pause awhile with three jolly wheelers

A late afternoon visit to the Three Jolly Wheelers in Woodford Bridge, Essex.

It was a pub which I hadn't visited for a very long time. Someone asked me if I remembered the inside and I had to confess that I'd treated it as if it was a new location, because of the changes to the layout.

The original pub dates from around the 1830s. What I remembered was a substantially different layout which had separate public and saloon bars. The beers used to be sold at different prices depending on the level of bar decor. There had even been a small off licence tacked on to the side.

Of course, all of that has been obliterated in various modernisations, through the times when pubs had become more open plan and egalitarian. On our particular evening it was very quiet, but bracing itself for the next and densely packed New Year's Eve.

Just along the road, another Grade II listed hostelry from the 1500s hasn't survived as a pub. It used to be called Ye Olde Kings Head (yes, really), and had been a Charles Dickens inspiration for The Maypole in Barnaby Rudge.

Then Lord Alan Sugar bought it a few years ago and it is now operating as a somewhat black and gold Tudor Turkish restaurant. I guess it's handy for Lord Sugar, who lives just around the corner in Chigwell, within walking distance of the establishment.

I normally focus on 'fun going forward', but what with year end and all, it is also interesting to briefly look at 'fun going back'.

let me tell you what I want - steppin' out

We moved the operations centre for rashbre central to somewhere with a big staircase for part of the Christmas break.

It turns out that our venue was also the one where the Spice Girls broke into the party at the start of their first video.

Then someone else told me it was the same location used in one of the Batman movies and then it also turned out to be featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

We aren't making any movies here, but will still enjoy the theatricality of the enormous staircases and magical artefacts.

Coal Hole

We had that dilemma on Friday evening. We'd found a good table in a bar but needed to be somewhere else in about an hour.

Somebody suggested we should move across to the Savoy, which was close to our mid evening destination, but I was a little concerned.

The logic was perfect; to front load the journey time and then not be worried about being late at the destination.

I was more dubious about whether we'd get anywhere to sit at the Savoy. It says 'no reservations are necessary' but can be troublesome* to get into.

We headed across in any case, did that thing where you drive along the Continental side of the street at the entrance and then found ourselves in the spacious and quiet lobby.

I think this was to lull us into a false sense of security, because as we headed for the American Bar I could see the numbers increasing and sure enough both this bar and the Thames Foyer were full.

They manoeuvred us away and suggested we try the Beaufort bar back along the corridor and around the corner. I'd already heard them say we might get standing room there, but as we entered I could see a waiter on a course to intercept us.

"No room at the Inn" was the basics of his message.

"Coal Hole?" someone suggested. We all nodded and tripped back outside and around the corner to the bustling standy-up bar along the Strand.

* including the incident without a tie, but that is another story.

unexpected time warp

Accidentally landed in a partly monochrome world today, as we found ourselves in a town which had transported itself back to the Second World War.

We'd headed there for lunch unaware of the special event and were initially bemused to see so many American and British troops from World War Two on leave, alongside civilians in 1940's clothing.

The we realised that the steam train hauled by a U Class steam locomotive from Alton had just arrived and many were disembarking for Christmas leave before the train's return trip with Winston Churchill on board.

waiting for the text message

We are in that traditional slightly bleary-eyed moment on Boxing Day*, when we've had some breakfast and are waiting for the text message to say which pub has been selected.

It will be walkable, although I'm not quite sure if that sleet is about to turn to snow.

* Boxing Day derives from giving the servants the day after Christmas Day as a day's holiday and providing them with a box of goodies to take their families. It's sung about in 'Good King Wenceslas'

countdown commenced

It's quiet here at the moment and probably will be for about the next half an hour.

I've just returned from a sunny walk between the rain showers, delivering a few cards by hand in nearby roads.

Right now I'm sitting down with a mug of tea watching the outdoor lights starting to twinkle again. I can hear distant church bells ringing out.

It's not even four o'clock but the sun is starting to set.

In a few more minutes it will start to get busy around here.

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas.

Happy Christmas.

Santa speed calculations and parcel tracking

I've been watching a parcel addressed to me being tracked across the globe from China over the last few days. It made good progress from Shanghai to Cologne but then seems to have slowed down a bit.

It reminded me of the Santa Calculations, which I first published back in 2006 and then updated in 2010. The world population has increased since my earlier calculations and I decided to use the 2012 world population estimate of 7.06 Billion instead of my prior calculation of 6 Billion.

To set the scene, here's the 2012 link to the Santa tracking system created by NORAD.

And my usual reminder that an ideal last minute gift is, of course, the rashbre novel - The Triangle, now also available as a Kindle download for around a dollar.

For those of you who are more interested in the technology of Santa, NORAD's FAQs provide the following:

I've again used the Joel Potischman and Bruce Handy calculations as the basis for the speed calculations, with my own adaptations:

The most notable corrections to be applied are:

- Santa delivers no gifts to naughty children (not even coal)
- Naughty to nice ratio is 1:9
- As confirmed by NORAD, one Santa distributes all of the gifts.
- There is only one family per household.
- Santa bypasses non Santa belief system houses.
- Reindeer have recently eaten fresh magic acorns.


