Leisure | Now I'm 64

Dinosaurs reborn!

Posted on May 3, 2023 by Platypus Man

We took a day trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park last week. It was great to catch up with their iconic critters, a couple of which – Amur Tigers and Warty Pigs – have featured in earlier posts on this blog. But there was a new exhibit that also caught the eye. As well as investing in 21st century wildlife and conservation, the Park has also been throwing money at Pangea, where kids both young and old can get up close and personal with the dinosaur of their dreams.

Dilophosaurus, displayed in the Pangea exhibit at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. — **Dilophosaurus**

When we visited the Park in December for its annual winter Festival of Lights and Lanterns, illuminated dinosaurs were much in evidence. But although the seasons have changed since then, and the Christmas lights have been packed away, the prehistoric presence remains. According to the Park’s website, Pangea “is home to over 30 life-sized moving ROARING dinosaurs! From the terrifying T-Rex to the villainous Velociraptors, you will find everyone’s favourite Jurassic characters in the heart of Doncaster!” Plainly dinosaurs are for life, not just for Christmas.

Towering dinosaur displayed in the Pangea exhibit at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.

Big, fierce and scary, dinosaurs fire the imagination. I’m sure some of the youngsters who visit the Pangea exhibit come away with a secret dream to become fossil hunters, spending their lives searching for the remains of the iconic, long-gone beasts. It’s an enticing notion, but the reality is very different. During our many trips to the USA, Mrs P and I have visited several dinosaur fossil sites. Here, eager visitors are greeted by a near-incomprehensible jumble of fossilised bones, and maybe a few random, indistinct dinosaur footprints.

***Vernal Dinosaur Quarry, Utah (1996)***

The search for dinosaur fossils is challenging in the extreme. Fieldwork invariably takes place in harsh, remote landscapes that are a world away from the comforts of 21st century living. The work is slow and painstaking; meticulous attention to detail and the patience of a saint are essential attributes of any wannabe dinosaur hunter.

Big, ground-breaking discoveries are thin on the ground. Most days on site must be a tedious slog, groundhog days with added blisters. When the sun goes down there’s often little to show for the day’s efforts, maybe just a few more fragments of disarticulated bone that seem to bear little relation to the dreadful dinosaurs that roam our imaginations.

Few of us have the skill-set or temperament to become palaeontologists, so the display of dinosaur skeletons in museums has an important role to play in helping us understand and appreciate the world of dinosaurs. But even those skeletons have their limitations, and this is where exhibits such as Pangea come into their own.

Brontosaurus, displayed in the Pangea exhibit at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. — ***Brontosaurus***

Yes, Pangea is sensationalist and shallow, but it does bring home to visitors just how amazing dinosaurs really were. The brutal brontosaurus*, the towering tyrannosaurus and the staggering stegosaurus are given scale and context by the exhibits at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. I defy anyone to view them without thinking “Wow! Creatures like this once roamed our Earth? Really?”

Apatosaurus, displayed in the Pangea exhibit at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. — ***Apatosaurus***

Pangea is a fun, low-effort learning experience. Wearing my intellectual, pseudo-academic hat, I do wish there was an additional exhibit replicating, or based upon, one of the dinosaur discovery sites we’ve visited, so that visitors could gain some basic insights into the realities of palaeontology. I know that will never happen, but although it is a lost opportunity – in my humble opinion, anyway! – Pangea does have real value in increasing popular interest in, and knowledge of a lost world.

Velociraptor, displayed in the Pangea exhibit at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. — ***Velociraptor, with Tsingtaosaurus behind***

Dinosaurs have been reborn at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, and I’m pleased to have made their acquaintance.

Top Left: Tsintaosaurus. Top Middle: Pachyrhinosaurus. Top Right: Ankylosaurus. Bottom Left: ? Bottom Right: T-Rex.

* OK, for anyone reading this who knows their stuff about dinosaurs, I acknowledge that the brontosaurus wasn’t actually brutal. It was a herbivore, albeit one with a HUGE appetite. But the writer in me loves the way the words “brutal brontosaurus” roll off the tongue. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice just a tad of truth on the altar of alliteration!

