Reboots

In recent times, meaning the period in which social media has risen and conquered the recording of history present and past, along with so much else (also known as the New Dark Ages among the enlightened and the Knew Dark Ages among the wits, so called because of the effect that social media has had on truth and by extension knowledge), the time of year associated with rebirth has shifted, from New Year’s Day to Midwinter’s Day.
This is in part because of the association of Midwinter’s Day with the longest period of darkness, meaning that once the Shortest Day is over, the days start getting longer and lighter and generally better, until the wonder that is the Clock Change arrives and everyone is back to commuting in darkness again until summer arrives in England, usually scheduled for late August.
There is something undeniably rebirthy about Midwinter’s Day, the Shortest Day, call it what you will.  Oddly, few if any refer to it as the Longest Night.  This is probably because there is an ancestor-memory aversion to contemplating extended periods of darkness, doing so will lead one to Google cures for Seasonal Affected Disorder, and also give rise to an odd compulsion to light fires in caves, or inconveniently the modern equivalent thereof - normally an airing cupboard, or paint the walls with pictures of woolly mammoths.
There is no doubt that days getting longer and lighter are a good thing, good for those who like to sport shorts, good for those who enjoy outdoor stuff, bad for vampires yes but, you know, everything comes at a cost and since the Brexit referendum those Transylvanian bloodsuckers, literally, can bugger off back to their own country.
What hasn’t happened, yet, is the moneytisation of Midwinter’s Day, with the exception of the National Trust who treble the cost of parking at Stonehenge that day.
New Year’s Day, however, now that’s all about the rebirth.  It’s all about the Brand New You, because the Old You is fucked, let’s face it.
First of all, you’re too fat.  You must be, given the huge number of diets that launch in the New Year.  Possibly the problem is down to the increasing use of fats and sugars in our processed food and food manufacturers not being as transparent as they might be about what’s in the food, while food sellers push two for one deals on unhealthy stuff and fizzy drinks but rarely on lobster.
In addition, let’s be honest, you have just come out of a Christmas where you, as an adult, had an entire selection box for breakfast at least once, and have, if you have the means and are lucky enough, have not stopped eating leftovers since 3:15pm on Christmas Day.  Let us be quite clear, there is no upper limit to the tolerance of the average British male to a turkey sandwich if he is offered one.
Second of all, you’re too stupid.  That’s why at New Year you will be offered the opportunity to begin collecting partworks about WWII, HMS Victory, or Elizabethan knot gardens (free seed packet with first issue).  You may think that you could educate yourself by watching the ‘Yesterday’ channel, a lot, but the real scholar recognises that only by buying what is essentially a collection of Wikipedia articles, printed out in 200 separate weekly magazines, will you become an authority on any subject.
Know a male by his strata of literature.
Lying on his bed, a paperback by Stephen King.
Under the mattress, Razzle (other mags are available, I am given to understand).
Under the bed, 74 copies of ‘History and that’ or similar, collection abandoned when interest waned because they had covered all the good stuff by issue 12.
So the new year can be a time of rebirth or, this being the Century of the Fruitbat, reboot, or even reimagining.
G&P has been on a two year sabbatical, more or less.  There have been some specials, some more special than others, but bluntly there is so much going on that one feels it is almost a moral duty to write blog posts that nobody will ever read.  Time to reboot.  Up the arse.

Postcard from Portsmouth - towers and Victory is ours!

The seafront at Portsmouth is dominated by the Spinnaker Tower, a pointy structure that you can go up, and up, and up, and look out over Portsmouth. This is great fun, as the's nothing like an observation deck to get people arguing about where exactly Cowes is on the Isle of Wight.

But the big attraction is the glass floor. One section of the floor is what one hopes is very thick, very strong plate glass. A popular pastime seems to be plonking your toddler on the glass floor and getting a photograph of them 100m above the ground before they look down and either get distressed or convey complete disinterest.