Calculation Assumptions (2012):

- World population = 7.06 billion
- Children under 18 = 2.353 billion (Hmm may be higher)
- Global Santa based belief systems: 33%
- Max children requiring delivery therefore 784 million
- Children per household: 3.5 (may seem high?)
- Number of households requiring distribution 224 million
- Naughty to nice factor applied but not many all naughty households
- Remove all naughty households (25% 0f 10%) = 5.6 million
- Eastern orthodox using Jan 5 instead of Dec 25 = 16 Million
- Target Households = 202 million on Dec 25
- Estimated child bed time 21:00 (9pm) with 7 hours sleep.

(child sleep duration on Dec 24 may also require revision)

Gives circa 31 hours (24+7) for all deliveries
Time is 1860 mins or 111,600 seconds

Average number of homes to visit per second = circa 1810.
So average delivery per household is 552 milliseconds, which is why Santa normally appears a bit blurry (I previously thought it was the sherry)

Land surface minus Antarctica is around 79 million square miles. Distribute destinations evenly = 0.7 miles between households creating a total distance of circa 110 million miles.

So 110 million miles in 31 hours = 3.6 million miles an hour or circa 1000 miles per second or Mach 4770 at a linear speed.

This explains Rudolph's red nose because of air resistance creating around 20 quintillion Joules of energy per second, which would convert a non reindeer nose to charcoal at such energy levels. I think the acceleration and deceleration per household may also need some examination.

Luckily Santa has lots of special powers so these mere physics facts are no problem to such a superhero.

securely stickered after shopping

I seem to have accumulated a small pile of those square stickers that have little radio aerials built into them as some form of shoplifting protection. They seem to be on many products nowadays and can, irritatingly, mess up the pristine packaging of gifts.

I realise that the cost of the stickers has dropped so they can be applied to more things, but it does create that moment of truth when leaving a shop about whether something already paid for will go beep.

If they have been well-applied to the cellophane wrapping of a product, then the only way to remove them is by removing the cellophane as well. This could create an impression that the gift has already been opened.

I can't help wonder whether someone determined to steal might not just put their candidate pilfered item into something lined with metal (like one of those "stay cool" backpacks) or just something lined with tinfoil?

I suppose the surveillance cameras would spot that, but it then reduces the need for the little stickers?

Oh well.

midwinter on a sunny beach

It's the shortest day today and I suppose it's also midwinter.

After my early morning work phone calls finished, I could have taken some time out for shopping. Maybe a shopping centre, a mall or even a supermarket?

The weather was suggesting an alternative. Despite all of the recent rain, there was a blue sky of the kind you see in watercolour paintings.

Why not a visit to the beach?

So we did.

not feeling D Love from DAB

The fancy radio in the kitchen is playing up again. It sounds like there's a very raucous chicken stuck inside it.

By comparison the £10 lo-tech shower radio that looks like a penguin works fine.

I thought the idea with DAB digital radio was that it was supposed to be 'better' but there still seem to be some problems.

The first DAB radio I used was several years ago. It was a bedside radio and looked neat in a sort of 1950s way but needed a 1 metre telescopic aerial in order to work.

It's controls were slightly obscure too and when it blew up after a couple of years I replaced it with a normal FM clock radio again.

The radio in the kitchen is part of a mini hi-fi system but is notoriously difficult to keep tuned. The scalded cat sounds on DAB mean there's a tendency to retune to FM and forgo some of the extra channels.

I can't understand why the reception is so bad. I've unplugged it and moved it around. I've moved the aerial. I've got a booster aerial. Nothing seems to work.

By comparison, my car has a DAB tuner and it seems to work well, even when parked right outside the house where the other radio doesn't work.

At the moment the BBC are evangelising DAB continuously. Someone should tell them it doesn't work properly.

afternoon tea at the priory

We were in the priory at the weekend, hiding behind curtains and wearing silly hats.

A skilfully executed 'convergence' event, with all of us arriving from different directions, yet managing to be in the right place at the right time.

This was a proper tea and cakes occasion, complete with out-turned little fingers when sipping from the teacup.

Our gang had a great time, and a chance to chatter, even ahead of the upcoming festivities.

the fairy lights are on the blink

I seem to remember I was handed the above list of prompts in the form of a scroll by one of the angels of the North.

It turned out that being the donkey in the nativity wasn't such a bad thing. The year the toon cat tugged the tinsel on the city Christmas tree, it fell across the metro tracks and I was called into action.

Someone had to pull that train back into the station before the two snowman passengers started to melt.

With some further assistance from a jovial bearded man in a red outfit and his team of reindeer, we managed to get the train to where the passengers could alight. Although the snowmen didn't like that particular turn of phrase, preferring 'slip away'.

Anyway, Mariah Carey was in town to switch on the lights and when she heard about it, decided to sing 'Little Donkey, Little Donkey, carrying a heavy load' in recognition of the event.