The Aquariums of Pyongyang

I will return to Rotherham at another point, the previous five posts began, in my mind at least, as a illustrated trip to the job centre. It quickly spiralled out of control as theses things do and ended up being five post long. There is more to cover in Rotherham, but I'm going to go back and talk about what I've been up to in the intervening weeks before I get ahead of myself.

First of all I had a 'Back To Work' session at the Job Centre. Now, having worked almost continually for the better part of ten years in several different countries and for scores of different companies, I thought I knew how to land myself employment. Not true, according to the Job Centre. No, I needed to be told that there was employment advice on THE INTERNET! The Interwhat? What the fucking Hell is that? I've never heard of that before! Not only this, BUT you can find jobs in the FUCKING LOCAL PAPER! It even has a JOB SECTION! Holy fucking shit! I was overcome with this wealth of information. My brain couldn't compute the amount of knowledge that was being thrown at it. For an hour I was pounded with enlightenment on gateways to help me get back to work. I was beaten into submission by Job-Seekers wisdom. Dazed and confused I stumbled out of the upstairs office of the Job Centre clutching a printed list of today's latest jobs. It was only the timely intervention of Danny, Bennett and the pub that helped me to come down from such an unparalleled high.

Covert photograph of Rotherham Job Centre. You don't know pain until you step inside one of these places...

In reality these courses are designed by the Job Centre to stop people doing fiddle jobs, ie, signing on and working for cash in hand. It breaks up the working week for them and they lose money. I know how to get back to work. I just ring around the various archaeological companies for work. I know what a CV is and I keep mine updated every time I finish a job. I have been using the Internet as a gateway resource for work since 2001, back when it was all in black and white. I have a network of colleagues who keep me informed of potential work. I don't need to be patronised by Phil and Phil, both of whom were in our situations two years ago, until they got work at the Job Centre where they now condescend the great unwashed about how to get a job. I should have been teaching the fucking class.



Which brings me rather neatly to another adventure with Timmy Teacake which I had on Monday. I have been asked by Sheffield University Archaeology Society to give them an archaeological drawing class (seamless, fucking seamless segue there). I racked my brains for ages for a place this could take place, then I remembered Tim was bumbling his way through a PhD covering Prehistoric South Yorkshire. He'd been doing some work up on Broomhead Moor and knew of some Tumuli that could be drawn with ease. Early (well, early for me, anything before 11.30 is early for me these days.) on Monday I picked the lad up and we preceded with great haste into the wild. Tim actually wanted to finish off a walk over survey he'd done a few weeks before Christ's Mass so we tied to two things in. Previously he'd sent me a picture of a small bridge he'd recorded (he thought we could use it in the drawing class) and we paused at it and observed it. The conversation went like this, I shit you not.

Me: What age is this? Maybe 18/19th century?

Him: Yeah, I think so.

Me: Well, that gatepost reused a as lintel gives it away...

Him: Oh shit! I didn't notice that!

Me: What? You took a photo of it! There's two massive Iron brackets sticking out of it!

Him: I never noticed them either!

Hello! Operator, I think I'm lost! Can you tell me where I am?

After this sojourn into Tim's mind and some willful archaeological damage to ancient structures we travelled down the ICY ROAD OF DEATH to Redmires Reservoir and had a look at the Great War Training Trenches there. This is where Tim came into his own as a scale for my photo:

Stop leaping about, stand still!

Right, that's it for a bit, I'm off darn sarf tomorrow for a trip to Brighton, Southampton and Bovington for the TANK MUSEUM, so you'll get to hear all about that in due course.

And who would live in a place like this? Pt5

Gosh, here we are at Part Five of this tour around Rotherham, you can catch up with everyone else here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. What began, in my mind, as a description of a journey to the Job Centre has spiralled out of control into an epic not unlike Egil's Saga. Sit tight and keep your mouths shut...

