A Jingoistic Holiday Ramble

Sunday, August 5, 2012

A Jingoistic Holiday Ramble

jingoistic

adj.

displaying the spirit, policy, or practice of a person who professes his or her patriotism loudly and excessively...

What a marvellous day yesterday was for British sport. Six Olympic Gold Medals. It has taken our total to 14. I know we got 19 in Beijing but there’s still a few days to go so we may beat that. I wondered if that would then be a record number of GB Gold Medals at an Olympics.

It won’t be. Having Googled it, I found that in the London Olympics of 1908 we got 56 Gold Medals. Duh! Did no one else compete?? I know the London Police Team won Gold, beating the Liverpool Police Team, in the Tug-of-war. Why is that no longer an Olympic sport? Could be great fun.

In 1908 the budget of the organising committee showed a cost of £15,000; over one-third of which was "entertainment expenses". Donations were the major source of revenue; only 28% of income derived from ticket sales. Total receipts of £21,377 resulted in organisers claiming a profit. (Construction of the White City Stadium, which cost the government about £60,000, was not counted.) The less said about the 2012 budget the better but we have certainly put on a great show and built some marvellous facilities with the theme of sustainability apparent throughout.

With the Post Office issuing a stamp for every gold medal winner, even if we win no more, I shall have lots of Olympic stamps to put on my postcrossing cards.

(I’m being side-tracked by the gorgeous smell of GB cooking bacon for our Sunday breakfast. And scrambled egg from local free range duck eggs. Can you smell it too? I hope I’m making you hungry…)

I used to collect pillar boxes. Not real pillar boxes, you understand. Photos of pillar boxes. My own photos. I once even had a mini-holiday touring Herefordshire and area photographing them. Nowadays I rarely bother because I’ve got most of them. One I haven’t photographed before is this one. Double pillar boxes are common enough but the Scottish ones, as I may have mentioned before, don’t have the royal cipher on. You can’t have a Queen Elizabeth II when you never had a Queen Elizabeth I! So they just have a crown.

This is my favourite pillar box. It’s in Lower Bayble and within easy walking distance of GB’s and we pass it on our way out in the car wherever we are going. So it is where the majority of my postcards go from.

And this is my favourite Post Office – aesthetically speaking – it just typifies the rural post office, so many of which have now disappeared.

And to prove this is a RAMBLE in the true sense of the world, I shall totally change the subject. This was the scene in the former Town Hall at Stornoway the other day when they had a craft fair.

Under all that lichen there’s some tree bark.

My friend Briagha.

One of the things about being on holiday is I don’t feel guilty about buying books – especially as most of them have come off the Co-op’s charity stall at 50p each. But so far I’ve only read about a hundred pages in the last three weeks. I’m too ‘busy’ to read!