More than a junk store

St Mary The Less, Norwich, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Daily Mail and Daily Express readers look away now.

The state of the interior of St Mary The Less almost makes me believe in the conspiracy theory of history. This particular church is a solid representation of one of the most glorious revolutions in Norwich's history and is also a beacon of hope for the future of our whole country. I do not understand how we can allow a building like this which should be a place of secular pilgrimage to be treated in this manner.

This church was given to The Strangers, Dutch refugees from religious persecution to be used as their own. If you look at the parish records for the church you find they start off being written in their own language but after a hundred years or so they continue in English. But this was not the subsumation of a smaller culture into a greater one; The Dutch Strangers changed forever the politics, the culture and the economics of the whole of Norfolk.

It was not without it's stresses as can be read here but the history of St Mary The Less proves that multiculturalism works. It has all happened before. Actually the present wave of economic migrants is as nothing when you think that at one point one quarter of the population of Norwich was Dutch and Walloon.

The Death Of Language

Contemporary Dining and Drinking, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Uh what? What the hell is contemporary dining and drinking?

Scene: The Bull public house in Ambridge. Sid Perks, the landlord, is behind the bar polishing glasses, his wife Jolene is out of sight in the kitchen. Occasionally the sound of her humming "Stand By Your Man" wafts through the whole pub.

Sid Perks: Would you like a drink gentlemen?
Doctor Who (for it is he): I am trying to work out if I want a pint of contemporary Stella Artois or whether I want to get in the Tardis and go back in time to 1982 and redrink the non contemporary but very historical Harvey Wallbanger I drank then.
Doctor Sam Beckett: Oh boy. Not again. It was bad enough the first time. Besides if you go back in time that Harvey Wallbanger then becomes contemporary.
etc. etc

Empty

The Big Nothing - Halvergate Marshes 4, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

A strange featureless empty place - The drained marshes that lie between Great Yarmouth and Acle. A place of extremes: it is freezing cold in winter with nothing to protect you from the wind and the rain and the frost conversely on a hot summer's day the heat can become unbearable.

Double tags

Formerly known as Willie, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Engineer, sculptor, cello maker, furniture maker, toy maker Willie Bailey displays his hospital label on his right wrist and his electronic tag on his left ankle.

Previously featured in my occasional series of Norwich characters here

He is currently designing and building a steam engine with the heat source originating from a rechargeable electric battery. When I asked why, he explained that the coal fired one he had built was far too smelly and was thus upsetting the neighbours as well as making his flat uninhabitable.

The court ordered electronic tag he tells me interferes with his digital radio signal and the label reveals his name is not Willie at all but Robert. Which all gives credence to my late mother's theory that he gained the name Willie because of the obscenely short, cut off jeans he insisted on wearing in the days of his youth.

Whatever the reason - Hello Bob.

Idle Thoughts At The Lowestoft Air Show

Cloud Painting, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Units of the provisional wing of the Suffolk Tourist Board painting clouds to "make them less boring and more of an attraction"


.....and how does one apply for a job as a wing walker? Do they advertise for them in job centres or are you supposed to hang around the right bars and wait for a pilot to call out "Hey Kid do you want to earn a tenner tomorrow"?

Seeing the light

Suffolk Clouds Part 5, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Seeing this move towards me I thought I was in for some kind of divine revelation which would have been handy as I was having trouble trying to think what to cook for everyone's dinner

Commerce In Britain - THE VERDICT

Norton Peskett's Little Sunburst, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

I photographed this in Southwold as part of my pursuit of Sunburst designs.

Norton Peskett's mission statement is boringly obvious; "Our team approach means that we work together to bring you the quickest, practical and most cost effective solution to your problems." Ho hum. They would generate far more business if they changed it to "We will pepper your small towns with cast iron sunbursts."

That is the problem, in a nutshell, of the malaise that strikes at the heart of all commerce in Britain today; no vision.