Authors Electric

It is that time of year when, amid the bustle of Yule planning, we often pause to take stock of our lives; especially in the days leading up to the end of the year when many of us make resolutions for the coming twelve months.   Those of us who embark on these plans do so with every intention of achieving something important to ourselves or to those around us. It might be losing weight or writing that best seller or beating that illness, or perhaps getting (or keeping) that job. Few people set them with the certain knowledge they will fail. Yes, we all have that sneaking suspicion that we may be reaching a little far, yet we wade in nevertheless in the hope that fortune will be on our side. Sometimes we set the bar a little lower with the expectation of attaining an achievable goal and in my experience they are the ones that get broken the fastest. Possibly because they are frivolous, more often because they were never serious objectives in the first place. I recall ...

Last week Peter and I decided to walk to   the Bloggers and Authors meetup, as it was a sunny day, and noted an oddity that had not struck either of us before when driving that route. Two roads that we passed had been renamed. Clifton Street is now Gerard Street whilst Hall Street has at some point been renamed Floyd Street. I have no idea when these renamings took place but from the age of the signage one would imagine it took place some time ago. But in both cases the old signs had not been removed. Is this a local thing? Or do other cities just never get around to removing old signage Nothing so very unusual about roads changing names as such of course. For many years I have lived very close to a stretch of the old roman road through Ockley in Surrey that still bore the name of Staine Street. This ancient thoroughfare led from Chichester to London Bridge and was a major route in its day.  Those stretches of Staine Street that are still in partial use closer in to ...