Comments on: Days Like This, No 4: Before Night at Beacon Tarn

By: McEff

McEff — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 17:39:35 +0000

I know what you. Milk times were torture. I dreaded them.
Cheers, Alen

By: backpackingbongos

backpackingbongos — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 10:41:43 +0000

Just the mention of warm milk had me gagging…………

By: McEff

McEff — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 22:43:16 +0000

Ah, Jo. It’s so heartwarming to hear from people who believe in correct punctuation and hate predictive text. There really should be a rebellion against these incursions into quality and tradition along the lines of Camra’s campaign against fizzy beer in the 1970s.
I like your theory about photographs prior to the digital age and not switching off our brains so we retained the images. I shall think about that one.
Cheers, Alen

By: Jo Woolf

Jo Woolf — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 20:07:20 +0000

Alen, another wonderful post, and your photos are extraordinary! There is almost more life and charm in them than in modern digital images. I believe that our memories from that time are also probably more vivid, because we just didn’t take as many photos (so we didn’t switch off our brains). And I’m with you on the punctuation front – a skill that is being dismembered slowly and painfully by the hands of ‘journalists’ and careless texters (three times that was corrected to ‘textures’!) I hate predictive text. It makes me want to smash the offending device into small pieces. Well done for making such a delightful marriage of hill walking and careful punctuation!

By: McEff

McEff — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:17:03 +0000

Ha Ha. Yes, I’ve just Googled Vesta beef curries and Asda still sell them. I remember the very first one I ever had. It was about 1967 and I was ten years old and the whole family sat around the table and ate it. It were a right good treat.
I have a theory about old pictures, Tracey. I think the world really did look different back then. I base this on my own appearance. I was thinner and had fewer grey hairs in my beard.
Cheers, Alen

By: Tracey

Tracey — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 21:17:04 +0000

I remember Vesta Curries, do they still do them? And why is it that old pictures look old? It’s nice to look back and remember sometimes, innit? Class!

By: McEff

McEff — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 23:24:53 +0000

Hi James. If I believed in the devil then I would hold him responsible for the invention of predictive text and text-speak. If people need machines to write words for them, and then reduce those words to produce stuff like “how r u 2day” then they deserve to have their fingers chopped off.
Thanks for the kind words. It was a great walk and one I remember with fondness.
Cheers, Alen

By: smackedpentax

smackedpentax — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 21:23:58 +0000

Everyone should read that book – especially when people today are ‘lazy’ (I put a lot of it down to texting and predictive text phones). Superb photos once again – looks like a cracking walk

By: McEff

McEff — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 15:52:00 +0000

PS. I forgot to mention the retired Paris metro ticket collector who spent his days clipping holes in the leaves of his wife’s shrubs.

By: McEff

McEff — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 15:33:50 +0000

Hi Jeanne. I’m glad there are sensible people on both sides of the Atlantic who appreciate and insist on proper punctuation. It warms my heart.
With the rest of the world’s population descending into text-speak and text-spelling, we can stand like a beacon to cherished values.
All the best, Alen

By: McEff

McEff — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 15:30:37 +0000

Ha ha. I like the story about the bothy book, David. In my first job as a journalist, which was on the North-West Evening Mail in Barrow, I used to work with an old sub-editor who spent his lunch breaks proof reading the front page of the Daily Telegraph and marking up in red ink. I think that’s veering towards the sad obsessive-compulsive as opposed bored person trapped by weather.
And yes, Famous Five. Fresh milk at Seatoller and lashings of lemonade at the Old Dungeon Gill bar. Actually, it might not have been lemonade. I can’t remember now.
Cheers, Alen

By: mandala56

mandala56 — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 15:23:52 +0000

Chasing down the book right now, I love reading that kind of thing! And I should watch Amelie again.
We’re fighting quite a battle with punctuation these days, aren’t we? We are in the USA, anyway. I think it’s not being taught, like grammar… but don’t get me started.