By now we have been shopping in Rotherham, seen some of the sights around town and we have even braved a night out and survived relatively unscathed. Now lets take a look at how Rotherham celebrates the people that make this town great, our Heroes, our champions. Those brave souls that dared to swim against the tide of popular opinion and create a wave of influence across the world. To begin with, let us take a step back in History. 'History? History? That's boring!' I hear you say, 'that's just dates and olden days stuff, why would I care about that? It means nowt to me!' Well little one, lets just see how wrong you can be as we look at the Walker Family.

'The fucking Who?' I hear the denizens of Rotherham cry as one. The Walker Family, you ill-educated shitbags, the men whose iron works at Masborough helped finish the Old Vaxhall Bridge and Old Southwark Bridge in London. And if that wasn't exciting enough for you, these lads forged the cannons that sat on the flagship HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafaglar, bitches!

Check this, bitches! How can anyone say history is boring with all this shit going off everywhere!

'Oh yes' I hear you say 'I think I've heard of that. Isn't it the name of a pub or something?' Yes, it's the name of a fucking pub 'cos it's where Britain smashed the combined fleets of France and Spain and secured us as a Naval Power par excellence. All the while Admiral Nelson was shouting out orders he was fighting a FUCKING BEAR and we still won. In the middle of it all the Walker's cannons helped carry the day. With this incredible heritage behind us, how do we at Rotherham celebrate the great memory of the Walkers? We do it by allowing this to happen to their Mausoleum:

Who fucking cares about history?

Yes, again, ignorance of our proud town history has allowed the Walker Mausoleum to fall into dereliction. Boarded up and chained off from public view (I had to climb through a padlocked gate and chain-link fence to get this shot) the denizens of Rotherham ignore our past glories. There is a group dedicated to the celebration of this edifice, called the Friends of The Walker Mausoleum, but I fear they are swimming against the tide in this town. I would be willing to bet that most people from Rotherham don't even know where this building is. Here's another picture of the sad state of disrepair the mausoleum is in:

Let it fall down, it's cheaper than repairing it...

Heartbreaking treatment of our town's past forces us to again turn away from these sad sites. I will attempt to lift your spirits, here is another monument, this time dedicated to my Great-Uncle Tommy James:

No, that's not a spelling mistake, it's Russian for Peace, you tool

'Tommy who?' Gah, and you call yourself a student of Communist history? Old TJ was a member of the Sheffield Communist Party, he went on to fight in the Spanish Civil War as a Political Commissar and he later met Picasso at the World Peace Council held in Sheffield in 1950. The Council was aborted by the government as an act of political sabotage! Civil unrest, bitches! Bring it on!

That's TJ on the right and on the left is Picasso. Lap it up motherfuckers!

OK we might be getting back on track with our celebration of our town's heroes, so let's have a look at some more. Famous names from Rotherham include comedian Sandy Powell, actress Lynne Perrie, actor Paul Shane, musician Christopher Wolstenholme from limp wristed indie pop act Muse, footballer David Seaman, Politician William Hague, musical group par excellence Jive Bunny and the Master Mixers and that simpering twat of a man-child presenter James May. All were born or lived within the borough, but not one of them comes even close (Jive Bunny, maybe) to the celebrity powerhouse of Britain's best loved barrier-breaking comedy duo act:

To me, to you!

Yes the FUCKING CHUCKLE BROTHERS! Appearing in a panto somewhere near you ALL THE FUCKING TIME! This poster is up on permanent display in Rotherham market, Paul and Barry's cheeky faces peering out over punters pouring over second hand jewellery and bananas. They grin inanely into the distance as Walker Mausoleum collapses in on itself. This is how Rotherham celebrates it's heroes, if they ain't on telly, they ain't WORTH SHIT! Fuck history when you've got two grown men dressed as dogs passing window panes to each other!

There is still a couple of things to have a look at around this town, we will have a look at some of the things that Rotherham DOES have. It may not be the next piece as I have some more Tim baiting to do before that, but stay tuned, it's coming soon!

