The road to hell …

I was halfway there on Saturday. My good intentions had fallen by the wayside, and only dishes were cooked and lunch was washed. Or something like that.

So that left Sunday in which to mop the floor, write the board papers and dust the furniture.

Gone are the days when I could spring out of bed, jump in the shower, throw a couple of rashers of bacon in the pan with a tomato, eat, wash up, and be out of the door in 20 minutes.

A neighbour once said to Partner and I, that I woke up thinking. (Didn’t endear her to Partner after that). These days I don’t even wake up for at least an hour. Let alone think.

Waking up consists of reading and replying to overnight comments on my blogs when North America has been up and active, and reading any new posts on fave blogs, although probably leaving my comments on theirs until later.

So Sunday morning saw me with my nose stuck to the screen. Literally. Saturday night hadn’t been too busy on the blogosphere so I resorted to solving a geocaching puzzle. All those no longer interested in this part can skip to the next section of this post.

However. For the benefit of non-cachers, geocaches involve finding pots of tat treasure using a GPS and with a given set of co-ordinates. Sort of like olde-fashionde treasure hunting using OS co-ords. (OS = Ordnance Survey for non-Brits, our former extremely good mapping system. Unsurpassable).

A puzzle cache means that you don’t get the co-ords, you have to solve a puzzle to find out what they are.

So, there were two images that meant nothing at all to me. I started by counting similar looking bits on the puzzle but that didn’t work.

I emailed an expert friend, who mailed back and asked if I had seen the 3D images. Uh? What 3D images?

So I decided to take Partner’s advice and looked up the website on the bottom of the images. Stereogram. Sounds like a record player to me.

Apparently not. Sort of like black and white optical illusions, the old vase and face one, or the young beauty and the old crone one. But these are in 3D. Never seen one before in my life. Sheltered life me.

How to see the 3D part of it though? Apparently you can make yourself cross-eyed and that shows it up. Well, I have enough problems with being short-sighted so I’m not messing around with my eyes more than necessary so that was out.

Alternatively, you can stick your nose to the computer screen and slowly draw away whereupon the 3D image pops out. Well, it did for me, although not for Partner. Perhaps being short-sighted does have amazing advantages.

So I’m left with a 3D heart and a prehistoric reptile. On a second look, I decided the reptile could be a car. Either way, at this point I was feeling distinctly sick after looking at whacky images for far too long and decided to leave it alone and ponder how to convert a heart and a car into numbers.

As I’d been wasting time diligently researching cryptic puzzle-solving, I remembered one of the obvious ones was to substitute letters for numbers. So I did. There is a little gizmo on the site that lets you check your guesses so I gazed at the screen expectantly. I nearly fell off my chair. Congratulations you have solved the puzzle!

‘Oh,’ said Partner, leaping out of the chair. ‘Let’s go and find it.’

At which point I thought about more dishes to wash, another lunch to cook, furniture to dust and board papers to write. I had, in fact, mopped the floor.

What the hell. Off we went.

Here is the interesting part. There had been a pic of the location on the geocache site, and as Partner had been to the location before when he delivered a CV (not that he got a reply), he just knew exactly where to go. I probably didn’t need to solve the puzzle after all.

There were a lot of rocks. Once on the breakwater the GPS went haywire. We clambered up and down. I spent most of my time worrying that I was going to drop a) my iPhone b) my camera c) my ID card d) my keys e) anything else in my pockets, that had no zip or button, down some irretrievable hole. Oh and the GPS too.

The road to hell, but not paved with good intentions

I figured having solved the puzzle it would be one of life’s ironies that we wouldn’t find the cache. I didn’t. But he did.

Anyway, I did watch a British Airways ‘plane taxi-ing around for take-off, and vroooom up it went.

Ready for take-off

Described as one of the world’s most dangerous and scary runways. Um, it’s not exactly got a bad track record for accidents. Or rather lack of accidents. So it’s short, and goes into the sea. So what? Apparently we are fifth most dangerous in the world, beating Hong Kong into sixth place and the most dangerous one in Europe. But we have had no deaths apart from the suspicious Polish incident in 1943. I remember the Hong Kong airport from years back, and haven’t used the Gib one. But statistically, how can one incident, 70 years ago make it one of the most dangerous in the world? Anyway the BA ‘plane took off OK.

And there were lots of boats too.

Sailing by

So another day of good intentions that didn’t come to fruition. But does it matter if something else takes its place?

Moving on down other roads to hell, or to paradise, depending on your perspective.

Terrorism

I’ve read a little about the Boston bombing both on news sites and blogs. Maurice wrote a thoughtful piece and it reminded me of terrorism over the years.

Here’s a quote from Reuters about the two brothers behind the bombing:

The brothers spent their early years in a small community of Chechens in the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, a mainly Muslim nation of 5.5 million. The family moved in 2001 to Dagestan, a southern Russian province that lies at the heart of a violent Islamist insurgency and where their parents now live.

But as I commented on Maurice’s blog, who hasn’t lived with the fear of terrorism?

M62 coach bombing in 1974 – UK, Provisional IRA

This was a bomb placed in a coach carrying off-duty British armed forces and their families. Twelve people were killed, nine soldiers and three civilians. Thirty eight other people were injured.

Tucked up safely in my little bed, I awoke to hear a loud boom. My view at the time was that it was on the M62 which crosses the Pennine hills between Lancashire and Yorkshire. I thought it must have been one hell of a bomb for me to have heard it.

In fact, only now, looking at Michelin, have I realised how close it was. Ten miles, half an hour’s drive away at Hartshead Moor service station. No wonder it sounded loud.

My first awareness that terrorism could come quite near to home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain

Baader Meinhof

This was an active revolutionary group in Germany when I was at university and often hit the headlines because of assassinations of prominent capitalist and judicial figures.

When I had a passport photo taken to visit Amsterdam with a friend from university he told me I looked like a member of the Baader Meinhof gang. Black pullover and steely cold expression.

Red Brigades

Famous for the killing of Aldo Moro, but stuck in my mind because of the bombing of Bologna (Italy) railway station which killed 85 people and injured more than 200 people.

In fact, they denied the bombing and it was later attributed to a neo-fascist group. Who knows?

But at the time I embarked on my Euro-rail and world trip, it was still in my mind, and when I went to Bologna, I did not hang around the railway station.

Bhopal

No, not a terrorist group although some might consider an irresponsible company causing thousands of deaths and injuries to be worse.

Baader Meinhof and The Red Brigades between them managed around 120 deaths.

Look what Union Carbide achieved in India:

The Bhopal disaster, was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world’s worst industrial disaster. It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its way in and around the shantytowns located near the plant. Estimates vary on the death toll.
The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Others estimate 8,000 died within two weeks and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.
A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.

I mention Bhopal because I was there not long after the incident. Our train stopped there. I tried to hold my breath, but the train stopped for too long.

