Just seen that more post office closures have been announced.

Sadly our local post office round the corner (Sally the Sub-Postmistress at 275 Bradford Road) is on the list. We stopped using them as much when we started doing franked post but I guess they’ve lost to Wrenthorpe PO at one side and Bar Lane PO at the other (which is closer to the office).

Interesting to see Outwood’s going too, but hardly surprising – they’re rarely pleased to see you in there which is why we didn’t use them!

The BBC’s Have Your Say sections are usually full of opinionated tits spouting utter cack at each other, but today’s has been utter comedy and – in some cases – utter genius.

Michael Winston’s got a nice dog:

They say animals can sense a ‘quake coming – well, my dog Nipper woke me up with a cup of tea shortly beforehand, told me it was coming and not to worry. They say that they’re intelligent but he forgot that I don’t take sugar! Perhaps it was for the shock.

I felt quite sorry for Katy:

Why did this have to happen just as i was catching vomit from my daughter. It did make it a little more difficult.

Wasn’t long before the politics started to flood in:

We felt it. It was quite disturbing. I heard on the TV that the quake was caused by too many immigrants. They are making the UK lopsided.

If someone’s bored in Leicester maybe they can knock on this guy’s door:

I thought it was a ghost so i hid under the quilt, I’m still here now with my laptop and no food or drink, please help.

Back to the politics:

It’s just typical of new labour – we never had earthquakes under the tories. I blame their stupid namby-pamby politically correct attitudes. Just because other countries have earthquakes doesn’t mean WE have to have them.

At least Les in Kenny was prepared:

Me and the wife were fast asleep when the earthquake rudely awoke us. I thought an aeroplane was landing in our front garden. I couldn’t believe the intensity of the whole experience – we quickly evaccuated the family into our special quake bunker and awaited the all clear from the local seizemologist. The provisions I had stockpiled for such an event came in mighty handy.

This guy from Malvern seems to have a hell of a rodent problem:

My sister thought it was mice.

If you get bored, the Reader Recommended ones are still coming in… 😛

Edit: I’d forgotten about this, but there’s more pisstaking of ‘Have Your Say’ over at the spEak You’re bRanes website.

Me and Nicky shot bolt upright in bed at 1am after a really loud rumbling noise, as though the chimney breast had fallen in or something.

I did a quick walk round the house but nothing seemed bad, putting it down to the bins being blown around. The only odd thing outside was a blackbird sitting on the pavement looking up at the streetlight outside our bedroom window (which seemed a bit weird, but anyway…).

Fast forward to 7:30am, just been woken up by the news. So that’s what an earthquake feels like, even as far away as WF2.

What was once Wakefield’s premier pub for the music scene has closed down – O’Donoghues on George Street.

Apparently it was last open on 3rd November; the website’s gone too. I’ve heard it’s been handed back to the brewery by the latest licensee, who also owned the Graziers next door.

It does seem odd to leave it empty for three weeks though. With the Tut’n’Shive closing during the Summer this only really leaves Henry Boon’s as a place for musicians who don’t fit into the niche of the Snooty Fox’s rock crowd or Westgate’s dance and pop scene.

During my wanderings in Horbury I sometimes drop in to Rickaro Books, a sort-of Siamese triplet comprising antique books, new mainstream stuff, and local publications. A few weeks ago while browsing I happened upon a copy of Once A Doctor by now-retired Chapelthorpe GP Ron Mulroy, and curiosity got the better of me – I lived in Crigglestone (covered by the Chapelthorpe surgery) for some years, but never saw the chap (it would probably spoil the book for me too, although apparently he treated my Great-Grandmother Atkinson according to my Grandmother).

It’s a good, gentle tome, chock full of anecdotes and tales regarding (among others) mayonnaise, an itinerant ECG machine, delivering a baby in a caravan, a dead stranger on a sofa, patient responses, collapsing beds, hypochondria and whatever-the-opposite-of-hypochondria-is. It’s not really a complete novel but more a series of essays, but it’s good bedtime or bathtime reading and well worth the 10 quid. That said, you might not ‘get it’ if you’re not from Oop North.

Come to think of it, the only complaint I have is that it seems to have been proofread by monkeys, with missing full-stops at the ends of paragraphs and in one case almost a third of a page missing (the tale merrily continues half-way through on the following page). However, I suspect these will be corrected in a reprint.

(Incidentally, I found an article on retirement by him – click here if you want to read it and discover his writing style).

Edit: Physician, heal thyself. I should have proofread my own article for the typos. Sorry.

Yesterday I fired off an email to Kate Taylor, who’s one of our most prominent local historians and has been quoted as the voice of the Civic Society. Her response regarding the relief sculptures on the side of Sun Lane Baths:

“As I understand it, the local authority has had a cast made from the sculpture. But I also understood that they were trying to save the original.”

(Article from Wakefield Express including a pic here).

If a cast has been taken, I’d have expected more paint to have been lifted than in this picture. Either way it sounds like some reneging has gone on: I’ll make a few more enquiries.