The times they are a-changin’: Bugsworth Canal Basin reborn

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Platypus Man

One of the few positives to emerge from the pandemic is that it has encouraged us to spend more time exploring our local area, rather than hot-footing it across the rest of the UK and the wider world. Who knew, for example, that the Bugsworth Basin, in our own home county of Derbyshire, was once was the largest and busiest inland port on Britain’s canal system? Not me, and I’ve lived here over 40 years. Nor Mrs P either, and she’s lived in Derbyshire her entire life.

The Bugsworth Basin was the terminus of the 14 mile long Peak Forest Canal. Built between 1794 and 1804, the canal linked Bugsworth Basin with Manchester and the trans-Pennine canal network.

The basin was also the end-point of the Peak Forest Tramway. Completed in 1795, the tramway was used to move stone from some of Derbyshire’s biggest quarries to the canal basin. Together, the tramway and canal made it possible for stone extracted in Derbyshire to be transported throughout the North-West and the Midlands.

Although some gritstone was moved by canal, most of the freight loaded at Bugsworth Basin was limestone. When converted into calcium oxide (otherwise known as burnt lime or quicklime), limestone plays a pivotal role in the manufacture of steel. Demand for steel grew rapidly after the Industrial Revolution took hold in the late 18th century, driving in turn a huge growth in demand for limestone. As a result, the Peak Forest Canal and Bugsworth Basin flourished.

At its height in the 1880s, around 600 tons (544 tonne) of limestone per day was being shipped from Bugsworth Basin. Some calcium oxide was also prepared on-site at the basin, before being shipped out to customers via the canal network. It must have seemed that the good days would last forever. But they didn’t, of course, courtesy of the changing industrial landscape and competition from railways. All traffic ceased in 1921, and by 1923 the basin had closed and was falling into disrepair.

But, as Bob Dylan was so fond of telling us, the times they are a-changing. The basin and canal may have no role to play in modern freight transport, but there are opportunities aplenty in the recreation and leisure industries. Restoration began in the 1960s and took more than 40 years. Bugsworth Basin and the Peak Forest Canal have been reborn.

Although there are a few structures dating from the heyday of the industrial period, including the remains of a lime kiln where limestone was roasted to make calcium oxide, Bugsworth Basin wears its history lightly. Today, as Mrs P and I witnessed when we visited in August, the basin is thronged with colourful barges piloted by recreational waterways enthusiasts.

Meanwhile the towpath echoes to the footsteps of dog walkers and casual visitors keen to soak up the relaxed atmosphere. Cyclists whizz merrily along, grateful for somewhere flat to pursue their hobby in our notoriously hilly county, while birdwatchers keep an eye open for kingfishers.

Bugsworth Basin is now a scheduled Ancient Monument, and before Covid struck was attracting 50,000 visitors a year. It’s a real asset for Derbyshire’s tourist industry, and for ordinary folk like us who just want to escape into a different world for a few hours. What a pity that it took a global pandemic for Mrs P and I to finally discover this hidden gem on our doorstep.

Brave New World or Paradise Lost? – Our town’s new library

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Platypus Man

Our town has a new library. It’s been open since early August, but the UK’s National Libraries Week (5 -10 October) seems like a good time to check it out. For years – no, decades – we’ve wished to see the old library replaced. Hopefully it will prove to be worth the wait.

* * *

The old library was a converted stone-built domestic property – The Hollies – dating from the first half of the 19th century. Located within the Belper Town section of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, it had loads of character. But despite the best efforts of the staff it was a woefully inadequate public library, a hotchpotch of small, knocked-together rooms spread across two floors. “Compact” would be one way to describe it, but I prefer “cramped, uncomfortable and incapable of measuring up to 21st century expectations.”

***The old library (photo taken 2005)***

Ideally, Belper’s new library would have been purpose-built, but space for new-build projects is at a premium in the World Heritage Site area. And anyway, libraries aren’t seen as a priority these days, in a society which seems to believe that the Internet and mobile phones are the answer to everything. In the circumstances, I suppose we should be grateful that the project went ahead at all, albeit in another converted building.

