yen_powell

Dear Mr Powell, Thank you for your recent email. Much as he would like to, the Archbishop is unable to respond personally and in detail to all the hundreds of emails and letters that he receives, and so I have been asked to reply to you on his behalf. I was very sorry to read of your concerns in this matter and I appreciate the sentiments which prompted you to write. Whilst it is of course understandable you would want to write to the Archbishop on this matter, the day-to-day running of the Cathedral is solely the responsibility of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, and the Archbishop cannot and does not have the ability to intervene in the running of the Cathedral and its visitor charges. Therefore, I would advise you to raise you concerns directly with the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. This email is not intended to indicate any lack of concern, only to point out those more able to assist you and provide a suitable response. Thank you again for taking the time to write to the Archbishop on this matter and please be assured of our prayers and good wishes. Yours sincerely, Dominic Goodall Dominic Goodall | Correspondence Manager to the Archbishop of Canterbury Lambeth Palace, London SE1 7JU | | www.archbishopofcanterbury.org Switchboard: 020 7898 1200 |

Luckily I wasn't wearing standard Liverpool issue nylon tracksuit bottoms!!

Yes, I thought of you when I took that. The best time to visit is not when the M25 is shut, knocking Dartford Tunnel out of operation, especially when you have wide panniers fitted. I had to go all the way into east London on the A2 which was rammed with no proper filtering room (although I managed to get through by pure force of personality) and then go through Blackwall Tunnel at walking pace. I have never seen my new bike run so hot, usually 105 degrees C and the fan brings it down. With the fan running full time in the tunnel it reached 112 degrees and I was all set to pull over and let it cool when I hit the fresh outside air and the gauge started dropping like usual. The bike outside temp gauge was showing 41 degrees in the tunnel, back to 35 outside. I drank about 8 mugs of water when I got in and still didn't need the toilet for ages.

Just sent this:- To The Archbishop of Canterbury, senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England. Dear Justin, On Sunday I finally visited Canterbury, a place I have been meaning to check out for many years. I have to say I was not disappointed, the vast range of architectural styles, the buzzing street life, the gorgeous looking riverscapes and the well preserved medieval city walls all lived up to my expectations and more. I'm a life long motorcyclist. I think I have stuck with it for over 35 years despite our great nation's abysmal weather because I like the independence I achieve from it. I can plan exactly when I will arrive somewhere, however bad the traffic situation. I can always find a place to park, I rarely queue. In fact not queuing is probably my biggest plus, I dislike it intensely. As a result when I visit a new place, I take my own food and drink, that way if the place is rammed I can ignore the queueing rabble and find a nice quiet spot and feed myself with no drama. Upon arriving in Canterbury I pulled into a nice empty (and free) motorcycle parking place alongside the wall around the cathedral precincts. As I had just ridden down the centre of around 10 miles of queuing holiday traffic on the M2 I was hot, hungry and thirsty. It was the hottest day of the year I believe. I grabbed my flask and sandwiches and walked excitedly around the corner into Burgate looking for the first side turning into the Cathedral grounds. Imagine my surprise when I was stopped at a vehicle checkpoint and told that to gain access to the grounds I had to buy a £14 ticket to the Cathedral itself. After expressing disbelief to the very polite lady manning the checkpoint, I walked further up Burgate and took my business and sandwiches to the Catholics at St Thomas of Canterbury. The same Catholics who, incidentally, owned Canterbury Cathedral until the 1500s when the county had a bit of a reformational shake up. I know this is a long rambling message, but I guess what I am really trying to say is, don't be knocking on my door asking for jumble for the Bring and Buy when your church roof is a bit threadbare mate!! Kind Regards Ian Powell (Christened, C of E, Laarbruch RAF chapel, Germany March 1966)

This must surely make burglary easier if you fancied dabbling, every cloud and all that.

My Mum had that in the 80s. First time I realised was when I was mucking about and picked her up off the floor and she came up so so easily as she had lost lots of weight. The NHS opted to cut her throat (in a nice way) and take a bit of thyroid away. As she was a theatre nurse in the same hospital at the time she applied a bit of blackmail and made them schedule the operation so she would not miss going to see James Last in concert. I recall visiting her in hospital and taking her a gift of a Frankenstein parody type book to cheer her up about her new scar. She was on tablets after the operation to balance everything out. I can't recall even seeing a scar in the following years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orford_Castle to see inside

Looks like it eh. And they didn't even have lifts. Orford Castle is a castle in Orford in the English county of Suffolk, 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Ipswich, with views over Orford Ness. It was built between 1165 and 1173 by Henry II of England to consolidate royal power in the region. The well-preserved keep, described by historian R. Allen Brown as "one of the most remarkable keeps in England", is of a unique design and probably based on Byzantine architecture. The keep stands within the earth-bank remains of the castle's outer fortifications.

