BS: WAV with Pics

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 06:07 AM

I honestly think that nobody really knows. If you google it you'll read all sorts of nonsense about "Celtic druids" and the like, and that they were valuable sources of wood for the manufacture of longbows, the fact that they were in churchyards being a deterrent against the theft of the wood. That seems a stretch to me.

Interestingly, you'll also read that all parts of the yew are poisonous. This is mostly true, although the soft red fleshy bit around the seed is not only not poisonous but also quite tasty. However, be advised that you are asking for trouble if you accidentally swallow the black seed therein, and it would be incredibly bad form to demonstrate your knowledge of all this in front of children and anyone else who might emulate you.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 07:12 AM

As you are probably aware Steve, and as in my above photos, they have berries now, and I did have a close look at one that had fallen on the park bench...but not a nibble which, just quietly, I probably would have done if I'd read your post first (and checked it in Google).

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 07:34 AM

they were valuable sources of wood for the manufacture of longbows, the fact that they were in churchyards being a deterrent against the theft of the wood.

I had always heard that yew trees were in church yards because they were enclosed spaces and thus kept livestock from grazing on the poisonous leaves.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 08:11 AM

That's what my uncle told me, as in the above-linked poem, DC.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 09:11 AM

But is that a reason for planting yews rather than any other trees?

On a pedantic note, yews don't produce berries. They are conifers, and berries are found in flowering plants only. If you look closely you'll see that the red fleshy part (the aril) forms a cup-like structure around the seed but doesn't enclose it completely. Some animals eat the fleshy part and pass the seed through the gut without digesting it. I wouldn't recommend experimentation in this regard.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 11:16 AM

Yew trees were the original source of tamoxifen, that is now manufactured synthetically. Used to treat breast cancer. Not something to just nibble on.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 11:41 AM

Mrs Steve took part in a major clinical trial of tamoxifen for breast cancer some years ago, which consisted of five years' taking the drug or placebo in a double-blind trial and five years of follow-up. I don't think there's a connection between tamoxifen and yew trees. There has been success in trialling some yew extracts for cancer treatment.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 12:02 PM

Why do you think I mentioned it if I didn't know it to be true?

"Taxol® (NSC 125973)
Paclitaxel, the most well-known natural-source cancer drug in the United States, is derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree (Taxus brevifolia) and is used in the treatment of breast, lung, and ovarian cancer, as well as Kaposi's sarcoma."

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 22 - 01:40 PM

But taxol isn't tamoxifen.

Here's the story of tamoxifen, an extract from an article by Cancer Research UK:

The story of tamoxifen starts back in 1896, when pioneering cancer surgeon Dr George Beatson found that he could extend the lives of women with breast cancer by surgically removing their ovaries – a major oestrogen source. This gave researchers the first clue that oestrogen was involved in the growth and development of breast cancer.

Over the next five decades, doctors experimented with a variety of man-made oestrogen-like chemicals (such as stilboestrol, developed by Cancer Research UK scientist Professor Charles Dodds in 1937) to try to treat breast cancer. Although sometimes these efforts were successful, the side-effects were too severe for widespread use. By the mid 60s, the research had hit a dead end.

Contraceptive research

At roughly the same time, researchers at ICI (now AstraZeneca) in the UK, were investigating the effects of various oestrogen-like chemicals on the reproductive systems of rats, with the aim of trying to find new contraceptives and cholesterol-lowering drugs.

They developed several promising drug candidates, including one with the catchy name ICI46,474. But for various reasons, including lack of support and competing priorities, its development stalled.

War on cancer

Eventually, due to a combination of luck, good judgement, a bit of trans-Atlantic to-ing and fro-ing, and the declaration of a ‘war on cancer’ by President Nixon, there was a renewed interest in developing an oestrogen-blocker to treat breast cancer.

ICI46,474 was developed into tamoxifen, and doctors started giving it to patients in the early 70s. And the drug was licensed for the treatment of advanced breast cancer in the UK in 1972.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 01:44 PM

I was told that Yew trees grow well in graveyards because the soil is so rich! I'm sure it is nonsense but it is a good story :-D

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 02:10 PM

The autumn bright yellow leaves
are great. They grow well around schools supposedly because of all the bad boys and girls who mysteriously disappeared.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 04:28 PM

I have a lovely pair of bones made of yew. Unfortunately, I could never master them and you would miraculously close up all the seating spaces if I turned up to your session with them...

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 05:32 PM

I've heard the spoons played at a folk club/festival session but not yet the bones...

Donuel - clicked your link to have a look but got an error message.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 05:44 PM

Of course you could have fun with word games

Have you seen the yew, Hugh?

