I've written a piece for The Bugle called 'Why everything nowadays is basically just a load of old pants, and not in the least like it used to be in the old days when everything was always so much better in every conceivable way'.
I'm now writing a follow-up piece called 'Why everything nowadays is so much better in every conceivable way than it was in the old days, when everything was not in the least like it is now and basically just a load of old pants.'
They haven't accepted it or anything.  In fact, I haven't even sent it away.  In fact,  I haven't even written any of it yet, and probably never will.

Cheese.  Remember when cheese tasted like cheese?
No, me neither.

Am I invisible or am I a vampire?

Why is Tuppence averse to work?  Why are you, you might well ask, and who are you to criticise, since you never do a hand's turn.  Well, I can answer that one.  It's different for me, because I'm Older, and life was different Back Then. I never had to work.  In fact, we took a pride in not working, back then.  We diddled along, as best we could, living on supplies stolen from the Tunnels and stuff Geoffrey found in the bins at the tourist car park.  We asked for nothing and we took nothing, except what we needed plus a bit extra just in case.  Of course as you know,  the tourist car park has in recent years been transformed by Val and Dave Nark into an eco-friendly holiday park with yurts and 'pods' all ready with welcome packs filled with Val's hedgerow jams, nettle gin and the like. Forty pounds per person per night and that's in low season, thank you very much. I wouldn't pay that for a rat-infested glorified tent with a 'green' toilet, but lycra-clad, wet-suited, kayaking, paddle-boarding fools with a penchant for quinoa do.  The bins are now lidded and labelled for recycling by the way.  Any spare food goes for composting.  Not that there is anything - nothing that appeals to us, at any rate.  Nothing worth nicking.
No, what we need is a good old Wallace Arnold bus tour.  Overfed pensioners who can't finish their crisps and chuck half-empty packets out the window, along with cheese and pickle sandwiches, cocktail sausages, Chelsea Buns and Empire biscuits.  Discarded Chelsea buns would enable us to make an attempt at a five a day,  not that we care about such things, with their half-dozen raisins and the glace cherry on top.
Anyway - why is Tuppence averse to work?  Answer - he isn't, not in my book.  Tuppence works very hard at the things he likes to do, for example playing in his band and firing his pistols at random strangers. What's wrong with that?  Leaving aside the exploitation aspect, why should he have to clean toilets for three pounds fifty an hour, when he doesn't like it?
I challenged Val Nark about this the other day but she just barged past me as if I didn't exist. Perhaps I don't.  I'm actually starting to wonder.  They do say you become invisible when you reach a certain age.  At least that's what Mrs Tupfinder-general wrote in a letter to Polly, the 'Bugle' problem page agony aunt last week.  Am I invisible or am I a vampire, she asked. Because I can't see myself in the mirror.  Is it me, Polly - am I yet another victim of 'male gaze syndrome'?

more on this later.

Next time - 'Polly' turns out to be none other than Bert Vickers, moonlighting taxi driver and part-time journo, who learned writing in prison.

Donnie McPhartney and his secret black pudding ingredient (part one)

