Brotherly love

Without wishing to light the fuse of sibling rivalry within you, my older gene gender go-getter bro has long returned to the ancestral pile where the ex king of family entertainment Sir Eric West Common Morecambe settled. No not in the North West but commuter belt Harpenden.

And now I can see whether Marham, in the Norfolk corner, is colder than the woosy Hertfordshire Rothamsted with a daily update from the Met Office. There are also bihourly updates so you can see just how cold it officially is. He was colder in the last 24 hours but Marham didn't get above freezing all day! This morning the recently quiet airforce base reached -10C.

Strangely, the road salt lorry arrived in the village again today and topped up the bins they half filled yesterday. I'm sure it makes good sense to someone. We know where our bins are so they have been constructed from half round fence posts, which tend to blend into the background a little better than their dayglo cousins. 

Normal for Norfolk 2

My spies have informed me that there is an organisation already encouraging more outsiders. Come on, if we band together we can stop World Class. Normal for Norfolk!

Thanks to agent Leila for the intelligence, no I don't think she is the one eyed mutant from Futurama.

Is it wrong to fancy a cartoon character?

The world isn't flat, nor is Norfolk

It's a fallacy that everybody pre Columbus thought the world was flat, 6th century BC Grecians already believed heavenly bodies were spherical. Just so the myth that all of Norfolk is flat. This part of Breckland may be no Lake District but there remains a pleasant undulation in the tilth. True the Lincolnshire/Cambridge borders can be a little sparse and The Broads are rightly not called The Heights but, as any cyclist or walker will tell you, the Peddars Way passing through this region certainly isn't puff free.

© J Reed

Another urban myth persists that my journey up the A11 was to relieve my worsening vertigo. Fear of heights is acrophobia whereas my affliction is a random dizziness. This can range from a light headed 'couple of beers' sensation to the necessity to sit down, even if you are half way up a viewing tower at the National Trust's Sherringham Park. Strangely flying isn't a problem but is part of the problem. Some of the condition for me is the feeling that you want to jump, a sensation I've had since walking over the canal footbridge from Shelton to Stoke in my polytechnic days. I am presently in remission, but a picture in todays Telegraph of a balancing artiste in Norway had my head wobbling like a nodding dog in the back of a 1970's Cortina.

Shelter from the salt, snow and slush

What's this, has North Pickenham Parish Council run out of funds to repair the rendering on the bus shelter or is this a new starter home initiative?

As you can see The Street is fairly clear with the gritted loop around the village with access to the A47 mainly just slushy but icy snow free. The pavements, though, give a clue to the state of the rest of our roads which today have a fresh sprinkle of snow on the compressed stuff, very slippery for man or machine.

All photos © J Reed

The council did kindly half fill our six or so salt bins today, which have been empty since before Christmas. Reminds me of Johnny Mathis singing with Denise Williams "Too much, too little, too late" for snow, salt and  time.

Not Norfolk Nonsense

Blimey, non British Blagging Balderdash. Sensodyne use pretty bods on TV ads to sell us toothpaste, but the latest advert is fronted by an Ideation Director - your guess is as good as mine. If you need help with finding an NHS dentist you can contact enquiries: 0800 587 4132.

But then I saw clarity, thanks to The Job Box ad:

'Responsibilities: Leads in the driving of new product ideas with demonstrated consumer heartbeat to EPDBs for the GSK Consumer Healthcare product brand. Ultimate owner of EPDB productivity (number of heartbeat validated ideas progressing to PDBs) 3. Evaluates new heartbeat methodologies, including owning I3 (Ideation) meetings for the category. Finds cost effective means to connect with global brand consumers on a regular basis for insight, ideation and product idea validation purposes. Oversees commercial input to Research & Development (Scientific) progression of EPDB. Prepares and delivers a near-final PDB (with most inputs completed including qualitative and quantitative research data) to Innovation Director, who finishes and submits for approval. Measured by the number of Approvable PDBs delivered and the strength of those PDBs as defined by consumer qualitative and quantitative research data. Establishes appropriate and robust market research techniques enabling a reliable and timely evaluation of opportunities.'

That's clear, then.

Normal for Norfolk

Insult or endearing acronymic idiom of our isolated idyll, NFN certainly doesn't sum up a whole county. Heads up then to bf1systems of Diss who, along with doing clever stuff for Formula 1 teams, now make a bespoke bicycle sold at Harrods with a price tag in the region of £25K!

Also, local employer STG Aerospace, an ever expanding Swaffham based firm, produce photoluminescent materials used to guide us to safety during aircraft electrical failure. Just goes to show there are brains in Norfolk outside the Big Canary City. But don't shout too loud, wouldn't want to start a stampede of businesses wanting talented staff who would like to live near stunning countryside like this. Shush, don't mention the stinging easterly wind or the mini icebergs in the sea!

Sex, booze and fags

Awaking the new year in bright sunshine, amplified by a sprinkling of frost hardened snow, the hangover of a weeks excess came with the news that all our revelry is making us fat and bankrupting the NHS. The health police have now set their sights on merry fat people now their prime suspects are a hardcore willing to wheeze alfresco in all weathers.

Of course there is always the argument that, like tobacco sales, with the £16bn odd raised in alcohol taxes, the £3bn deficit should be well catered for! At least other NHS initiatives are more fun, how about losing some of those mince pie pounds with sexercise? Safely, of course. You might be less likely to be disturbed with plans to turn 27.000 Norfolk street lights out for certain parts of darkness, but I'm with the residents of Langham who like the stars to do the illuminating. When first coming up here I was amazed at how many more stars were visible, even with our local light pollution perpetrators, with none of the endless procession of orange glows on the horizon marking the next large conurbation. Wonder how many stars you would see at the observatory in Kielder Forest, officially the darkest place in England?