The site of the new development is the former Castle Blouse factory, operated by the Nottingham Manufacturing Company for the production of blouses and hosiery. The building became a storage facility for Rolls-Royce engines during the Second World War and, in 1947, was taken over by the celebrated confectioner Thornton’s. Here, yummy chocolates and other confectionery goodies once rolled off the production lines in vast quantities. Thornton’s abandoned Belper many years ago, and a new use was required for their land and buildings.

***The new library*** ***(ignore the frontage stretching into the far distance on the right!)***

Cometh the hour, cometh the council. Parts of the factory were flattened, to be replaced by a relocated care home and a health centre. However the oldest factory building was retained, to be converted into the town’s new library.

* * *

As we approach the new library we take stock of its appearance and potential. Externally the architect has done a good job, broadly sympathetic to the building’s industrial past and in keeping with the spirit of the World Heritage Site. So far, so good. But what about inside?

A masked member of staff greets us as we enter, asking for our names and contact details as part of the government’s Covid-19 Test and Trace strategy. However there seems to be little chance of catching anything here. The place is almost deserted, just a couple more staff and one other member of the public who scuttles out soon after we arrive.

The timing of the new library’s opening is disastrous, and you’ve got to feel sorry for the management and local staff. This project has been in the pipeline for years, and nobody could have predicted it would come to fruition when the country is in the throes of a pandemic.

***Computers wrapped in bin bags, and no chairs…not much chance of public internet access here today!*** ***Sexy curved shelving – but the “island” units interfere with sightlines***.

Elsewhere in Derbyshire the county’s library service is working hard to extend and promote its digital offer – eBooks, online storytimes and the like. But here at Belper the team face a different challenge, to entice users to try out an unfamiliar library building which is currently unable to live up to its potential due to the Covid-19 restrictions.

It’s clearly not “business as usual” today. Covid-19 is still deterring many people from venturing into public spaces like this, the computers are wrapped up in what looks like bin-bags, and seating is limited. More disturbingly, all books returned to the library after being borrowed are set aside and quarantined for three days before they are put back on the open shelves.

***Exposed rafters and beams, and bare brickwork, celebrate the building’s industrial past***

So, through no fault of the staff our first visit here is not the relaxed, welcoming experience we’d hoped it would be. We have the place to ourselves as we start to explore the Brave New World of Belper Library

Although the positioning of the original windows tells us this was once a two-storey building, the first floor has been stripped out entirely. The roof soars high above us, revealing exposed rafters and beams. Combined with the bare brickwork, the underbelly of the roof pays due homage to the building’s industrial past.

***White “island” shelving units, but wooden wall-mounted units. Why?***

But, and it’s a big but, the place seems a bit small. In order to cram more books into the available space they’ve opted for head-high “island” shelving, which interferes with sightlines and counteracts the airy sense of space which should result from the soaring roofline. And where are the public meeting rooms, a vital resource for the modern public library, welcoming shared spaces where community groups can get together to explore culture, literature and learning?

But it’s the children’s section of the library that disappoints me the most. It’s not big enough, feels austere and clinical, and lacks both colour and character.

In my view the most important part of any public library is the children’s area. More than ever in this digital age we have a duty to encourage youngsters to explore and enjoy the written word, to develop their language skills, and to experience the power of story. I worry that the dazzling white shelves and uninspired furnishings will struggle to achieve this.

***The children’s area: austere, clinical, lacking colour and character***

Perhaps I’m being too harsh? The library is clearly an enormous improvement on what the town has had to put up with for the previous 80 years, and we’ve not seen it at its best. In the post-Covid environment (whenever that is!) I’m sure the staff will work hard to make it fly, and I wish them well in their endeavours.

But this was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something brilliant for culture and learning in Belper, to create a new, vibrant community venue, and it seems to have slightly missed the mark. I leave the library feeling a trifle underwhelmed, debating whether, when I write this post, I should somehow weave “Paradise Lost” into the title of the piece.