'I can't see the Dorty Bizzums making it big.  That's what Donnie McPhartney told me anyway, as he piped black pudding mixture into genuine organic casings.'
Tuppence was distraught.  He'd been all the way to Inverness, on a high after our Hogmanay triumph (more on that later)  hoping to get more'gigs', and Donnie McPhartney was the very man to see, so he'd heard.
'Wherever did you hear such a thing?'
'Someone said something at the Puff Inn after our Hogmanay gig.  I can't remember who - it was late on.'
'But Donnie McPhartney's a butcher.  He's renowned for his black puddings, but...'
'That doesn't preclude him being a booker and promoter and talent scout as well. He bought Eve Graham a vodka at the Station Hotel in 1978 - and that was when she was big.  He's a good fellow to keep on the right side of.'
'But he doesn't think much of the Dorty Bizzums.'
'No.'
'He hasn't seen us perform though.' I didn't like to say 'play'.  'So how can he know?'
'He said he has a nose for talent. He says he can smell success before he sees it. And I just smelled of cheese and onion crisps, plasticine, and someone else's stale tobacco. That would be yours Uncle Tuppy but I never said anything.   I did say that we might add in comb and paper, and whistling, and maybe rubbing the rims of several wine glasses with differing levels of fluid in, to make ourselves more current, but he just shrugged and continued filling his black pudding casings.'
'For goodness sake.  You'd think he'd have someone to do that for him.  After all, it's a well-established business.'
'You mean like a modern-style apprentice, like I was, at £3.50 an hour?'
'Well...'
'The thing is, he likes to do it all himself.  The black pudding contains a secret ingredient, you see, that makes people develop not just a taste for it, but a craving.  They get physically and psychologically addicted, very quickly.  It's like crack cocaine.'
'And he doesn't want anyone to find out what the ingredient is.  Well I'm not surprised.  It sounds like it's probably illegal.'
'Nothing wrong with that Uncle Tuppy.  And I suspect you're right.'


next time - after a top-level meeting back at the Outcrop, we decide to go to Inverness to find out what exactly Donnie McPhartney is putting in his black puddings.

Further to my post about M.R. James...

Further to my earlier post about M.R. James, I have all but given up reading his 'Collected Ghost Stories' because as well as putting me off my sleep, they're creeping me out on walks.  This will not do.  Sleeping well and walking in the fresh air are crucial for most people's general well-being, particularly in the case of anyone who, like me, hovers on the verge of insomnia much of the time, and both are interlinked.  I've learned that if I don't get out for an hour's walk in the fresh air during the day, I will not sleep well, unless I'm physically ill.  And if I don't sleep well, I tend to lack the energy to walk. I cannot allow myself to get into that unhealthy cycle. It's not just the exercise that matters. It's the calming, meditative effect of walking and observing nature that allows my mind to settle and relax.   So, I'm modifying my night-time reading and have returned to Richard Lancelyn Green's lengthy and reassuring introduction to the Penguin edition of E.W. Hornung's The Amateur Cracksman, for about the eleventh time.
I say 'all but' and 'modifying' because I'm still dipping into M.R. James, even though it makes me look over my shoulder to check if some nameless beast is following me from the shadows, and I'm frightened to move the duvet in the dark or put the light on in case I find the same awful be-wigged, hairy-mouthed ghastliness has continued to follow me and is now staring at me from hollow, cobwebby eye sockets.  Yesterday I startled a hare when walking by the ruins of Clunie Castle,  an atmospheric place 'steeped in history' if ever there was, and therefore almost certainly haunted, if you believe in such things, and wondered if there was some significance to the hare, given what we know about the mythology surrounding them.
As I looked at the ruins I thought, of course, about James's story 'A View from a Hill'.  I almost wished I had those magic binoculars so that I could see what the castle had looked like in the 1400s when it was built. There are no surviving illustrations, and I can find precious little information about it, which is surprising given that it's a place of some apparent significance and that the ruins are relatively large.
My quest continues.
Overall, it does occur to me that perhaps being creeped out and unsettled - in a mild kind of way - has its merits - it makes you think about things from a different angle.

To be continued...