Pesticides eh? They kill in more ways than one.

And back to the UK with the Manchester bombing in 1996 where 212 people were injured but no-one was killed.

I was no longer visiting Manchester, but I had done in my university years, and I’d walked those streets and visited that shopping centre. There is something very spooky reading about a bomb blast in a place you used to frequent and your heart goes out to the people injured in that explosion.

In London, in the 1980s, our government building was on a constant state of alert, and I often took the tube in trepidation thinking what a horrific way to die a bomb blast in the tube would be. And in 2005 it happened and a combined attack on the tube and buses resulted in 52 people killed and more than 700 people injured.

Bombs have been placed on the underground for more than 100 years.

The year before, Spain suffered a much worse attack with a prime-time commuter attack at the beautiful Atocha station in Madrid in 2004. Another place I had frequently visited, either to go to Madrid, or to pass through en-route to the UK. Nearly 200 people were killed and 1800 people were injured.

And in Spain (and France), we have ETA, fighting for an independent Basque country, and currently with a ceasefire status, although not sure how long that will last with the hard-line Rajoy government. ETA killed more than 800 people using similar tactics to PIRA and the left-wing revolutionary groups.

Terrorism doesn’t go away. Whether it’s political or religious, it’s here to stay.

Another blogger’s experience of terrorism – Wrong time, Wrong Place A good read, if that’s the right description.

According to Michael Collins (Irish) who used Lenin’s quote:

The purpose of terrorism is to terrorise.

I learned this from my voracious reading of Jack Higgins’ novels. Mr Higgins doesn’t waste time writing his books. Characters are given different names in different novels, but they all use the same language, the same guns, the same silver cigarette case because they all smoke, and they rarely have sex. Too busy killing people I suppose.

Jack Higgins novels. Plots – someone tries to kill someone else and usually succeeds.

He must copy and paste for each novel and just change a few names and the location of the plots. Still, they are an easy read. And make the fight against terrorism seem so simple when a few latter-day James Bonds save the world. I wish.

To end on a bright note.

The road to hell.

Just thought I would also point out that Chris Rea comes from Yorkshire.

But if that one is too gloomy, try the road to nowhere.

Saturday, what sorta day?

Wake up, half asleep after yesterday evening’s walk.

Partner fired up with enthusiasm to go and hide a geocache of our own. Groan.

Dishes to wash, floor to mop, furniture to dust, lunch to cook, board papers to write and we spend an hour and a half wandering around the block – that is normally a 15 minute walk – looking for a place to hide a cache. I think we’ll back off the caching for a while.

But we found these adorable mastiffs very tough guard dogs.

I’m happy for a photo.
I’m not.

Hello friend :)

Far more interesting than looking for holes in the wall to hide silly geocaches.

I am of course, always instructed not to touch strange dogs. Er whose hand is in the photos below? Not mine. I did stroke them of course and did little scratchies. Beautiful dogs with such a friendly temperament.

Hey, get out of the way, that hand is for me to sniff and lick

But where are you going? :(

Back up to the flat, and the local re-enactment society was just finishing outside the Governor’s house. Off I skipped for a couple of pix.

‘COMPANY DISMISSED!’ as soon as I got there, and they all flopped about. Oh well.

At ease

Pipe band outside the guardhouse

The orthodox Jews had obviously been dismissed from schul too.

Going home

And on our evening dog walk, we heard some barking, so we stopped where we were to let another small dog go past. Pippa likes all dogs and people unless they are aggressive. Otherwise he does tail wags and sniffy sniffies.

‘Fucking wolf over there,’ shouted one of the party.

‘Oyé,’ said Partner, which is what gibbos say for oiga ie listen. Pronounced oijay.

‘There’s no need for that.’ That was pretty moderate for Partner.

It was a dog we didn’t know, so we stood waiting up the street so that they could continue and we get insulted?

What is wrong with wolves anyway, might I ask? Damn sight more civilised than people.

But do you really need to shout insults at people (and their dog) who you have never seen in your life before for no good reason? Who are respectfully waiting for you to go past in case your small dog is aggressive (some small dogs are).

And yet the other night we met a different small dog (16 years old). Sadly for Pippa, she wasn’t interested in a new boyfriend (even a toyboy at a mere 12 or so).

The dog’s person correctly identified Pippa as GSD/husky cross, and said what a lovely dog we had. What a contrast.

Wolfdog. Just snoozing in the sun and happy with life

ETA Should have said, I wrote this post with Yvonne in mind. Thanks Y for your encouragement.

Over the wall

They should get rid of the monarchy, said next doors.

There was a demonstration on Sunday in Spain calling for the abolition of the monarchy. Sunday was the anniversary of the Republican government, but pre-Franco and the current monarchy.

Partner agreed about getting rid of them, and said ‘no vale nada’ – not worth anything.

I stayed out of the conversation and dutifully got on with our breakfast (hot garlic chilli fried potatoes – a variation on patatas a la pobre – poor people’s potatoes, appropriate huh?)

People want Rajoy (Spanish right wing prime minister) to call an election, added next doors. Well actually, they asked for that back in February, but that got nowhere.

If you ask me, the Spanish monarchy will remain as is, and Rajoy will stick it out to the end. Preferably sooner rather than later.

At a local level, apparently some young people in the village have lost their houses because they couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.

Our village is a mix of old and new. In the old part where we live, virtually all the plots are old family plots and children live at home, get a small house built on the same plot and no-one has a mortgage. But – in the new houses – people need mortgages.

And yet driving back down to Gib on a weekday, there didn’t seem to be a shortage of money as lots of people zapped past us in bright shiny new cars obviously to-ing and fro-ing at work.

Meanwhile, it seems the electrician turned up last week to faff around with the cables to our set of houses. He turned up Sunday evening (!!) to let people know he was coming the next day. Good period of notice there eh?

I sent him a text last week saying when we would be around, got no reply. Great. Next doors told us to ring him. I don’t think so. It cost me a small fortune last time to ring him on roaming so I was stuffed if I was going to ring him again just to be told he wouldn’t turn up. Either he would or he wouldn’t. He didn’t. Do I care about more power in my house? No. Sevillana Endesa will only put up the prices if I have more current.

My darling chickens were pleased to see me. OK, they were pleased to see the fresh food I took in for them and particularly attacked the spinach. I ended up giving them some of the leaves I had intended to take back to Gib.

Jimena (left) and El

The bean harvest was greater than ever.

You’ll get a basketful there, said José. Well, I would if I had a basket but I chucked them in the Morries bag.

Bags of beans

They’re long and big though. You might need to stew them, he added.

This is the guy who used to specifically ask the veg man for large broad beans. Now he’s telling me they will be tough.

I figured he didn’t want any so I kept my haul to myself. Nor were they tough, I might add. Aguadulce variety should anyone be interested.

