WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[EileenDavid]

The big blue cloudless sky quite a shock as it rained heavily in the night Eileen

[Stanley]

Ali Carter giving Ronnie O'Sullivan the Evil Eye as they shook hands before the final session of the snooker world championship. Didn't work, Ronnie kept his cool and won. I think Ali relied too heavily on mind games and strategy. The basic reason he lost was because he kept losing position when he was amongst the balls. Steve Hendry was asked for his assessment at the end of the penultimate session abd said that Carter was "Outplayed and demoralised". Everyone else was trying to be nice about him but I reckon this was about right. Back to normal now.......

[Stanley]

The steady improvement in me knees and how nice the sofa looks with it's freshly washed white cotton cover.... Small things but important!

[Tardis]

Hannah is leaving the B&E

[Moh]

Today coming through Brierfield I see they have hung flags on the street light arms - I don't know whose bright idea it was but they have just wrapped themselves round and round!!

[Nolic]

Moh, Queens visit to Burnley next week. Nolic

[Stanley]

"Hannah is leaving the B&E" ... For a new job on the Westmorland Gazette.

Got a phone call from the two lads left running the BET. They were making sure that they had the right copy for this week. They are shell-shocked by the changes and I'm glad I'm not in their shoes. I told them not to worry, I wasn't thinking of jumping ship..... Hope that helped them a bit.

[Moh]

She won't be able to see them wrapped round the lamps !!

[Stanley]

Will she be looking Moh? The Jubilee roadshow begins to look like a long goodbye....

[Tizer]

I used to often have a look at the OGFB `Active Posts' page without logging in but I'm finding it useless now because of the number of Newshound posts. Just now I scanned the first 5 pages and each one was about 90% Newshound posts. All those disappear when I log in. But sometimes I don't want to log in, just to have a quick read. I wonder what people think who come to the OG forum as a non-member? If they look at the Active Posts they'll get a very odd idea about what the forum is!

Last night we went to hear a talk in the Village Hall on `Billy Down's Wartime Secret'. We thought it was going to be about a man called Billy Down but it was about the secret underground radio bunker at Bewley Down (known as `Billy Down locally) in Devon. If you ever get a chance to hear the lecture don't miss it - the information and photos are amazing and very well-presented by Captain Hugh May. The bunker was part of the Auxiliary Units network in WW2 set up to counter German activity after an invasion. Capn May bought the house on Bewley Down, found the bunker, worked out how to get into it and has renovated it completely.

The security measures used by the people who built and operated the bunker are amazing. It's built deep under an outdoor privy and the loo's bench seat (an old style cabinet in which a bucket sat under the bench) rises up on a system of pulleys and lead weights so that you can climb down a ladder. But you can't raise the bench unless you know that it's locked down by a cable and catch which can only be accessed remotely in the garden. Once down the ladder you are in the first room but you wouldn't know there was a second one too. The back end of the first room has a wall of wooden sleepers and the centre pair can be rotated on the horizontal axis to get into the next room. Again there are hidden locking mechanisms. Messages on paper were transmitted to the bunker by putting them inside an old tennis ball which was dropped into what people would have thought was a `dead letter box' to be picked up by someone else - it was a tree stump in a hedge with a top that could be rotated for access. But the ball actually fell through into a pipe which ran all the way through the garden and down into the bunker!

None of this seems to be available on the Web, so if you get to hear the lecture don't miss it!

[Moh]

Doc did once mention he was going to get less posts from Newshound.

[Thomo]

Tizer, that sounds like a case of good old fashioned British ingenuity to me, but one wonders if whoever found it and restored it, should have kept quiet, for who knows, we may yet need it again! From a more local point of view, the main building of what was the "Fosters Arms" has been sold, and I understand that the "Barlick" ex Commercial is to be converted to accommodation above and Bistro beneath, we are approaching a situation where outlets for food cooked may be outnumber outlets for food items uncooked!!! A noticeable thing down here today has been the lack of mainline buses, I have been told that our bus terminus will cease to be altogether at the beginning of next year, it is at present leased to various authorities from the estate of the Fosters Arms!! !!.

[PanBiker]

Barlick is certainly short of accommodation for anyone visiting the area. I think a decent Bistro may well be welcome as well. We do have a lot of food outlets but its nice to sit down and eat somewhere as opposed to take away. It's certainly having a bob or two spent on it and is much better than a boarded up building in the centre of town.

[catgate]

I was interested in this :-
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=48616
It is another one to scorn.....or take seriously.

