by
Frank Hatton

Sometimes, this funny old world we live in, springs the nicest surprises, and quite often, they are of the most happy and simple kind. I was watching our TV news programme this evening, and there in amongst the mayhem, the floods, the 'Twister' tornado that has just hit us, was this lovely little item, again, about our peculiar weather pattern. It seems that in the city of Norwich, up in the county of Norfolk, they have been dismantling the Christmas decorations, and when they came to take down the rather large Fir tree, which was standing on the steps of the Town Hall, they found, that due to the very warm weather we are now having, a blackbird had built a nest, and laid some eggs, right at the top of this Christmas tree. The local officials in charge of this operation, decided that they could not possibly disturb the blackbird, so, they have ordered that the tree be left in position until the eggs have hatched. Now, hopefully, that has put us all in a good mood to get on with the rest of this months article.

Now, obviously, there are quite a number of standard items of news with which we could depress ourselves, but I honestly feel that the media are doing an extremely efficient job in carrying out that function.

Sooooo, with a complete departure from the normal type of offering, I would ask if you have a similar T.V. game over on your side to compare with our 'Countdown'? It is basically a word game, where the contestants have to choose nine random letters, and make up the longest word possible in 30 seconds. However, there is also another section, where they choose six random numbers, and then a target total is selected by machine, and the contestants have to attempt to reach this total, using addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, etc., in 30 seconds, using each of the six numbers only once. Normally, to anyone with a fair grasp of mental arithmetic, the answers are not too difficult to achieve, but, a little while back, a selection of six numbers produced the following. 100, 75, 50, 25, 6, 3. The machine then gave the target total of 952. Now, remember that these contestants have only 30 seconds to come up with their answer, and have just a pencil and paper to work with. I just wondered if any budding mathematicians among you would like to have a crack at it. I was astounded at the fact that this guy produced the answer within the time limit, (30 seconds), and at the method he used to arrive at it. I would suggest that if you cannot work it out, and want the solution, drop me an e mail, and I'll send it on. On a final note,.... I know 953 is easy, the trick is to get the 952.

OK, now before Boss Lady gives me the sack for deviating from the proper subject matter, methinks I'd better get back to the job. You may recall that in the last issue of 'Over the Pond', I was pointing out the way our traditional foods were disappearing, and how a variety of foods from overseas were becoming the fodder of our younger generation. Well, it seems as if the slow old British are going to reverse the trend. I think I may have mentioned the traditional meal of 'Fish and Chips', which has been a favourite for many years in this country? Of all the various shops who have cooked and served this succulent dish, one of them stands out above all others. The name of this King among fish fryers, is, 'Harry Ramsden'. He started his shop back in the 1920's, and built up a terrific reputation for quality, plus, a number of other shops. His shops were eventually bought out, and a chain of shops was set up nationally, using the traditional techniques originally used by the great Harry Ramsden. We have one such restaurant in our locality, and it is truly a wondrous place, right beside the beach, seats a couple of hundred people, tasteful decor, with glass chandeliers, fitted carpet, waitresses in spotless white aprons over black dresses, plus a grand piano tinkling quietly in the corner, and the standard of cooking is heavenly! Now, for your interest,... I was reading in my newspaper recently, that the 'Harry Ramsden' organisation are about to export the whole sheebang to the USA, and set up a number of restaurants. I feel sure that any 'expat's' from this country will welcome the good news, but, for any of you others who have never tried this great dish, please do yourself a great favour, and if and when you get the opportunity, get yourself along to a 'Harry Ramsden' shop and feast on this ambrosia. The salt and vinegar is free of charge.

Which reminds me of a supposedly true story about your side of the water. You may recall my telling you of my fascination with the 'Pony Express' history? Well, I was reading one time about the usage of the way stations by the stagecoaches, who used to stop for change of horses, and to give the passengers a meal. On this occasion, the passengers were seated at the table, and the meal on offer was roast pork, then one of the passengers complained that in his religion the eating of pork was forbidden. The way station guy looked at him for a second or two, and then said, "Waal, feel free to help yourself to the mustard". It's the sort of answer we ordinary mortals only think of about two days after the event has taken place.

Now, to give you a complete mental somersault, I want to tell you about a feeling of jealousy I felt on the couple of times I was down in Florida on holiday. One of these was in the month of November, and I was particularly intrigued to see the joggers trotting along the beachside in Hollywood, close to Ft. Lauderdale. I thought of the sort of weather that we normally get in the UK in November, which consists mainly of cold winds, a bit of fog, and lots and lots of icy rain. I then made the comparison with the beautiful warm sunshine, and the folk strolling around in shorts and thin cotton shirts at this lovely spot I was in, and, as I say, I felt pangs of jealousy about the folk who lived there all year round. I happened to mention this to someone later that day, and was reminded that the penalty for living in such a beautiful climate, was the possibility of hurricanes and the like from time to time. I convinced myself that I could suffer such inconveniences. We now come up todate, in that I am writing this in the early part of January 1998, and, in the county of Dorset, where I live, we have just had the most horrific storms I have ever seen in this country. The winds have been gusting up to ,and over 100 mph, and the rain has been absolutely torrential. Roofs have been blown off, (fortunately, not mine), and quite large area's have been flooded. Obviously, we in this country are just not geared up to deal with these sort of atmospheric conditions, and our emergency services have been hard pushed to give assistance. This has served to convince me that I would not really want to live where this sort of weather could be a regular occurrence. While I am sure that the emergency services of a place like Florida are much better equipped to help in such extremes of weather, it really brought home to me, just how puny mankind is, when faced with the real force of nature. Hence, I no longer have any aspirations to live where hurricanes, or earthquakes, or volcano's, or tidal waves, or civil wars, or dictatorships, in fact, where any sort of climatic catastrophe or mayhem could disturb the peace and tranquillity of my twilight years. All of which goes to prove just what a coward I really am.

By way of finishing off this line of thought, have you ever stopped to think about what you would wish for, if you were ever presented with the opportunity to make one desire come true. I know lots of us feel, or think we know what we want most in the world. For some, it is money, (to quite a lot of us in fact), for others it is good health, or perhaps fame and to be a celebrity. There are of course lots and lots of things that folk think would be the most satisfying change in their lifestyle. Before you read any further down this page, just stop reading, and think what you as an individual would desire, if you were given the opportunity to have anything you want. Just one thing mind,.....not a selection of wishes. On the assumption that you would now be glancing further down the page, just to see what I am offering as my own suggestion, we will change the subject, and go on to something else........ So,... do as you are told, and think about what you would wish for. We will come back to this in a moment. At this point, I would sincerely like to thank those of you who have written to me by e mail, and have said how much you look forward to this little article each month. While I really do enjoy writing it, it does help a lot when folk take the time to let me know that they in turn enjoy reading it. We over here, do not get the opportunity to read your newspapers, or see your TV news broadcasts, just as you do not get to see ours, so, I just hope that in some small way, we do get to know a little more about each other by way of these observations. And that my friends just about brings us to the close of this months offering, so, until the next time, I bid you all adieu. Oh yes,.... my own wish. It would be simply for happiness..... Nothing else you wish for would necessarily bring you this very vital ingredient of life.

'til then,

Frank Hatton

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You can find more articles in the archive under From Over the Pond