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 05:47 PM

Hugh: "Yes, last Sunday - just before taking a pew".

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 07:01 PM

You do not hear the spoons. You endure the spoons. There was this spoons bloke who turned up to the Tree Inn session once a year with the Sealed Knot (for the reenactment of the Battle of Stamford Hill). He was the most ignorantist-ever bastard to turn up to any session (except for any bodhran owner). He was the only person in 20 years who I had to tell to bugger off out of it in no uncertain terms. Utter twattery doesn't even begin to describe his attitude...

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 05:54 AM

...maybe he was born with a silver..?!

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 08:45 AM

In North Wales, https://walkaboutsverse.blogspot.com/2010/08/walkaboutsverse-165-of-230.html - including photos, from a train window, of Snowdonia & the Menai Straits/"Swellies" plus, from near the station, Conwy Castle.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 08:47 AM

...the link works fine but I forget to input the title "Holyhead and Surrounds", sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 08:52 AM

No it doesn't!...try again: "Holyhead and Surrounds"

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 06:31 PM

...more editing, after my couple of days away, and I've just added some "hills meeting sea" pics to my poem on "North Wales" - including Puffin Island, & Llandudno's Great Orme plus (if you look carefully) Little Orme, taken from the train between Bangor & Conwy.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Sep 22 - 03:49 PM

"Colourful Llandudno" with pics - including one of the goats now back on the Great Orme, having gone into a quieter town-centre during Covid, as you may have seen on the news.

Whether or not Punch and Judy is a tad too colourful, some of the Llandudno seagulls certainly are! Thinking I wouldn't take a pic until the end of the pier, I was eating some chips on the hoof when one of them knocked off quite a few - including most of the sauce. If accused of chipping rather than their traditional fishing, they certainly seem to do pretty well on it - big healthy looking (as well as cocky) things.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Sep 22 - 11:44 PM

Like a diamond stuck in a goat's ass I hesitate to explore it.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Sep 22 - 10:53 AM

Funnily enough we spent the night in the Grand Hotel, Llandudno, just over a week ago. Not been for years and forgotten how pretty it can be.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Sep 22 - 10:54 AM

...you could follow that goat(ee) for a while, Donuel, and wait for a cleansing downpour..?

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Sep 22 - 11:05 AM

Agree, Dave. I was there on 30 & 31 August. I only had their breakfast on the second morning as I was planning on a swim on the first - but, alas, was put off by the tides. And I was in the hall with the big screen both nights, sipping on a G & T.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 22 - 11:42 AM

I haven't been for many a long year, but it's a quaint old place, and Great Orme is a wonderland for field botanists. Picturesque too.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Sep 22 - 11:59 AM

Agree Steve - only attached one to the poem but took several pics of the flora on my evening walk up the Great Orme; haven't been up the Little Orme but imagine it would be similarly enjoyable..?

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Sep 22 - 12:16 PM

...by the way, a couple of years ago I had prolonged metatarsal pain in my left club-foot and would not have tried such a walk/hike...so things don't always get worse with age!!

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 14 Sep 22 - 03:27 AM

Near the Grand: What's the site of the old Pier Pavilion like these days? Is it still a mess?

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Sep 22 - 05:13 AM

I think, Jon, that area now has the above-mentioned chippy, touristy shops, games hall, and a ferris wheel - as lit-up in the pic attached to the poem linked above (in reasonable nick, I'd say).

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Sep 22 - 07:31 AM

There is development at the side of the Grand - between it and the pier entrance. I think there was an hotel there before the Grand. It may have been slightly to the right of it as you are facing the front of the Grand. It is quite a deep excavation and looks like it may have been very substantial.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 17 Sep 22 - 07:45 AM

That was the Pier Pavilion. It burnt down in 1994.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 17 Sep 22 - 01:14 PM

That (local) article Jon links to saying "The site has lain empty and overgrown ever since, while its future has become a controversial topic of discussion" was almost exactly a year ago (25/9/2021)..? At least some of the area shown in flames on the attached photo is definitely now (re)developed as I described above...but, behind that, on the Grand's front-entrance side as Dave describes, there may still be an area left undeveloped (which I probably framed my pics away from)..?

I've noticed quite a lot of development & refurbishment type work has taken place in England during the quiet Covid period.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 17 Sep 22 - 01:50 PM

I'd guess that's right WAV. They've just temporarily improved the appearence from on side.