Team Building - The Dorty Bizzums

As well as doing thievery and general evilness instead of modern apprenticeship toilet cleaning, Tuppence has decided to start up a band again.  Anyone who began reading these tales back in 2008 (I know - that's nobody) might remember that Tuppence used to be very into Prog, and enjoyed dressing up as Rick Wakeman and playing his Moog down at the Puff Inn.
He now feels he'd like to be in a band rather than working solo.  Personally, I think this is a terrible idea because he's such a control freak he won't be able to cope.  He's just not a team player, despite the mandatory so-called 'team-building workshop' he attended last month as a modern-style apprentice.  It didn't help, of course, that he and Val Nark were the only people attending.  Dave had a tummy upset on the day, and couldn't manage -  or so he said.
'I learned the principles,' he said afterwards, 'At least that's what Val says. She's going to monitor how I apply theory to practice, and I think starting a band is a great way of doing it.  Not that I care what she thinks or anything.'
'I see.  Who are you going to ask to be in your band?' I asked, thinking to myself that options would be limited given Tuppence's complete lack of friends.
'You and Uncle Geoffrey first of course.  Geoffrey can play triangle and you can be on theremin.  And Val Nark will play drums and sing lead.  I'm on electric piano.'
'Have you asked her yet?'
'No.'
'Do you know if she can play the drums, at all?'
'No.  But it's not that hard, and anyone can sing.  It doesn't matter much anyway.  Prog's about how you feel and think, rather than what you actually play in terms of actual notes and actual keeping in tune or time to a beat or rhythm and that.  It's about vision Uncle Tuppy.  Bleak winter fields and silence and stuff.  It's about philosophy. '
 'I see.  What about your Moog?'
'It blew up several years ago, how on earth could you forget THAT?  Exploded due to excess zeal on my part, during an outdoor performance of ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition. '
'What's Dave saying about all this?'  I asked nervously.
'Dave says he's looking forward to being a valued member of the team, and he might play violin.  We're doing an Auld Year's Nicht concert down at the Puff Inn, Stormy's chuffed to the gutties. He's got triple stocks in of everything - pork scratchings, Scampi Fries, Madeira, Sweetheart Stout, meths, lager even.  Dave says he won't feel right about coming out or anything till his tax return is in. Hopefully he'll manage it, cos we really need the extra depth and texture you only get from the likes of a violin.  And Dave's got loads of experience - he used to be in a folk-rock combo in the late 60s, down in Norfolk.  He even knew someone who auditioned for Fairport.'
The thought of Dave screeching and scraping away on his violin providing 'depth and texture' and capering about the stage in his threadbare home-made 'loon pants' made me feel a bit faint.  I reached for the medicine chest.  'This is madness Tuppence,' I said, rapidly unscrewing a vial of sal volatile and taking a deep sniff, 'Utter madness.  You've arranged a gig at the Puff Inn, and not just any night but TONIGHT  - Auld Year's Nicht, which is New Year's Eve in normal parlance and one of the biggest party nights of the year, if not THE biggest, and one of your band members might not be there, and the other one doesn't know she's supposed to be in the band?  Not to mention me and Geoffrey. We don't even have any instruments.'
'That's right.  What you don't know can't hurt you - that's what you always say isn't it Uncle Tuppy?'
'I do, but - '
'Well then. Fashion a triangle from a couple of coathangers and consider yourself a member of The Dorty Bizzums.  And if Dave doesn't finish his tax return, Geoffrey will be doubling up on violin.'

more later

Tuppence goes on the Rob

This morning Tuppence burst into the kitchen wearing a full-face balaclava and twirling a brace of pistols.

'I've packed the job in and I'm going out on the rob,'  he announced.

'Low-hanging fruit?' asked Geoffrey, buttering one of those round, chewy, bread-y type things with a hole in.

'Yes!  I might as well get something out of three weeks of humiliation as a modern apprentice toilet cleaner.'

'Not to mention the risk to your health, from the wrong-sized Marigolds,'  I said. 'Well, all I can say is, don't dirty your own doorstep.'

''course not.  What do you take me for?  I'm doing tourists only and before they know what's hit them they'll be away back to wherever they came from - '

'Overthere,' said Geoffrey, adding marmalade to his round, chewy, bread-y type thing with a hole in.

'Quite,' I added. 'Overthere.  You've been to Overthere, Tuppence, only you were too little to remember.'

'I remember it all right!  Oh yes! We sailed off in the coracle to look for the oracle, and we got some crisps or something to eat, and you and Uncle Geoffrey tried to avoid the BMI assessment and compulsory health screening or something*. You didn't care about me - '

'We did!  We did!'

