Blog
Transporter Bridge
“Poking over the rooftops I could see a bright blue structure. At first I thought it was a shipyard crane, then the penny dropped. Kathy had brought me to Middlesbrough & I was looking at the famous Transporter Bridge. I resolved to get a closer look. Having...
Relationship bonds
“Interactions with people, strangers or otherwise, are important. Maslow’s next level of need is emotional fulfilment. He talks about love & belonging. You can’t really make space for that in life unless you have food & shelter sorted & safety from danger....
Whitby
“Graham has always been a bit of a trickster and claiming he lived in Bram Stoker’s old house is just the sort of thing he’d be likely to make up, especially for a callow youth as I was at the time. So, I went looking for a house that looked like Bram Stoker’s...
Humber Bridge
“I’d never crossed the Humber Bridge before which, when it was built in the 70s, was a major engineering achievement, the largest single span suspension bridge in the world. There were all sorts of astonishing facts such as the two towers are so far apart that they...
Louth
“After a coffee I paid my bill and headed back to the Truck with my head and hood further down than before. The day had not been going well, the weather wasn’t going to improve, I’d not found an alternative camp site and I wasn’t looking forward to cooking inadequate...
The Beast of Rutland
“I’d catered for what Maslow would have considered the first level of the pyramid, shelter. In the increasing breeze I pitched the Khyam & in the lee of a hedge with the Truck across the entrance. The downside was that the farm had lots of birds: peackocks &...
Happisburgh
“Rolling into #Happisburgh I discovered it to be one of those ever-eroding coastal villages that you hear of when some poor soul's house falls over a cliff. The campsite was deserted but, clearly, it was possible to walk down the field & straight over the cliff. I...
Pig farm
“Crossing the border into Norfolk I saw my first pig farm and, until I spotted the almost invisible electric fence, I was impressed that they didn't just wander off up the lane as there seemed to be nothing to keep them in. The dry bare soil extended almost to the...
Hippie Campsite
‘“Would you like to camp over there?” asked the farmer pointing to a thin patch of grass. “That looks like it’s just been reseeded,” I replied. To be honest I was surprised that a farmer would offer me such a spot as the grass looked so delicate and thin that I...
WARNING – Don’t set up a Facebook PAGE based on your domain name
I can now reveal, it’s official, Facebook are actually evil. I’m not just talking about the misuse of your personal data, possibly allowing foreign powers to interfere with democratic processes or even all those pictures of cats. Worse than that, if you allow them to,...
Ely Cathedral
“After a coffee I ended up in Ely Cathedral. I find cathedrals quite difficult to resist and Ely Cathedral, at 5.30 on a bank holiday afternoon, has very little competition. I also have a bit of a thing for meditating in cathedrals although I'm not very good at it,...
Rational anxiety
“On the other hand the anxiety I had about charging my devices was rational as the situation could have scuppered the whole trip. Anxiety at the logistics, the effort of the driving, finding somewhere to camp, time to write and two hours of packing and un-packing each...
Irrational hematite
“I’m using the term rational to define that which can be scientifically verified whereas the irrational has, or seems to have, no basis in scientific terms. Rational is that which is based on facts or reason, often referred to as evidence based. There are no facts...
Neil Oliver
Last week I was out with my muse and we attended Neil Oliver’s lecture tour in which he talks about his new book The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places. (Smiley face) Apart from the fact that he’s a historian, and a top bloke to boot, what was interesting was...
Telephones as tools of social isolation
I don’t visit my friends any more. When I were a lad we used to have callers. We had a living room with the TV and the coal fire, it was somewhere to live and entertain. When people arrived, the TV would be turned off and the kettle would be turned on. Years ago,...
Scary Hatching
This post is copied from the crowd funding page for In SatNav We Trust. Please visit, pledge and spread the word to support the book. Good day again supporters. (Smiley face) I promised I’d post another update with an extract for people who aren’t yet supporters. If...
The One Percent
This post is copied from the crowd funding page for In SatNav We Trust. Please visit to support the book. Okay so the first day is done and we’re on target at 1%. I say the first day, the page has been live since the beginning of September but we’ve been...
Has GDPR ruined the Internet?
You clicked on that link on Facebook, you know that link, possibly clickbait but you wanted to see for yourself, after all it’s only a picture of an old shoe dug up from Roman times. But you don’t get the world’s most interesting shoe, you get a brief, tempting flash...
In SatNav We Trust – A search for meaning through the historic counties of England
Those of you in the know, and you know who you are, will be aware that I’ve recently been in talks with a new publisher for my travelogue. I’ve been holding back, apart from the occasional post about progress, because the title wasn’t formally agreed and there were...
Moondog – if you’re out there get your people in touch!
I’m in music hell! There was a guy who lived in New York in the fifties and sixties called Moondog. He was a street performer and composer, a busker I guess. He was blind, at one time homeless although he later had a country retreat, but he made his money by selling...
Major Tim doesn’t not believe in God, or does…
Tim Peake was on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning answering the question of, “Was the universe designed by a higher intelligence?” This was the way the question was posed to Britain’s latest astronaut by the BBC’s Justin Webb. Tim Peak’s Soyuz capsule is...
The first feedback from my new publisher
I've been reviewing the document from my new publisher that outlines the publishing plan for #InSatNavWeTrust. This is the first time I've seen anything from them that describes the book at they see it. Here's how they've described it in their synopsis: A...
R2D2 has been having a tantrum and, frankly, I’ve had enough
There’s been a bit of an incident with R2D2 recently. He’d been unaware that there had been another Star Wars film, only really paying attention at the run up to Christmas when he’s become accustomed to being taken out on a few expeditions in preparation for his...
Things are getting serious
Since my visit to a publisher a few weeks ago (no names, no pack drill) things have been moving along nicely. They are in the process of costing In SatNav We Trust and working out stuff to do with numbers, I guess numbers of pages, numbers of copies, numbers of...
Publishers, pubs, canals and hops
Today I had a great meeting with a new publisher. (I also had a nice steak and a pint in a proper London pub, nearly ended up in the canal because of a cyclist but you have to read to the end to see where that fits in.) Those of you in the know, and you know who you...
Scotland Sightseeing 2018 Awards
Before we set off on the Scotland Tour at the beginning of May I had the thought of writing a travel blog each day as I did when I went on my travelogue tour some years ago. That idea turned out to be a little ambitious when it was pointed out that I didn’t want to...
If I make a threat, I carry it out… I’m bad-ass!
So, I decided to eschew teabags what with the discovery of plastic in the paper of just about every teabag in the world. (Was it always thus?) I tweeted Yorkshire Tea to blackmail them with a public threat to desert them if they didn't remove the plastic forthwith. Of...
Are IT professionals guilty of magical thinking?
In my coming travelogue (too long in the pipeline) I discuss two ways of looking at and dealing with the world, that I describe as rational and irrational approaches. The irrational approach is often described as magical thinking. Wikipedia defines magical thinking as...
The fall of the Berlin Wall and how not to write about it
They are saying that as of today, 06 February 2018, the Berlin wall has been down one day longer than it stood, or something like that because I'm not checking the figures. I grew up with the Berlin Wall, having been born in 1963. I thought of it as a permanent...
The Last Jedi inspires R2D2 to hold the fort over the holiday
I’ve been away you know. You may not know, other than the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks, but I’ve been in Amsterdam with friends for New Year where we played murder mystery and I played Enrico the farm hand with an outrageous west country accent and many...