One of the plants had thrown up an interesting flower. I needed to get rid of it, said José. It’s taking the strength from the bean production. Well, probably, but I thought it looked rather nice and forget to chop it down. It’s not as though I was short of beans.

Too pretty to get rid of

The end of an era

And the final nail in the coffin?

Flags at half mast at the Governor’s residence

Well, I thought the funeral was very good. Impeccably carried out with superb military precision. (Thatcher’s funeral in case anyone wonders what I am writing about).

I don’t have TV so hadn’t thought about watching it, but I idly clicked on a BBC link and for once it worked. Normally it doesn’t because Gib doesn’t pay UK TV licences, or some such bollocks. Anyway it did work. So I watched.

As I’ve never watched either a royal wedding or a royal funeral, this was probably the first ceremonial event I’ve seen in my life. Well, apart from trooping of the colour of course.

Some high points and rather lower ones.

The black horses were wonderful. Reminded me of Mary Wesley’s book about Poppy Carew which involves a funeral director with black horses.

The armed forces and Chelsea pensioners were nearly as wonderful. If anyone still hasn’t worked this one out, the reason Thatcher got this flash funeral at state expense and with the queen’s permission, was because of the Falklands.

You only had to look at the coffin bearers, and the significant presence of the Welsh Guards, many of whom were killed in the Falklands. This funeral wasn’t just about Thatcher, it was honouring the men who gave their lives going to war to defend British territory.

Is that really so difficult to understand?

The guardhouse opposite The Convent

Let’s add another couple of points. She didn’t want a fly past – she considered it a waste of money, and she didn’t want eulogies at the funeral service.

The family asked for people to give donations to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, rather than placing flowers.

But on with the show. Coffin draped in the union flag, and a beautiful display of white roses on top. Have to agree with that as I had white flowers for the funeral of both my parents (white roses are the symbol of Yorkshire, not that Margaret Thatcher came from Yks).

Excellent procession that set off from the beautiful church of St Clement Danes, and like St Paul’s Cathedral, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. It’s also the central church of the Royal Air Force.

Muffled drums. Sombre music.

As for St Pauls? Just wonderful. What a venue. And seeing all the faces from the past was amazing. Even Lord Carrington – ha, he would have given away negotiated about the Falklands.

Other guests? Well, sheer disrespect from America (sorry American pals, but it’s true). No-one from the current government. Whatever happened to that so-called special relationship? Special when you need us to back you up in some middle eastern misadventure but not so much so that you can respect a former prime minister who had a very strong US/Anglo relationship.

Kissinger, the Newt and Ross Perot. Perot?!

Australia was represented by John Howard and at least Canada sent their current prime minister, Stephen Harper. No idea whether NZ appeared.

Along with Obama refusing, so did Clinton, and in Germany Merkel snubbed it. Gorbachev and Nancy Reagan sent their apologies due to old age/ill health, which at least is more than can be said for the younger ones who didn’t attend.

The service? Beautiful choice of music. I thought the best bit was the address by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres. He spoke well.

As for Amanda Thatcher? She also spoke well, with great precision, and was spookily cold. Great achievement at 19 years of age to speak to more than 2000 people in St Paul’s. Captivating? No. Professional? Yes.

Cameron. Yeah, he was ok too.

Oh and the queen was there with Prince Philip. They had cute little thrones placed in the front row. Just amazing.

Anyway, it’s time for people, including me, to leave Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven, alone. RIP.

Another flag of respect at half mast

And as an aside, apparently I’m sort of neighbours with Mark Thatcher. He wasn’t allowed to stay in Monaco after his permit expired, couldn’t get into Switzerland or the US (due to his conviction for anti-mercenary activities) so he came to Gib and married his second wife here in 2008. Seems he spends most of his time in Marbella. Probably knows Sean Connery.

I looked him up in the Gib ‘phone book, as you do. ‘Hi Mark, sorry to hear about your mum, nice funeral, shame you couldn’t have paid for it though out of your alleged £60 mill – according to the Sunday Times back in 2005.’ Anyway, he wasn’t in the ‘phone book. Parallel lives, different worlds.

In my own little world, we decided to have an evening geocache at a new and extremely local situation. As we got there, we noticed some people hanging around. Hmm, that meant we would have to look inconspicuous and nonchalant until they left. And then we recognised one of them from our geocache meet back in December.

‘Do you want some help?’ he asked as we approached and said hello.

‘No thanks,’ said Partner who likes to do things properly. What a neat cache it was too. It was specifically bought to look like a rock and had a little hole underneath to hide the log sheet. Great fun.

[I did see that the person who found it first (there is some cachet - ha! - to being First to Find) had contacted the cache owner to ask for help. Bit of a scam that if you ask me. First to Find with help isn't really playing the game. IMO.]

Vault 15 – cache to the left of the brown doors

However fired up with that achievement, even if he did find it not me, off we went to another one, also just five or ten minutes walk away, which I was allowed to find. I do love these city-based caches that don’t involve staggering up the rock overlooking perilous drops.

The promenade approaching Jumpers Bastion

And as they were both hidden in Gibraltar’s defensive walls – Wellington Front and Jumpers, it made a fitting and appropriate historic end to the day.

Sunset looking over the Royal Naval dockyard

Hard to find

‘Why don’t we go find some of those geocaches?’ he said.

Well, because I was planning on cleaning or paperwork, or or or ….

‘We could go on the bus, IF YOU COULD FIND YOUR ID CARD,’ he added pointedly. The one that has been missing for weeks and was probably hidden under all the unfiled paperwork.

‘Or we could drive,’ he finished with.

Needless to state that last one motivated me to have yet another search for the ID card. I can see no point in driving anywhere when a) I have two legs that don’t get used enough and b) the bus is free whereas fuel is not.

And needless to state yet again, I couldn’t find it in all the places I had looked before, not in my bag, not in any pockets, not slotted between the paperwork, not carefully stored in a drawer. Where could it be?

I checked out a bag I use on the extremely rare occasion I visit the supermarket. Yes! There it was. I’m sure I looked there before.

So off we set for the walk to Rosia where there was one cache, and another just up from there at Little Bay.

I like Rosia, especially when it is quiet in winter. Good time to lurk around suspiciously trying to find hidden tat pots of treasure. The co-ordinates on the geocaching page were for the ramp to the bay, but not the actual cache. Hmmm.

I don’t know how many times we walked up down and around the ramp, but no joy. I decided to walk out to the bay hoping inspiration would drop down onto me. It didn’t. We left without finding the cache.

I knew roughly where the next one would be, so through the tunnel and down to Camp Bay and then Little Bay. ‘Under a rock’ said the clue. We followed directions, got to the top of the steps to be faced with a lot of rocks. Or rather some rocks, some stones. We upturned them all. And found stuff all.

