Yes - The Guardian, Private Eye, etc and The Post Office.

This is not going to be a long hi falutin essay about the rabbiting of Farage (the) Cabbage or Trump (the) Hump on our backs, but the whole world by now must be aware of the goings on concerning the post office here.

I used to work for the post office before I went to college. My mother always wanted me to be in a safe job at the age of 15, would you believe, for that is when we left school in my day. When they fitted me out in a uniform with a stupid hat, I felt like a bell boy at an hotel – an hotel? it is correct.

My job was to deliver telegrams and I was offered twice the money I was earning at an 'army and navy' store nearby. I used to hide the hat, I have to say, and I remember the guy who was fitting me out in the uniform saying to me 'oh you'll have all the girls after you when you wear this' – well there are uniforms and uniforms and this was not one of the attractive ones.

But there was a chance of riding a motor bike when I was 16 so that was something to look forward to. Geoff Duke, the great motor cyclist was one of my heroes so I looked forward to it.

All around the offices were big black windows, just below the ceiling – this was in every office – and behind the black windows were people spying on the workers down below. Somewhere on the outside of the building was a secret door where the spies would come in and go out. They were called the I.B., the Investigation Branch.

When I started the job I had to sign The Official Secrets Act – we were civil servants. In fact I signed the Official Secrets Act again, later when I was part time with the SAS which in conjunction with the post office, I was also paid.

That was when I was 18. A lot of the time I would go to the SAS at the weekends, sometimes to a firing range or other outdoor activities.

It was fun - 23 SAS, look them up.

If we had an accident on the motor bike we didn't carry any papers, just our driving licence. If anybody wanted to see proof of insurance we would say 'it's handled by the post office.'

The mighty post office.

The mighty post office with its own laws it's own police (the I.B.) and was a law unto itself. Where was I heading?

Needless to say I got out as soon as I could.

In those days it wasn't acceptable to be out of work – factory fodder and every other kind of fodder when bosses and gaffers talked down to you.

I heard some of the inquiry the other day when the post masters and post mistresses reported that they'd been given the third degree by mafia like interrogators.

The post office sent a guy with a black shirt and jacket in as a witness – nothing like playing the part.

Lots of people in this country for some strange stupid reason, think that anybody who reads The Guardian, is some kind of lefty revolutionary. 'What do you want that for?' I would hear when I was younger, well it was The Guardian, Private Eye, the BBC and their programmes who did all the work to expose the scandal at the post office. It was initially started by an ex postmaster called Alan Bates, no not the late movie star, writing to Computer Weekly Magazine and taken up by a reporter there called Tony Collins, that was in 2004 and the next person was Rebecca Thompson in 2009 – so you can see how long all this has been going on. She hunted for other people accused and charged and eventually a guy at the BBC did a radio series about the whole business and at the end of the day, after all these years, ITV commissioned the series.

Now you may ask why ITV when a lot of other people did the ground work – I don't know, but would as many people have viewed it on the BBC? It had already been on Panorama and loads of times  on Radio 4.

So don't criticise The Guardian and the Private Eye with the brilliant Ian Hislop – we need them.

The Fibonacci Sequence, again.

This Post was viewed the other day by forty odd people. I often wonder how they find the posts so I read it, found it interesting and here it is again. It was up here on November 26^th 2014 which will explain references to the film about Alan Turing (above).

This is going to be a strange old post but I was thinking of something so let's see how it goes.

Everywhere you look these days you will see the name of Alan Turing; this is for a number of reasons. One may be because there is a movie on release starring Benedict Cumberbatch – yes of course that's his real name and we will all remember it just as we remembered Schwarzenegger.

In the film Breaking the Code, Derek Jacobi played Alan Turing and he is seen staring at a fir cone; here:

If you look at it you will see that there is a distinct pattern. What we see when we look at it is the same pattern but when a mathematician looks at it he sees a pattern of numbers. 

That pattern is called the Fibonacci Sequence and was spotted nearly a thousand years ago by someone called, would you believe Fibonacci. 

He didn't invent it as it was used by Indian mathematicians in the 6^th century.

What do the numbers mean?

Well the Fibonacci numbers are the sum of the two previous numbers and so on so 1, 2, is followed by 3. 

Simple?

So far.

Then 3 is followed by 5 and 5 is followed by 8. What does this all mean; how can it be useful.

It's supposed to be  a way of predicting how many rabbits two rabbits will begat in a year.

But.

Somehow it is the meaning of life when it comes to a computer.

There is line in Breaking the Code when Turing, quite well in to middle age by now, says 'look at this cone; a Fibonacci sequence.'

Great piece of writing aye? Engels, meet Marx, Rolls meet Royce!! (you know what I mean).

Well look at this:

That is the pattern created by a Japanese Puffer Fish; the fish is about two inches long and in order to attract a mate he makes this pattern in the sand at the bottom of the ocean. When the female arrives he flattens the middle. It was on TV the other day in the David Attenborough series.

Isn't nature wonderful?

Here are some more patterns from nature all with Fibonacci numbers.

Amazing aren't they?

So how does the Fibonacci sequence lead to a genius inventing the computer?

That's why the genius who invented the computer invented it and not me – nor you.

Unfortunately Alan Turing was born in the wrong age: as with Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander the Great, Michaelangelo and many more he was homosexual; gay.

But in the time he was active the practice was against the law; it was never against the law for one man to love another man but the actual practice was.

In Britain that is; in some countries it still is.

Gay marriage is legal in lots of states in America and lots of other countries but in Uganda and really backward countries homosexuality is still against the law.

So instead of praising Alan Turing the authorities persecuted him; they chemically castrated him and he eventually committed suicide.