And who would live in a place like this? Pt4

We have explored thoroughly the shopping opportunities with this great town of Rotherham, see Part One HERE, Part Two HERE and Part Three HERE for more details. But we are still left wanting, waiting for the locale to offer up her diamonds. Therefore we must turn elsewhere for our pleasure. If we cannot purchase goods and services to sate our appetites, let us ask our baser instincts for what they seek: Let's go CLUBBING! We return to the shop barren High Street for a our first port of call, the SNAFU


Located in the heart of the drinking area of Rotherham a night is not a night without a visit to the SNAFU (Military parlance for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up, which pretty much sums the place up). You too can soak up the atmosphere as you mingle with aggressively drunken shaved headed forty/fifty year old men, trying to pull equally aggressively drunk forty/fifty year old women in clothes three times too small for them. All done to the tune of a badly mangled Jimi Hendrix/Kings Of Leon/Foo Fighters cover version by a band of forty/fifty year old plumbers. We soon tire of SNAFU and move onto pastures new:

So popular even the bins are falling over themselves to get in!

This place changes it's name each week, by the time you have read this it will have had three name changes. It is the ideal place for a nice knife scar or a skull splitting, the choice is yours depending on who's bird you happen to talk to. Rotherham is a proud town, appearances are important when out and about and most places require some kind of dress code. Now we're not talking here about a DJ or a tux, but just something to keep the countenance up:

Rotherham nights out: Fashion advice and bad grammar

I'm hungry, are you hungry? Rotherham has its lion's share of fine eateries. We are catered for by a variety of outlets serving piping hot food for you to cram into your mouth. What Rotherham lacks in shops it more than makes up for in fast food 'restaurants'. Well, someone has to keep those morbidly obese figures in tip-top condition. With this in mind then let us call over the road for a chicken burger and chips at my favourite place for a heart attack, Chilliz:

Note the delicious (pun intended) spelling of Chilliz!

Fully appeased by deep fried meat substances it is better not ask too much about the origin of, we set off in search of another place to wet our whistles. The usually warm and inviting Club Envy is closed for the night:

The roof, the roof is on fire, we don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn!

In our need to slake our thirsts, brought on by the salty meal at Chilliz, we are straying away from the heart of the town now, we are entering the badlands on the way to Masbrough. At this time of night there is only one option left open to us. Having tried and failed miserably to pull a Rotherham girl for somewhere to sleep for the night, our carnal desires lead us to one place and one place only; The Blue Minx:


A Gentleman's Club like no other, the Minx offers a relaxing atmosphere surrounded by exotic beauties performing ritual mating dances to rhythmic voodoo oscillations. The mind boggles at the mysterious maidens who come from such far-away places as Kimberworth, Clifton and even Swallownest. We trip the light fantastic whiling away the hours until we are thrown out by security for breaking the 'no touching' rule. Then it's home to bed, eventually to emerge blinking into the grey dawn and another Rotherham day.

Coming in Part Five: How Rotherham celebrates its heroes and balances the fine line of old and new culture.

And who would live in a place like this? Pt3

Welcome traveller! Welcome to the third part of the virtual tour around Rotherham and its environs. You can still hop aboard the open top omnibus for the tour that has gone on before in Part One HERE and Part Two HERE. On our trip around town we have already seen the sad state of the lacklustre shopping opportunities that Rotherham provides. We need to press on further in the deep dark heart of the burg to find tantalising reminders of Rotherham's flourishing past. So it in this chapter that we explore this theme further as we wind our jolly ways to the Market:

This video gives a brief glimpse Rotherham Market in 1971, a bustling place, alive with the cries of 'Strawberries! Two shilling a punnet!'; 'Yes we have no Bananas!'. Yes, gentle reader, this was Rotherham at the time the first Microprocessor was invented, Led Zeppelin first performed Stairway to Heaven live, Swiss women were allowed to vote, Jim Morrison's disgraceful drug bloated corpse is found in a Paris bath tub and Britain completes it's coinage decimalisation on the imaginatively named Decimal Day. This is a Rotherham 17 years before the construction began of the Isengard like structure at Meadowhell, casting its long and black shadow over the crumbling remains of our town. Today however, not everything is as bleak as it seems and this is the view of the present day market in complete contrast to the rest of town:

'Second hand Playstation Games! Two pound a punnet!' 'Yes we have no XBox 360s!'