Sadly, I won’t be spending as much of my retirement in the library as I’d once imagined.

Anarchy in the UK – the crazy world of Ashbourne Shrovetide football

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Platypus Man

November 1976 saw the Sex Pistols – the dark princes of English punk rock – release their debut single, Anarchy in the UK. The Pistols were wild and wayward, and maybe just a little bit bonkers, but even in their maddest dreams they cannot possibly have imagined the crazy world of Ashbourne Shrovetide football. Like the Pistols themselves, Shrovetide football isn’t for the faint-hearted. Anarchy rules, OK.

Unless you’re English you’ve probably never heard of Ashbourne. To be fair, even if you are, the chances are that this quaint little market town of around 8,000 souls nestling in the Derbyshire Peak District has passed you by. It oozes bucolic charm, and is therefore memorably forgettable.

A few years ago a former Ashbourne resident, writing on the student website The Tab, described it as “the most backwards town in the country“. Seems a bit harsh to me, but it has to be said that unless you’re very easily excited, the place won’t set your pulse racing. Except, that is, on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, when football comes to town.

***PHOTO CREDIT: “10-P2183459” by Jason Crellin is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0***

Shrovetide football bears scant resemblance to any other form of football. The Ashbourne game comprises two teams – the Up’Ards, born north of the local River Henmore, and the Down’Ards, born to its south. The number of players is unlimited, and can exceed a thousand on each side. The goals, where the ball must be touched down to register a score, are three miles (five kilometres) apart.

The game begins in the Shawcroft car park in the centre of Ashbourne, where an eager crowd of thousands gathers. They belt out the national anthem as if their lives depend on it. Then silence falls and the excitement builds, everyone waiting impatiently for the fun to begin.

At last, with the tension close to unbearable, an invited dignitary or celebrity standing on a brick-built podium “turns up” the ball – lavishly painted, filled with cork for added buoyancy and about the size of a Halloween pumpkin – into the expectant horde of pumped-up masculinity. Testosterone hangs heavy in the air, so thick you could butter toast with it. No rules prevent women from participating, but good sense persuades most to take a back-seat and let their menfolk do the hard graft and risk the consequences.

***PHOTO CREDIT:*** “05-P2183439” by Jason Crellin is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The objective of the game is straightforward. The Up’Ards must carry the ball to Sturston Mill, south of Ashbourne, and “goal” by tapping it three times against a millstone. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? The only problem they face is the thousand or so Down’Ards who are blocking the way and baying for blood.

Meanwhile, the aim of the Down’Ards is to carry the ball to Clifton Mill, north of the town, where they also must “goal it”. Inevitably, they find their passage blocked by at least a thousand incensed Up’Ards, whose ambition is to prevent this happening by means both cunning and brutal.

As you will have worked out by now, Shrovetide football has no designated pitch or playing field. The game is played through the streets of the town, and the sprawling farmland beyond, occasionally spilling into the freezing river. It is the original “game without borders.”

Proceedings are boisterous, chaotic and occasionally violent. Shopkeepers close their businesses and protect their premises with wooden boards and shutters, car owners move their vehicles out of harm’s way and paramedics are on standby. Schools close for the day, lest students get caught up in the mayhem. Injuries are common, although fatalities are mercifully very rare.

***PHOTO CREDIT: “21-P2183512” by Jason Crellin is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0***

Play begins at 2pm on Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) and finishes eight hours later. Battered, bruised and bloodied, the players limp off home to lick their wounds, only to assemble the following day at 2pm to do it all again. Despite 16 hours of play, it is rare for more than two goals to be scored in any year. Sometimes, the result is a nil-nil draw, and every year the broken limbs, bruises, sprains and strains outnumber the goals scored.

You can count the rules on the fingers of one hand. Players must not enter churchyards or cemeteries, and must refrain from hiding the ball or attempting to carry it on a motor vehicle. In addition, murder is frowned upon. But with these few exceptions, pretty much anything goes.

“Mob football”, as the Ashbourne game is classified, has a long history – dating back at least to the 13th century – and was once widespread in rural England. Inevitably the mayhem it caused was resented by the wealthier and more refined types, those who had the most to lose from mass outbreaks of anarchic behaviour.