Result so far 0/2. Not going well.

So then we hiked on up to Europa Point. We couldn’t end the hunt without at least one cache, and there were two around the point. Again, I had a pretty good idea where this one would be. Although that hadn’t helped with the last two.

Down the spooky steps we went. Across the cliff tops, keeping well away from the edge. Over a spooky bridge (anything suspended in the air is spooky to me) and towards ‘the last wall’. Yet more Gib fortifications and gun emplacements on this southerly point of Europe.

spooky bridge

This time we were looking for a magnetic cache ie, it is stuck to something metallic with a magnet in the container. Well, it clearly wasn’t going to be hidden in the wall. But there was a huge long pipe running along there. Partner clambered up to look for cache-style objects hidden on top.

‘Is the pipe metal?’ I asked, rather sensibly in my opinion. He felt it.

‘Er no.’

‘What about the brackets?’

‘Yes.’

Well that narrowed it down a bit.

For once I had the GPS. Partner set off to check out some brackets and I zoned in on a likely one.

‘Here,’ I said. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a bolt, don’t be stupid.’

‘Well the other brackets don’t have a bolt on them.’

‘You stay there, I’ll get up and look,’ he said bossily.

So I did. He took it down.

‘It’s a bolt, I told you so.’

‘Give it here.’

I unscrewed the top and pulled out the log to sign. Haha!!

An extremely clever cache.

Success. At last.

A Gib monkey

So off we went to the next one which was just off Europa Road, allegedly.

Walking around the eastern cliffs of Gib, we seemed to be heading away from it, so back we headed. And were still nowhere near it.

‘Let’s get the bus,’ he said. So we turned round and headed for the bus stop (which had moved).

I was busy trying to take some photos of the revamped Europa Point when the bus pulled in.

I’m not sure I like the revamp. I’m not a revamp person. It always looks too squeaky and artificial for me.

What they should really have done was put up a load of information boards, build a decent bar/cafe/restaurant, some free public toilets, and tidied up the promenade – in keeping – instead of making it all look so bland. Not that anyone ever asks my opinion. Sadly.

Nice, but ….

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So what did you do at Christmas?

Not being religious, nor having family, and not exactly a big turkey-eater as a vegetarian, our Christmas is hardly traditional.

There’s no opening presents by the tree, twinkling with the tiny lights as there was when I was a kid and there’s no overeating (which I didn’t particularly do even then).

And while childhood Christmases were lovely, there’s no point harking back to the past and trying to recreate it.

I did put up nice large trees in the UK, and at one point, we bought some artificial trees. They may have been plastic (or whatever) but at least it didn’t involve indiscriminate chopping down of real trees.

For a few years I kept putting up small ones in Spain, but eventually I was ordered to consign them to the bin as they looked raggier and raggier each year I got them out. So despite having boxes of ornaments and lights – I am treeless now. I don’t have space in Gibflat either.

So my nine Christmas cards are the only concession to the ‘festive season’ in our home.

What I love about Christmas in Gibraltar is the peace and tranquility. It is always quiet at weekends, but Christmas Day is even quieter.

On the Sunday before Christmas I was lured out to go visit a new supermarket in Gib. Me, the hater of shopping, having a walk to look at a supermarket. Eroski, on the far side (ie north) of the runway.

The only reason I agreed to go was because there were a couple of geocaches en route in the centre of the city, and Sunday was a good quiet day to stealthily acquire them.

Arriving in Casemates, where I confidently expected the cache to be (I have no idea why as the cache was called ‘Main Street’) I announced the clue. ‘Time for a rest?’

I figured it must refer to one of the many restaurants in the square.

Partner looked at me and immediately said ‘It must be on a bench.’ What a smart-arse. Trust him to spot the obvious.

I looked at the co-ordinates on the GPS. We had gone past the cache. It wasn’t one of these benches. We headed back up Main Street, looking for the likely bench.

There were two possible candidates together. When the occupants moved away, I took the first bench and he took the second. I felt all around the bench. Nothing. I looked at the GPS. I figured it was his bench. Rats.

‘It’s not on my bench,’ he piped up. ‘Yes, it is,’ I said assertively. I wandered over and adopted his trick of dropping down to pretend to do up my shoelace. Bingo! There it was underneath one side of the bench. I went and sat next to him and reached underneath to retrieve it and smirk.

Main Street – relatively quiet

We cleared off elsewhere to sign the log and then I put it back. He didn’t think I had put it back sufficiently well so promptly interfered. I wandered over to a shop window and then turned round to ensure it was suitably hidden. It was.

Off we went to try and find the next cache. This was in one of Gib’s old fortifications. Here is the quote from the cache site, which gives the history.

The North Bastion, formerly the Baluarte San Pablo (St. Paul’s Bastion) was part of the fortifications of Gibraltar, in the north of the peninsula, protecting the town against attack from the mainland of Spain. The bastion was based on the older Giralda tower, built in 1309. The bastion, with a mole that extended into the Bay of Gibraltar to the west and a curtain wall stretching to the Rock of Gibraltar on its east, was a key element in the defenses of the peninsula. After the British took Gibraltar in 1704 they further strengthened these fortifications, flooding the land in front and turning the curtain wall into the Grand Battery.

Today, the bastion is surrounded by reclaimed land to the west and north. Glacis Road runs along the base of the bastion’s former glacis. Smith Dorrien Avenue separates the bastion from the curtain wall, which is still largely intact. The bastion is occupied by the Giralda Gardens and a pétanque club. The government has plans to rehabilitate the site as part of a plan to develop the old fortifications as tourist attractions.

North Bastion

The clue was ‘at eye level’ so at least we didn’t need to bend down endlessly tying up our shoelaces and looking even more suspicious and furtive than we already were.

For a street away from the shops and on a Sunday morning, there was an annoying number of people walking around. We didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

‘It could be over the road,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not,’ I snapped. Just to prove my point, we walked over anyway, and the GPS promptly said we were going away from it. Back we went nonchalantly gazing at the wall again. He thought it might be hidden behind a cigarette packet. Stupid idea. Everyone knows that stones are the most popular ways to conceal a cache. So I was looking for a crevice in the wall, with a loose stone. It had to be in the old part of the wall because the new part was too smooth. And then I found it. Extremely neatly hidden and slightly obscured by a plant. Two finds in one morning by ME!

We skipped over the road to sign the log on what looked like a former fountain with an inscription saying ‘For the animals 1934.’ I wonder what the history of that was?

Off we went to Eroski, about which I have nothing to say except that it is cheaper than Morrisons although further away and not as convenient for buses. Unless you wish to pay to jump on the frontier bus which we didn’t, it means a walk across the runway to get to the nearest free bus stops at Referendum House or opposite Glacis Estate.

