Archives for October 2012

We're all travelling up together on the same flight - should be a hoot. Though whether we'll be any good on general knowledge up against those Eggheads, goodness only knows!

Not a great day for swimming, but here I am at Pinewood, where we've been marking fifty years of Bond movies in our patch.

Skyfall has, apparently, some utterly fantastic underwater scenes including a breathtaking battle - which took place in the very tank in front of me.

Thanks to everyone who made us so welcome at Pinewood - you can hear my programme again here.

They're from a Liquidambar, also known as a SweetGum. Just in case you fancy planting one in your garden for a feast of colour every autumn, be warned, they grow big - at least to 60 feet.

Places to go to feast your eyes on autumn colour - Mike recommends The Japanese Garden at Cliveden, The Vyne, Basildon Park and Greys Court.

Dictionary definition: "From the Greek polymathēs, "having learned much". A person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas." Leonoardo daVinci was a notable polymath.

Well, what if you're someone who's brilliant at not just one, nor two, three, but at least four different sports - at world level?

Well we tend to refer to them as multisport athletes or sporting polymaths.

But why not polymathletes?

One such was certainly my guest today, Paralympic goldmedallist David Smith, who was born with what they used to call "club feet", and yet has competed at national and internataional levels in karate, skiing, bobsleigh and finally Paralympic rowing. See his wonderful gold medal above. Hear his story on the iPlayer!!

Eamonn rubbed his eyes. Too many early mornings? Sleep in his eyes?

No, it really was a penguin.

At Belfast airport.

Yes I know.

The taxi driver paused, and then continued, as if this sort of thing happened every day. But enterprising Eamonn got a few people together and went looking for the penguin, which was meandering around the airport.

Now it's in Belfast city zoo.

And it's called Eamonn!!!

Beat that.

But then, at about 2.30am, I woke to the sound of crashing trees and a howling wind. It was the Great Storm of 1987 and it was in full flood as I made my way through the pitch black dark into work at 3.

By the time I went on air, in an emergency studio (we had no power for the big studio), we were beginning to realise that it wasn't just a London thing, it was affecting an enormous part of the country.

I was wearing a bright red sweater dress with a Bugs Bunny cartoon on the front. By the time reports of the first death came in, I couldn't change my outfit (no power in the wardrobe section) so I simply pulled my jumper around, so that I was wearing it back to front.

Gradually it became clear that the programme had become a 'news special' rather than a magazine show that morning, and so a decision was taken to drop the lighter elements of the show.

Thus my Apollo astronaut, who was sitting munching croissants in the Green Room (in the dark), was asked to leave. And I never got to meet him.

I'll always, always, always regret it.

It's believed that Princess Margaret had several "tidying up" sessions, in which she burned those letters that perhaps gave away too much - letters between the QM and Princess Diana, for example.

But those that are left still brim with personality and charm - and the occasional spark of wit, anger and even tears.

Try translating this, submitted in all seriousness as an English essay along the lines of 'what I did during the summer holidays' by a young teenage student:

'My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-@ kds FTF. ILNY, its gr8.'

It took us ages to figure out what CWOT meant. For your enlightenment, it's "complete waste of time".

FTF we think is "face to face".

But :-@ has got us foxed.

My guest today, the Rev. Louise Brown, from All Saints Church at Dedworth, was a Games Maker Chaplain during both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and told me she has never experienced such a fantastic feeling of being part of something special. From a crowd on the tube spontaneously bursting into song, through to making a connection with a young Kenyan athlete who still keeps in touch; from helping athletes come to terms with success and failure, through to her heart nearly bursting with happiness at the Paralympics closing ceremony.

I so envy her!

This weekend, I was trying to get my head around model railway electrics - because I want working lights inside my buildings (so you get a golden glow from within) and also at least two or three working lamposts. Well, said one chap in my local model shop, try a set of tiny, miniature Christmas lights - they're safe, efficient, and nowadays small enough to poke through your baseboard and light your village.

So off I went to my local garden centre and chose a set with light tips small enough to play the part.

See above - the lampost is lit with real light. Now my village pub looks warm and welcoming. By the way - a million thanks to Dorian Edwards, choirmaster extraordinaire from Wokingham, who donated the pub itself, for which I have planted a garden and a front courtyard with hanging sign - it's called The Stone Table (references to Narnia).

BTW - please don't take any of my electrical decisions as any kind of recommendation - please make up your own mind, and take your own advice!

It immediately made me think of those old Carry On and Doctor In The House movies with those fantastic characters, Sir Lancelot Spratt, the consultant, and the scary Matron.

They were comic parodies of the real thing, but so many patients and nurses are nostalgic for that era of total discipline and co-ordination in our hospitals. Thoughts of the ward round disappearing are worrying. Even if your consultant was a crusty old curmudgeon like Sir Lancelot, you still valued your moments with him. Get rid of ward rounds, and I bet we'll never get to see our doctors face to face!

It's on at the Wilde Theatre, South Hill Park, Bracknell from next Thursday.

These wonderful ladies have accordingly thrown themselves into their parts, covering their parts with everything from strategically placed bunches of flowers to ever more stale Chelsea buns!

Even more exciting, then, is the idea that we in Berkshire have our own mystery that could similarly result in a pile of Regal bones.

Because somewhere under the ruins of Reading Abbey lie the remains of Henry I. He was a son of William the Conqueror, and while he was King, he actually founded Reading Abbey in 1121, one reason he was buried there after his death in Normandy.

Amazingly his body was brought back sewn into a bull's hide - thought to be better at preservation than pickling! The abbey of course was partly destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII but there is no firm record of what happened to Henry I's remains. I've spoken to local historians who reckon it's worth digging around for - there's a plaque marking the rough area of his grave but rumours place the exact spot under nearby St. James' School.

It surely would be worth a rummage? Whilst not such a controversial king as Richard the third, he certainly had his moments. Henry may too have murdered his way to the top job, and had so many children on both sides of the blanket, it's hard to keep count.

Tourism has had a terrific shot in the arm in Leicester, where 1,400 visitors a day flocked to the Greyfriars dig site during the fortnight it was open - and many more are anxious to set up a museum of artefacts. Perhaps we in Berkshire deserve a similar Royal boost!