Photos of Newbury and Newburyport in Massachusetts, USA

I found this passage in a book called “Old Newbury” in the Newburyport Library (which is quite magnificent). It says: “From the very beginning, Newbury was Reverend Parker’s town, named for the community in England where he had last preached, and it was his family and neighbors who would form the core of the new settlement along the banks of the Quascacunquen River.” (now also called “Parker River”).

The destination board of Boston North railway station has familiar names for residents of Berkshire and Dorset in England.

The sign at Newburyport railway station. Newburyport, Massachusetts is a big maritime town with lots of 19th century buidlings. It is very neat and pretty – obviously wealthy. It has a museum and library, both of which bear witness to the migration of settlers from Wiltshire and Berkshire in the 17th century.

The main street in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Newburyport marina fronting onto the Parker River.

Newbury, Massachusetts is a short walk away and, by contrast with Newburyport, is a small, quiet village. It has this fine Lutheran church. The sign says that the church has gathered regularly since 1635.

The “First Parish Burying Ground” is opposite the Lutheran church and contains graves with names familiar to residents of Wiltshire and Berkshire in England such as “Knight”, “Little” and “Freeman”.

The Old Newbury Fire Museum in Newbury, Massachusetts

The Old Newbury Museum in Newburyport

Sign for the Old Newbury Museum.

This finely decorated child’s cot is in the Old Newbury Museum and is said to have come across on one of the ships which brought the settlers across from England. I think it was the “Mary and Jane” ship but I cannot recall the name for certain.

Newbury Street in Boston, Massachusetts, is a very wealthy street with many up-market restaurants and fine clothes shops. It was so named to celebrate the Roundheads winning the 1643 Battle of Newbury. The Puritans who inhabited Boston were delighted with this victory.

Strewth! How ABC Australia make their radio news sound very important!

This is a very annorakky radio post.

ABC local radio in Australia is superb. It is a vast network providing essential information to Australians all over their huge country. At the moment, they are providing an incredible service concerning the fires.

I particularly like the way they showcase their hourly (top-of-the-hour) news. They have this very majestic fanfare before it, which just happens to be a tune called “Majestic Fanfare”, which they have used for decades.

But one little nuance which they apply actually makes the news sound more important. They have a three second gap before the news fanfare and a three second gap after the news has finished. It really is a master stroke. And it is, I guess, counter-intuitive, as the instinct of most radio folks is to fill every gap.

Here is the short fanfare they use for their hourly news:

….And here is a fuller version with the orchestra playing it (including quite a bit of “hamming it up” by the percussion section!):

Listen to what Australian shoppers are listening to now!

Embed from Getty Images

…That is probably not an entirely attractive proposition, but I find listening to Coles radio grimly fascinating.

Coles supermarkets, along with Woolworths (yes, Woolies!) account for 80% of Australian supermarket activity.

So, Coles are big!

And when you push your trolley round a Coles, you hear their radio. Coles Radio. Cheery music interspersed with news of this week’s special offers.

Asda FM, in the UK, is allegedly available on the internet, although I couldn’t find it.

But Coles radio is available on the internet, not just once, but in seven different flavours, one for each of the main states of Australia.

I have listened this morning to Queensland Coles Radio. “A beautiful girl in an ugly Christmas sweater” by Garth Brooks was playing.

Now, I’m listening to Northern Territory Coles Radio and “Your kiss is on your list” by Hall and Oates. Lime Cordiale and “Robbery” followed, which seemed a half decent track.

All this may not be your cup of tea, but it’s worth sampling Coles Radio, if only out of curiosity.

PS. Coles NT are now playing “Ruby” from the Kaiser Chiefs. Back of the net!

Dee Time from 1968 with rare footage of The Equals

This video (below) is a rare full length recording of Dee Time from 1968. It was broadcast by BBC4 in 2004.

Dee Time was introduced by Simon Dee, a former pirate radio deejay, who became phenomenally successful on television for a short period before putting the “crash” in “crash and burn”.

On this show, you can see why he was very successful – his show was an attractive mix of music, topicality and star interviews, punctuated by his jokes.

But you can also see why his persona was somewhat brittle. Some of his jokes fall a bit flat or don’t come out right. He is Bob Monkhouse without the thousands of hours of preparation that the latter used to put into his performances.

That said, Dee Time was a real trail blazer for TV interview programmes. Incredibly it was live.

Guests on this edition are Susanna York, Lionel Jeffries (a very funny segment) and the The Equals (singing “Softly, Softly”).

The Equals, with lead singer Eddy Grant, deserve more credit in my view. They were the first mainly black British group to have a number one, with “Baby Come Back”.

The accolade for the first British black band to have a number one goes to The Real Thing. It is a shame that The Equals don’t get creditted for this achievement as they had a number one eight years before the Real Thing. It’s because the Equals were not wholly black, three out of their five members were black.

TV weatherman, who is Bob Monkhouse’s secret love child, rocks up down under

Back in 2007 I blogged about BBC TV weatherman, Dan Corbett, positing that he is Bob Monkhouse’s secret love child:

The slick hand movements. The comedic, chummy mid-Atlantic delivery. The clever little lines. The physical features.

It’s all there.

The little pointy hand gesture at the end is the clincher.

I hadn’t thought about Dan Corbett at all for twelve years, but I suppose in the back of my mind I had wondered:

Whatever happened to the TV weatherman who is Bob Monkhouse’s secret love child?

Well, imagine my surprise when, recently watching New Zealand’s prime 6pm national TV news show, lo and behold, up pops the cheery weatherman in flight above a contor map of New Zealand!

Internal migration in the UK

It’s not generally known that the Office for National Statistics publishes a wealth of data on the subject of internal migration into the UK.

With their data, it is possible to identify how many people moved from one region to another in the UK. Indeed, it can even be narrowed down to local authority area.

As an example, I have done a dump of the data and produced the pie chart above. This shows how many people moved to Devon, and from which region (I’ve used “super regions”) during the period for which the latest data is available – that is the year ending June 2018.

It is interesting that, overwhelmingly, most people, or 81%, who moved to Devon during that period did so from the South of England, that is the South West, South East and London.

New house building stats: Highest building rates are in South Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire

The latest government figures for the completion of new houses show that the highest rates of building are in South Derbyshire, Harborough (Leicestershire) and Rugby (Warwickshire). that is for the twelve months to June 2019.

Here’s a map showing the rate of new builds across the country:

Government statistics also show that “affordable housing” build rates are at historically very low levels. For example, in 1969-70, 306,860 houses were completed in the UK and 47% of these were offered by Housing Associations or Local Authorities. In 2018-19 only 169,070 houses were completed and only 18% of these were offered by Housing Associations or Local Authorities.

In the West Country, Second Homes continue to be a big issue, Exeter blogger Euan Trower notes:

The demand for housing, especially in rural areas, is down to the sickening number of second homes which is killing off the local way of life. A survey in 2011 showed that there were 4000 second homes in the South Hams alone. The Influx of people coming for “a slice of country life” is driving up house prices and driving out local people. The same survey showed that in 2010, the house-wage affordability ratio for Devon was 2.52 points above the rest of England, with that gap expected to rise. Farmer’s barns, the old mill, the old bakery, the old shop, the old forge, they’ve all been converted into houses, many of them only lived in for half the year.