' No you didn't, and that lack of care and insight has scarred me for life. Twisted me, psychologically.  You two, in fact, are responsible for me being an arch-crim -'
'What's wrong with that?'
'- and a total failure in the job department.'
'That's another positive, surely?  It's a blessing to be an independent thinker, Tuppence.'
'That's not what Val Nark says.  She also knows someone who will sort me out with a few sessions of ear-candling and so forth, she's already discussed my case with them because they've been staying at the yurts this week and she says the sixty pounds a sesh will be well worth it.  It would normally be sixty one but she's getting me mates' rates. Anyway, what I was saying is - '

'The tourists will be away home before they know anything's missing.  Hmmm.  Sounds like a reasonable plan Tuppence, and much more enterprising than continuing as a modern apprentice toilet cleaner slash wage slave for £3.50 an hour.  Now I wonder what it is that you're planning to steal, that they wouldn't immediately miss?'

Later - Val Nark's ear-candling mate discovers her ear-candling kit is missing, and Tuppence sets up shop as an ear-candler...

*all true and details can be found in the e-books and paperbacks

Low-hanging fruit, ripe for the taking

'You didn't seriously think that I was going to clean toilets as a so-called career?' sneered Tuppence, slamming a 28p bottle of Tesco 'thin' 'value' bleach onto the table before peeling off a pair of Marigolds and pinging them into the fire, where they melted onto a piece of charred driftwood (which had once formed the keel of our old coracle) before blazing up the chimney in a terrific tower of hissing sparks.  'Gosh what a relief.  Those Marigolds were far too big, and they were smalls.  You'd think they'd make a tiny.  There are lots of people with tiny hands these days, or so they tell me up at the yurts. So there's got to be a demand, it isn't only me.  If they don't fit properly they let in all the chemicals and toilet muck and germs and stuff, it's a total health hazard.  Val agrees with me but there's nothing she can do.'
'Anyway Tuppence.  You're digressing.  Not that it matters much, if indeed at all.'  What on earth has he come to, I thought.  From would-be prog (Canterbury school) aficionado, to arch-criminal, to bomber pilot, to submariner*, to THIS - a pathetic, whingeing wage-slave, fretting over his rubber gloves.  Not that you could call £3.50 an hour a wage.  Not that I knew much about wages.  I'd never worked a day in my life.   'Work is an alien concept to me, Tuppence.  As it should be to you. I can't understand - '
'Shut up Uncle Tuppy. Think!  for a change.   Don't you realise what I have access to, as a so-called humble toilet cleaner?'
'Modern apprentice so-called humble toilet cleaner.'
'Handbags.  Purses.  Bankcards.  Prescription drugs.  Low-hanging fruit, ripe for the taking.' Tuppence strode round the room, waving his arms expansively.
'Petty theft. Small beer hardly worth the candle.   Added to which,  they're going to know it's you within about five seconds. You'll get CAUGHT.   I'm disappointed in you Tuppence.  This isn't a nefarious plan - this is just pathetic and I have to say, very unlike you.  Are you ill or something?'
'If I am you can blame the rubber gloves.  Now that you mention it I am feeling a bit dodgy in the bottom end tummy department.'
'GEOFFREY!  fetch the medical chest.'  Bottom end tummies?  More like brain fever, I thought.  He'd have to sweat it out.


More later.
     


*all written down in the Seapenguin books, so it must be true

Jethro Tull BBC Promo Vid for Solstice bells 1976

Farewell to the Holly King, the Oak King returns...

