Tag: Hemel Hempstead

Huliganov’s England – 1/4 “Ghost Town”

Original YT playout date: 17 January 2010
Duration: 13:14

We fly from Warsaw Chopinmall Airport to so-called “London” Luton, (don’t be fooled, it’s nowhere near London) and then go on to Hemel Hempstead to do a spot of Christmas shopping, and get a few special offers. One offering by the Specials in the 1970s talked about “this town is coming like a ghost town” – they could really have been singing about Hemel Hemsptead a quarter of a century later – all the old lovely things like the Pavilion and the old market, and the nativity crib all gone, and replaced with stupid tableaux of fluffy toys being attacked by wolves and nonsense like that! Quite frankly the way things are going, the town is lucky to have a Christmas tree. By the way, please note that even after all these years, I sang that song at exactly the right pitch – as the video proves. I didn’t autotune it. If you think that’s easy, you try it! Could always have been a fluke, of course…
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Back in England

Original YT playout date: 16 August 2009
Duration: 46:00

A small break with Sophie in the UK.

The story about Daniel Zammit is here:
http://www.berkhamstedtoday.co.uk/districtnews/Council-boss-Zammit-hit-in.5326570.jp

To be fair, I think that while what the Telegraph did on the MPs expenses is one of teh most splendid pieces of journalism in history, some people whose expenses were probably legitimate have come a cropper over this. If Mr Zammit wouldn’t have hired a morning suit other than for his function, or he bought the TV only because of his function, then who’s to say the expenses were not OK? After all, in business people wouldn’t think twice about claiming for things they needed for work and most bosses will waive that sort of expenditure through. If we could hold the government to the same standards as business, that would be enough, but now we have MPs being blamed for making claims any business would get away with, while the EU Parliament still keeps its books in the kind of mess that would have any UK business closed down.

Please let’s put some common sense back into the discussion about claims.
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A Walk Around the East of Hemel Hempstead Redux

 

Original YT playout date: 25 April 2009
Duration: 58:59

Which is precisely what it says on the tin, whatever that means. See our marvellous industrial estate, Grove Hill, Highfield and Adeyfield as well as Leverstock Green, a place so posh it sets your accent back three hundred years.

This version has has part of the sound track of the original version replaced following a copyright claim by WMG. Although that copyright claim affected only 2 minutes of this hour long programme, containing numerous original observations about life in contemporary Britain and the history of the region being treated, it was considered sufficient to blank out all the other 58 minutes of audio also. The available option of audioswapping (which I do use on occasion) was not suitable as I would have lost the speechlines here, and there is also no available audioswap for a film lasting nearly an hour.

Thankfully I was able to re-edit the saved copy of the first film – it’s not seamless, but it’s better than the alternative, and I can keep the series whole.

The use of a handful of Telegraph frames I believe is fair use, as no account of Hemel Hempstead would be complete without a few words on the Buncefield explosion – the largest explosion in peace time Europe. I am happy to acknowledge the Telegraph website as the source of these images. I endorse it as the best UK newspaper site and look at it nearly every day.”
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Uncle Davey’s Herts Content S3 E2 – A Walk Around the East of Hemel Hempstead

 

 

Original YT playout date: 25 September 2008
Duration: 58:53

Which is precisely what it says on the tin, whatever that means. See our marvellous industrial estate, Grove Hill, Highfield and Adeyfield as well as Leverstock Green, a place so posh it sets your accent back three hundred years.
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