Space, The Final Frontier... Just off Junction 18 of the M6

Today I donned my protective suit of jeans, trainers and T-Shirt, diving mask and snorkel and boldly went where no mirthmobile had gone before. Jodrell Bank Observatory in deepest Cheshire. Jodrell Bank, or Le Banque Jodrell for any native French speaking readers, is part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester. The Observatory is home to a number of telescopes which include the Mark II radio telescope and the enormous, 76 metre Lovell Radio Telescope. If you're wondering what happened to the Mark 1 telescope I can reveal that it was renamed the Lovell Telescope in 1987 in honour of it's creator, Sir Bernard Lovell. The Lovell and Mark II telescopes (both shown in the photo above) form part of the MERLIN Array. Put simply, MERLIN consists of six observing stations across England, which, by combining their collective data, form a single, hugely powerful telescope with an effective aperture of over 217 kilometres. MERLIN, if you're interested stands for the "Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network" and first came into operation in 1980.

After a very pleasant drive through some magnificent Cheshire villages, I duly arrived at Jodrell Bank. Despite it being called a bank, I was most disappointed to discover their reluctance at changing my £20 note. You see, I've never had that problem at the Natwest; although in fairness I was equally disappointed with Natwest's attempts at discovering alien life forms and also their SKY TV reception isn't half as good ! So I suppose on balance it evens itself out.

The entrance fee was a mere £1.50, car parking was free and the 3D Theatre was an extra £1. If nothing else this day out was going to be inexpensive. The visitor centre was smaller than I had imagined and was largely taken up with a souvenir shop and a cafe. There were however a number of exhibits explaining the solar system. This included a very interesting model which, by way of rubber balls and a funnel, graphically illustrated gravity and why everything spins happily around the sun, and at different speeds, depending on how far away from the sun it is. The focal point of the visitor centre was the 3D theatre. I made my entrance at the appointed time and was handed my 3D glasses - my second pair in 3 weeks bizarrely, as I had also been issued with a pair at the Top Gear MPH show. Thereafter followed an engaging 20 minute film in 3D, about the solar system and the sun in particular. This ended with the rather sombre announcement that the sun would eventually increase dramatically in heat, expand considerably and in so doing, would destroy the Earth before imploding on itself. Fortunately this isn't going to happen for around 5,000 million years so it looks like I'll still have to do my Christmas shopping this year after all.





Outside of the Visitor Centre were a couple of small audio dishes. The dishes were positioned some 50 metres or so apart and directly opposite each other. This exhibit showed how sound can be collected in the dishes and amplified. The exhibit required a person to stand in each dish and speak at their normal level. The sound would bounce off the speakers dish and be collected by the opposite dish where the other person would hear their speech at an amplified volume. It really was amazing to hear someone talking 50 metres away as if they were standing alongside.

The centre piece of the Observatory is the Lovell telescope itself. They've created a walkway that takes you up close to this enormous telescope. The size is truly staggering. It's the 3rd largest steerable radio telescope in the World and a grade 1 listed building. Lovell's is a radio telescope as opposed to the more familiar optical telescope which accounts for why its positioned in dreary Britain where the near constant cloud cover doesn't matter, as the radio signals it monitors, aren't affected by the weather. Optical telescopes on the other hand, which use lenses to view the universe, are always positioned in areas of good climate, usually on top of Mountains where they're often above the clouds in crystal clear skies. The highest optical telescope of course is the Hubble. As it's actually in orbit around the Earth it's totally unaffected by weather and delivers perfectly clear photographic images 24/7.
Lovell's telescope however monitors radio waves emitted from deepest space, which is why it looks like a giant SKY TV dish. Every so often the whole device would start moving on the rails that surround the scope, as the Astronomers would reposition the dish to listen for something else in the heavens or maybe just to account for the spinning of the Earth. It really is an awesome sight and certainly worth taking a diversion to see, if at all possible. As you can imagine, you can see the scope from miles around so you don't even have to visit the Visitor Centre if you don't have the time or the inclination.

