(For Meades)
As I sit here contemplating some home-cooked food, I ponder on how life has almost turned a full circle. I left the UK in 2003 after a life-changing event, determined not to return, as I was disgusted with the capitulation of my home country to the forces of Evil (Dubya and Tony). My destination was the Antipodes, and the future lives of choice were either greeny hippy builder or vintage motorcycling zenistry, the two alter egos of my adult life.
A revulsion to “eco leaders” in green stripey trousers [Ed: Meades will be devastated], and hippy chicks that talked the talk and then bailed out to live with the first available solicitor / advertising exec with a big bank balance when times got hard, made me realise where my true social standing lay: a motorcycle guy (or gal) is a motorcyclist first, and a political animal second. It’s a disease.
So how the fuck am I living in semi-rural northwestern Connecticut, armed with a green card and the prospect of naturalisation next year, and more to the point, how come I am eating a meal consisting of venison curry (freezer stocked by rednecks), organic brown pilau rice, and a side of home-grown zucchini, tomatoes, herbs, onions and garlic, all free from either my small veggie plot or from local friends? Worse still, I occasionally spend evenings playing with axes in a community-owned wood. What the fuck?
We live in interesting times, and while occasional observances are fine, perhaps it would be good to explain a little about my home, a run-down industrial town in northwest Connecticut; or, as a friend of mine’s father constantly asked her, “So what exactly is in Konneckticut?” As a middle-aged, widowed singleton, I have to say it’s largely about toys, but as I have resided here far longer than anywhere else in my adult life, and appreciate other aspects more and more, let’s do some background; it’s easy to do a wiki search on Connecticut.
Here is a personal précis:
Connecticut is known as the Constitution State after the “Connecticut Plan”, the proposal by the CT delegates to the Continental Congress that is credited with saving the assembly from acrimonious break-up, and leading to the ratification of the Constitution in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. The framework was supposedly based on the first articles of the New Haven colony from 1639.
Population: 3.7 million, in an area of 4849K square miles; that is to say about the same as Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Essex combined. The capital is Hartford, centrally located, and all the other major population centres are along the southern coast, bordering Long Island Sound. They are all a bit odd down that way. That’s where a lot of the money is too, as it’s within the commuter belt of NYC. (Also where the money isn’t, paradoxically: large parts of Bridgeport and New Haven make the Broadwater Farm Estate look like an agrarian paradise.)
State politics: the Communist State, nailed on to return two Democrats to the Senate, due to the large cities. Everywhere outside city limits is Trump territory. Sixth highest taxes in US states, and pretty good welfare support for poorer citizens, about as good as it gets, in fact. Must be why everyone seems to want to move to the South.
Early history: surprisingly, largely unexplored in the early years of colonisation, half-way between the Dutch in NYC/Hudson Valley and the Pilgrims in the Boston area. Groups of colonists seeking more religious freedom than on offer in Massachusetts (they are all a bit odd up there) started settling the Long Island Sound and the navigable reaches of the Connecticut River in the 1630s. Turns out that the Pilgrim fathers, fleeing political and religious intolerance in the mother country, were pretty keen on imposing their own even more extreme intolerances on the early colonists. The knock-on effect of this was the demand for self-governance in the fledgling settlements across New England (anarchism by any other name), which in turn kindled the fires that started the Revolutionary conflagration 140 years later.
I will leave the fates of indigenous inhabitants to scholars of such subjects, except to say that the shared custody of 4849K square miles of luxuriant temperate forests, lakes and streams, bounded by coastal regions unbelievably rich in fish and shellfish was fairly exchanged for a few beads, some hatchets, a lot of illegally brewed alcohol, and a couple of casinos. It’s all documented.
There are only a few of them left, so they made out like bandits. People like to assume that most of the Pequots, Mohawks and Mohegans generally wandered off to join their brethren further north and west, and they all lived happily ever after.
Geography: a bit of everything, but particularly a lot of lakes, hills, and rivers, the proliferation of which would lead to the Connecticut River valley becoming the heartland of the early American industrial revolution in the 19th century, some forty to fifty years after the process began in western Europe. Also thickly forested; almost all old growth had been cleared for farmland by the 1850s, but the opening up of western lands and the civil war led to huge areas formerly under cultivation being abandoned, and the regrowth continues apace.