Walking across the runway, Eroski on one side, Sleazyjet and the new airport on the other

White poinsettia en route – with someone’s scruffy litter chucked away

Christmas Eve started off as a nice lazy day, we curled up with a book and did very little until I got a sudden urge to clean the bathroom tiles. In fact I got so engrossed with this exciting task that before I knew it, Partner had made a seitan and tofu casserole, and put on the potatoes. Excellent.

On Christmas Day we’d planned another geocaching adventure to Rosia and Europa Point, but woke up to rain, thunder and lightning. So instead, it was curl up on the sofa with book again. This time, I used the left-over casserole and added some more goodies to it, while he cooked lots of pasta twists (extra so I could make pasta salad later).

I mention our totally normal meals in case anyone is wondering ‘What does a vegetarian eat for Christmas?’ – in our case, what we eat seven days of the week.

My boxing day breakfast – cauliflower soup and pasta salad!

In the past I have cooked fancy meals, invariably a nut roast, or steamed hazlenut pudding, or something with pastry. If I was entertaining that’s what I would do. But I don’t entertain. So that’s easy. [More on 'entertaining' on Clouds]

I discovered a long time ago, that good Christmases can be the simple ones. Many years back, he bought me a Peter Carey novel (probably The Taxman). We lit a fire in the sitting room and I happily lay on the sofa reading all day. Lunch was spaghetti and tomato sauce. It’s one of the most memorable Christmases I’ve had just because it was sheer indulgent luxury to do nothing (apart from read).

This Christmas Day was pretty similar – without the fire.

And on Boxing Day, we started Operation Bedroom. Well, he did. I was still on Operation Bathroom.

Clean the walls with a fungicidal bleach to get rid of the damp spores, let dry for 24 hours, and the following day, coat up with Dulux Mouldshield Fungicidal Matt. No idea what the UK price is, but here in Gib it is nearly fifty quid. It covers well, and looks good, so fingers crossed it will keep back the mould for a year or so before it is time for another repaint.

Applying the bleach, wearing a mask for safety

Next, the first coat of paint – hat to prevent eyes getting any spatters

Having shown everyone the inside and linings of my curtains, I thought a pic of them drawn might be helpful. The background is slightly crazed and shaded, the main design is the unicorns on the twirly pattern. There is a feng shui belief that it is good to have some type of animal representation in your decorations.

Curtains in bedroom

Back on the walls are the mirror (the only decent thing the previous owner left behind) and our Hockney print (of which more later on an art post). In the mirror you can see the furniture piled up in the middle of the room and covered with dust sheets. Part of my helpful contribution to the task as painter’s assistant. In fact, Operation Bathroom didn’t get a look in yesterday.

Mirror and Hockney

And to end with, the inevitable curry. If the shops in the UK don’t stock up between Christmas and New Year, it’s even worse here in Gib. I went to the market yesterday and the only stall open was a meat one! Not much use to me, so I said ‘Hola,’ asked if they were the only stall, and turned round and walked out.

In which case curry comes in extremely handy. Spicy red lentil dal, bombay style potatoes, mushrooms and turmeric with roasted cumin seeds and rice, and a raita (Yeo organic yoghurt, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, paprika, cayenne, tomato, cucumber, red onion, and green chilli). Recipe for the red lentil dal and potatoes are under Channa dal on the recipe page. I’ll add the other two later.

Curry

All you need is love

No! this is not yet another John Lennon tribute. Readers of Clouds will know that I have got fed up with reading blog posts about ‘John Lennon died 32 years ago,’ or whenever it was.

But, ironically, my moan came back to bite me in the wherever.

Indulging in a rare flurry of sociability, we decided to join a local geocaching event to be held on 12.12.12, at 18.12. The gib geocaching community has perked up of late with lots (well, relatively, in Gib terms) of new caches in the last 12 months or so.

For anyone who doesn’t know, this is treasure-hunting with a GPS. You buy a GPS, join the geocaching site – free, unless you decided to be an elitist premium member – and off you go.

The best thing about it, is not so much finding the bits of tat treasure, ie something hidden in a plastic container, but the places it takes you to that you probably wouldn’t otherwise visit.

I turned up at the scheduled time, signed what I thought was the log in both our names, and as they were making a move to go and eat elsewhere, dashed back to let Partner know this development (he was just coming in from work).

When I returned, I was puzzled to find I had won the raffle. What raffle? Even moreso, how did anyone know it was me? I’d signed with my geocaching name, and I didn’t know anyone there.

Geocachers doing geocaching things

But when they called out the number and no-one answered, they figured it must be me as I’d dashed off. Geocachers are not stupid!

So what was the raffle prize? A geocache coin – All you need is love. !!

All you need is love ..
in your dreams ..

You put a coin in a cache, and in theory it travels around the world as people move it from cache to cache.

I don’t like ‘All you need is love’ as a song. Far too drony for me.

But I didn’t know this:

It was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967. The BBC had commissioned The Beatles to write a song for the United Kingdom’s contribution.

[Thanks Wiki].

I mention this because here is another co-incidence. It was broadcast on my birthday. Destined to have links with a grotty record!

Readers of Clouds will also know that I endlessly bleat about lack of consideration and understanding about vegetarian meals so I’d been mildly impressed when the event organiser had asked if any vegetarians were attending.

In fact when we arrived at the Theatre Royal Bar, the burger menu had a vegan burger as an option. Just wow! I didn’t bother with extra trimmings but my partner had some hot chilli red bean topping.

Usual burger fare, not that I know anything about it, but it came in a teacake with salad, and chips on the side.

We were sitting next to a couple of Germans on holiday and I coveted the onion rings in theirs. Must remember to ask for some next time. I love onion rings.

Prices for burgers start at £8.50 I think, and then you can add the extras. No idea how much the beer was, but we had bottled beer which is never cheap and was extremely good. No idea what it was called either.

Anyway, it turned out to be £14 for a communal chip-in, I thought that was reasonable until I realised it was £14 each (when I added up the cost of the two burgers and worked out they came to more than £14 …. )

When we’ve eaten out in Gib, we’ve usually paid more than £20 for a meal, less than £30, £40ish being the exception.

I think it’s the whole idea of paying restaurant prices for a burger, chips and salad garnish that I find difficult to get into my head. It’s a snack really, isn’t it? Having said that, I enjoyed it, no cooking, no washing up, and that all-essential catering for vegetarians. We also asked for extra mustard and vinegar as us and the Germans were nearly coming to blows over the few sachets of our chosen dressings!

Theatre Royal Bar is on the corner of Governor’s Street and Bishop Rapallo’s Ramp, apparently the cooking is South African, which is even more surprising that they provide vegan food so that was a real plus for me. A good evening out, good company, and at our end of the table, we hardly talked about geocaching because the conversation never stopped (apart from eating).

