It was billed as the Christmas bash where every offering had to be Christmas related. Now I don’t know about you, but at such a time stuffed full of traditional, and stuffing filled with Thyme, I don’t mind the annual trotting out of standards. Seems that everyone is trying to be edgy and ironic which doesn’t exactly help the sing-along aspect of a lot of traditional songs. Of course when I say traditional songs that includes Santa Claus is Coming to Town and it’s ilk.

So when it was announced at one point that the performer wasn’t going to do the obvious choice of songs, I have to confess to feeling a tad deflated. It’s not like I was expecting All Around my Hat, but I was hoping to exercise the vocal chords to some degree. As it turned out the song that followed was the Fairytale of New York, though the Christy Moore one, not the Pogues version. And a decent fist was made of it as well, though to my mind it’s become something of a Christmas standard in it’s own right.

Enough of the high-falutin music discourse, the evening was about enjoying yourself and aided by the Ringwood Brewery, we did just that. An added bonus was that having walked into the bar at the start we met our friend Mr Jim Anderson, accordion player extraordinaire, who not only got the first round in, but was shortly afterwards up on stage exercising his superb accordion stylings. In theory it was a Christmas medley, but so many tunes were included so quickly perhaps a Christmas mash-up would be a better description. For me one of the highlights of the evening.

Now if I were any kind of a diligent reviewer I would have taken note of all the performers and therefore been able to steer you on their relative merits. However the convivial atmosphere and the assistance of Messrs Ringwood meant that I can’t do that. Oh well. However I did particularly like the band with the young bloke playing the ukulele banjo. I like ukuleles, I like Christmas. What’s not to like.

What I can do is recommend the Lymington Folk Club as a good way to spend an evening. If the Christmas bash is representative of their regulkar meetings, then don’t wait until the evening is due to start to turn up. The seats will all be gone and you’ll have to stand at the back. There are worse things to have to do but I’m just saying.

Finally I can only wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It’s not Folk, but it’s my Christmas song for this year. A wonderful Reggae track from the Maytals. Apologies for the advert at the start.

One lives in hope. If my tv had its own voice it would probably have said ‘I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that’. Funny how one always expects electronic goods of any sort to start channeling HAL when things go wrong. Blue or Yellow made no odds. Change channel, turn off, turn back on, message in black box. So I thought maybe it’s imminent and therefore necessary that I do something right now. So I Googled when the digital switchover was due putting in my postcode and noticed that my house name or number was also requested. A little strange, so I made use of the ‘Why do you need this?’ link only to be told that the results would be a lot more accurate if I input this detail.

Now I’m no expert on public transmitters, digital or otherwise, but I have the sneaking suspicion that, unless you live on a road the length of the M3 the number of your house isn’t going to make that much difference to which transmitter you are getting your signal from. This suspicion was born out when the results came back saying ‘The Rowridge transmitter in the Meridian TV region is your most likely transmitter.’ So much for accuracy.

Expecting the changeover date to be that night because of the insistence of my tv, I was a little surprised to see that it was in March 2012. A horrible thought then dawned on me, what if this was going to happen every time I changed channel or switched on until Spring next year? Fortunately it seemed that there was to be no repeat the following day, or the day after. One cannot help but have the sneaking suspicion that the black box may be appearing again before we are launched into the digital wonderland next March. One last little point to give us all the feeling this will all go fine and dandy is a note on the Digital UK website which says “You won’t see these messages if you already watching digital TV (e.g Sky TV, Freview or another) or if your aerial is pointing at another transmitter that will switch at a different time.” That worked then and nice to know they can spell ‘Freeview’. Details such as they are below.

As good fortune would have it, my sister had the sense to marry someone who is currently employed chopping down trees, grinding stumps and generally creating logs for our stove. Result. Since he also cuts hedges and does other remarkably green type things, we normally get a visit late autumn from the entire family with a large trucky thing full of logs which gets exchanged for a trucky thing full of hedge clippings. Can’t see why this sort of thing hasn’t caught on. Shame they live in Surrey Dorking Tree Surgeons.

All that was needed to safely ignite said logs was someone to sweep the chimney. Wife suggested it could be me as I had accidentally purchased a chimney brush when I bought an extending drain cleaning jobbie from B&Q. Don’t ask, it was while the MiL was still with us and is best not discussed. Anyways when unwrapped it also had a circular brush which could be attached to the same extendible shaft. Obviously it had seemed like a natural pairing by someone at B&Q head office, maybe there had been a greater than normal chimney brush bristle harvest and they badly need to get rid of the excess. Hmm, bad enough typing that, wouldn’t want to have to say it aloud quickly. One thing I have learnt about DIY’ing things of which you know nothing, the phrase ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ was written for it. A professional chimney sweep was required.

