Craig Sawyers

After the "beast from the East" that hit the UK a couple of weeks ago - followed by real spring weather (13C, or 55F today and glorious sunshine) - we're in for another bout of Winter. Temperature set to plummet to freezing tomorrow and Sunday, with significant snow fall. Mid March. In the UK - that is pretty damned unusual.

The other hidden benefit of the UK Royal Family is the number of good works they do. The charity my wife runs has a Patron. That used to be the Queen Mother, but is now Countess Wessex (wife of the Queen's youngest son). She is not just a title - she is massively engaged with the charity, most recently hosting a fund raising dinner at her house (Bagshot Park). But - that is only one of 70 charities she is patron of. That is absolutely gratis, and multiplying the effort for my wife's charity by 70 and you get pretty much a full-time job. And she is not unique - everyone in the Royal Family does this sort of thing, and is absolutely priceless to the good causes they support.

That level of snow is insane - stay safe all!

RIP Steven Hawking. I worked near Cambridge for about ten years during the 80's and used to see him out and about with his wife (the one he divorced in order to live with his nurse). Of course he was well known then, but not the mobbed famous he became in recent years, particularly after the movie. So people use to just walk by and think "Oh - there's Hawking". He'd lost control of his neck even then, so when he went over a curb his head would flop forward; so he'd stop and his wife would put it vertical again. He visited the Space Research Centre at Leicester University when I was doing a contract there about ten years ago. Unfortunately the lift was too small for his chair (!) - so he never managed to get up to see our work. Given his level of disability, it is a real wonder he lived to 76. But absolutely one of the greats. Again, RIP.

Editing because it turns out Stewart lost his hair at age 19, but used to wear toupees in many acting roles (pre Star Trek) - which he might well have done in TTSS.

For a rocker he still looks in good shape! Almost as good as me

Belated happy birthday - hope it was a great one!

^This. And that short animation about how badly we cope with snow in the UK is so very true!

I have absolutely no idea what any of that is - but I want it so badly!

Happy birthday!

RIP Russ Solomon. Whenever I traveled through London as a student and shortly after, Tower Records was a standard visit. Spent quite a lot of money there! Mind you, 92 is a pretty good innings.

RIP Trevor Baylis, the inventor of the wind up radio for use in third world countries (specifically in response to the AIDS epidemic in African countries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Baylis

You can always rely on Steve

Been binge watching Breaking Bad. No idea why I missed it originally, so I bought the boxed set. Currently working my way through season 5. Bloody awesome, I can completely understand why Bryan Cranston won awards for his portrayal of Walter White.

Oh wow. One of my heroes, set on a cinder track at Iffley near Oxford, with pacemakers who were legendary runners themselves - Chris Chattaway and Chris Brasher. Brasher was the guy who founded the London Marathon, and after track running turned himself into a fell runner, both competitively and as a pacemaker. Bannister outlived both - Chattaway died in 2014 and Brasher in 2003. The Iffley Road track is still there, about 11 miles from here. It is now a composition track of course - the last cinder track that I ran on was 25 years ago, and that made me understand what a feat a sub 4m mile was on that surface. And this is how he did it, in 1954 RIP Roger Bannister

Oh wow. One of my heroes, set on a cinder track at Iffley near Oxford, with pacemakers who were legendary runners themselves - Chris Chattaway and Chris Brasher. Brasher was the guy who founded the London Marathon, and after track running turned himself into a fell runner, both competitively and as a pacemaker. Bannister outlived both - Chattaway died in 2014 and Brasher in 2003. The Iffley Road track is still there, about 11 miles from here. It is now a composition track of course - the last cinder track that I ran on was 25 years ago, and that made me understand what a feat a sub 4m mile was on that surface. RIP Roger Bannister

Thanks all! Since we did not make it to the Peak District walking as a result of the Arctic invasion of our weather, Carole took me to the Hand and Flowers, a 2 Michelin star restaurant. It is so unpretentious - Tom Kerridge, the founder and head chef wanted essentially a pub atmosphere that sold superb food. First one is Lovage soup, croutons and smoked eel, second is celeriac soup. Then the Hand and Flowers signature - fish and chips (triple cooked chips/fries, pea puree and tartare sauce), and finally the thing that looks like Saturn is white chocolate shells filled with rhubarb, candied ginger and raspberry sorbet. I think there was some pieces of chocolate cake in there too. We had a good day!

In the (not so distant) future someone's offspring will say "My poor old 137 year old dad still has absolutely no idea how to connect the socket on his skull to access enhanced reality" Seriously, both mine are no longer here - but I absolutely guarantee that dad (gone 25 years) would have been absolutely clueless with computers and the internet - even though he was an engineer. And my mum, who passed 10 years ago, never ever worked out how to drive the video player we bought her (pre-DVD, clearly). But we'll all be clueless old farts in time

Happy birthday!

"Climate change - fake news, bad"

This is insane. Not only is it -10C and snowing, there is a storm coming in out of the Atlantic which, when the moist air hits the icy blast from Siberia will first give blizzard conditions, then at is warms, freezing rain - so a mini ice storm. Splendid. March 1st - what on earth is going on?

Great guy. Saw Swarb at the Nettlebed Folk Club http://www.nettlebedfolkclub.co.uk/index.html with Martin Carthy. Tiny place, and plenty opportunity to meet them in the bar for a chat. When you consider that the two of them were part of highly successful bands that filled major halls in the 70's - Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span - it was a real treat to see them (and others) in such a tiny place.

That's warm by comparison to a visit I made there in January in the late 80's. I'd spent a week on business in Israel, where it was really nice, 20C, shirt sleeve weather. I then flew to Helsinki, changing planes in Frankfurt where it was snowing. At Helsinki I knew I was in trouble when locals were going to lockers and pulling out all sorts of thermal protection gear - fur boots and hat, leggings, and thermal gauntlets. Stepped outside into -40C (the same number in F - ie -40F). Even the Fins were in shock at that temperature - far lower than it normally is. My nose hairs froze, and my feet did not feel cold - the soles just started to hurt. The taxi has 6mm of ice on the *inside* of the windows. Totally surreal. Our local marketer then took me to a sauna. So in a single day I went from +20C to -40C to +100C. A very strange day.

Tomorrow's weather where I live. That is temperature in celcius - but the kicker is 44mph winds. Yes we have a screwy units system. We measure distance in metric unless it is road signs in miles and wind speed which in miles per hour. We buy shots and wine in metric, but beer in pints. And we buy petrol/gas in liters but the cars read consumption in miles per gallon. Go figure. Anyway, it is set to be bloody cold tomorrow given windchill.

It's almost like Dave Swarbrick ("Swarb") who was one of the founders of Fairport Convention, and a folk fiddler who's style has been copied ever since. We saw him shortly before he died for the second time in 2016. He basically had smoked so much that he contracted emphysema, and ended up performing with an oxygen cylinder next to him and a mask from which he'd take relief from time to time. Anyway, in 1999 he was admitted to hospital in pretty poor shape, and The Daily Telegraph published his obituary. He subsequently recovered, and used to read out the obituary at concerts! The folk community then held benefit concerts called "Swarb-aid" and "Swarb-aid 2" to raise money for a double lung transplant, which went ahead in 2004. That bought him 12 more years, and continuing wall to wall concerts. So yes - Swarb died twice, and is one of the few people to have had two obituaries separated by 17 years.