Also at the Observatory is the Granada Arboretum. This is a 35 acre landscaped garden featuring over 2000 trees and shrubs and is a haven for nature and wildlife in amongst the Observatory buildings and equipment. It was very tranquil & attractive, despite the increasingly inclement weather and I soon found myself knee deep in squirrels and rabbits whilst overhead, various birds flew by including a couple of large birds of prey. Underfoot it was rather muddy in places but that was due to my leaving the gravel paths in search of good photographic locations. After an hour of solitude - nobody else seemed to have bothered with the Arboretum today which was a bonus for me but a loss for them - I slowly made my way back to the car and latterly towards home as the sun started setting.

So In summary, I had a good walk around Space today. It might have been a small step for Neil Armstrong but it was a long walk for a little guy like me. Next weekend ? I'm ghost hunting in Nottingham. Should be fun and I'll tell all on my return.

So until the next time.

Ta Ta

Location...Location...Location.

Hold your mouse clicks ! My post today is hopefully not as boring as the title at first suggests. Today's missive isn't some rant about the myriad of TV Property shows showing you houses better than the one you own. Let me explain. I was sitting in work the other lunch hour, dreaming of the weekend and rather disappointed that I hadn't anything planned; when I recalled a web page I'd spotted on the BBC News Website, a month or so earlier. In short it was saying that Doncaster Council was considering demolishing many of it's Pre 1919 properties to make way for newer developments. This plan would mean the possible demolition of Lister Avenue in the Balby district. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have given the news any further consideration but Lister Avenue has a particular legacy to the World of TV. You see at No 115, on the corner of Lister Avenue and Scarth Avenue is Arkwright's Grocers Shop from Open All Hours. Opposite the shop at No32 was the house occupied by the object of Arkwright's affections, Nurse Gladys Emmanuel. I therefore had thought that if I ever found myself in South Yorkshire, or had a spare weekend it would be nice to go and see the shop (then as now, a hairdressers) before the bulldozers inevitably move in sometime in the future. Now Doncaster is around an hour and a half from where I live so a 3 hour round trip to look at a shop window didn't seem like such a good idea... so I promptly put my thinking trousers on; Not easy when sitting in the office over lunch. I quickly realised that Doncaster isn't too far from Holmfirth, the location for Last of the Summer Wine and Holmfirth isn't too far from Esholt, the long time location for Emmerdale, or Emmerdale Farm as it was before they blew up the Farm and moved to a purpose built set near Harrogate. As luck would have it, I had also bought a ticket for the Top Gear MPH Show at the NEC the coming Saturday which featured all 3 Top Gear Presenters, Clarkson, Hammond and May. I therefore put my plan together, Top Gear on the Saturday and Open All Hours, Emmerdale and Last of the Summer Wine on the Sunday. A TV weekend you may say ? So after a break of a couple of weeks for domestic needs at home - even I have to do my washing sometime - "weird weekends" was back on the road!

On Saturday lunchtime I boarded the Mirthmobile and pointed it in the general direction of Birmingham's NEC. The Top Gear MPH Show grew out of the now defunct British Motor Show, an annual event hosted alternately at Earls Court and The NEC. The first TopGear MPH event was held in 2003 and has done so every year since, even venturing as far as South Africa.
It runs for 4 days over one weekend at Earls Court and then for another 4 days the following weekend at The NEC. It features predominately performance cars and isn't as Corporate as the Motor Show was. The stands aren't entirely populated by the main manufacturers such as Ford, Vauxhall & Skoda, although many were represented. The stands were largely taken by local dealerships, modification & accessory companies. In addition, the ticket also gave entrance to the Classic Car show which featured a huge collection of vehicles from yesteryear. When I arrived, mid afternoon the show was very busy. My ticket gave me access to the Top Gear Theatre for their 6:30pm performance which enabled me to have a very unhurried wander about the exhibits, which according to the show guide were worth in excess of £27,500,000 and required Insurance cover of over £1 billion to cover all eventualities ! Best not touch the cars then. Writing that sentence reminded me of the moment during the show when I was leaning into the truly startling Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe to take some photo's of the dashboard & to admire the hand stitched hides of a whole herd of dead cattle, only to spot the cars price tag... £304,000. Eeek.

