Yes, Friends, it's a common dilemma, isn't it, particularly for parents of school-age children! How to bolster your kids' confidence after their teacher has been scaring the living daylights out of them!!!!
What would YOU do to help YOUR kids in this kind of situation? There was a case in point reported in the local Onion News for East Hampshire this morning. It's a bit of a head-scratcher, isn't it!!!!
Just saying!!!!!
Applegarths Farm Shop Restaurant, near Grayshott, Surrey
We decide to drop in at Applegarths at the end of a long walk over lovely Luddshott Common, 700 acres of heathland, once owned, 1000 years ago, by one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings, Edward the Confessor, but, since then, let out free to the area's "commoners" to graze their pigs, cattle, sheep and goats in/on, which was nice! And during World War II, our Canadian allies practised their tank manoeuvres here, when they came over to help us in our hour of need.
Luckily we've had lots of rain this last summer and autumn, but in dryer years, this lovely heathland has been hit by bush fires, particularly during the hot summers of the 1970's. During the last of these, in 1980, pretty much the whole common - 600 out of 695 acres - was burnt away, and residents in nearby Headley Down even had to be evacuated from their homes - yikes!!!!
As the BBC report explains, the ability to create fire, whenever it happened, was the moment that changed everything for humans.
It provided "warmth at will", and enabled our ancestors to cook and eat meat,
which made our brains grow. It meant we were no longer a group of animals
struggling to survive – it gave us time to think and invent, and to become the
advanced species we are today.
The team say they found baked earth together with the earliest Stone Age lighter – consisting of a flint that was bashed against a rock called pyrite, also known as fool's gold, to produce a spark. Sparks are created when the pyrite is hit with a flint axe, enough to create a fire when it lands on dry tinder. It was the first known lighter.
Oh dear! Poor Queen !!!!
Certainly, when Yours Truly and my wife Lois (a.k.a. Mrs Yours Truly!) pop in for a "little light lunch" at local farmshop Applegarths' restaurant today, we were relieved to find all the chairs in their usual position, and not made into one of Ms Frederickson's "giant circles", which was nice!
The place is certainly "rammed" this lunchtime, what with co-worker groups, friends and families celebrating with a pre-Christmas "nosh-up" (!). Luckily, however, Lois and I are able to get an intimate table-for-two next to the toilets, which for most people would be a bit of a drawback, but, as we're both 79, and "knocking on" 80, the proximity of the bathrooms proves a definite plus, to put it mildly!!!
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
So no, if Lois and I are put off our stroke by anything this lunchtime, it's not "chairs in a giant circle", thankfully!!! It's more Applegarths' giant meals that are scaring the pants off us today! We normally eat very sparingly, but today we have to cope with some giant burgers and piles of chips, although we squirrel at least a third of the food away in our serviettes when we leave, so not as bad as it sounds!!!!!
flashback to this morning: Lois and me on our daily walk, which today takes us over
lovely Ludshott Common, once owned by King Edward the Confessor, would you believe!!!
one of the many bush fires that have ravaged this heathland in the past
Yes, fire is a bad master, but a good servant, as people say. And on the BBC News today, there's a story revealing just how long human beings have been using fire "as a servant". New archaeological discoveries in the county of Suffolk Eastern England have indicated that it has been much much much longer ago than previously believed, that people discovered how to do it - to make fire.
According to the recent excavations, it wasn't a "mere" 50,000 years ago, but at least 400,000 years ago that it started happening: a discovery which is a bit of a game-changer for historians, to put it mildly!!!!
Researchers
have just uncovered evidence of the earliest known instance of human-created fire, which took
place in the east of England 400,000 years ago. The new discovery, in the village of Barnham, Suffolk, pushes the origin of human
fire-making back by more than 350,000 years, so far, far earlier than previously
thought.
the 2025 excavations at Barham, Suffolk
The team say they found baked earth together with the earliest Stone Age lighter – consisting of a flint that was bashed against a rock called pyrite, also known as fool's gold, to produce a spark. Sparks are created when the pyrite is hit with a flint axe, enough to create a fire when it lands on dry tinder. It was the first known lighter.
(right) a piece of iron pyrite, very rarely found naturally in Suffolk, but brought
into the area, and used to make fires and keep people warm around 400,000 years ago
The
team conducted geological studies which reveal just how rare iron pyrite is in
this landscape. The conclusion: that ancient people went far and wide to seek it out the pyrite they needed because this "fool's
gold" was, to them, the most precious mineral in the whole world.
Fascinating stuff, isn't it! [If you say so! - Ed]
20:00 And still today, 400,000 years later (approximately!!!), many people even light fires in their own houses, I'm told, and experts say that it's usually quite safe to do so, although it's a good idea to make sure your chimney is regularly "swept" - Colin's "tip of the day", if you like!
a typical chimney sweep, sweeping a modern chimney
The profession of "chimney sweep", however, is not everybody's idea of a pleasant occupation, although it's one that's been certainly useful to human society over the millennia. And who can forget Dick Van Dyke's "Cheerful Cockney Chimney-Sweep" in the 1964 film "Mary Poppins". Certainly his British fans have never let Dick forget it !!!!
Chimney sweeping is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it!. And there are sometimes some unexpected perks to the job.
Oover 200 years ago, a couple of French chimney-sweeps had a bit of a surprise when they were sweeping the chimneys at France's iconic Versailles Palace back in the days of Queen Anne-Marie Antoinette, as Lois and I find out this evening, while watching the latest programme in the fascinating Channel 5 series, "Secrets of the Royal Palaces".
Lois and I didn't know that a couple of chimney sweeps happened to be working in Versailles at a particularly tense time. It was the week that the Queen Marie-Antoinette went into labour, expecting her first baby after trying fruitlessly for 8-years, during the early years of her marriage to the French king, Louis XVI.
As historian Kate Williams explains, in France a royal birth was made into a public event, firstly to say that the birth was legitimate, that everybody saw it being born. So no pretenders, no time-wasters (!), this was the actual monarch of the future. And for 8 hours only, the Queen's body became "the property of the nation" (!). It was a celebration, a party. And everybody who could, was going to go in and have a jolly good old look at her, while she was doing it, that's for sure!
Including two chimney sweeps who just happened to be doing the palace chimneys that week.
What madness!!!!
Those two chimney-sweeps must have got "quite an eyeful" from the tops of their ladders. And they must have come away with some good stories to regale their friends and family with, for the rest of their lives, that's for sure!!!!
But what a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off times !!!!!
But what a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off times !!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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