The market still survives as a centre piece for Rotherham commerce. Please bear in mind this is the second hand market where one can buy LPs for the princely sums of £1 or 50p depending on which boutique you peruse. A thrifty man can make a killing here. But for your own safety, please keep moving, stay close together and don't make eye contact as we move on through the crowds. We have a tight schedule here and I want to show you that not everything in the market is peaches and cream. We will be ascending the to the balcony level, so mind the steps. In greater times the balcony of Rotherham market was the proud stamping ground of those with enough pocket money to buy computer games like the sublime Jet Set Willy at Microfun, pause to point at the rabbits in the pet shop next door, buy a radio controlled model car at the model shop or even some fishing tackle at G&S Hampstead. How times have changed:

'This town, is coming like a ghost town'

'Do you remember the good old days, before the ghost town?'

Displaying the sad alienation found in a Edward Hopper painting, these shops have long closed down. Gone are the Spectrum Games, gone are the Parrots, gone are 1/35th scale tanks, gone are the Crystal Wagglers. I had a request from a Mr Paul Ruddick esq as to the state of these places. He further wished to know how Coopers Toys had fared in these testing times. I felt that the balcony scene was too heartbreaking already, so to give pictorial evidence of the state of the shop which Darth Vader once visited would bring the man to the brink of suicide. We leave this sorry row of empty shops peering out into bleak desolation and give up on ever finding an open boutique. We must turn to the baser pleasures for our delectation if we are to remain in the townstead any longer. We are about to embark on a night out in Rotherham, but that is all to come in Part Four. So get your dancing shoes ready!

A popular phrase has it that a picture paints a thousand words, so I shall wrap up this part with a piece of tragic irony, located on one of Rotherham's main thoroughfares:

And who would live in a place like this? Pt2

Before I begin this part there is a few plugs that I would like to throw out there for your entertainment: Logan Josh has begun a blog HERE which makes this one pale into insignificance. Hilde Maus finally updated HERE. And the Evil Herr Docktor Clay has produced his own rival to the very theme of my most recent postings, HERE. Give him no credit, however, this is merely a reprint of earlier material. I would NEVER stoop doing such a lazy thing!

Back to Part Two of a tour around Rotherham (find part one HERE), the fine homestead nestling in the bosom of the Rother Valley. Home to a quarter of a million souls, it was founded in the Early Medieval Period and grew around a spot where a Roman Road crossed the River Don. After the Norman Conquest, Rotherham was placed under the protection of the lord Nigel Fossard and his successor De Vesci. Both of these obviously knew the town's reputation and rarely if ever actually visited the place. Canny fellows, them both.

'Horse for sale! Get your lovely Horse here! Come on love, you need a horse in your life!'

This etching depicts Rotherham in its Late Medieval Period hey-day, replete with market square and cross post. The hustle and bustle of the three annual fairs and the Monday and Friday markets of yore would have given the centre a real busy and thriving market town feel. Come with me gentle reader as we take a walk through the civic centre of the today and see what it has to offer the Oniomanic day tripper, intent on quickly separating their foolishness and their money. Onwards to the hub of the shopping experience; College Street!:

Empty lots, boarded up buildings, but at least B&M Bargains is thriving!