The Top Gear show in the Theatre was excellent, lasted around 90 minutes and featured some fantastic synchronised stunt driving including parking between parked cars by way of high speed J turns.
Other notable moments included, some motorbike "ramp jumping" and The Sphere of Death - an insane stunt where upto 4 clearly mad French motorcyclists, ride around inside an impossibly small metal spherical cage. I've done a YouTube search for "The Sphere of Death" for you so that you can see what I mean. James, Richard & a team of stunt drivers played Car Football in Suzuki Swifts with Jeremy as Referee & Clarkson drove a Land Rover up a 38 degree "mountain" which even exceeded the official incline limitation angle of the vehicle as specified by Land Rover themselves.

They also demonstrated many of the performance cars seen on the show such as the Aston Martin DBS, Bentley Continental, Koenigsegg - with the Top Gear Wing, Lotus Exige, Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and the Lamborghini Gallardo to name but a few. Regrettably the Bugatti Veyron wasn't on display although it had been I believe, at Earls Court the previous weekend. The lads were on fine form, as lively as they always appear on the telly and a thoroughly good afternoon was had.



I was very drawn to the brand new Range Rover. It looked fantastic from both the front and the rear as I think my photo's illustrate. Those bumpers had certainly been lovingly buffed !

On Sunday I clambered once again into the Mirthmobile to head this time for Esholt in West Yorkshire. Esholt was the location for the external scenes on Emmerdale Farm between 1976 and 1998. The Village was an immediate surprise as it's not as rural as it appeared on screen.

It's a mere 3 miles from Bradford and no more than a 5 minute drive ! In addition, as it was a cold and wet November morning I was expecting to be the only tourist there, so I was more than a little amazed to see a fully occupied 'pay & display' tourists car park and a (thankfully) empty coach park. This village is clearly no stranger to the day tripper. I did initially park in the £1 a day car park but, having discovered that I only had a £10 note and a mere 53p in varying coins, I had to leave but found an empty space on the road immediately outside the car park and for free. Result !!!







Esholt was beautiful. I mean really beautiful, a picture postcard English Village featuring attractive stone cottages with wood fuelled smoke billowing out of chimneys, from what I would imagine were cosy, roaring open fires below. No doubt the occupants were warm inside, drinking piping hot tea whilst the Sunday Roast was cooking slowly on the arger. Each cottage was lovingly tended, the hedgerows tightly clipped. Even the golden leaves wafting gently from the numerous sturdy trees seemed to tidy themselves away as they hit the floor. I walked past a couple of gorgeous farm houses with sheep and goats grazing on the front lawn alongside chickens and other livestock when I suddenly came upon "Main Street". This was like being on a film set, which I suppose in essence, it was. There, on my right was the Emmerdale Village Post Office, to my left The Woolpack Inn. Along both sides of the street were the cottages that are all too familiar to those who have ever seen, even a single episode of the soap. The Woolpack looked particularly inviting and as lunchtime was approaching, I witnessed a steady stream of locals, and no doubt a few tourists, go up the steps for Sunday lunch and a pint in front of the fire. I dropped in myself for a sneaky look around. The inside was dominated by dark wooden beams against a white stone walling with traditional wooden chairs and tables giving a very homely atmosphere. The Woolpack is quite narrow, the bar small but the pub does extend to the rear quite a bit. So like the TARDIS, it's actually bigger than it first appears from the outside. The place was heaving and I didn't stay long as I was taking up room they really couldn't spare.

I proceeded down Main Street and the church soon came into view, at the end of a short drive. The church was a very small, unassuming stone building with a pretty little graveyard alongside. Dominating the landscape all around were the hills of the Yorkshire Dales, open countryside with pockets of sheep grazing in the distance. Despite the heaving carpark, the silence in the village was audible and was only broken by the odd bird song and the sound of a distant tractor. I can only assume that the day trippers were all in the local farm attraction where, for a small consideration, you could tour the farm, ride the tractors, visit the petting zoo, play on the swings etc, as very few of the car park inhabitants appear to have made it into the village proper. Or maybe that was them all crammed into the pub ? I declined the urge to tour the farm as I had other TV locations to discover and the days are so short at this time of year.