Fortunately it’s not hard to get a chimney sweep in Lymington, getting an appointment suggested that many other people don’t think of getting their chimney swept until they want to set fire to something. In the end the Big Yellow Monster rolled up, an impressive 4×4 stating it’s business very clearly on the side. Fortunately Barry the efficient sweep refrained from saying ‘Cor blimey Mary Poppins’ even once in my hearing, reported all fine and having used the biggest Henry I’ve ever seen (Henry the eighth?) to keep the soot issue an non-issue, departed. Maybe to a wedding or other significant social event since the business card clearly stated that attendance at weddings was all part of the service. It also states that there is a Guild of Master Sweeps, one can only imagine what their Christmas party is like.

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Anyway if you need Dick Van Dyke Barry we finally got him on 610221.

So as the BBC sound effects wind howls around the house, we hunker down, wait for the thaw and practice wassailing, whatever that is.

It was announced earlier today that The Torch would travel to within ten miles of 90% of the population during its roughly 8000 mile journey. You have to wonder how they do it, I suspect dark arts, or at least Google Maps. Actually at times they seem to be the same thing. Wonder if Google will sponsor it. They could put a camera in The Torch and update a whole bunch of their spy camera Street View images at the same time. I’ve been expecting a knock on the door any time with them offering untold amounts of dosh for my insightful marketing ideas for a while now. Strange it hasn’t happened yet though…

Anyways, for more information than you probably care for on the subject, the Blessed Beeb have the dope on it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15572381

But if you’re looking for info on whether it’s going to come down your road, don’t hold your breath. At least not unless you can hold it until ‘later in 2012′ which is when the detailed map comes out.

Please note-

Since we are due quite a lot of rain here on Saturday, it has been moved to Sunday at the Pennington Recreation Ground, Lodge Road, Pennington.

Details as follows;

Gates open 5pm Fireworks 6.30pm

Adults £4 Children (4 to 16) £2.00

Free Parking on Pennington Common

Judging the Guy 6.00pm

“Best Walking Guy” and “Best Guy in a Wheelbarrow”

Apparently they are not have a “Sweet Talking Guy” as that was a hit song from the sixties by the Chiffons. I don’t just throw these together you know. OK, I do, still you learnt some pop trivia you may not have known before.

For even more detail (of the fireworks, not the Chiffons) go to http://www.lymingtonrotary.org.uk/Fireworks.html

That’s it, nothing more to see, move along.

Not suprisingly there is a Wikipedia (aka always utterly, utterly true) entry just on that one guitar. However if you view it any romantic ideas of one man, one guitar are quickly dispelled. Lucille is many. And some weren’t even Gibsons, oh the horror. I guess if you’re not into guitars then that won’t make any sense to you, but at least I didn’t start on about whether the guitar had  a Tune-o-matic bridge or a TP-6 stop tailpiece. It does amuse me how intense some guitarists get about the techie side of things. I’m not one of them, if it sounds right then it is right as far as I am concerned. So get to the point I hear you say. OK, I will.

For I while now, well since I made the mistake of looking on the Dean Guitars website, I have been somewhat enamoured with one of their acoustic guitars. Watching the documentary about the bloke from House and his blues music I saw him play the exact same model. Sounded mighty fine. But still costs money for those of us who aren’t sufficiently gifted or high-profile to have one with our own signature printed on it given free by the kindly manufacturers. But a chance to sell one of my current guitars came up and so taking the plunge I got the object of my desires and sold my previous BFF. Best Friend Forever if you’re not down with da kidz. Whatever.

Which got me thinking. I also own a Fender 12 string electro acoustic JG12CE-12 (image below) which would get played more if there were more blue moons. As it stands it is therefore not only surplus to requirements, it is also an asset. So anyone with 300 of the Queens pounds gets the guitar along with a pretty decent hard case and I get to wonder what delights I can purchase in the music shop next visit. Now that I think you will agree is what we call an equitable agreement. If interested, use the Contact page to send me a message. If not interested, find someone who is and pass it on. Simples.

I have no idea what the judging criteria was as it seems that the organizers main focus was in getting all the competitors to race a sufficient number of times to sink most of them. I was minded of the concept of testing to destruction in order to ascertain quality of design. In truth it really didn’t take long for the limitations of some designs to be well and truly found out. We were given to understand that one particular tub hadn’t even been tested in terms of actually floating. I think it safe to say that actually putting it in the water turned out to be a step too far. Not a particularly welcome feature for something designed to be a water-borne method of transport. Still, from dry land at least it was a thoroughly experience watching others misfortunes. Particularly when the misfortunes were brought about in shall we say a planned fashion by other contestants.

As ever at this sort of do, I took an awful lot of pictures, here’s just a few…

So I know the difference between graffiti and urban art, and when I turned the corner into New Street from Avenue Road to be greeted by this

I was both amused and intrigued at the same time. Now I don’t always remember things with incredible clarity, but I was certain I would have noticed it before as it decorates the back wall of the now defunct Linden House. A place we visited on a number of occasions as the MiL was delivered and picked up from respite care. Further viewing of the front confirmed the suspicion that something had indeed changed.

