SHERINGHAM DIARY - When The Chips Are Down

To all of you for whom this is your first viewing of this blog, Welcome, and happy browsing. Thank you for your interest and visit.

April was the first month when this Cornucopia blog topped over 110,000 viewers. March got close with just short of 95,000. And it's been busier over the quieter months of Winter too. May last year was my busiest of that year, at 65,000. 2026 has exceeded that most months,  If it continues to follow that pattern then 150,000 may be feasible this May.  This upsurge in views over the last few years still feels slightly perplexing.  I keep posting the same sort of stuff I do normally, and though it's interesting to watch what happens each month, it does seem that this is nothing to do with me.

Advert Tag Line No 1 -Stop the leaks, Stop the yawns.

Having reached the statistically significant Benchmark of 100,000, Blogger has started to offer me Ad Sense, which is automated advertising on the site. There are days when the idea of earning money through the blog appeals, but mostly I feel reluctant -to very hostile against doing so. Ever increasing levels of advertising enshitify everywhere on the internet.  I am not alone in finding it irritating. My adding to this with my own blog would, hence, be hypocritical of me. Blogger says you can exercise some control over what and where. But I really do not trust that assertion. That this is a mindless automated algorithm, tells you all you really need to know. I like to approach my blog, however humble, as free of the constant pressure to consume or tolerate a sales pitch interrupting the moment you idly click on a site.

Advert Tag Line No 2 - Nature's Wrinkle Fighter 

Whilst we are on the subject of enshitification  The first thing You Tube does now when I click on it, is shove some random Short in my face, that it thinks I might appreciate. This can be when I've just got up in the morning. I am not in the frame of mind to tolerate any of this first thing. I become annoyed as I madly search for someway to make it bloody well stop. My tablet screen also appears to have become hyper sensitive to my fingers merely hovering over it. So adverts or other You Tube posts suddenly pop up whilst I'm perhaps deeply absorbed in a interesting video on prehistoric archeological anomalies in the Saudi Arabian desert. I kid you not. Take a look at these!

Advert Tag Line No 3 - A softer bit for every tot

Having recently spent a few days with friends in Southwold, we've realised a short break before the busy Summer season kicks in, is actually beneficial and an all round good idea. Whilst in Southwold we visited all the usual places we like, but spread these out in a more relaxed fashion across two days. On the third day we took a trip down to Aldbrough. My recollection of it was as a pretty seaside town with not a lot more to it. This was reconfirmed. It still has a fine beach sculpture designed by Maggie Hambling, but not much else. The shops are mostly middle brow art galleries that wouldn't scare any horses, it has three delicatessens, yes I did say three, plus the obligatory clothes, giftware and interiors shops. But, we looked at all the chip shops in the town, and not one cooked chips in vegetable fat. It was exactly the same in Southwold. 

Our friends had loaned us their year passes to The Red House, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pear's house, which boasted it had a cafe. We drove there in the hope of finding chips. It turns out the cafe has a coffee percolator and a small range of pre-packaged biscuits & cake. I'm only mildly interested in Britten, and Hubby hardly at all, so our desire to know more soon expired, or was perhaps near to none existent in the first place. So still sans the holy grail of chips we terminated our visit with extreme prejudice, and drove away.

Advert Tag Line No 4 - Relief could be as simple as a shower 

We then imposed our presence upon the small, but grubby, town of Leiston, whose sole remaining function is as a conduit that enables you to reach Aldbrough. Currently Sizewell C is in the process of being built. All the preparatory access roads to enable the largest project currently under construction in England, are presently being levered into the picturesque country idyll and the wealth stuffed backwoods of Suffolk. The fight against Sizewell C was lost, however much tooth and nail was expended. These same local campaigners have switched to fighting the horrendous heavy traffic load rumbling upon the quiet roads, greens and ponds of their villages. Evidently a battle royale is being fought over these 'Rat Runs'. As everywhere are placards and yellow cut out cartoon rats on sticks lining every verge and hedge alongside the roads. Whilst I sympathise with the undoubtedly hellish situation, I can't help but feel they are going to have to grin and bare with this, until the infrastructure is completed. In this context protest seems a bit of a self indulgent whim.

Leiston is the logistical nub of all this cacophony of heavy haulage. Did they have a non animal fat chippy, no they did not. We resorted to sating our hunger in the back of the local Co Op supermarket. Here a Subway franchise was crammed into one desultory unused corner. We had a baguette stuffed with various forms of highly processed protein vegetable matter with accompanying raw condiments. And once we tucked in, found it to be OK. But even though it had all these supposedly good healthy real ingredients in it, it still felt as though it was meant to be eaten by toothless babies. No one frequenting Subway is ever required to own a full set of teeth, just a firm gummy jawline. Having successfully parked our hunger, and to avoid hearing the details of the health and safety inspection of Subway that began as we left, we drove home without further distressing any locals.

In the local elections, Sheringham defiantly hung on to its very effective Lib Dem Local Councillor, Liz Worthington, whose stepped up to County level.  Quite an achievement when all around fell prey to the deceptive lure of Reform. Norwich City Council, which has in the past invariably been a loan red beacon of Labour in a sea of Tory blue, has now turned resolutely Green surrounded by the polluting sewage swill of anaemic azure.

Currently Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party, is having to endure the mother of all character assassinations. He made one critical misjudgment, a chink in his armour appeared, and the right wing press are now down on him like a ton of bricks. Having literally run rings around them for the last six months, they are now giving him the Jeremy Corbyn treatment. Followed in very quick succession by the Angela Raynor treatment. The one's to whom they subject only left wing politicians that looks too worryingly popular to them. Throw any old mud at them cos some of it will stick in the public's mind. It's not pretty, and it would be nice to think the sort of tittle tattle they are digging up was insignificant. But in the hands of the right wing media this is all about the sullying of publicly favourable perceptions consistently over time. Meanwhile the greasy ( gifted into being a crypto multi-millionaire apparently ) Nigel Farage, is left relatively blemish free, all unexamined squeaky and clean, nothing to see here.

Meanwhile I finished a decorative piece for the garden. We had a metal arched framework that once held a mirror until it inevitably broke. I've been intending to cut up an old metal lampshade and make it into panels to fill in random panes, plus casts in air dry clay and spray them white. Its not my best executed piece, but it fills the space well. That's one less thing to think about and I can move on to the next job on my to do list.