Jim Webster's Blog, page 17

Headbutting a rock, and other hobbies

Originally posted on willmacmillanjones:
Headbutting Rocks is a strange hobby Both my publicist (doesn’t that make me sound upmarket?) and several former publishers have encouraged me to write blog posts in which I ‘interview’ the main character, and perhaps a few other characters, from a forthcoming book. With Galactic Fugitive launched, and Star Spy -the…

You cannot get the staff

A young city couple are driving down a country lane on their way to visit some friends. They suddenly came to a muddy patch in the road and didn’t stop in time, so the car got bogged down and stuck. After a few minutes of trying to get the car out by themselves, they saw …

Funny way to write a book!

As the late, great Samuel Johnson once said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” It’s all well and good writing a book, how the dickens are you going to get anybody to read it? More to the point how are you going to get them to pay for the undoubted privilege? …

What, another winter!

You have to admit it, Cumbria is so beautiful that even the view from the motorway service stations can be impressive. Before anybody starts talking about their national parks, there are about ten million people who live within a hundred miles of where this photo was taken. Mind you, the motorway service station I took …

Lentil Curls

I have undertaken a social survey and fully intend to astound you with the results. But first, I thought I better set out my stall with regard to the current unpleasantness. You might have noticed, but here in the UK we’re going to have a general election. This has several immediate results. The first is …

Big skies?

A tourist was talking to an old farmer. (It was in the farmer’s agreement with the Environment Agency, the old lad had to stop whatever he was doing and lean on a gate trying to look bucolic whenever tourists appeared.) The tourist looked round at the scenery and asked, “How far can you see from …

Sheep may safely graze

When you have a herd of dairy cows, there isn’t really a lot of room for sheep. The sheep just eat grass that the cow could eat and it’s the cows that are paying of the mortgage. But there again, there are times of year where even the most intensive dairy herd could use a …

Government wants summat fer nowt.

I confess that I don’t often visit Carlisle, so whilst it’s technically my county town, I don’t go there every decade. In fact if I’ve been into the city half a dozen times that’s probably it. It’s just that we have to go up to Carlisle soon. Hence I was a bit nonplussed when my …

Do you want fries with that?

I’m obviously better preserved than I thought. I’ve clearly kept my youthful good looks. At least you’d think so from the number of people who seem to assume I was born yesterday. It’s like the time I was levelling up a gateway. When livestock or tractors go into a field they can make a bit …

Large animal vets and bovine TB

I’ve been working with large animal vets all my life. Indeed as a small boy I remember my father ‘looking’ after me when my mother had to go shopping. This looking after me consisted of me sitting on the shippon window ledge whilst they were TB testing. Given the thickness of the wall, the window …