86 thoughts on “ALL OUR YESTERDAYS”

    2. whether you like the Carpenters style of music or not, it surely can’t be argued that Karen had one of the best voices you’ll ever hear. It’s how honey would be if it were a sound.

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    3. Indeed Danny. The Carpenters.

      Petula Clark and Karen were mates. The day after Karen died, Petula was giving a big concert at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and she did this unrehearsed, without the band, piece, which I thought was very moving, and quite brave.

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        1. Aye, Alex. She tours the UK every few years and usually comes to Glasgow Concert Hall. We have known each other for a long time and have a blether in French after the show.

          She also toured USA and Australia in the last 12 months along with French-speaking Canada, where her new album “Vu d’Ici” made the charts.

          I have no idea where her energy comes from.

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            1. Well, I can tell you, she never shares them.

              Munguin once gave her a box of Thornton’s chocolates on stage, and she opened them and had one… And never offered them round. Grippy or what!?

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        1. Nice Danny. Thanks.

          A much happier occasions than the day after her death… (given that the song won) but I can’t help thinking that the tragedy somehow made Pet’s RAH performance more powerful.

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  3. Pic 18. Perhaps the decline in songbirds is simply down to a food source which helped many survive the winter is now no longer common. It’s been about twenty years since my last doorstep milk delivery.

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    1. Maybe a contributory factor. Munguin is a great feeder of birds. I wonder if it might be a good idea to put out a small dish of milk for them. Does anyone know whether milk is good for them?

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  5. Is the single deck bus an Albion ? Btw, was reminiscing in garage yesterday of the days before 6 speed gearboxes in modestly powered « pensioner » cars, specifically compared to the 3 speed box in the Anglia ( or Angular, as we called it.). Have gone from one too few to one too many in my driving career.

    Rural double deckers in my area also had rear doors, which ruled out running after them as they moved off.

    But enough of these trivialities – has Rees Mogg outlawed the split infinitive ? Can’t see it in the screenshots of his style guide. Nor is there any sign of guidance on use of the subjunctive.

    Dare I put in a word for Les ? Once heard one of his piano pupils playing in a Spanish hotel, giving us a glimpse of how Amapola would sound if it had been written by Schoenberg.

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    1. I’m sure Dave will provide an answer on the bus, Cairnallochy.

      How cars have changed, eh? A pal of mine was just saying that 20 years ago, he used to have to get up early to make sure the car would start on so that he could get to work on time. Of course, it was an old car then… he was not long out of uni… so I suppose a car made maybe 30-35 years ago.

      By and large these days, you never really think about the possibility of the car not starting.

      I was intrigued by Mr Rees Mogg’s instructions to his staff. I suspect that he will be obliged to provide English lessons for them. Like you, I was surprised to see no mention of the use of the subjunctive or the banning of the split infinitive.

      Be that as it may (see what I did there?), Munguin has very strict rules about both. To unnecessarily split (oh dear) the infinitive is considered to be a capital crime in Munguin Towers!

      But I’m surprised that Hansard will not, forthwith, be rendered in Latin!

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          1. I love all those technical Englishy thingies about mood and voice and what not:

            A businessman arriving in Boston for a convention found that his first evening was free, and he decided to go find a good seafood restaurant that served scrod, a Massachusetts specialty. Getting into a taxi, he asked the cab driver, “Do you know where I can get scrod around here?” “Sure,” said the cabdriver. “I know a few places… but I can tell you it’s not often I hear someone use the third-person pluperfect indicative anymore!”

            I found a reference that said this joke sometimes uses “pluperfect subjunctive, past pluperfect, and passive pluperfect subjunctive.” I believe I first heard it as pluperfect subjunctive. Nobody actually knows of course.

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            1. PS: Regarding the split infinitive, there is of course an interesting Wikipedia entry.

              Wiki seems to feel that since “Star Trek” if not long before, it’s been perfectly OK to boldly split an infinitive whenever one wishes to. It’s described as a linguistic prescriptive; much beloved in the 19th century by old lady school teachers in quest of a Victorian era style manual for all human speech, and (mostly) in order to torture children.

              BBC commentator: “One reason why the older generation feel so strongly about English grammar is that we were severely punished if we didn’t obey the rules! One split infinitive, one whack; two split infinitives, two whacks; and so on.”

              Raymond Chandler to “The Atlantic”: “By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.”

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              1. As you have so ably illustrated Danny, other than a device to show how well educated, literate and dare I say witty you are, nobody gives a toss anymore.