I travelled the 20 miles or so from Esholt to Holmfirth and unexpectedly drove past The White Horse Pub which features as the local hostelry in Last of the Summer Wine. The pub isn't in Holmfirth at all but is in the next village, Jackson Bridge. Apparently the Inn has a few rooms for accommodation which were subsequently used by the crew during their early stays, due to it's close location to the set. When they needed a pub for the programme, the White Horse became the obvious choice and has been featured ever since. I also understand that the Landlord has joined Equity and is now a regular cast member ! In the above photo, the row of cottages you can see above the pub are used as the houses for Cleggy, Howard & Pearl. After taking a number of photo's I headed over to Holmfirth. It was whilst looking for a parking spot (I still didn't have £1 for a paid space) I literally drove past Nora Batty's house. I was slightly disappointed that she wasn't there, wrinkled stockings and all that, on her steps with a broom in her hand, scowling at the passers by. I parked up on the road (free parking again!)and went back for a closer look. Last of the Summer Wine is the World's longest running comedy show, having first aired in 1973. It's still in production today. The show as I'm sure you don't need telling (but I will anyway) features several male pensioners who spend their retirement getting into all sorts of mischief much to the annoyance of their fiesty wives and all the action is set against the backdrop of the glorious Yorkshire Dales.


Nora Batty lives in a cottage block off Hallowgate in the centre of town. Her original nemesis, Compo Simmonite (played by Bill Owen until his real life death in 2000) lived in the flat downstairs. Both properties (shown in the photo below - Nora's has the blue door) overlook the little stream that meanders through Holmfirth. I noted that Nora Batty's house is actually a holiday let, so if you ever fancy staying at Nora's you can. I wandered through the myriad of little alleyways that give Holmfirth it's distinctive character, eventually finding myself at the church.

Adjacent to the church is a small courtyard which I recognised as being the location of Sids Cafe, run by the formidable Ivy since the death of her screen husband Sid, after whom the Cafe is named. The Cafe looked identical to that featured in the show - which is unusual in TV land - apart from some outside table furniture which I don't recall as being on screen.



It was time to bid farewell to Holmfirth and head through the breathtaking Holme Valley towards Balby in Doncaster. The drive was stunning until I neared Sheffield and the rolling hillsides gave way to a more residential and industrial landscape. Thanks to the wonders of SatNav, I was quickly conveyed by the Mirthmobile to Lister Avenue and there in front of me was Arkwrights shop. Open All Hours ran for 4
series from 1976 to 1985 and featured the stammering, miserly shopkeeper Albert Arkwright who employed his half Hungarian nephew, G-G-G-G-Granville, played by David Jason, as a put upon errand boy. Throw in a rather enthusiastic cash register, some fiesty Yorkshire female characters and a District Nurse as the forever unobtainable love interest, Gladys Emmanuel and you have, what was recently voted the 8th most popular comedy in TV history. NB Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine are both
written by Roy Clarke, hence the similar characters depicted - big, buxom, domineering women and weak, downtrodden men. Compare Arkwright with Aunty Wainwright. Similar ? Many of the actors appear in both series, most notably Kathy Staff who plays both Nora Batty in LOTSW and Mrs Blewitt in OAH. It was fantastic to see the shop but also quite disapponting in a way. The shop front was immediately recognisable but the real life facade is that of a hairdressers and not of a grocers shop with special offers written in white paint on the window and fresh fruit and veg in trays outside. The road was smaller than I had anticipated but everything in telly is smaller in reality than it appears on screen. I spent a few minutes in Lister Avenue remembering lines from Open All Hours and lamenting the genius that was Ronnie Barker, then decided to head home as the sun started to set. And what a sunset it became !

So that was my weekend. Fast cars, Grocers Shops, TV pubs and Nora Batty's steps. Not your average weekend but then again they seldom are. Having had a delightful weekend and visted 3 places I've never been to previously, I'm now thinking of other obscure reasons to visit other towns and villages. I have realised however that I don't live that far away from the Brookside and Hollyoaks sets.. Hmmmmm Now where's the mirthmobile ?

Things I've learned this week.
1. Never say to a Policeman "were you in the Village People?"
2. That it is possible to go an entire day without saying the word "Capacious"

Things that have made me smile this week.
1. A colleague remarking "I'm very quiet when I have sex, I'm just happy to be there !"
2. The weather is Manchester is like Muslims in Iraq. It’s either sunni or shi’ite