Rare pic of roughseas, yes, the one with the white face (must have been the flash) and the smell up her nose at the near end of the table

Related to restaurants, or rather food reviews, I’ve read a few blogs recently where people pay amazing sums of money to eat tiny morsels of food as a ‘taster menu’. This is nouvelle cuisine with a seriously clever twist.

Those of you who are around my age (ie most of you) will remember when nouvelle cuisine was all the rage. The claim was that the food was fresher and lighter (and no doubt brighter), and the portions were small and the prices were huge.

Presentation was an important aspect. Um, I would rather pay for more food than someone faffing around twirling a dill leaf into a spiral or whatever and giving me a flake of salmon or a shaving of smoked salmon and adding some whacky combinations to it.

But these taster menus take it to a fine art. £50 or 50€ minimum to eat less food than you get for a few tapas? And who on earth wants four desserts? This is not eating by any stretch of the imagination. Eating so many different foods and flavours is just plain silly. If I thought £28 for two burgers and chips was dear, I sure as hell wouldn’t be paying more than £100 for six or seven bite-sized morsels, flavoured with pecan butter, dressed with lovage vinegar, topped with a whipped mousse of caviare… You get the idea.

People in western societies with enough money like to eat out, and get take-aways, or ready-made meals. Money rich, time poor (as I’ve said before).

But I don’t need to eat ten different foods in one meal. And if I ate one food, and it was nice, I would want more of it, not lots of different ones. It’s sort of greedy in a different way. ‘I want that, and that, and that.’

My burger looks better by the minute!

Christmas lights

More on ‘love’ on Clouds

Saturday summary

I was going to call this Saturday spooch but apparently this word has other meanings, I’ll leave you to look it up. When I was at university one of my friends used to refer to spooching around somewhat like mooching around. I think after today’s quick urban dictionary lesson, however, I will start to mooch and no longer spooch. {Or maybe she knew just what it meant]

Anyway, we spooched, mooched hiked up the hill to the Moorish Castle to find a new geocache. Only published a few days ago but it seems a few resident Gib geocachers are getting a bit keen on nabbing the First to Finds (FTF), so there was no hope of that, just an early morning walk uphill struggle.

I spotted the potential hidey-hole, but Gib Monkey Partner had hiked off ahead of me with the GPS, so I had to catch him up, grab the GPS, only to discover he had gone too far so back down the hill we went, to exactly the spot I had seen. Note, to any potential Gib geocachers – no GPS needed for this one!

A rare pic of roughseas. As usual most unflattering taken by Partner. Note the natural sunstreaks and the one grey hair. Or is it two?

On the way back down we visited a few tracks, back streets, shrines, steps, chicken sheds and former military quarters. More pix in a later post. Possibly.

Cristo, with the rather flattering bougainvillea surrounding him

Now where do these exciting looking steps lead?

In other news, the Daily Mirror (British paper) reported that the suspected al-Qaeda terrorists arrested in Spain were not only planning to bomb Gib from the air targeting open air bars, they were then going to shoot the shit out of everyone there. This has of course, been heavily denied by our leaders in both Gib and the UK.

Reading up on security threats against the two, apparently the UK is classified as serious and Gib is a mere moderate. These classifications are apparently done by our leaders in London. Oh, good. How reassuring. At some point, they might want to consider that publicising the intense security around the Olympic Games, and having a soft target like Gib does not make terrorism a moderate threat to us – or does it? Just my view. No doubt there are tick boxes to sort that one out though.

Olympics – congrats to Aus and NZ for taking golds in the sailing knocking us into second place twice (sadly). Deserved winners though.

In boxing – big shout to both Nicola Adams for her gold and the first woman to win an Olympic gold boxing medal, and also to Katie Taylor from Ireland. Britain and Ireland are fighting in the men’s bantamweight final today so that should be a fight to watch if you like to see people hitting each other about.

Commiserations to Keri-Anne Payne and Daniel Fogg who narrowly failed to get medals in the 10km swim around the Serpentine. Rather them than me. What an endurance test, and due credit to the winners from Hungary and Tunisia. In particular, Anderson from the USA did a class job getting silver in the women’s race.

And as for Jade Jones, wow! 19-year old Olympic Gold tkd champion. Great result there – and two years ago, she couldn’t afford to go to the Junior Olympics in Singapore, so the people from her home town of Flint, in Wales, raised the £1600. She won gold at that event. How wrong is it, that we don’t invest in a young person with such sporting talent, dedication, and promise?

Speaking of which, a huge congratulation to the first Gibraltarian to perform in the Olympics, Georgina Cassar, who appeared in the rhythmic gymnastics team. This has to be one of the most demanding sports ever. A mix of ballet, dancing, gymnastics, juggling and all to be co-ordinated with a) music and b) each other. If the individual event is impossible, the team events are beyond belief. Popular too, one of the first events to be sold out. The standards set by the former USSR countries are incredibly high, although other countries excel too eg Italy, so hopefully the appearance of the British team in these Olympics will spur on some enthusiasm for this demanding sport.

Apparently the team were initially rejected from the original selection, appealed against British Gymnastics’ decision, and were then allowed to represent GB. I seem to remember reading they were self-funded AKA, a lot of help from parents – around £80,000 – with no money from UK Sport.

And back in Gib. It is warm. Main Street is full of tourists, who don’t seem to realise I am trying to go about my daily business and insist in meandering across the street in front of me. Or holding hands with their partner and taking up all the street. Or……

On the heat theme, I snapped a pic of the temp as we came back across the frontier last week. Just to prove it is warm here. In case no-one believes me.

35 Celsius on La Linea’s eastern beach

Finally, what’s better in hot weather than a delicious curry? Here is eggs curried. OK, I suppose it is curried eggs, but when I lived on them in India, they were always called eggs curried (as distinct from eggs scrambled, eggs fried etc). Today, to be served with a freshly made pineapple chutney. Recipes may or may not follow later.

After all, I am on summer hours……

Eggs curried, in sauce with onion, spices, tomato, lemon

Not remotely wordy Wednesday

Always good to be an early bird and get the worm – unless it is in a bottle of Mezcal of course.

In our case, it meant we nabbed the geocache at Europa Point, which was beautifully tranquil on a nice cloudy day.

Views of Morocco and Spain.

Morocco

Spain

Next we went through the Dudley Ward Tunnel and along past the old water catchments, Both Worlds, and Caleta.

In Ye Olden Days, Gib used to have water catchments along the eastern side of the Rock, virtually covering most of the face, but they have since been removed and our water now comes via a desalination plant.

Location of the old water catchments

Both Worlds is a strange place that looks like white-painted tin sheds/portacabins. Apparently it was originally built as an aparthotel but like many other proposed buildings for tourist accommodation in Gib, it is now private residences.