Industry: in the early years, plenty of water power running from the upper reaches of the Appalachians to the west and the Berkshires to the north provided the power to make things. There are abandoned mill ponds and races everywhere in the woods, which are also crisscrossed with old stone walls from abandoned farms. Small forges and foundries gave way to larger factories in the 1890s, and led to wave after wave of European immigrants to work in them. This town is particularly strongly represented by Italians and Polish/Ukranians.
Wars lead to profits. A local high-end carriage manufacturer was the only major casualty of the civil war (all the rich guys wanting fancy carriages were down south), but the local brass mill developed the first easily mass produced bullet casing; the Union government bought loads of them.
Elsewhere in the State, they made the weapons that they needed, Colt and Winchester being possibly the most famous. Innovation and ingenuity being a natural part of the yankee character, local discoveries are too many to mention, from cotton gins to condensed milk and rubber vulcanisation, sewing machines and needle bearings. Manufacturing became a mainstay of the local economy through into the 1950s and 60s, but the writing was on the wall as cheaper labour and power supplies elsewhere started to take its toll.
Natural history: you name it, we got it within spitting distance. Deer aplenty, raccoons, chipmunks, skunks, and bears all seen rambling regularly in my neighbourhood; wild turkey roam in small herds. Me and the boys in the factory next door stood around for a good while last week watching a couple of red-tailed hawks learning to fly, and the mill dam is an excellent spot to throw a worm and catch a small brookie or rainbow trout now the factories have all closed – that is, unless the bloody bald eagle has been by and had ’em all, or scared them away, but he’s fun to watch too. Friend of mine had her chickens eaten by coyotes two weeks ago, and another friend has seen two mountain lions in the last year, not ten miles up the road. I’ve not seen a coyote or mountain lion; both of these are relatively recent returnees to the state. Connecticut is also ground zero for Lyme disease, we have deer ticks a plenty.
Signed, sunbeamtim.
Ovally Balls 
Chimpie – in terms of toughening your kids up?
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So Mr Alcoholic just randomly bought me a bottle of my very favourite bourbon out of nowhere. And lent me God of War.
I think we might be friends…
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Chimpie, going to let the kids stay up late and watch Mossmorran on fire?
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I love bourbon.
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Imagines the next Chiefs vs Highlanders game
Hello Bryn….
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I almost wept tears of unrestrained joy when I saw this mail in my inbox this morning:
Dee, your Gallagher Premiership Round 14 picks reminder
2nd Test at midday (SA time), English premiership starting tomorrow, SA rugby going to contact training next week and play within a month. It’s almost starting to feel like normal life again. It looks like the booze and cigarette ban is going to be lifted, at least partially, here too. Cannot wait to be able to breathe again.
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No arms charge against the Boks – red card every day of every week, except that match apparently;
Aus – no arms against a man without the ball, red every day, plus a yellow for the neck high tackle on the ball carrier;
Kiwi one – mostly (h)armless, a ticking off or if the ref was in a bad mood a yellow.
Right, now we’ve opened the Farrellgate floodgates again, let’s move on to how Sarries have been stiffed when Man City got away with cold blooded murder.
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Apparently the weather is looking alright-ish in Southampton today. Would the sporting gods be so cruel as to deny me some petit-vendredi (known as phuza-Thursday in SA, where the weekend’s binge drinking usually starts) entertainment?
My picks for this weekend’s rugby in England:
Bristol v Saracens – Bristol by 3
Bath Rugby v London Irish – Bath Rugby by 12
Exeter Chiefs v Leicester Tigers – Exeter Chiefs by 11
Northampton Saints v Wasps – Wasps by 7
Worcester Warriors v Gloucester Rugby – Worcester Warriors by 3
Harlequins v Sale Sharks – Sale Sharks by 9
Difficult to pick on earlier season form when they haven’t played in months and there’s been some merry-go-rounding of coaches and players, but Brizzzz were on a good run before the shut down, Bath have been ok at home, London Irish don’t seem to have travelled well, Execter should tonk Leicester by more, but who knows if the sides will be rusty and spill loads of chances; Wasps seem to be marginally less shit than Saints, ditto for Worcester against a Glos that have shed a coach and a few players, from memory, whilst Sale seemed to be going quite well. I expect a full house of points on ‘Bru.
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Northampton were playing really nice stuff, kept almost their whole squad together plus have Dan Biggar.
Sale may have Manu Tuilagi and Rohan Janse v Rensburg in midfield. Smash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Fd’s been crunching the numbers and here’s his conclusion:
https://www.sarugbymag.co.za/analysis-dispels-claims-referee-bias/
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Gonna have to wait another week till proper rugby starts
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Sarries by 10 ( unfortunately)
Bath by 5.