Slipping my shoes off (presumably they are worried about high heel damage) I take my turn and stand there, looking down. It is fairly impressive and does produce a little flip flop in the stomach. The glass is remarkably clear and the size of the floor means that you could be fooled into thinking you were standing on nothing atop a sheer drop, held suspended for a moment like Wile. E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon. Of course this is sheer fancy but when the darker parts of your imagination start conjuring up questions like 'would it just be a sudden CRACK! and plunge, or would there be a splintering and a desperate scramble for the edge before you lost a very quick tussle with gravity, meeting an undignified shoeless end as a very wide, but very thin, corpse.

A glass floor is no place to take on nausea unless you know you are going to win but it really is hypnotic to stand there, in your socks, dreaming of flight.

The Tower is part of the redevelopment of the seafront. It's great to visit and perhaps coolest of all is that they stamp your hand and your entry fee is good for access all day, so if it's cloudy in the morning you can come back later, or at sunset. Unfortunately the stamp on the back of the hand does not entitle you to free squash and biscuits, as it did in the school discos of youth.

But the highlight is the Historic Dockyards and, of course, H.M.S. Victory. It's amazing to think that something so small could have had such a pivotal role in shaping the fate of a nation. The organisers really do a good job of conveying the crowded conditions aboard ship by letting on hoards of tourists at once - when we were there there was a rugby team doing a tour. It's amazing to think that this is the actual ship, not a replica or mock up, that fought in the Battle of Trafalgar, truly an age of wooden ships and iron men, at least I presumed their heads were iron, judging from the number of times I nearly concussed myself on the low ceilings.

I can confirm that the is a plaque marking the place were Nelson fell and that next to it is a museum official presumably stationed there to frown with disapproval if anyone stretches themselves out on the deck for a photo opportunity. Disappointingly, the brass plaque is flush with the deck, meaning that one cannot do the 'I'm not surprised, I nearly fell over the damn thing myself' joke legitimately. It does not stop anyone though.

Prior to visiting Victory we toured H.M.S. Warrior, a Victorian sailing and steam warship that never fired a shot in anger. It was intended as a deterrent and it certainly scared the hell out of me. Huge and black, if one opened one's curtains in the morning to see that thing moored up in the bay, the was nothing to do but accept that you were now part of the British Empire and try and flog the sailors fruit at vastly inflated prices.

The Warrior had a crew complement of over 600 and was armed to the teeth with cannons and marines with guns and cutlasses. Today one can hold weddings on board and I am pleased to report that every firearm and blade, even the belaying pins, are securely locked down and cannot be used in a brawl, leaving only the traditional weapons of fists, bottles and cake.

What the Warrior had that the Victory did not was engines, meaning that it had stokers. Down here one seemed to find the only place on a warship more horrible than the gun deck. Iron men on an iron ship in this case I think. Another advantage on the Warrior was the guide, a tremendously enthusiastic bloke who could describe every knot and rivet and had a salty story and yarn for every yardarm. Always a pleasure to see an expert enthusing, what started off with a question ended up as a fascinating twenty minute impromptu tour of the aft of the ship to a crowd of about a dozen.

Finished off with a harbour tour. The Russians were in port, their battleship a rather more cold war shade of grey than the jaunty grey of the Royal Navy. The Russian ship bristled with weapons and was moored up next to the new Frigates commissioned by the RN. Sleek, stealth and with only one small gun showing, the RN ships somehow exuded a quiet menace, like a bloke so tough he doesn't have to prove it. Again, if you open your curtains and one of those is in the bay, it's time to dust off your best trousers and treaty signing pen and negotiate the sale of your mineral rights and fruit.

As evening fell, the car park for the Isle of Wight ferry was jammed! Just what is the attraction of the Isle of Wight? Is it the weather? Is it the people? Surely everyone queuing to make the crossing wasn't doing so to visit a loved one in clink? Maybe some sort of obscure law means that you can do something on the IoW that you can't do on the mainland, like eat unpasteurised cheese or stick turbot up your arse or something. Obviously now I am going to have to make the crossing one day, although early, as I have seen too many movies where the tourists miss the last ferry back to the mainland and end up on the wrong end of a Christopher Lee.