(best of?) Both Worlds

One side is for over 50s, and the other for anyone. It is right on the beach, and at the end of the bus route. And that probably says it all. It is about as far away from Gib centre as you can get (apart from Europa). But the other problem, is that facing east, while it gets the lovely morning sun, when the sun heads around to the west, it is sadly bereft of sunshine.

Next along, we have Caleta, and the Caleta Palace Hotel, an AA four star rated job. Looks a bit like a 70s UK seaside resort hotel. Perhaps it was built in the 70s. Interestingly it seems to get pretty good reviews, its only problem again being the location. The buses stop at 9pm, and it is a bit of a hike if you want go out on the town and then walk back.

The Caleta Palace Hotel

There are also some rather upmarket little houses along the Caleta road but we sped past too quickly in the trusty Landy, so no pix of those today.

And then you get to the MOT station, the memorial to Sikorski which you all saw on the last post, and Eastern beach.

There is very little on the eastern side of Gib. Which rather adds to its attraction.

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Conspiracy theory

MI6 double agent, British Prime Ministers, an American President, Stalin, the Gestapo, a massacre of thousands of Poles, a shady investigation into an aeroplane crash, and classified documents still withheld from public release – all on my doorstep in Gibraltar. Assassination or accident? Read on. This is not an April 1 spoof.

I had no idea about any of this until today. But as a nosy history graduate, and a nosy journalist, I had to find out more.

Some weeks ago, I went geocaching and went round a number of military memorials and commemoration plaques, but I was unable to find one of the waypoints, although luckily found the nearby cache.

It was this memorial. How I missed it is beyond me as it is big enough. But it was raining at the time and I was getting wet so maybe the GPS was damp too.

This is a memorial to Prime Minister Wladslaw Sikorski, who led the Polish Government in Exile from 1939 to 1943 – when he was killed in a plane crash off Gibraltar.

Who, you ask? as did I. A bit of background first. He was born in 1881 in what was then Austria-Hungary, because Poland had been annexed even before Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Sikorski was a distinguished soldier in the Polish military in the early 20th century and was supporting Polish independence.

However on the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Germany, he escaped to Paris, where he joined two other rebels who were leaders of the Polish Government in Exile. Must say I never learned any of this at school when we studied WWII.

Following the fall of France, the government in exile moved to London, where it remained – until 1990 (!). Since its inception in Paris the government was recognised by the Allied Powers, and had some considerable influence with them, and also at home in Poland due to the Polish underground movement and its military arm.

As Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Sikorski was active on the political front, fighting to retain Poland’s territory and newly regained independence, and from a military perspective, he was overseeing the numerous Polish forces that had fled the country to fight with the Allies. For example:

• In the Battle of Britain, where the Polish 303 Fighter Squadron achieved the highest number of kills of any Allied squadron
• After the pro-German Vichy government in France and the ensuing split of French forces, the Polish Army in the United Kingdom and the Middle East became the second largest Allied army after that of the United Kingdom

They would deserve some thanks for that yes? Well, no. What sort of thanks does Britain normally dish out? Because, when Germany invaded the USSR it seemed political perspectives shifted.

In spite of Sikorski’s influence with the Allied Powers, the emergence of Russia (who, like Germany, naturally wanted to grab as much of Poland as possible) as a major player, left the UK and the USA in a difficult position. Got to keep the Russian Bear sweet. It seemed Sikorski, although flexible about borders, did want to retain some of his country in a post-war territorial re-allocation. Nor was he happy about the Katyn massacre that the Allies chose to diplomatically ignore. (Anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 plus Polish people murdered by Russians).

And then luckily for the Allies, Sikorski was conveniently killed in an aeroplane crash. His plane went down 16 seconds after taking off from Gibraltar airport.

His pilot, who normally didn’t wear a life jacket, managed to struggle with taking off and not gain height and at the same time put on his Mae West. All in 16 seconds. The pilot was the only one to survive the crash. Out of the ten people killed, five bodies were never found.

The following is taken from wiki (!) – with a few tweaks – which I have used as the main source for this amazing story. There are other sources at the end of the post, which add different perspectives, should you become remotely fascinated in this as I did.

Controversy
In 1943 a British Court of Inquiry investigated the crash of Sikorski’s Liberator II serial AL 523, but was unable to determine the cause, finding only that it was an accident and the “aircraft became uncontrollable for reasons which cannot be established”. A popular theory was insufficient technical maintenance leading to jamming aircraft controls.

Despite this finding, the political context of the event, coupled with a variety of curious circumstances, immediately gave rise to speculation that Sikorski’s death had been no accident, and may have been the direct result of a Soviet, British, or even Polish conspiracy.

Six weeks before the crash, while Sikorski had been at Gibraltar for the first time en route to his Middle East inspection of Polish forces, a Polish government office in London received a phone call stating that Sikorski had been killed in a crash at Gibraltar; the call had been discounted as a prank.

It is often mentioned that two of Sikorski’s previous planes had been subject to incidents. A forced landing at Montreal, Canada, (November 30, 1942) was suspected to have been caused by sabotage. Another incident took place a few months earlier, in March.
In Gibraltar there was uncertainty about who had in fact boarded the plane, about the cargo and, about the identity of the bodies recovered from the crash site. Some bodies, including that of Sikorski’s daughter, Zofia, were never recovered.

At about the same time as Sikorski’s plane had been left unguarded at the Gibraltar airfield, a Soviet plane had been parked next to it. It carried Soviet ambassador Maisky and a retinue of a dozen or so unidentified officers and soldiers. It had been bound for the Soviet Union, with a stop at a rarely used African airfield instead of the nearby, commonly used airport at Castel Benito, near Tripoli. [So, an interesting change of routine there?]

Witnesses reported that at Gibraltar the Soviets had stayed at the same place as Sikorski, the Governor’s palace; [sic - but what palace??!!] Maisky, however, in a 1966 interview said that he clearly remembered having stayed at the Gibraltar Fortress and not having been aware of Sikorski’s presence on the Rock.

Gibraltar’s British Governor, Noel Mason-Macfarlane, who, prior to appointment to Gibraltar served as Head of the British Military Mission in Moscow, reportedly withheld knowledge from Maisky about Sikorski’s presence in order to prevent any diplomatic incident.

In a declassified briefing paper dated January 24, 1969, Sir Robin Cooper, a former pilot employed in the Cabinet Office, wrote, after reviewing the wartime inquiry’s findings: “Security at Gibraltar was casual, and a number of opportunities for sabotage arose while the aircraft was there.”

Although Sir Robin doubted that sabotage had taken place, or that the pilot had crashed the aircraft deliberately, he went on to add: “The possibility of Sikorski’s murder by the British is excluded from this paper. The possibility of his murder by persons unknown cannot be so excluded.” The inquiry’s finding about the jammed airplane controls, he wrote, seemed plausible. “But it still leaves open the question of what—or who—jammed them. No one has ever provided a satisfactory answer.” [I mean, he was just going to incriminate his own people wasn't he?]