***PHOTO CREDIT: “02-P2183425” by Jason Crellin is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0***

Eventually these elite groups got their way, and mob football went into serious decline in the nineteenth century after the 1835 Highway Act banned the playing of football on public highways. But it clung on in Ashbourne, and a few other places including Workington and Sedgefield in northern England, and Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands of Scotland.

Shrovetide football remains a much-loved tradition amongst Ashbourne people, a demanding endurance test for all the participants, and also a rite of passage for lads wishing to follow in the hallowed footsteps of previous generations of men in their families. Many former residents return to the town every year to take part or watch from the side-lines, and tourists visit in droves to see what all the fuss is about. For two days every year, Shrovetide football ensures that Ashbourne has a national – and even international – profile.

And now to the question that’s been on your mind as you’ve read this post – has the Platypus Man ever played Shrovetide football? The answer is an emphatic ‘no,’ and although Ashbourne lies just a few miles from Platypus Towers I’ve never attended as a spectator either. Frankly, life’s too short and my body is way too fragile to risk the frenzy of the mob. Have a look at this short video, on the Guardian’s website, and you’ll understand everything!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted that this relic from our country’s medieval past hangs on in deepest, darkest Derbyshire. But I’m glad too that, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I can read about it and watch YouTube videos of the highlights in own home, secure in the knowledge that there are several miles and a very sturdy brick wall between me and the madness.

A little bit of Anarchy in the UK isn’t without its appeal, but only when viewed from a safe distance.

Getting thrashed at Scrabble again

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Platypus Man

Nearly two years have passed since I retired from work. People still ask me how I’m coping, and the truthful answer is that it’s going rather well. Actually, you can’t beat it: I have a good pension and a fairly modest lifestyle, so fortunately money’s not an issue. Yes, I do miss the company of some of the people I used to work with, and also the sense of purpose that comes with a responsible job. You know what I mean, those feel-good moments that result from being needed. But life moves on, and so have I.

No, the main problem with retiring is that I no longer have a bloody clue what day of the week it is.

You see, work imposed a structure on my life, mapping out my week in a meaningful way. And when it was gone it felt like I was at sea without a compass.

Before I retired my week was shaped by routines. To start with there was the framework of five days on – Monday to Friday – followed by two days off. The regular milestones of the working week added depth to the pattern: my boss Teflon Sal’s management team meetings on Tuesdays, my own team meetings every Wednesday, the Friday afternoon all-user email in which the great and the good desperately tried to convince the poor bloody infantry how well things were going while simultaneously demanding that we cut the crap and do better.

All of these things, and many more besides, were anchor points during the week. Routines keep me grounded, helping me make sense of the world around me. And when I retired these anchor points were ripped away overnight, leaving me drifting aimlessly.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and so it’s no surprise that new patterns have emerged. One of these is that on Sunday afternoons Mrs P and I play Scrabble, while keeping a close eye on the garden for a visit from Milky Bar and listening to a Newfoundland folk music radio show on the Internet.

Scrabble helps keep the brain active, which is a good thing now that I no longer have reports to write, managers to please or politicians to persuade. I should be good at it too: words have always been my currency of choice, my friends in adversity. I love them for their power and their beauty, which, I suppose, is one of the reasons for writing this blog.

All that counts for naught, however, in our weekly Scrabble games. We always get through four games over a period of around two and a half hours, and Mrs P always beats me by three games to one. Unless I’m having a really bad day, in which case I get thrashed four games to nil. Mrs P is very good at Scrabble, ruthless in fact!

And I love it, this weekly drubbing. It brings some welcome certainty to my confused post-working world, giving me a much needed anchor point in my otherwise shapeless existence.

If I’m getting thrashed again at Scrabble, at least I can be absolutely certain that it’s Sunday afternoon. Even more important, it reminds me that, the following morning, I won’t have go into the office to sort out the latest crisis and negotiate with a bunch of impossible politicians.

Retirement? You can’t beat it!