). This may seem excessive, but her sight is poor, and she cannot see to plug a radio into the mains, nor to retune it when it has moved. We bought 3 of the things for my mum as a batch after my sister died in 2013, so we have a pretty good fix on how old they are.

Mum now has just one of these radios in the care home with her, and she listens to it for many hours a day. Right - that's all very good.

I sort of acquired the rest of them, and they haven't been a huge success. One of them developed a fault with the display, so I gave it away to someone who needed an extra radio. One of the remaining two has also recently had a failure of the display - I checked the support pages on the Pure site, followed the instructions for a full power-down and reset, and the display still didn't work. I emailed them. Within a day, I got a reply from a NYM named Sam. Guess what? - the unit is so old that it is not worth getting it repaired, and they have no suitable spare parts - the best they can offer is a discount off a reconditioned product.

Does any of this sound familiar? Just a minute - they have reconditioned products? Does this mean somebody has fixed one? This seems unlikely - I doubt if they have any actual engineers - the philosophy seems to be one of unloading shiploads of new units from China - it is cheaper and easier to send out a new one than it is to attempt to test or repair an existing one - even assuming they have the skills in this country (which we may debate).

So, in addition to not buying a new Tom-Tom unit, I shall not be buying another Pure radio either - with or without discount. They can focus their marketing on customers who are more in tune [ho - see what I did there?] with their business model. I shall take my custom elsewhere.

Don't misunderstand this - young Sam is obviously a good chap - he sympathised with my situation, and said that if I change my mind (and somehow he seems to believe I will) he can supply a list of current reconditioned deals for out-of-warranty customers [dinosaurs] like me.

All a bit depressing - I'll see you down at the landfill.

I'll finish with my most treasured tale of techno-waste. Some years ago I had a friend who had retired in ill-health from his job, and had set himself up as a self-employed photographer. In his new role he did a vast amount of printing of digital photos - he had a trade card which allowed him to purchase new Canon printers so cheaply that he could now buy a brand new printer (with cartridges) for far less than the cost of a set of replacement cartridges, so it made obviously good sense for him to simply throw away his printer when the ink ran out, and buy a new one. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

To cheer me up, here's a smashing song, written and sung by Abbey Lincoln - Abbey is dead now - she recorded this when she was in her late 70s - her voice had gone to hell, as you will hear, but this is a piece of magic. See if it cheers you up too.

Hooptedoodle #266 - Our Very Own Private Aircraft Carrier

"Queen Elizabeth" in Rosyth dockyard

Today the new British aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth, sets to sea for 6 months trials. She is starting off from the shipyard at Rosyth early this morning. Things will be a bit tight getting her out - there are literally inches to spare either side at the dock entrance, and the clearance under her keel is officially estimated at 20cm. I hope and trust that this estimate is better than forecasts for budget or completion date have been.

Things are not straightforward after she leaves the yard - it will be necessary to wait for low tide to enable her to scrape under the Forth Bridges. [A government spokesman stated that if it turns out that she does not, in fact, fit under the bridges then we can at least be confident that Britain will have unchallenged strategic control of the stretch of the River Forth between Grangemouth and Queensferry.]

Thereafter the carrier, with escorts, will sail along the Firth of Forth, past our house, and out to the North Sea. I am all set to get the tripod up for a historic photo, but there is word that it may be late this evening (i.e. dark) when she passes here. I meant to check when low tide will be - I should know this, in fact, because we have a tide clock in our porch, but unfortunately the battery is flat. You wait decades for a new aircraft carrier - biggest, most expensive warship ever built in the UK, three times as big as Ark Royal - and then you're let down by a flat battery. Never mind, I'm sure someone online will know.

The main deck has room for three full-size football pitches - maybe it could be
used to host the 2022 World Cup?

When she sails past here (and we are right at the end of the Firth - the North Sea officially begins at a monument on our beach, or so we claim) we'll see her against the backdrop of the Fife coast and the Isle of May, a long, flat island in the Firth of Forth, legendary as the scene of the tragic, so-called Battle of May Island in 1918, which is such a bizarre story that, if you do not know it, you would not believe me, so I'll simply put a link to the Wikipedia entry, here.

The Isle of May - a lot closer than I've ever seen it

This business about having difficulty spotting things around here is a bit of a recurrent theme - maybe there's something odd about the area. Our beach is famous for spectacular views of the aurora borealis, but, despite a good many attempts, we've never had even a glimpse. On occasions we have arrived at the beach with binoculars and cameras, taken one look at the torrential rain and 100% cloud cover, given up and gone home, and then, the following morning, been able to see all the wondrous photos on Facebook that hardier (or luckier) punters have managed to capture.

The unseen aurora, from our beach

Another celebrated apparent local illusion was when my neighbour of the time, who was a fisherman, went one morning to reset his lobster pots off Canty Bay, about 2 miles away. His special trick of the trade was to keep his creels in shallower water than most of his competitors, which he reckoned got him a better yield, but he had to put a lot more effort into repairing and shifting them, since bad weather caused more damage in shallower water. This particular morning (which I see from The Scotsman archives was in 2003) he returned home to be greeted by his wife, who said that they'd been watching to see if he appeared on TV. Reidy was mystified - what TV? what was she talking about?