It is worth noting that the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service’s counterintelligence for the Iberian Peninsula from 1941 to 1944 was Kim Philby. [Remember who he was?] Before 1941, Philby had served as an instructor with the Special Operations Executive, an organization specializing in sabotage and diversion behind enemy lines.

Suspicions that Sikorski had been assassinated continued to surface throughout the war and afterward, reaching their height in 1968 with the London staging of a play, ‘Soldiers’, by the German writer Rolf Hochhuth. The play contained the sensational allegation that none other than Winston Churchill had been in on the plot.

In early 1969 the Prime Minister of the British Labour Government, Harold Wilson, who was familiar with the above evidence (much of which was then classified and unknown to the general public), asserted before the House of Commons: “There is no evidence at all that there is any need or reason to re-open the inquiry.” Nonetheless the conclusion in 1969 was that the 1943 investigation was politically toned down.

None of the allegations of conspiracy have ever been proved. On the other hand, by 2000, only a small portion of British intelligence documents relating to Sikorski’s death had been declassified. The reason why these documents continue to be classified and why British intelligence refuses to disclose the information and what it has to hide has not been answered.

With the few documents currently available, most historians agree that it cannot be determined whether Sikorski died in a real accident or was in fact assassinated, or by whom. Speculations range from conspiracies involving the Germans, Soviets, Western Allies, and even the Polish political opponents, and various combinations of these factions.

There have been claims that the arrest of Gen. Stefan Rowecki on June 30, 1943 is linked with the death of Gen. Sikorski and the arrest of the commander of NSZ (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne) colonel Ignacy Oziewicz who was arrested on June 9, 1943. The fact of the matter is that within a period of two months, the Polish Army lost three top commanders. Two of them were betrayed to the Gestapo and one died in a plane crash.

The crash of Sikorski’s Liberator is portrayed in the 1958 film The Silent Enemy, in which the team of Royal Navy divers charged with retrieving Sikorski’s briefcase from the wrecked aircraft is led by Lionel “Buster” Crabb, himself later to disappear in 1956 in mysterious circumstances while diving in the vicinity of a visiting Soviet warship.

Because of a new wave of conspiracy theories in Poland in the first decade of 21st century, suggesting that Sikorski allegedly had been poisoned before take-off, on November 25, 2008 Sikorski’s body was exhumed from Wawel’s cathedral in Kraków, in order to investigate the cause of his death.

Investigators concluded Sikorski’s injuries were consistent with a plane crash and that there was no evidence that he was poisoned, shot or strangled before he was killed by the crashing of the plane.

In 2003 the Polish parliament declared the 60th anniversary of his death to be the ‘Year of General Sikorski.’ The new memorial unveiled that year in Gibraltar commemorates his sudden death in 1943.

Some other sites that add more insight, if like me, you had no idea about any of this.

I’ll start with this one:

There was Edward Prchal, who had joined No 310 (Czech) Sqn RAF upon its formation and shot down several aircraft during the Battle of Britain – he later became a highly respected transport aircraft captain and was the pilot of the Liberator in which General Sikorski, then Polish Prime Minister, was killed at Gibraltar on 4 July 1943. Prchal, then a Flight Lieutenant with No 511 Sqn, was in later life much vilified by, largely, the technically illiterate in both literary and theatre circles, and it is pleasant to record that he eventually obtained heavy redress from those concerned in the early 1970′s.
Great site about Czech pilots in WWII

Aviation Safety Network (but the original source for this entry is wiki)

Two short and readable accounts
http://www.historynet.com/was-polands-wartime-leader-murdered.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/2684368/Poland-to-probe-Gen.-Sikorski-murder.html

A more in-depth one from a history forum

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=86615

Another in-depth and considered article from a Polish news source

http://www.storiainrete.com/1079/enigmi/was-general-sikorski-a-victim-of-the-katyn-massacre/

A view from the Polish Ambassador in America during WW2 of the ever-changing political perspective
http://www.derekcrowe.com/post.aspx?id=82

What do you enjoy reading on roughseas? – playing with polls

Always good to try out all the WordPress bells and whistles, so here is a poll for you all. To those of you who haven’t tried it, it is easy. Click on polls, click on create a poll, click on automatic account from polldaddy – and shazzam! you can start to play.

This one is based on the fact that on here, and on the dog’s blog, people (and dogs!) say they want to see and read more about Gibraltar, and Spain too.

Yet, looking at comments and visits, the most commented on posts are the most mundane topics – baked beans tops the list, followed by a walk to the shops. OK, I admit my walk to the shops is pretty scenic so I did get the chance to stick in some nice Gibpix. Interestingly after those two, my pretty serious post on International Women’s Day came third in the comments rankings.

But my busiest days (ie most visits received) were the posts about Commonwealth Day (and more recipes) and Not a drop to spare (the water being cut off :D). Now I accept that busiest days don’t necessarily mean people are just reading the main post of the day, eg on Commonwealth Day, just over half the views (55%) were on that particular post. Virtually the same percentage applies to the water post (53%).

Looking at the most commented on blog posts, the balance shifts a bit, and two thirds of the visits (68% and 63%) were on those particular posts (baked beans and shops). What does all that prove? Not really much, except you can tell I used to analyse statistics can’t you?

My only sensible conclusions are:
a) that people do like looking at pix of Gib/Spain and reading a bit about it, but what is there to comment on? (apart from supah post dahling)
b) everyone can comment about baked beans or whether we like shopping or not, it’s something most people have in common (apart from people who don’t do their own shopping or have never eaten baked beans)
c) I’m guessing, and this is why I have added a poll, that people actually like reading a mix of topics – I do when I visit other blogs, although I also like some of the ones that are single topic based. And maybe you like to get to know the blog owner?

With which I shall play by the rules today and tell you seven things about me that I was meant to do to accept one of those award thingies.

I am tall, slim, green-eyed and have brown hair. It was blond when I was a child. I lack my appendix and tonsils/adenoids.

There. Wasn’t that riveting? Bet you couldn’t have managed without knowing that today.

And, two blogs for the other part of the award. I’m only doing two a day, ‘cos I know you all don’t click on the links. These two aren’t on my blogroll although I do follow them.

This one is one of those photo a day blogs. Based in NSW, Aus, the author tends to take some great photos of her local surrounds, often sea or water shots of some type. Worth a look.

And moving swiftly around the world to Colorado, USA, for a totally different photoblog here. The author isn’t too keen on people (can’t blame him for that), so tends to photograph old trucks, old buildings, animals, nature – you get the idea. He has a dog so there are some dog photos too.

Don’t forget to play at my poll. You can click on as many options as you like – if I have set it up right. I hate the ones where you are only given one choice :( So click away :)