British Forces Radio

For 14 years I have been listening to BFBS (British Forces Radio Service) in the car, as it was the only english radio available in Holland.

But since last week it is now available in the UK. Sky guide Number 0211. on DAB.
You can now also enjoy the sounds of BFBS.
http://www.ssvc.com/bfbs/index.htm

It is not a bad radio station and in recent years they have realised that they are listened to by a lot of ex-pats so it has improved for us non-forces listeners vastly.

In fact there are not many radio stations that can boast they have listeners in the UK, Germany, Holland, Afghanistan, Croatia, Iraq, Cyprus.;

The Dead Terrorist

Postman Postcards #1

I have started taking my camera on my postround as I often see something and wish I had it with me:

Unusual sky over Maastricht as the sight-seeing boats passes the Corversplein

£1,000,000 bargain

Pure Shart from Banksy

There is a 'Banksy' wall painting up for sale on the Potabello Road on ebay.

I just bid £5,600 for it but was immediately outbid to£5,700. I am tempted to take it further.

Oh go on let's see what happens. £5,800 and it goes to £5,900. Not surprising when the 'buy-it-now' price is £1,000,000. Graffiti gone mad this is. If this wall daubing sells for more than £10,000 then I am going to start spraying the streets of Maastricht next week.

He must be pissing his pants. But there again making millionaires by graffiting people's front doorsteps I guess they aren't complaining.

Oh crap I can't stop £6,500 and still outbid. I must stop now before I don't get a higher bid.

I asked the seller how it was to be delivered and this is the reply.

"Dear Sir, It is a brick and concrete wall with an out layer and an inner layer Whether just the outer layer can be removed practically is a question I dont know the answer to. It would be the buyers responsibility to find out exactly how best to remove it in one piece. I have been told there is more than one way to do it, and before you bid I would advise you get a proffesional to look at it and quote you. Any assistance you need for this we'll be happy to help. Kind Regards"

Morgan's Boy

Morgan's Boy was a BBC Drama from 1984 set in rural Wales. A superb drama that has never been repeated since even though some fans of the series rigurously petitioned them to do so.

Letters were sent and polite replies received but still it sits in the BBC archives collecting dust.

Since it's screening the actors have obviously not been doing the same:

Gareth Thomas: (Morgan) ; has starred in many TV series including Torchwood, Heartbeat, Distant Shores, Randall and Hopkirk deceased and is currently filming "Made in Romania" with Liz Hurley.

Martyn Hesford: (Lee) {as in comb my hair Lee} ; has not done a lot but featured in a few TV series Juliet Bravo and Taggert.

Ioan Meredith: (Williams) ; also similar with Pie in the Sky, District Nurse and Coronation Street.

Marjorie Yates : (Valerie) ; probably best known as Carol the hard faced mum from Shameless, also starred in Heartbeat, Casualty, The Bill (who hasn't), Dalziel and Pascoe.

Maxine Audley : (Eileen) ; seems to have stopped working in the 'biz' since 1992 after a few roles in Casualty, Prime suspect and Bergerac.

Alan Rowe : (Harry) ; Also seems to have stopped after Lovejoy, Inspector Morse and Forever Green.

Jack Walters: (Pugh) ; starred in The District Nurse and The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain.

Michael Troughton: (the vicar) ; The New Statesman, Boom, Get well soon, Cold feet.

Gary Oldman: (Colin) ; The Firm, JFK, The Fifth Element, Dead Fish, Batman Begins, Harry Potter.

Michelle Collins: (Carol) ; Eastenders, Two thousand acres of sky.

Tracey Chils: (Louise) ; Howard's Way, Born and Bred, Hollyoaks.

Charles Dale: (Gareth) ; Rocket Man, Coronation Street, Steel River Blues.

Robert Demeger: (Mr Ellis) ; Forever Green, Doctor Who, Secret Passage.

Pippa Hinchley: (Sarah) ; The Dressmakaer, Coronation Street, The Bill.

David Quilter: (Tom) ; All creatures great and small, Charles and Diana, The Bill, Eastenders.

James Warrior: (Tom Griffiths) ; Doctors, The Bill, All Creatues, Hotel Babylon.

Stephen Yardley: (Alan) ; Dr Who, Howard's Way, The Bill Heartbeat.

Be Prepared

Still have to buy some Christmas presents this year and will have to face the mad rush of underprepared blokes in the city. But how about this for preperation. For Christmas 1982 and my 13th birthday my Father bought me a Diamond Back Silver Streak II from Armstrong cycles in Middlesbrough 22/24 Princes Road. He left a deposit on it (No! A monetary deposit!) on the 30th October and it was delivered and promptly hidden at Grandad's house on the 13th December.


The Diamond Back Silver Streak II - RAD!

Kylie

Kylie was on German TV yesterday on the ZDF show Wetten Dass.