Edge-y

'Today I'm gonna kill the bear!' shrilled Tuppence.
'Say it again,' yelled Val Nark.
'TODAY I'M GONNA KILL THE BEAR!' he shrieked.
'And again,' commanded Val, who was sitting cross-legged on a pile of rag rugs she'd brought back from a wildlife slash hiking holiday in Kerala.
'TODAY I'M GONNA KILL THE BEAR!!!'
'Excellent work Tuppence.  Now - at home, unpaid, in your own time mind, because this is training - '
'Is it optional, then?' asked Tuppence.
'No, no, it's mandatory.'
'Then surely - '
'No. Stop interrupting or you'll lose your job.  As I was saying - at home, in your own time, file the end of that plunger into a sharp point.  Weaponise it.  Hone it the way you've been honing your toilet cleaning skills.  You're sending yourself a vital message, remember,  and it could propel you on to a whole different level. YOU ARE IN CONTROL.  YOU CAN DO ANYTHING.  You could even win modern apprentice of the month, Tuppence, as well as being allowed to clean out the Portaloos at the building site all on your own.'
'Wot?' murmured Tuppence.
'Yes!' Val continued blithely, 'Imagine that!   Yes, as well as our thriving (-ish) yurt business, Dave and I now have the cleaning contract for the building site Portaloos.  This will be announced in our newsletter but I'm telling you first because you're the one who'll be doing the cleaning. We'll need a picture of you, of course, a lovely smiley one of you outside the Portaloos clutching your plunger.  You'll be doing one hour extra a week, Fridays, hosing them down.  Dave and I managed to undercut everybody else to win the contract, because we have YOU working for us for £3.50 an hour. You'll have to find a hose yourself mind. And because this is over and above your contracted hours you won't get paid. But remember - '

Later - down in the tunnels.  Tuppence is on his own, sitting on a barrel of Madeira, deep in thought, absently whittling at the end of his plunger with a pen-knife.
'If I got enough of these I could make a deadfall,' he murmured. 'Might come in handy one day...Weaponise, is it. Honed, is it. Finding a hose, is it.  Val clearly doesn't know about my brace of pistols and my bandolier of ammunition, and my habit of writing my initials on walls with uncanny accuracy in a hail of bullets. Neither does she know about my past history of arch-criminal activity and my facility for devising nefarious plans*.  I'm not going to be a modern apprentice toilet cleaner for £3.50 an hour, minus training time, for a moment longer.  No!  I thought I could stick it out till Christmas in order to glean more info. for my own evil purposes, but no, I can figure out other ways to do that.  Enough's enough.'

Next time - Tuppence begins to enact his nefarious plans - and Val Nark rues the day she hired him.

*please see e-books and paperbacks for details

'

Poem of the Day

Psyche

The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name -
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of mortal life! - For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

S.T. Coleridge

Coleridge is my favourite poet not because of his supposedly opium-fuelled Kubla Khans and Ancient Mariners (though I do love those too) but because he writes about life, and if I'm feeling grim and lonely I find a friend in him.  Nature, struggle, despondency, the Elements, transcendence, the Stars, cottages, fireside, the comfort of a dying flame and the vulnerable, doomed warmth of loved ones. I identify with his struggle, physical, psychological, spiritual, through howling winds and wintry blasts.  I can easily imagine going back to the early 1800s and spending a pleasant afternoon by a fireside chatting with Coleridge about ever-present Death and the difficulties and possibilities of transcending the trials of a doomed mortal life.