At a time when people knew very little about genetics or DNA, Turing used the early computer to try to crack how a soup of cells and chemicals could transform itself and grow into complex natural shapes - a subject known as morphogenesis. In an incredible article published in 1952, Turing suggested that everything from the spots and stripes on animals to the arrangement of pine cones and flowers could be explained by the interactions between two chemicals. Turing’s work in this area is intimately connected with the timing of his trial and conviction for homosexuality, and his subsequent ‘treatment’ with a course of chemical injections.

Hope you like the patterns:

 

Me and Tom, back in the day.

 

There I am – above – that was in the BBC Shakespeare series As You Like It with Helen Mirren – no I'm not fighting Helen Mirren!!

That thing in my right hand is my sword – it seems to be angled right at the camera so you can't see it properly.

It's not my hair, of course, and that thing at the top of my legs is a small cod piece.

The other fella, by the way, seems to be tied up in knots and believe me if he'd known the photo was being taken he would have bent his head around. The photo was taken by one of the ace guys who take the tennis photos at Wimbledon each summer.

The photo below is going back even farther – or further - I am on the right and the play we were in was called The Alchemist by Ben Johnson – not the runner, the 17^th century playwright.

On the left, looking very elegant and proud is Julian Fellowes (now Lord Fellowes) of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey fame, and in that photo you can see something similar at the top of my legs – yes a cod piece. 

The other fella, nearer Julian, is the (now) famous wine expert Oz Clarke and the fella with his hand out is an actor called Eric Corlet, who I haven't heard from since – yes I have a great memory for names; not the ones I have been told last week, but many from 50 years ago.

In that photo I am 'wearing' rather a large one cod piece – I got these two photos from the Internet but I'm sure I have originals somewhere.

I did The Alchemist at The Royal Theatre, Northampton and we stayed on in Northampton to live for some years. That's where we brought the children up, in a small village about six or seven miles east of Northampton, and it would take over an hour to get in to London on a good day – but that would be from the train station which was at least half an hour away.

A year or two after that photo was taken I was walking through the market square in Northampton, when a stocky young fella with long hair and a beard came up to me. He seemed to be dressed in many colours and he said – 'hello boy; you that fella with the cord pace; ent that right?'

Yes, I said.

'I remember that cord pace in that play.'

I asked him if he went to the theatre much and he said no that he only came that once.

He was with a girl and I could see he had a few drinks on him. Tom, his name was, and it turned out that he was quite famous as a singer of folk songs and led a folk band. We talked for a while and went for a drink in, I think, Shipman's bar just off the market square.

Now this little story is a bit vague, in places, as alcohol was used so it might not have been Shipmans, but when I did this entry before that's what I deduced.

I bumped in to him lots of times after that and sometimes we would have a drink and maybe end up at his place. I can't remember where it was but he had loads of musical instruments around the place and I was never sure if it was his place. 

Those were hazy days and one time I bumped into him London near Ward's Irish House in Piccadilly and whilst we were there an old friend of mine walked in with his dog.

I don't know what pedigree, the dog was, but it had kind of curly fur as opposed to hair; Tom looked at the dog, very carefully, and said to my pal 'I think his trousers are too short.'

What Tom was doing in Piccadilly that day I don't know but my pal wanted to know if I could do a West Indian accent 'course he can' said Tom 'he can do any accent you like. I saw him doing Walsh and carckney – you name it.'

Walsh? Oh yes he was from Northampton.

'I thought you didn't go to the theatre?' I said.

'Oh I snuck in once or twice.'

So my pal said his friend wanted someone who could do a West Indian accent and go to his flat to read his play.

'You go and do that' said Tom.

'He's a white West Indian' said my pal ' says he Irish.'

'He'll be from Barbados' said Tom 'you heard the saying "Hell or Barbados?"

My pal gave Tom a blank look.

Tom said 'The Irish slave trade; 50,000 Irish men, women and children were sent to Barbados - how about that then?'

'I didn't know that' said my pal.

'Well there you go' said Tom 'some of them were sent to Virginia.'

So Tom wandered off and I went up to Muswell Hill to my pal's friend's flat.

When we got there, he sure was a white West Indian, and he'd written a play 'I need to hear this' he said, and he poured a large whiskey for me.

We sat down and read it and my pal read the other English part.

My accent wasn't that good – more Jamaican – but the whiskey was Jameson's, it flowed and we had a few laughs reading the play.

When we finished the play we played darts – with an air pistol.

We were shooting tiny coloured darts at an ordinary dart board and there was a lot of cheering and shouting, if we hit the bull, and the playwright's wife went out to fetch more whiskey. When it came back it flowed again till it was time to go.

I got to Euston Station just in time to catch the last train to Northampton which was ten minutes past midnight.

As I walked along the platform a loud voice shouted and there was Tom carrying a small bottle of whiskey.

We walked up through the carriages and there, sitting on one of the seats, I met someone else I knew. An actor called Raynor Bourton and he was with his pal who was strumming on a guitar.

Tom passed the whiskey around, and we sipped from the bottle as we travelled up to Northampton. Raynor and his pal were going all the way to Birmingham, and as we travelled, sipped and laughed, Raynor's pal went into one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs Lay Lady Lay; it was beautiful.

You would think we were a nuisance, singing and drinking and laughing, but no. 

I could see people were smiling and we sang a couple of folk songs with Tom to the fore and then the guitarist starting singing 'Where do you go to my lovely? When you're alone in your bed' and the whole carriage joined in.

Not too many people as it was the middle of the night and when we finished we had reached Northampton.

Tom left the whiskey with the boys as they continued the other half of their journey to Birmingham and we wandered off in to the night.

I never saw any of them again but when I looked Tom up on the Internet I saw that his name was Tom Hall and he played with a band called The Barback Riders and he died in 2003; R.I.P.