                Just a bit of proletarian angst thrown in there, to provide balance.🥴

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                1. Thanks Greig! I really did find the Wiki piece quite interesting, particularly in its historical discussion. Also a lengthy blog article with a lot of historical detail that also pointed out:

                  “The likes of “to talk” are not technically infinitives. All that English has in the way of infinitives is the plain, uninflected form of the verb: just “talk”. These are sometimes used with “to”, as in “Do you expect me to talk?”, and sometimes not, as in “You’ll never make me talk!” So, technically, what gets split in “to loudly talk” is an infinitival clause. This fact might be taken to suggest that the campaign against split infinitives has been conceptually confused right from the start.”

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive

                  https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/to-helpfully-clarify-to-better-communicate-a-history-of-the-split-infinitive/

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              2. LOL.

                I suspect that the BBC commentator is probably right. Mr Chandler certainly was.

                But I have to admit that I always try to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition!

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                1. Tris…..As for those damnable sentence-ending prepositions, perhaps you’ve heard of the school marm who fainted dead away when she was presented with a sentence written by one of her students. It was about a little boy who was feeling unwell and was confined to bed in his upstairs bedroom. His mother brought a book to his room to read him a story. But he didn’t like the book and didn’t care to have it read to him.

                  He said: “Why did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of up for?”

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            2. LOL LOL LOL.

              I don’t think anyone knows any of that in English now.

              It’s only when yous study a foreign language that you pick up the grammatical terms.

              In your own language you either use or don’t use, the correct part of speech, be it subjunctive (not much used in British English; a little more in American English, but in either case very often indistinguishable from indicative) or the pluperfect, which we all used every day.

              Scrod is a wonderful word!

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              1. Tris……I’m not ashamed to tell you that sorting out the subjunctive verses the indicative causes me no end of grammatical anguish. 😉

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                  2. LOL Cairnallochy……….Thanks for that!
                    With a little Googling, I just discovered that the was/were thing involves subjunctive mood. In the past, I’ve usually avoided any objective understanding of subjunctive mood.

                    To expand on the grammatical rule thingy a bit………

                    I’ve simply given up on a few simple things……such as will/shall, and who/whom. I just use “will” all the time because it always seems to sound OK. I use the same test for who/whom. Whichever sounds right is the one I use, but I’m sure I’m grammatically incorrect a lot of the time. In a book review, “For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man’s Quest for Grammatical Perfection,” the Guardian quotes:

                    “[involving] the correct use of “whom”, avoidance of which has given this book its deliberately teeth-grating title. Cleverly, Marsh here inverts the usual reasons for understanding conventions. You need to know the rule for “whom” not because you should use “whom” whenever appropriate (because it will sometimes sound pompous), but because you need absolutely to avoid using “whom” when it should actually be “who”, since that will sound both pompous and stupid.”

                    “Whom” and “whomever” often sound to me pompous and unnecessary, but surely “Who” in Hemingway’s title would simply sound stupid……and not really all that pompous I’d say. 😉

                    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/23/bell-tolls-grammatical-perfection-marsh-review

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                    1. Good point, Danny.

                      You probably use the subjunctive without knowing that you are…

                      If I were you… (not was)

                      I demand that everyone on my staff be computer literate. (not is)

                      You don;t really notice it most of the time.

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                    2. OMG Tris……Using the subjunctive and not even realizing it, just because it sounds right. 😉

                      With a little Googling, I realize that the pronoun “whom” generally sounds right to me when it’s the object of a preposition, but as the object of a verb it’s trickier. For example: “Whom do you believe?” is grammatically correct, but sounds a bit pompous to me in modern everyday speech.

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                    3. I agree. I’d NEVER say, “whom” do you believe?”

                      In your own language, or one you have become seriously familiar with, you use all the tenses and moods of the verbs without thinking… because you’ve heard other people using them, read them… whatever, rather than learned them by rote

                      In a language you are learning you kinda run through the very table and the endings in your head to make sure you are saying what you want to say and you don’t end up with something like “Yesterday I am going to buy a car.”

                      Well, I do anyway…

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                    4. Tris…….That’s the way I would have to do it. I managed to pass the high school French exams. 😉 Makes me wonder if the Catholic Church fathers from various countries at the Vatican manage to form actual sentences in conversational Latin in real time.