Here we can choose from an exciting range of one shopping experience. B&M Bargains, the store that sells practically EVERYTHING. Just like a Dole scroungers Harrods. What need has Rotherham for other outlets when we have the almighty B&M? The boarded up shop to the right of B&M was the town's only Marks & Spencer. This has now been closed for several years when it was realised that the people of the town were unable to afford the Dine In for £10 offers. Well, with only £64 a week from the Dole, you would struggle too! We turn away from the delight of College Street and seek out further shopportunities on High Street:

It was a sad day indeed when Sofa Craft had to close

Struggling to find anywhere to part with our hard signed for cash, we walk up and down High Street seeking out an emporium that will pander to our fevered need for retail therapy:

Even help from the Heritage Lottery Fund failed to keep this place open...

Whilst we pace fervidly up and down High Street on the lookout for an open boutique, or eyes fall upon the oldest building in Rotherham:


Formerly the Three Cranes Inn, this timber framed building from the 15th century is the only one of it's kind in the town. It survived a Civil War and Two World Wars only to be left to slowly rot away by a Town Council filled with THICK AS SHIT EX-STEELWORKERS WHO KNOW NOTHING OF CULTURE OR HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE. Sadly we leave High Street, seeking out pastures new, wending our way through delightful hidden and secret meandering passageways:



We eventually find ourselves in All Saint's Square. At last! Shops that are open! This is beyond our wildest dreams!:

There is an oxymoron somewhere in this photo, but I'm damned if I can find it...

We are taught healthy cooking by non-other than TV's Jamie Oliver then stuff ourselves stupid with chocolate next door at Thornton's. Sitting on a bench in the middle of the square we are at once delighted and overcome by the spectacle of the TELLY ON A STICK:

Someone had lost the instruction manual and no-one could work out where the 'on' switch was...

One of the greatest acheivements of Rotherham Town Council. The £150,000 White Elephant topping to their cake of Civic Centre destruction. Recently the council have decided to pull the plug (pun intended) on the Telly On A Stick in order to save money on it's upkeep. It struck me, they could have saved a whole load more money if they'd NEVER BUILT THE FUCKING THING IN THE FIRST PLACE! But what do I know? I'm no fiscal expert. The Council were put in their positions because they know what they are doing? Right?

Still to come; how Rotherham celebrates its town heroes, further pictures of crumbling important historical buildings, a tour around the sleazier side of town, further council folly and a night out in Rotherham...

And who would live in a place like this? Pt1

Rotherham, the jewel of the North, the Xanadu of South Yorkshire. Did Kubla Khan ever rest his eyes on a beauty so rich as this great industrial town? I think not, for his were not the riches of Canklow, Herringthorpe or the sprawling beast of Eastwood. But this town, my place of birth is about offer up its diamonds for you, gentle reader, as we go on a tour of Rotherham. Where do we begin our quest? At Boston Castle of course, for its beautiful views across the valley and the sprawling metropolis squatting like some Lovecraftian horror waiting to pounce:


The 'castle' was built in 1775 by the Earl of Effingham as a hunting lodge and named in protest of the harsh treatment being meted out by the British to the American Colonists. Tea drinking was banned by the Earl as a further measure. Against such an interesting and colourful backdrop Rotherham Council have allowed it to fall into dereliction and disrepair. Well it's cheaper to clear up a pile of rubble that it will eventually fall into than fix cracks in walls like this:

Not Civil War seige damage, Rotherham Council damage...

Leaving the sad state of Boston Castle behind we venture into the town itself. Rotherham straddles the River Don as it flows gracefully through the civic centre. Some commentators have said it resembles the mighty Tiber, or indeed the majestic Rhine as it meanders through the burg. I will mearly allow you to make up your own mind from this view:

If you fall in, just hang onto the chains until someone notices you and try not to swallow any water...

Around the river are dotted the latest in a new Council initiative: the Rotherham Renaissance. New buildings have been springing up, all resplendent in steel and concrete. Eager to take on new businesses and tenants, the shops and flats have lain empty since the buildings were completed about two years ago:

Fabulous Business opportunities await in your new premises!

Meanwhile over the road, the ancient dwellings known as the Imperial Buildings lie equally empty. Until only a few years ago this complex was awash with many small businesses supplying all the meat, tobacco and flowers a small town could need.