Thunderstorm, (TS)

Ever wondered what happens when a thunderstorm travels over an airport. Here is a clip from the approx 150 aircraft that fly into the Memphis Airport Fed-Ex hub every early morning in about 2 hours whilst a thunderstorm is approaching.

Famous People?

Whilst walking around my 'route de poste' this week I was starting to get annoyed by the names of the streets. The area I deliver to has many streets named after people. But I realised that I didn't know who any of them were.

Antonius Bieleveltstraat
Franciscus Romanusweg
Karel de Vogelstraat
Gebroeders Hermansstraat
Louis Loyensstraat
Matthias Wijnandstraat
Theodoor Schaepkensstraat
Valentijn Clotsstraat
Antoon Lipkensstraat

So 9 names and no clue who one of them is.

Time to do something about it;

Antonius Bielevelt

born in Maastricht in 1576, Bielevelt was an artist. Some of his works can be found in churches in Florence and his materpiece 'The Holy Family' hangs in the Uffici Gallery in Florence.

The Holy Family by Antonius Bielevelt 1644

Franciscus Romanus

born Gent (Belgium) Mar 23rd 1647, Romanus was a laypreacher and architect. He restored the 'Dominican' church in Maastricht and rebuilt the first arch of the Maas Bridge.

In 1865 he went to Paris to restore the Pont Neuf bridge over the Seine, he was also involved with the restoration of Ront Royale over the Seine.

Karel de Vogel

Also an artist born in Maastricht in 1663. He worked mostly in Rome and painted mainly flowers which earned him his Italian name 'Carlo del Fiore'. A lot of his works can be seen in German Museums.

Gebroeders Hermans

The brothers Hermans; Lodewijk and Franciscus Bernadus born both in Maastricht 1750 and 1745 respectively. Both artists. Lodewijk painted still-life, mostly flowers and fruit. In the state archives in Maastricht 8 paintings recovered from the the St. Nicholas Church can be found.

Frank was a art teacher in the Central Latin school of art in Masstricht, where he was well known as an historical artist.

Louis Loyens

Lodewijk (Louis for short) born 1689 in Maastricht, was a magistrate and clerk of the court in Liege. He put together the Chronicals of Maastricht from which all future chronicles were formed.

Matthias Wijnand

born in Maastricht in 1643, Matthias was Canon for the 'St. Servaas' capital. Wijnand left all his worldy goods to the Maastricht students studying Philosophy and Theology in Leuven. This set a precedent and later the Mayor and Priests of the St. Matthias and St. Servaas Churches gave out study finances in honour of his gesture.

Theodoor Schaepkens

born in Maastricht 1810, Theo was also an artist. Scholar of the school for artists in Maastricht, later the Antwerp art academy and later in Italy and France. He painted a great number of historical paintings, portraits, etchings and lithographs.

Valentijn Clots

Clots was a military engineer and produced topographical maps of Maastricht and ink drawings of the city. He was a devotee of East Indian ink and colours made from natural products.

Antoon Lipkens

born in Maastricht 1782, Tony was a civil engineer/surveyor and later became an Engineer/Auditor in Luxembourg. Lipkens was founder of the Delft Academy, today known as Technical University of Delft.

Well now I know. Not sure if I will gain anything from it but.

Grampohone

I went to immense trouble about 6 months ago to find a stylus for an old turntable I have so I could listen to some of my old 12"s. After 2 unsuitable ones being sent I evetually found the correct on which cost almost 20 Euros.

But dues to the effort and inconvenience of having to use an old amp to set it up which is a bit tempremental and has a tendancy to have fits of deafening feedback it was soon retired to the attic again.

Yesterday whilst flicking through a catologue I saw a picture of a turntable and was surprised to see they are on sale again and quite popular. The attraction being a USB connection to link to your PC so you can convert your old records to your storage device. At only 80- Euros I think I might add this to my Christmas list.

Maybe if enough of us children of the 70's 80's buy these there may be limited edition novelty vinyl being added to the thousands of options in distributing your music.

Marijuana in Maastricht

The Mayor speaks out about the drugs policy in Maastricht. Before he had chance to dye his brows.



And the hip version forthe kids;

Working in the City

I was getting fed up with my first post round and the immense amount of cycling up into the countryside so I took on a city 'round' aswell. And when they offered me the neighbouring section of the city of Maastricht it seemed an easy decision to give suburbia a 'boot' and become a "city boy".



So now I am delivereing post to 2 sections of the centre of Maastricht where I can enjoy the river with the fog in the morning, the sun reflecting off it in the afternoon and the sunsets in the late afternoon (now 5pm).

The best part is that my first round is in 'Wijk' . For me one of the most interesting parts of Maastricht. The best shops, the best restaurants, the best bars, but still not realised by most of the tourist population so it remains pretty quiet most of the time. I deliver to art galleries, restaurants; as in: tapas, Indonesian, Japanese, French, posh 5***** restaurants, designer shops, fetish wear shops, antique book shops, Irish bars....you get the picture. And the fun bit is in this part of town you can't pop the post through the door as the place is normally open so you have to walk in and meet the owners and hand over the post.