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                    6. Tris……Thanks, that’s an interesting article. I enjoyed its description of the Vatican’s ingenuity in making up Latin words for modern things. Sounds like the “Office of Latin Letters” does a lot more translating of official documents and statements than anyone in the Vatican does carrying on Latin conversations. I remember now that the new Spanish speaking Pope got into some early misunderstandings involving his use of Italian in speaking. I see that he Tweets, but does so in Latin and several languages, unlike Trumpy who barely manages one. 😉

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                    7. Well, if you speak Spanish, I think it’s quite easy to mess up your Italian. LOL. But if you’ve always known Latin, I guess it makes it easier for tweeting.

                      I think he speaks some English too.

                      Unlike Trump who appears to speak virtually no known language at all.

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                    8. Tris…..Yes, Trumpy always manages to be offensive, however poor his basic English skills are. 😉 I’m impressed at how well Pope Francis obvious does with a number of languages. He spoke English fairly well in his most recent visit to the US a few years ago.

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    3. The double deck bus is an AEC, Associated Equipment Company.
      I’M pretty certain the single deck is a Leyland.
      BSA and Morgan certainly made 3 wheelers in the 2 steering at the front and single driver at the rear.
      Reliant made theirs from the motorcycle front end, an Austin Seven engine and rear axle. No need to worry about Ackerman angles on the front wheel.I understand you could drive one on a motor cycle license as long as the reverse gear selection was disabled.

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        1. Get out and push I’m afraid.
          Since motor cycles didn’t have reversing gears it wasn’t part of the driving test.
          Lots of people just undid the reverse lock and reversed then put it back.
          Most of these micro cars didn’t weigh much over 10 Hundredweight, note the mogg reference weight. Eighteenth century.
          Twenty-first century mass is around 500 Kg.
          A bushel and a peck.

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            1. The old one Tris
              send 3/4d, reads 3 and four pence, we’re going to a dance.
              Old army story of mis communications.
              Send reinforcements we’re going to advance.
              Great what you can do with language.

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    4. Single decker is an Albion, one of several Burnett’s owned dating from 1935/6. Original bodywork by Cowieson of Glasgow, this example one of a pair re-bodied after the war (c.1950) by Federated industries of Aberdeen. (reg. AV 8356?) –

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  6. Pic 4 – Glasgow, Gorbals, I think. I should actually know who the photographer was but I just can’t recall right now. There were a number of really great photographers working in Glasgow at the period – Mayne, Marzaroli, Depardon, to name but a few. Date – 1960s and judging by the reg on the nearby Hillman Minx, no earlier than 1964.

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  7. I think that’s Alister (sic) Jack waving at the people in the Millburn Light Electric.

    A big We Owe You One to Kezia Dugdale for enabling his and others’ elections to Westminster in defence of the Precious.

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    1. I see they have appointed Lord Peter Walker’s son, an Englishman, representing an English constituency (actually his father’s… it seems that it’s a hereditary constituency) as one of Union Jack’s deputies. Still, he went to St Paul’s and Balliol so he must be a splendid fellow.

      So, a further slap in the face to the old Colonel. I wonder if she’ll still be attending cabinet meetings, eh?

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    2. All birds and animals are wonderful creatures andi. Johnson, he is an unprincipled liar, cheat, fraud, who is going to need a lot more that 20,000 cops on the streets when the food riots start.

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      1. In a way it’s a bit worrying that that is his first priority (although, given that that is what Scotland has done, it might be considered flattering). But was bumping up policing not the first thing that Thatcher did? Does Boris, like Maggie, foresee rioting?

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  10. These 3 wheelers (pic 5) with the single wheel in front were incredibly unstable. If you reverse the configuration so the single wheel is at the back it’s problem solved, if a little tail happy.

    I remember in the late seventies while driving on a long straight bit of road, watching an oncoming reliant 3 wheeler start cartwheeling nose to tail along the road for no apparent reason. I stopped my car and ran over to the wreckage just as the driver was helping his wife out of the tangled mass. Both, apart from feeling sore in a number of places escaped miraculously unhurt and still mobile. Another driver gave them a lift whether to home or hospital, I don’t know.

    Possibly the luckiest people I’ll ever meet.

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    1. I always thought the Reliant Robins to be seriously unstable. The only reason people would have them, I thought, was that the road tax was lower. I imagine though that insurance might have been quite high.

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  11. Off topic… But just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Bojo has appointed NADINE as a minister in their health department.

    Thank god we live in Scotland.

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