Hard graft for peanuts

'I explained to Val Nark that I didn't like being a modern apprentice toilet cleaner for £3.50 an hour.  What more can I learn, I said, once I know how to bleach and clean the U-bend?'
'I don't know,' I replied, unable to suppress a hint of pride. 'I've never cleaned a toilet in my life.'
'Val says there's all sorts to know about toilets though,' continued Tuppence. 'Starting with Thomas Crapper and moving right through'Shanks' to Dave Nark's chemical-free portaloo.'
'Oh yeah.'
'Yes.  The 'Nark' is basically an old-fashioned metal incinerator filled with straw or crumpled newspaper, with a seated compartment fitted inside.  Once the straw has reached maximum soil slash urine-saturation-point, or when the smell gets too bad, whichever  happens first, you set fire to it.  And then the whole cycle can start again.  One hundred per cent hygienic, no nasty 'compost pits' to dig, and no cleaning or harsh chemicals involved at any point.'
'Hey flaming presto.'
'Exactly Uncle Tuppy.  Isn't it wonderful?'
'Who knew.  You sound quite keen on the modern apprentice toilet cleaning and I've got to admit I'm disappointed in you, Tuppence.  In fact, I'm not just disappointed, I'm shocked, and I'll have to have a wee lie down.  Nobody in this family has ever, ever done hard graft for peanuts (or indeed anything) and I really think you're letting the side down.'  I folded my arms and glared at him sternly. 'We don't do cleaning and we don't do work.  I told you not to accept Val's modern apprenticeship offer, but would you listen? No you would not, and look where it's got you.  Thinking everything's rosy in the toilet world and accepting a pittance of £3.50 an hour.  Where's your pride Tuppence?  It's not like you've got a mortgage to pay.  You've got a roof over your head haven't you?  Food in your belly? I don't understand why you're even bothering.  You've gone right off piste Tuppence and I don't want to be controlling your life or anything but I don't like it and I have to tell you, it's unlikely to end well.'
'I've got plans Uncle Tuppy. Never fear.' Tuppence winked and tapped the side of his nose. 'And you know that when I do plans, I do 'em big.  There's more than £3.50 an hour and a roll of Andrex to be found in toilets, you mark my words.'
Whatever could he mean?

next time - Tuppence starts his own mobile lavatory cleaning business with a Raleigh pushbike, a plunger, a bottle of bleach (and is denied Universal Credit due to not reaching the low earnings threshold).  All is not what it seems, however.


'

Medicine, Snouts and Sustenance. Moral Dilemma #145690

Tupfinder Towers

'I don't see how you can say that it's morally wrong to steal from a food bank and sell the stuff on at a profit.  Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing nowadays - starting our own businesses and looking out for number one or whatever?'  Tuppence was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the settee, swathed in blankets and sipping hot Ribena from his favourite pewter mug. 'And what's more Uncle Tuppy - it's not like I've just thought this up myself.  I learned from the best.  From you and Uncle Geoffrey.  We did use to steal Madeira and crisps and baccy and stuff from the tunnels, remember.*  '
'We still do,' said Geoffrey, through a mouthful of chilli heatwave Doritos.
'Yes that's true,' I said, throwing another driftwood log on the fire, 'but I'm sure I read somewhere that two wrongs don't make a right.  Mind you, we've never actually sold on anything we've stolen from the tunnels.  We always consume it ourselves, taking only that which is sufficient to our needs, plus a bit extra in case of emergencies, late night snacks and so forth.  Crates of best brandy and snouts don't count, as brandy is medicine and snouts are treatment for our baccy addiction. And everything else is sustenance.  Which makes it kind of not stealing in a way, and therefore okay.'
'Get away!' said Geoffrey, 'The stuff in the tunnels doesn't belong to us.  Stealing is stealing.  The best you could say about it is,  we aren't involved in 'reset'.'
'Maybe if we gave up stealing from the tunnels and just focused on stealing from the food bank that would leave just the one wrong, making it right.'
'That sounds all very well on one level,' said Geoffrey, 'but let's face it, the stuff we get from the tunnels is top notch.  Best brandy, Madeira by the barrel, Turkish snouts, reams of silk...'
'Tins of korn bif,' added Tuppence.
'Of course!  Crates of the stuff.  And it's the real McCoy, not supermarket own brand,' continued Geoffrey.  'Tins of value rice pudding and cheesy pasta are not worth the candle.  And remember - the stuff in the tunnels was looted from wrecked ships by the rats.  It might not belong to us, but it doesn't really belong to anyone else either.  And better that we enjoy it than the rats.'
Tuppence drained his Ribena and set his mug down with a crash.  'Alright.  You've convinced me.  I kind of feel bad that I ever even thought about stealing from a food bank. Not that it's morally wrong, or that, to steal food from starving people - it just isn't worth it.  Part of me will always yearn to be a Victorian-style entrepreneur and I am DETERMINED, determined, mark you,  to find a way.' 

next time - the Narks offer Tuppence a job as an apprentice toilet cleaner, cleaning the yurt toilets for £3.50 an hour on an 'as required' basis.