It has been rumoured that these businesses had been in existence since the dawn of Man. After touching the obelisk, whilst several monkeys went on to smash each other's heads in with bones, one astute simian began trading, in a cave, Zippo lighters and pouches of Drum Tobacco. Over the following centuries that cave became the nucleus of the Imperial Buildings. Until a few years ago when the council saw fit to encourage business growth by MOVING ALL THE BUSINESSES OUT! Far be it for me to criticise, I am no fiscal expert, so I guess the Council must know what the fuck they are doing. Right?

Other places in Britain take pride in their historic buildings, affording them all the beautifying treatment they deserve. Not so in dear old Rotherham. There appears to be an active program against incongruous and anachronistic beautification. Along with the Council's ingenious plan of allowing Boston Castle to fall into a state of dereliction, several other historic buildings around town have also received the same treatment. They are a savvy bunch, the councillors. Why pay for the costly demolition of a building when time will take it's toll anyway?

Beautiful crumbling facades. Rotherham's heritage.

There's more to come in Part Two, get ready for more historical buildings left to rack and ruin, Jamie Oliver's attempts to make the town thin thwarted by bad juxtapositioning, a nightlife unparallelled elsewhere in the country and THE BIG TELLY!

I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire

With nothing better to do on Sunday night I went to see the film The Road. I asked Ninjasaurus Rex if he and his wife would like to accompany me, but their response was something along the lines of 'fuck off you loser, we've got REAL friends coming over for dinner. We'd have invited you, but we both think you're a cunt. So die.' Then the phone line went dead. With their words ringing in my ears, I wept all the way to the cinema, ALONE.

'Then I told him to Fuck Off! I could hear him crying as I put the phone down! Cheers!'

There will be a couple of small spoilers in this next paragraph, so skip to just beyond the picture if you don't want to know them. The film was good, it had come recommended by Herr Doktor Clay. He'd told me it was depressing film with an uplifting end. I later asked him how he could call the impending bleak future faced by nuclear war survivors as an 'uplifting ending'. He said the guy didn't rape and eat his kid so that was uplifting in his book. It's a pretty depressing film throughout, not really a date movie, but damn good except for a few small points. Which I shall sum up for you now: Towards the end the man (non raper) and boy (non eaten) 'befriend' a kindly blind old man, who is white. A little later they are then robbed completely by a black man. I thought this to be slightly playing up to racial stereotypes a little. Mind you, I would probably complain if it was the other way around saying the PC brigade had had their hands all over it. There was also a scene where the man (non raping non cannibal) is shot in the leg by a bow and arrow weidling survivor. But the scene just doesn't go anywhere, except to add further complications to their quest.

The worst Nuclear Winter since records began

One final, quite minor point (not a spoiler), but enough to wind me up, was that every skeleton that they came across was fully articulated. The rib cages standing up and all the bones connected by invisible tendons. This happens so often in films and it really winds me up. Once a body has decomposed there is nothing left to support the bones and they collapse in a heap. As an archaeologist I probably see this more than most, but I would have thought it was obvious to the layman as well. I know in films it's done for dramatic effect, but it still looks pretty fucking stupid. Besides this minor infraction the film is a frightening, depressing and realistic portrayal of the aftermath of a Nuclear Holocaust. It also has Charlize Theron in it, which is always a good reason to see a film.

Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Other than that I have moved into selling guitar pedals, well, buying two off Dave and selling them on at a profit. It works out well for both of us. He gets cash in hand to throw at strippers and I get money for when I need it. In a similar vein I have been trying to track down Colin to buy some books off him, but getting hold of Colin is akin to mucking out the rocking horse stables. Despite an email, a text message, a answer phone message and even sending Lauren after him, he has failed to emerge. Tomorrow is another day and hope springs eternal in the quest for the Magical Golden Mane. I might just fill his inbox up with abuse.

'Colin! Answer your fucking phone!'