Exeter by 18.
Saints by 7.
Glaws by 9.
Quins by 3.
Think King and Cippers is a match made in Heaven, and Johnnys home. Beadle must be excited. Kind of interesting to see that Ben Morgan only as a handful of first team games more than Johnny, and he never went away. ( 138 vs 150).
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Big Ben also played over a hundred games for the Scarlets, SBT.
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“Fremdschämen” – it means to feel guilty about something that someone has done who may NOT feel accountable. You can see that look on sweet Maro’s face every time Farrell no-arms someone. My new word for the day. Courtesy of an Austrian contact here in SA. And no, it was not in the context of any (alleged) expense account, you bastards.
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Now to try to shoehorn my two words of German into one sentence. Schadenfreude being the other.
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‘And no, it was not in the context of any (alleged) expense account, you bastards.’
Wouldn’t have thought it for a moment. Has someone else’s Fremdschämen caused some residual guilt to show through?
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Only 9 sleeps till Embra vs Weedge
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Only 10 till Drags vs O’s. Feel the excitement building
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Flow in the shower earlier was a bit low. Wonder if I have a whinge on social media the regulators will ditch some regulations for me.
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I’m even semi-excited by the premiereship returning.
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Ooh, forgot that, TomP. Should check me facts :) Johnnys 3 years ish at Tiggers equals Bens in Wales, so evens then .
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Kind of surprising that Ben is so Young, and Jonny so old.
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Feels like Ben has been around forever.
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A-level results day, then. Sadly, the Telegraph is unlikely to find a snap of attractive blonde teenagers to put on tomorrow’s front cover. Perhaps some pictures of kids who’ve seen their predicted grade As and Bs turn into Cs and Ds.
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@tomp
Best way of allocating grades I saw was to have a weighting factor that normalises the results to make sure they were in line with previous results achieved at the school in question. Absolutely bloody marvellous way of making sure the kids from the private schools aren’t disadvantaged and to make sure the kids from the poorer schools (usually in poorer areas) know their place.
Not sure if they went along with it in the end but it was policy last week when I read about it.
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Think they did something similar up here originally. Cue top pupils from schools in poorer areas getting massive downgrades & a u-turn on the policy.
Bit of a clusterflap really. Not sure if it’s the same issue, only been following it superficially.
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Based on a 3-year average of results from that school, according to my mate the History teacher in the UK, OT. His words included “shitshow” and “penalises clever kids” and “useless tossers”.
Schools with “poorer” results rather than poorer schools, I think.
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@tomp
Your friend sounds like a wise chap.
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Super Nicky Sturgeon surprisingly slow in doing the U-turn, chimpie.
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OT, He’s ok for an Arsenal fan.
Met him on my first day at university. We got to talking and I found out his dad had been a vicar in Leytonstone where my grandfather worked. Asked him if his GP had been Dr. (Grandfather’s name). No, it wasn’t. But his doctor had been my grandfather’s closest colleague. Turned out my grandmother had known his mother as well.
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Testing.
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Ah. OK.
I seemed to be locked out – not only here, but WordPress in general. Not sure why. Sadly for you lot, I seem to have got back in.
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Anyway, this is what I’d tried to post earlier…
CJ Heaven.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/13/phil-collins-greatest-solo-songs-ranked
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@bb
Someone in the comments compares Collins to Marvin Gaye. And Karen Carpenter.
It’s shocking.
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OT – that’s ridiculous! Must be a pseu-pseu-pseudo Marvin fan.
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Was it CJ (or his alter ego, RoS?).
He (Phil) was better in his main band. Helluva drummer though.
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I’ve never seen this before. CJ has a lot to answer for
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Neither had I. Don’t want to see it again either.
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He’s a bit like Marvin. Messy divorce:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/85169465/why-phil-collins-used-to-play-gigs-with-a-pot-of-paint-on-his-piano
This is really good about Marvin in Ostend:
http://afropean.com/midnight-love-the-marvin-gaye-tour-of-ostend-belgium/3/
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There’s quite a few videos of Collins playing in that band. His posture on the drum kit makes my back ache just looking at it. It’s no wonder he unfortunately damaged his sciatic nerve.
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Deebee @18:40 – that was completely out of order. You monster.
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Best Phil Collins cover ever
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I have been working on the next chapter of The Lions, the Witch and the Locker, which I may publish tomorrow as there are … gasps with excitement … rugby fixtures to provide!
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