[Whyperion]

Oh dear , I missed that the Fosters Arms was up for Sale , guided at less than £200k , shows bus bay to remain..

http://www.petty.co.uk/houses-for-sale/ ... dswick.pdf

Dont think the 23 Goes to Accrington from Barnoldswick any more.

[Tizer]

Catty, I'm surprised you want to post links to rubbish like that on OGFB - you can easily tell from the tone of the web site that it's simply a rant. It's somebody who wouldn't let us make any progress at all if he/she had their way. I'll take one paragraph from it and suggest that the same, with a few words different, could have been scribbled on the wall of a cave in the Stone Age:

"Humanity has reached a tipping point of developing technology so profound that it can destroy the human race.The discovery of `fire' shows total disregard for the future of life on Earth, and it scoffs at the idea of balancing scientific “progress” with caution, ethics or reasonable safeguards. Unbridled experiments with making fire have unleashed the possibility of the whole world being burnt to a cinder."

Thomo, the bunker story is described in Capn May's lecture but I can't find anything about it on the web or about him or his house/bunker. There is a web site for the auxiliary units but he has had his site removed from it. So, it's partly secret and partly public!

[Thomo]

With regard to the Fosters Arms sale, the site has been split into five lots: 1. The main building at £195,000 with planning to convert to four bedroom dwelling, now sold. 2. The annexe, ex function rooms with planning to convert to four bedroom dwelling. 3 & 4. plots with planning for semi detached dwellings. 5. plot with planning for detached four bedroom dwelling. The land currently occupied by the bus stand is in two parts, the main area is leased to Lancashire County Council. lease to expire shortly. The small area occupied by the bus shelter was leased to Pendle Council, the lease has now expired. The bus stand is convenient for local people who do not have their own transport, but it comes at a price for those of us who overlook it. It frequently doubles as a football pitch, and most of the players have no regard for other peoples property, even worse they have little regard for their own safety. We have a problem here with a high volume of traffic the drivers of which have scant regard for the speed limits. Last night the goalkeeper and goals were at our side of the road and the main body of the participants at the other on the bus stand, passing motorists were treated to abuse for the inconvenience they caused, I had to put myself at risk to end this stupidity. Less than five minutes walk away is Victory Park with ample amenities. One of the excuses I was given when making this point was "There are too many idiots down there"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tardis]

There are too many idiots down in Victory park, especially at certain times of day. usually after all the family traffic has stopped using the resource

[Big Kev]

My attention was attracted by my granddaughter's 1st birthday

She is absolutely gorgeous, but then I am biased.

[Tizer]

I sent my father-in-law a copy of the `Bewley Down bunker under a privy' info that I posted earlier. He thanked me and replied as follows: "I was reminded that through the ages priest holes were often installed near to WCs to ensure that they could not be located by the smell which is inevitable with people cooped up for longish periods." It always surprises me what my father-in-law has learnt!

One thing that struck me while listening to the talk about Bewley Down was how the various security devices had probably been used in castles, grand houses, Roman forts and perhaps even earlier, going back thousands of years. Simple cables, latches and pipes but used in creative ways.

[Moh]

What a lovely little girl with beautiful blue eyes.

[Stanley]

It's the eyes...... As I always told my daughters, the only good reason for rearing them was to get grandchildren! Nothing nicer than a broody Granny.
What grabbed me was that I found myself walking up to Letcliffe for the first time in three months. Didn't have it in mind when I set off but I thought it was about time I gave me knees a real test. It was OK apart from the smell of the liniment when I got home!

[Stanley]

The big black clouds and strange orange light about 18:00. It looked like the mother and father of a thunderstorm but passed over with only a light shower. I wonder who got the benefit?

[Tardis]

Had a conversation with Richard Walsh today at Pendle Environmental Health about the potential for Liver Fluke contamination of the watercress growing in the mill race at Valley Gardens:

The quality of water in rivers falls under the remit of the Environment Agency. They may have some information on any sampling of the beck that they have done.

Whilst I appreciate that there may be a slight public health risk, the Council simply cannot legislate for every eventuality that may or may not arise from the actions of individuals. Given the intense pressure on our resources at the moment we must prioritise the work that we do and the potential risk involved does not, in my opinion, justify the cost of producing and installing signs.

I apologise that we can't be of further help in this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Walsh
Public Health Manager

Wonder if he'll eat any of it, in a BSE type way to show that it is safe to do so?

[Bruff]

Ahhh, the trials and tribulations of risk-based decision-making. A fascinating area.

Richard Broughton