Canty Bay, without fog or whale (or Reidy)

Well, the night before a whale had washed up on the rocks at Canty Bay, and there were crowds of onlookers and a BBC crew to film the excitement as they attempted to float it off. Reidy never saw a thing - it was a bit foggy, but he was completely unaware of all the carry-on - he reset his creels and got about his business. Never saw anything unusual.

For years he had to live with his wife's mockery - no wonder he didn't earn much as a fisherman if he couldn't see a whale within a hundred yards. This is, after all, a coastline of mists and shadows, and unexplained lights - the setting for RL Stevenson's tales of wreckers - but maybe it's easier to see things we expect to see?

****** Late Edit 12:45pm ******

I found the Queen Elizabeth's Facebook page - it seems she is expected to leave the dockyard round about 5pm, and should sail under the bridges shortly before midnight. Let's see - she is not going to be going flat out, I imagine, and it's about 25 miles from Queensferry to here, so I reckon she should be here sometime around 1am, which doesn't sound promising for a photo. Never mind, I can get an early night...

Here's a rather more recent photo of the vessel in Rosyth, with a few more bits added from my first picture.

I note that the Daily Telegraph makes due mention of the fact that the dirty Russians will be waiting to have a good look at our new strategic weapon when it gets out into the sea. Boo. We should jolly well go and pull their furry hats down over their eyes. 

Press photo of the QE just about managing to pass under the Forth Rail Bridge

Hooptedoodle #264 - The Pilgrimage

Here's a cautionary tale about the recent adventures of an old acquaintance of mine.

Colwyn (pronounced "Colin", in case it matters) has now been retired for some years and, one sunny Saturday morning, when his wife was away on a shopping trip, he suddenly took a fancy to make a sort of personal pilgrimage to the village where he had lived as a young child.

Colwyn's parents have been dead for many years, and his surviving brother is in Australia, so his only association with the place comes from old family photos. Quite excited by this unexpected project, he realised that he'd wanted to do this for years, so he collected his camera and his travel pass, bought himself a pack of fruit pastilles and set off the 70 miles on the bus into darkest Northamptonshire to his birthplace.

He was delighted to revisit the village as an anonymous  tourist. It was a beautiful morning, and the obvious first stop was the house where he had lived. He found it easily - walked straight to it - on a corner in a small council housing scheme. He was pleased that the place was nicely painted, and things were pretty much as he remembered, though there were more cars parked in front gardens, and a lot of satellite dishes.

As he stared at the place where he began what has been a long saga, involving a lot of travel and a very full working and family life, he became aware that a little girl in the garden was watching him.

"Hello," said Colwyn, full of sunshine and goodwill, "I used to live here, once upon a time - when I was your age, this was my garden."

The little girl just stared at him, so he smiled and waved cheerio, and took a few photos of the surroundings before he continued his tour. Next stop was the little park where he had first played football (and later, let it be said, he was a very fair amateur player) and where he and his little mates had played complicated games of tag in the long evenings during those forgotten summer holidays from another century. Great. There was now a rather run-down playground encroaching on one end of the traditional football pitch - round about where they used to put sweaters down for the goalposts. More photos. Of course, there was no football now - in fact there was a sign prohibiting ball games of any sort.

Next pilgrim site was his old primary school. This had been modernised extensively, and there was cricket coaching or something going on, so he didn't hang around for long. This time he didn't bother with photographs, since there was very little he recognised. He set off towards the high street, to see if he could get some lunch, and maybe a beer. On the way he was intercepted by a very large, very young police constable, who asked him could he speak to him for a moment.

Colwyn wondered if the young cop was lost, and wanted directions somewhere, so he put his camera away in his shoulder bag. The policeman grabbed the camera from him, and when Colwyn attempted to hang onto it a second policeman appeared from somewhere, and they bundled him into a patrol car. He was more than a little confused, but he was informed that he was being apprehended in terms of some byelaw or other, and would be taken to the police station (in a neighbouring town) to answer some questions.

Of course you have seen this twist coming for a while, but the little girl's mother had telephoned to report a strange old man approaching her daughter, and the police had turned up and quietly followed this obvious pervert around the sort of haunts you would expect - the park, the primary school - there was even a strange tale that he had attempted to climb into the garden of another house.

Since no-one in the area knew him, Colwyn's wife was brought - very distressed, in a police car - to identify him and give some kind of character reference. Then he was taken home, late in the evening, after being given a stern warning that there must be no repeats of this episode. Apology? - no - of course not. Colwyn says that it took some weeks for his wife to forgive him, though for what he is still unsure.

I think there is a lesson here for all of us. If you ever get an urge to go and find your roots, just give yourself a slap, will you? Don't be so bloody stupid - just switch on the TV like a good fellow, and stay at home - save the police time and inconvenience, and don't frighten all those poor mothers, who have enough to worry about. You can still have the fruit pastilles, but don't offer one to anyone else. 

We'll be watching.