ChrisB

I decided that I would go out today for a walk and eat a sandwich somewhere else. I usually head off up the coast but thought today I will go the other way. I ended up at Winterton, slung a quid in the bucket for coastwatch who collect at the car park before it officially opens for the season and had a coffee at the cafe before setting off across the dunes. The dunes are a special area and quite vast but are an absolute disgrace within a radius of 400 metres of the car park. They are covered and I mean covered in dog fouling. On my way home I stopped at Horsey Staithe to use the toilets. In the car park I got into conversation with a member of the NT staff and mentioned how bad it was at Winterton. He said they had a similar problem along with abandoned poo bags which one could argue are a worse senario. Apparently they had a clean up af abandoned poo bags some time ago on both the sea side and land side of the marrams and collected over 100 bags. Who are these sub-life who do this to beautiful areas? Anyway I had my picnic such as it was at Martham Staithe and watched a Barn Owl hunting the marsh grazing which made up for my anger at the state of Winterton Dunes.

Many years ago, when I was in my late teens and on arduous training in the Brecons (told you it was many years ago) I witnessed an Army petrol cooker catch fire. The cooker was not lit but was being refueled. The vapour from the petrol being poured into to the cooker tank ran down hill about 25ft to a cooker already deployed and flashed back. When employed in Chemical Engineering I was on a H&S team investigating a fatality in the labs. A young lady chemist was using Ether, acetone, and MEK and had failed to seal their containers the vapours from which crept along a bench nearly 40ft long to a naked flame.

Is Southgates still owned by Woodbastwick Estates?

NWT, have a no dogs policy at all their reserves I think you will find. Which includes Hickling.

Was the gash yours? Or do you get fresh gash when you hire from Richos? Only joking, glad you had a nice holiday.

You know, I struggle with some of the figures I read. The Broads are down for 8m visitors per annum. If you divide 8m by 52 weeks that is 153,000 per week throughout the year. Unless they include visitor numbers to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Or are they extrapolating figures for the 12000 private boats and saying they are visitors. Any road up it still sounds a big number to me. If you go to the lakes it is heaving in Windermere, Keswick and the like and vast numbers of luxury 50 seaters are hogging the roads and crawling up the passes, so I can see 16m but 8m for the Broads? I have a problem with that number. Maybe someone closer to the industry could explain how the figure is calculated.

I agree Marshman, the Broads are more than just the waterways. However their area is tiny compared to other NPs and yet their headcount does not reflect this. They have only 70 less than The Lakes who have a vast area and navigation on Windermere, Ulswater, Derwent Water and Coniston and twice the visitor numbers at least.

This document outlines funding of the various NPs. However page 4 is interesting as it gives head count by NP. Final national Stop the Cuts briefing July 2015.pdf

From my commercial background it does seem a bit of a top heavy for a £7m turnover organisation. The attached is a bit out of date but gives an insight. Start at about page 16.Annual-Report-2015-web-version.pdfAnnual-Report-2015-web-version.pdf

They are also building the English Harbour Yacht range. Not sure if they are building under licence or building for English Harbour. English Harbour are ex Fairline folk.

The case was discharged.

Certainly if you like the Upper Thurne Potter Bridge would no longer be any obstacle.

I wonder that now Brooms are fitting out Tyler Steel narrow boat hulls whether we will see:- A, more narrow boats on The Broads. And B, some in the hire fleet. The first boat is to me launched at the Crick Boat Show.

When trying to keep up with a Suz Hayabusa or a Kawasaki ZZ1100 Ninja. No chance so keep to the limits.

Storno was the Swedish version of the Motorola 8000, knew it was in the grey matter somewhere!

Exactly, the car driver would not experience that at all as he hits an over excited child coming out of school, who's head is filled with God knows what, chattering to his or her friends. And all because he or she is travelling in excess of the speed limit. I in my employment was once a regular at Millbrook where I have been in excess of 150mph. When you pass a van or any slow moving vehicles lower down on the embankment you get a real appreciation of how thinking and reaction time decreases with speed. Speed limits are there for a reason. If I have one criticism of them is they are not applied consistently.

I remember in the dark days, for some regions in the 1980s, as traditional industries collapsed parking in very depressed NW city. In those days I still smoked and left a half empty packet on the car console and got a new packet from the glovebox. My passenger who ws local told me to put it out of sight "As they will have your window in for half a packet of fags" I also had an office in Nanterre a suburb of Paris. There we emptied the cars and left them unlocked in our compound, once they found there was nothing to take, that was it, no damage.

I had one of those in the early 80s but not quite so nice looking. It wa like carrying a small car battery about. It had a mounting bracket in the boot and you plugged in the car aerial and another handset that was between the front seats. Mobile was like shown, mine was a Racal Vodaphone. There was no roaming in those days but I could phone my wife from Calais to say I was boarding the Hovercraft. In 1985 I went to the Fleet Motor Show at Wembley and saw the future by Motorola and a Swedish company that started with an "S" theirs were cream Motorola were black. I ordered 5 of them. I think they were 8000s. Cost, buying 5 we got a discount! £2400 each. Within a year the present scheme of giving them way was in place. So although in my late 60s I have been a Vodafone customer for half my life. Think I will stick to my waterproof Sony, though tempted by new Samsung when I am due new in July. My tablets are Android so makes sense.

Don't quite see where you are coming from. Deaths due to traffic collisions were as many as 8000 in the 60s. In 2010 it was slightly below 2000. It is impossible to compare the 50s or 60s with today. One could say there are millions more cars now so there should be more accidents and deaths but cars are so much safer in every respect that the death rate has fallen dramatically. In the 60s I drove sports cars who' s steering wheels and columns were there to lance you, many cars had hand brakes designed to remove your knee cap and hardly any cars had seat belts as standard.

I had a sailing friend, sadly no longer with us, who was before retirement a DCI. He told me that 9 out of 10 adults ( not children not elderly ) though badly injured if hit at 30mph survive, at 40mph 9 out of ten do not survive. Likewise the move on many rural roads to 50mph is about survival rates given a modern car hitting a tree. At 50 it is survivable just about. At the National speed limit in most cases it is not.

I have to disagree Marshman. I agree no flashing light will deter the habitual speeder/ Saturday night racer but what they do achieve is to remind normal drivers that their concentration has lapsed or their speed has crept up. Here in North Norfolk we have a number of very long 30mph zones and it is easy to creep up for various reasons. My answer is the cruise control because the roads are quiet and it works but it would not in heavier traffic, where you have to brake etc. I am sure the flashing light has saved many a fine and resultant points. Furthermore having been warned the courts are within their rights to clobber wrong doers hard.

I know of at least two versions of the first verse, either way it would have had a lot of work to do.

Recited with a beer enhanced enthusiasm in rugby clubs the length of the land when I played in the 60s and early 70s. Now considered very non PC!

I also have a shared love of the Canadian Kipling and Bard of the Yukon since my teens. The Service poems are now a permanent in my Kindle Paper White and travel with me everywhere.

I was told today that golfing buggies are really being hit hard including Barnham Broom.