Author Archive
Nothing’s Impossible – Brian Blessed
Most of the books I read tend not to be worth writing about, being either ones I’ve read before or dodgy Sci-fi or Fantasy novels, but Brian Blessed’s autobiographical Nothing’s Impossible is noteworthy.
It’s a collection of some of the more interesting stories from his life, told in a very conversational and excitable way, which is entirely what we would expect from one of Yorkshire’s most larger than life characters. A friend asked “Does he roar in it?”. Yes, yes he does. In amongst spinning some good yarns, that is.
The choice of stories he included in the book give a good impression of what the author enjoys, tales of personal adventure be it spending 20 years finding somebody to pay for him making a film about Mount Everest, or him working with Judi Dench trying to learn to dance enough to cope with the West End musical “Cats”.
It’s a concise paperback that could be easily devoured in a lazy afternoon, but that by no means diminishes the entertainment you get from knowing that these tales really happened. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t put up with half of the discomfort he described from his mountain climbing escapades, so it really does go to show what one can do if one puts one’s mind to it.
Grimwith and Trollers Gill
Yesterday turned out to be one of the first days of spring and a great day for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales, Wharfedale to be exact. I’ve approximately sketched out the route on the map, but it’s not my usual GPS track because my Nokia N97 has once again proved that it’s worth its weight in sawdust, taking just the three hours to lock onto the satellites that my bluetooth GPS saw within about 20 seconds.
Route
The route starts at the good car park at Yorkshire Water’s Grimwith Reservoir, plenty of spaces on the hard standing and recently built toilets, I’m guessing it gets quite a lot of visitors in the summer months. We then proceeded anti clockwise around the Reservoir and then down the track to the B6265.
view over Wharfedale
Along the road for half a kilometre or so until a left turn onto a footpath at Bank Top, the path goes across the field and downhill, watch for the yellow painted post in the middle of the field to avoid wandering too much of the farm and worrying the sheep.
Grimwith Reservoir
This path skirts the back of Hebden village and in short order deposits you at the reasonably well known suspension bridge, the stepping stones are also perfectly servicable if it’s too bouncy for your personal tastes, which a little Jack Russell demonstrated for us at a fast run.
Hebden Suspension Bridge
You’re now on the Dales Way running down the banks of the Wharfe so it’s very flat going, the poured concrete path being wheelchair accessible, although I’m not so sure about going up the slopes to overlook Loup Scar, which is apparently famous for being where a local murderer disposed of a body.
Loup Scar
The Dales Way gets remarkably busy later on in the year, you often find yourself walking elbow to elbow with strangers, which isn’t everybody’s cup of tea and buns. The village of Burnsall is very well kept and has some big stone buildings and a bridge that are quite photogenic when the sun is bright, even at this time of the year the village was full of cars parked all over the place. The pubs were very busy.
Burnsall Church
We couldn’t stop to try the beers though, we wouldn’t have started again, because we had the second half of the walk to do before dusk set in and our cars were locked in for the night. The path is still easy to folllow down the bottom of the hill from Appletreewick, after which it’s time to leave the Wharfe behind and turn North East towards Skyreholme.
 The Wharfe |
 Wharfe |
Follow the road up nearly as far as Parcevall Hall, where the tea rooms were still shut for Winter and take the footpath headed North towards Trollers Gill.
towards trollers gill
This pretty canyon is where you regain much of the height lost earlier in the way, but you don’t notice it because you’re carefully choosing your steps between all the rocks and stones.
 trollers gill |
 trollers gill |
At the top, we paused for a poetry recital from our group’s resident historian, even the wind died down to listen to his oration. Some passersby paused to bemusedly listen, who just shook their heads at our explaination that we were so well equipped we’d even packed the poetry about the valley we’d just walked through.
towards Simons Seat
From there it was a reasonably straight and thankless half hour back across the moors past Fancarl Crag to the carpark, although turning round there was a good view back across the valley to Simon’s Seat. This looked very close by, even though it was 4km away and 100m higher up and the valley between would disappoint anybody hoping to climb it easily.
A good day’s exercise, weighing it at a little over 12 miles. Chopping off the lap of the water to start with would cut it down to a wholly managable 8ish miles.
Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets
I don’t normally watch enough TV to trip over something noteworthy enough to write about, and whilst this show is not without its annoyances, it’s still worth 25 minutes of your time a week to see Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets
Raymond Blanc is picking on one theme per episode and then filming 2 or 3 demonstration recipes in a corner of his own massive production kitchen at Le Manoir, cut with a video of him visiting another expert in that theme. It’s directed in a documentary style rather than presented straight to camera, which means you get some of the interaction between Raymond and his army of Sous Chefs as well as an insight into how much difference Being Prepared (and having an enormous professionally equipped kitchen) makes.
I’ve watched the first two episodes on the iPlayer so far, Chocolate and Apples and both had recipes that looked excellent and easy to do at home. One of the high points for me was seeing just how simple chocolate mousse is to create but the most entertaining piece so far was Raymond shouting down a corridor for one of his minions to literally run into the orchard and climb trees in his chef’s whites until he finds a handful of Bramley apples, with the camera crew bouncing along after him like Challenge Anneka.
I’m not the only person who’s spotted some omissions though, anything that could be perceived as product placement has been consigned to Auntie’s cutting room floor. This is annoying because brand and the artisans behind it really make a difference when dealing with top-end chocolate, so you can’t go out looking to buy some when Raymond enthuses about the quality of the chocolate he’s using.
It’s presented very naturally, with an awful lot of Voila and Tres Biens interspersed into the commentary which helps keep your attention on what is a rare opportunity to see a master at work
