Google kills famous author.

Result of search on Google under 'Martin Lloyd'.

What can I say? The usual denial, I suppose. 

'Reports of my death have been exaggerated.'

National Museum of Scotland.

Unfortunately we did not have much time in hand because of cancelled tram routes, recalcitrant taxi drivers and kilt hire guaranteeing but we did manage to slip in to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh for an hour.

This is a museum not to be missed. 

Apart from the stunning architecture of the building, the exhibits and displays were fascinating.

The history of telecommunications had me absorbed for some time. I would need a week to do the museum justice and the entrance is FREE.




The usual gripe, however, has to be made to the curators. Why do the printed explanations have to be in such small type, so far away and so dimly lit? It is possible now to cold light a notice in an exhibition case without affecting the temperature of the contents. 
Please sort it out.

Edinburgh passport.

 Whilst in Edinburgh I was called in to stand guarantor for a friend who was hiring a kilt but had no UK address. All I needed to do was to provide a utility bill and a 'means of identity, such as a passport' they said.

Well, that was too much of an invitation for me.

To the consternation of the shopkeeper I pulled out one from my collection: a passport issued by the Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh to a Scotsman and his nephew allowing them to go to Paris via Calais, Boulogne or other port in 1851.

Until 1914 it was possible to obtain a passport from the Lord Provost who had the authority to issue such documents in his capacity as 'Admiral of the Frith of Forth.' 

And no, that is not a typo. Read the passport carefully. It was oft-times called the Frith of Forth.

Edinburgh taxis want you to walk.

Arriving at Edinburgh Waverley Station on the evening of 30 December, we pushed our way through the thronging crowds on the pavement in the blustering wind and rain, and lugged our suitcases towards the taxi rank. 

What taxi rank? 

With 23m passengers per year passing through the station you would have thought they could have provided a taxi rank. The doorman at a nearby hotel suggested that we walk the hundred or so yards to Waverley Bridge and we would find taxis there.

We did eventually find a taxi there. The driver, on hearing our destination said, 'You can walk that. Just go back up there, turn right at the top then turn left, walk up through the square and turn right at the end and the hotel is along there on the left.'
He was right. We could walk it. Just as we could have walked the 450 miles to Edinburgh had we wanted, but we had not. We wanted a taxi but he would not provide it so we carried our baggage in the pouring rain and wind for the ten minute walk to our hotel.

Welcome to Edinburgh.

On the following evening we tried to buck the system by telephoning for a taxi to pick us up from the hotel. The taxi telephonist, upon hearing the destination, said, 'That's only about two miles. You can walk that.'

Is there some anomaly in the Scots mind which confuses ability with desire? 

And what do taxi drivers live on?

Boxing Day Hunt Tenterden

An enthusiastic turnout once again for the Boxing Day hunt meet in Tenterden 

High Street and a lovely winter's day – crisp and clear. 

The High Street is closed to vehicular traffic for an hour whilst the horses and hounds assemble.

This obviously causes a little congestion and a certain amount of curiosity in those who are not familiar with the annual tradition.

But soon the hunt is away. For more details visit the Ashford Valley Tickham Hunt website.

Red passport or blue passport?

A blue covered British Travel Document
issued to a stateless person but not to a
British Citizen.

This story should be dead by now but let's just give it another little kick of life. 

What is amusing in all this jingoism is that a proportion of the British public resented the loss of the British blue passport and the addition of the words 'European Community' to the front cover and yet all the time that the UK was issuing its red passport for its own citizens, it was, and still is, issuing a blue covered document which does not say 'European Union' on the cover.

The only snag is that it can be issued to anybody but a British Citizen.

So what do you think of that?

Passport Portraits of Yesteryear no. 31

Continuing the series of passport portraits in my collection.
Peruse and wonder.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the British Government agreed tacitly to not object to France creating a 'zone of influence' in Morocco if France would stop stirring up trouble in Britain's Protectorate of Egypt and so in 1912 Morocco was carved up between France and Spain. France immediately began to settle its nationals in its new Protectorate of Morocco.
In 1923, an 'international zone' was created for those countries who had missed out on the party. 

This is Charles Henri Delamare, He is a French native-born farmer of 38 yrs and he lives in Morocco with his family. This is his photograph on his 'Chérifien Empire' passport of the Protectorate of Morocco which he obtained in 1921 in order to go to Kénitra. Once there, he obtained a Spanish visa and travelled on to Tangiers.