The second route is mostly student territory and cheapish housing as far as the centre goes but the 'studes' are also intersperced with the old timers. The other day I had a fascinating conversation with an eighty year old woman about which postal company I worked for. And she told me even though I was still lost and having trouble finding the right postal box : "You are lost but you are living in Holland for more than one week I think.mmmm". Quite flattering considering it's taken 12 years to get such comments. Anyway I plan to have a cuppa with the old bird in the next few weeks as her hobby seems to be to look out for the 'postman' each day.



So I am quite sad to say goodbye to suburbia which I have enjoyed delivering to for the last three months but looking forward to getting to know the city and the people better.

Security Clearance

Another AWP clip.

Quiz question; Who is the lass who pops in to watch Oz sing and which movie was she in?

Gronsveld Windmill

Commonly known as the 'Gronsveld Windmill' but it actually stands in the suburb of "De Heeg" in Maastricht.

Google Flight Sim

I read on a site today if you use the new version of Google Earth you can use a Flight Simulator by easily pressing '[ALT] [CTRL] [A]'.

It gives you the option of flying an F16 or a SR-22 a small 4 seater light aircraft. I tried the light aircraft to see if I could fly over the Tranporter Bridge.

I ended up crashing into the Tees. So it is quite a realistic flight sim, for an add-on to a system. I'm gonna have another go tonight with the F16. A low high speed pass.

It is quite a good programme to use considering Microsofts Flight Sim you have to pay shit-loads to get realistic land simulations of areas that you want to fly over.

Update: I tried again with the F16 and failed. Went for a low pass over Roseberry topping and ending up crashing near Yarm.

ITV - the crooks - 7.8 million

A review of ITV phone-ins has identified a "serious cultural failure" within the company.
Shows including Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon and Saturday Night Takeaway were among those involved, an audit of ITV's output has found.

ITV executive chairman Michael Grade described the findings as "horrible" and "inexcusable".
Ant McPartlin said he and co-host Dec Donnelly were "extremely disappointed" their Takeaway show was singled out.

"We'd like to make it clear that we had no idea these problems existed," he continued.
"Ant and I are now reassured that strict measures have been put in place to ensure that these kind of incidents can never happen again," said Donnelly.

Although both he and McPartlin have an executive producer credit on Saturday Night Takeaway, he said they had "no direct involvement in the phone line process".

ITV made £7.8 million from uncounted votes. Mr Grade said the company would reimburse those who were misled - a decision McPartlin said he and Donnelly were "100% behind".


I heard on BFBS radio today that even one prize was given to a relative of a producer of one of the programmes.

Corrupt bastards.

I hope everyone rings up and gets their money back but they probably won't as they will hear the old familiar "This call costs £1 per minute".

Margraten

I have recently taken a 2nd post round and have to go to Margraten to pick up my post as the company is too lazy to deliver it t my door. On my first collection I realised I was passing the American cemetery in Margraten so as it was such a nice October day I decided to pop in and have a wander.


The Tower beyond which lies 8,301 WWII dead. ( The 2nd biggest USA memorial in Europe)

The enscription on the tower is:

"Each for his own memorial earned praise that will never
die and with that the grandest of sepulchres not that in which his mortal
bones are laid but a home in the minds of men"







Including 7 Wades:

Saturday England Triple

It is unusual to see 3 England teams looking for success in one weekend. But this weekend it happened.

First up was the Footie.

Rooney scores the second in a 3-0 comprehensive win over Estonia.


Second up was the Rugby Union World Cup Semi-Final against France. It looked like it was seriously going wrong until 5 minutes from the end old JW does it again and finished the match off. The Final beckons against the Argies or the South Africans.



Johnny safe foot Wilkinson does it again


And Finally it was the turn of the darts England team in the Darts World Cup semi final against the USA in the team event. Martin Adams, Tony O'Shea, John Walton & Steve Farmer took on the USA in the World Cup which involved 45 countries. Tomorrow they will take on the Netherlands in the Final.



Tony O'Shea the 'Silverback'

Sylvia Geersen

I was flicking through the music channels this afternoon when I came across a talented young lady on the TMF's (the Music Factory) "Oranje" show. This is broadcasting Dutch music which at it's best is not great. But Ms Geersen obviously has 'talent'. If it is in the musical side of things I am not so sure.

Sylvia was runner up in the 1st 'Holland's next top model' beaten by Sanne Nijhof.

Sanne Nijhof

According to Wikipedia who wrongly list her name as Sylvia Geertsen, after being on the show she signed with Next Model Management in New York, as well as a bevy of agencies around Europe.

Anyway here is her wonderful work 'Give it to me!'