*as explained in e-books and paperbacks, at great length

'What's wrong with the world?  What's wrong with people?  Why are they horrible? Why is everything rotten and stinking all of a sudden?'
Tuppence lay on the settee under five eiderdowns, raving in his pyjamas and sweating out a fever.  He's prone to fevers;  often they're psychological in nature, brought on by too much excitement or a need for attention, so we don't get too concerned unless his temperature goes over 150.  Even then, there isn't much we can do except -
'It's 149 and three quarters Uncle Tuppy!' shrilled Tuppence. 'I'm burning up!'
On this occasion it was all his own fault.  He'd been out late last night trying to flog his stolen tins of value rice pudding and he hadn't worn his winter pully.
He'd also used the computer at the mobile library this afternoon with the help of library assistant Craigy McFarlane (Chic's husband) and 'gone on the internet' and 'looked at the news'.  If that wasn't bad enough, he'd looked at 'Instagram' and felt inferior.
That was more than enough to trigger his current crisis.
Yes, we've finally got 'the internet' Hereabouts.  Tuppence wants to be a Youtube and/or Instagram star.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have a 'smart phone' or indeed any other piece of 'tech' as he calls it, and can only access the internet with Craigy's help via the library van. 
In my day, we aspired to being train drivers or - no, that's not true actually.  We aspired to Very Little because our window on the world was not a virtual window, with all the ghastly magnitude and mind-boggling awfulness that generally entails, it was a real window, and all we could see through the grime and bubbles in the glass was a tiny square of light in the morning, dimming as the day progressed,  and a tiny square of darkness at night, occasionally illuminated by a 'Hunter's Moon' or a meteor shower or such-like.
We had to turn inwards to our own firesides and learn about the world from occasional visitors from Far-flung Places, Co-op flyers and dog-eared copies of the Bunfettle Gazette.  And it didn't do us any harm.  Or Did It?  More on that later.
It won't end well.  It can't end well.  Tuppence's brain can't take it.

Tupfinder Towers and the soon-to-be-obstructed view

So what's been going on in the world for the last few years, and how's it been affecting us at the Rocky Outcrop?  The answer to the first question is a fair amount, and the answer to the second is, not very much, by and large, except that everyone's 'poor' and Dave and Valerie Nark have objected to the Council about a housing development (ten percent of which is to be 'affordable homes')  up beyond the tourist car park on the grounds that it will interfere with their yurt/glamping business and also destroy valuable wildlife habitat despite the hundred yard 'buffer zone' mooted by the developers. 
Mr and Mrs Tupfinder-general have also objected, as it will obstruct the view from Tupfinder Towers, and possibly encroach upon fragile overwintering sites for the Tupfinder's South American wasp colony, only he hasn't mentioned about the wasps due to it being illegal to keep them.
More on this later.
Another new 'thing' is the food bank.  It sort of evolved from one of the overflowing bins at the tourist car park (where Geoffrey used to get his crisps from, as readers will know).  It's run mainly by 'incomer' Chic McFarlane (more on him later) and seems to only have tins of 'value' rice pudding and packets of cheesy pasta, which would suit us fine as these are our favourites, only we don't get access to the food bank as despite our threadbare lifestyle we do have a roof over our heads, and aren't actually 'starving' and don't 'qualify'. 
Yet.
Tuppence has been in trouble - or would have been, had he been caught - stealing from the foodbank and attempting to 'sell stuff on at a profit'.  Not that he made much 'profit' from tins of value rice pudding.
'There's a market for everything if you look hard enough Uncle Tuppy!'  he shrilled, throwing his bulging rucksack to the floor with a massive metallic 'CLANG!'  'I'll stockpile it and cause a crisis in the market!  I'll make my fortune yet, you mark my words!'  and he collapsed on the settee exhausted.
More on that, and plenty of other stuff, later.