Turns out that permission had been granted by the current owners Colten for a couple of urban artists JXC and MrShiz to brighten the place up a bit. Now I have the sneaking suspicion that there may be some denizens of Lymington for whom this is a step too far. Whilst not being a great admirer of the Transformers franchise, you could hardly argue that the derelict and boarded up facia is not er, transformed by the addition of the artwork. For myself I very much like the beekeeper whilst allowing that the Transformers are very well realised.

Since they went to the bother of time-lapse videoing it all, it seems appropriate to provide a link.

So there you have it. Not proof exactly of Lymington’s urban credentials, but so much better than a quick coat of Snowcem. Just in case you want your own version, check out the pairs’ websites JXC Designs and MrShiz.

So anyway, around 3 years ago the zip on my leather jacket broke. Well actually the little brass stopend came off and meant there was no way of doing up what was otherwise a perfectly good, nay extremely cool jacket. I was told recently that cool is not cool any more and hasn’t been for some time. Hey, if it was good enough for the Fonz.

What do you do these days when you need to find out about services? No madam not that sort of service. The sort you aren’t concerned your wife might find out about. Actually you do the same for both I am given to understand by certain tabloids. Yes you hit t’Internet. So I did. And got nowhere. Either there weren’t any suitable repair services in the immediate vicinity, or they didn’t know people might look for them on the Internet. I even resorted to this yellow booky thing where you have to turn paper called pages to find businesses. Weird idea, it’ll never catch on. No luck there either.

Being of a patient disposition, and not coming up with any better options, I decided to wait. Jacket in cupboard, ocassional Google, no dice. Until last week. Now the thing about Google isn’t that it knows everything, it doesn’t. In fact it knows nothing. What it does know is how to look for what you tell it to look for. Wherein lies the rub. Ask for the wrong thing or the right thing in the wrong way and you’ll get a lot of results which even if you go all the way through to the 20 millioneth result you won’t find what you want. You have to think like a shopkeeper, or in this case a clothing repair service. What are the likely to think you might be likely to want to find that they do? Nail that and you find what you want.

Turns out that there is a small business in the entrance mall to Asda in Southampton (also Poole, Bournemouth and Winchester) that repairs leather jackets and pretty much everything else so far as I can see. Their site’s not much to look at, being as how it has apparently been being updated since 2009, but it’s got contact telephone details on it http://www.sewquickonline.co.uk/ if you need such services.

Jacket now repaired for reasonable dosh and all good. Just in time for what passed for Summer passing quickly into Autumn. So long as it doesn’t rain (hah!), should be pretty warm now.

It’s true that Lymington has been branded as snobby and held up as some kind of paragon of nimby-ism. Now whilst that is true to a degree, and not wishing to sound like Kevin McCloud at his most verbose, the town has to look like a Georgian town. If it doesn’t, then it’s little different from many cloned market towns in this country with the same shops and the same gridlock come summer. Yes the main shopping street might appear to require climbing gear to get from bottom to top, it might have an old-fashioned (ie not farmers) street market every Saturday, but in essence people visit because it is not like many other market towns. In some degree it still clings on to it’s historical character.

So is all the talk of preserving the architectural integrity and character valid? Well, to my mind it misses the point. If Lymington changes too much then it will lose many of its visitors. If it loses too many of its visitors it will lose more of its businesses. It really is as simple as that. So when the current re-developers of the riverside site on the now demolished Webbs factory came up with a new plan, it raised more than just eyebrows. The artists impression was of a series of five storey buildings right on the river front, amounting to over 300 dwellings in total. Regardless of the improbable access for that many dwellers and cars of dwellers being just one small road literally a few feet from the level crossing, how was something as modernistic as that supposed to fit in with the historical quay virtually next door? The more cynical amongst you might suggest that it wouldn’t have to fit in because the development was so high that the quay wouldn’t be seen. It would appear that there is some leeway on the part of the developers, admitting to have ‘lost their way’, but perhaps you would excuse me being just a tad cynical as to how much of a detour they end up being willing to take. Anyways, for those concerned enough to type their objections, gen up on the latest developments (sorry) and get started here.

Whilst there is a lot of local opinion against that development, there is very mixed opinion on another ongoing saga. No, not the 18″ that had to be taken off the height of the new development at Avenue Road/Lower Buckland Road, in one word ‘Wetherspoons’. To drink cheap beer on not to drink cheap beer? Actually I suspect that should probably be ‘cheaper’ rather than ‘cheap’. Once again the Quaint Georgian Town has been accused of snobbery. I have gone through some of the aspects of this change of use application before and shall not revisit them. But it looks like the weight of opinion would seem to be swinging in favour of Wetherspoons albeit that one online support group would appear to be run by someone in Portsmouth. Not sure whether more people drinking in Lymington would make much of a difference to Portsmouth, but there you go. Regarding this issue I have been contacted by Richard Stokes who has put some thoughts on his somewhat eclectic site here. I can’t say I endorse all his views or opinions on the subject, but I still suggest you read them. Never hurts to at least attempt to understand as many aspects as one can now does it?