I mentioned earlier in this thread about the yard foreman, a young bloke called Tony. As stated, he was all good looks and muscles and he liked the ladies. Our yard was squeezed between the river and a load of flats and maisonettes in Barking called The Gascoigne Estate. Named after the Gascoignes who had been the big cheeses and land owners for hundreds of years. A few old fogies on here will know one of the family as he used to host University Challenge. I was mooching about the yard one day and happened to look out of the gate. I was used to seeing odd people wandering about, plus we were in a road with various types of yard all down the same side as the river which meant we had some strange people working in them. On this day I looked and saw a man wearing a white Judo suit. He was on the little green shown on the right below with the big tree. He was doing all the harry karry stuff, kicks, chops, all directed at the tree shown. Basically he was being a bit of a knob. I could also see Tony, flying about in a fork lift. I called out to him and he roared up and came to a skidding halt. 'Wassup Yen?' he was the one who christened me with that name, it developed out of shouting Ian in a noisy yard. 'There's a bloke outside, says you have been messing with his woman, he is waiting for you!' Tony looked out the gates and there is this twat punching imaginary baddies and kicking invisible things above his head, he's really going for it now. To give Tony his due, he jumped out of the fork lift and was on his way out to the bloke before I managed to stop him. Tony got me back later that day, he had me sitting on the top rails of a covered articulated lorry to help pull the sheet over. He told me to sit still on the rail whilst they moved the lorry up a few yards so they could line up the next load from the road side. What I didn't know and he did was that there was a large tree branch behind me. As the lorry backed up I was pushed off the rail and down into the skips of swarf. I lay just inside the skip covered in small pieces of metal and cutting oil. A blonde head appeared over the edge and a finger was wagged in my direction as he told me not to ever try and get one over on him again.

No fear, didn't look too clever down there.

Pillish. Apparently most of them have been washed away here. They used 6 inch Royal Navy guns taken from scrapped WW1 ships, in case ze Germans came across the North Sea.

Not even locked up, must be a courtesy row boat.

As I had put my tyres on yesterday, today was a test ride to make sure my wheel weren't going to fall off, nor the tyres deflate. I was going to take a ride to Canterbury, never been there, my licence has, some nonsense about not being allowed to cross double white lines, but I haven't. The weather report (lying fuckers) suggested that it was going to rain in Kent, so instead I decided to take a look at a bit of Suffolk coast. The pictures below, in no particular order are, Bawdsey Beach, then the old WW2 defences at Bawdsey Hall, plus the Napoleonic era defences at the same place. I thought there was only a single Martello tower, but walking back to my bike I saw what appeared to be two more across the fields. Finally Orford Castle. As I was approaching Bawdsey, the first thing I saw was what appeared to be yachts sailing across a field.

Your jacket has more facilities than mine has!

When I left school I was 5 feet 11 and 3/4 inches. I now seem to have lost those 3/4 of an inch and am at 5'11". This is also coincidentally Buckster's inside leg measurement.

My feet didn't touch the floor on either side, I have never had that with any bike before. Some grown ups had to hold me vertical till I pulled away and then after I had gone round in a big circle I was like a kiddie on his first 2 wheeled bicycle calling out to everyone to catch me when I stopped.

A driftway, a lovely wide lane with plenty of grass (for on the move snacking) to make your sheep, cattle, turkeys etc walk along, promising them a nice Christmas as they make their way to Smithfield Market. I did hear that the Norfolk drovers would dip the turkeys' feet in tar to protect them on the journey.

I thought this was one of Bob's holiday snaps, but it's the wrong way round.

It's just dawned on me. You've just got back from a long hot ride in this picture. This is how you stand for at least 10 minutes to let the accumulated ball sack moisture evaporate and to let the arm pits drain before heading indoors.

I don't think he's got the gay boots on. Socks and sandals would be my guess. Reinforced socks of course for gear changing, he's not silly.