I lived in the area 1978-2001 although nearly all of that was about 3 miles out of Llandudno. We went into town the night of the fire and got stopped by the police. They let us through as we were bound for the Llandudno Folk Club but I think they were turning "sightseers" round.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Sep 22 - 05:12 PM

Ahhhh. That's what ir was!

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 18 Sep 22 - 03:47 AM

With great helicopter shots, I just saw on T.V. the end of the Men's Time Trial of the World Cycling Championships from Wollongong, N.S.W., and remembered a photo of me nearby at the Southern Gateway Centre, Bulli Tops - now added to my poem on "A Multicultural World of Carrying"

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Sep 22 - 05:14 PM

My nephew having just visited me in Manchester for a week, I've added some pics to my song "The Mersey At Didsbury"

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 Oct 22 - 05:31 PM

...and to my hometown poem "Manchester - A Gist"

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 22 - 07:02 PM

Nice bunch of pics of Manchester there. Having lived as a kid and teenybopper just eight miles north of Manchester in the fifties and sixties, I must say that Manchester never endeared itself to me. In those days there were hundreds of uncleared WWII bomb sites, and the whole place seemed impersonal and, in a few areas, just a tad intimidating. I had relatives in Whitefield and Prestwich, and my mum was a Salford lass, and Heaton Park was a frequent resort, but we rarely penetrated further south than that. Manchester was a necessary place to pass through, Piccadilly across the city to Victoria station, then home to Radcliffe on the tram or whatever they call it these days. Generally, we gravitated towards Bolton, where I went to school, or Bury. I understand that Manchester has regained some of its vibrancy in recent years (and the club scene was always great anyway).

Just musing!

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 04:29 AM

Thanks Steve.

Most of my family and relatives left Manchester, including, as I may have mentioned before, a late uncle and auntie who, like you, moved to Cornwall - Kilkhampton, where I enjoyed a couple of visits.

My nephew, visiting from Australia, liked Manchester as he is very keen on football.

Unlike London, there are no great parks and gardens in the centre, but some nice ones further out in the suburbs, and the canals around the Deansgate area of the city are (nowadays) quite scenic, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 05:19 AM

Kilkhampton ("Kilk" round here) is ten minutes up the road from us. We had relatives there too, now long gone. We used to play music in the New Inn in years gone by. Unfortunately, Kilk has the worst chippie it's been my misfortune to encounter. Tsk. However, the little butcher's shop in the middle of the village is wonderful. I'm cooking a lovely shoulder of his lamb, from his own farm, this very afternoon.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 06:05 AM

Any herbs from your garden with that Steve...rosemary..?

Possible you bumped into my late uncle, Les Garside, at some stage - before retiring there, he was a paramedic both during and after the war and, quite a character, liked to take charge of just about every social situation! A lot seemed to know him when we were walking around Bude and Kilk.

One thing I forgot re Manchester, whereas Scousers may (justifiably) boast of 2 great cathedrals, in Manchester we have two pretty good libraries: Central (based on the Pantheon's design, I think) and John Rylands (both among the above pics).

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 06:44 AM

Rosemary on the lamb, thyme, parsley and bay leaf in the stock for gravy, mint for the mint sauce. All picked in the last fifteen minutes. It smells nice round here.

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 07:30 AM

I'm sure it does - and almost the line of a song "parsley, (sage), rosemary, and thyme" (Scarborough Fair)!

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 11:21 AM

My nephew and I also made a day-trip by train to Blackpool, where I photographed the Illuminations for a second time (they are on until 2/1/2023); hence a few more pics added to my poem "A Good Seaside Day".

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 11:42 AM

I used to love going into Manchester from about 14 to 20-ish. New Brown Street was the Carnaby Street of Manchester but I used to like the Army surplus in Tib Street better :-) The underground market was another place to hang out - you could get high just from standing around breathing in the pot smoke! Aunties kitchen was one of my favourite rock venues where I once saw a man have a fight with a meat pie :-D Sadly, in 1975, the Arndale centre ripped the heart out of Manchester and it was never quite the same after the monstrosity was built :-(

Mrs G and I used to go in 'early doors' on a Saturday quite often in the 00s though, when the kids were capable of looking after themselves, and we used to quite enjoy that. Very rarely went in the Arndale but used to have a good mooch around St Anne's Square and Densgate or round the Cathedral and Victoria before eating in one of many hostelries and heading back home about 7-ish. Before the nutters came out to play :-D

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 12:02 PM

...maybe he was built for comfort and the (lonely) pie had started it by asking: "who's eaten all the pies?"..?

Subject: RE: BS: WAV with Pics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 22 - 12:38 PM

I think it was more to do with certain substances that were readily available in AK :-D

Subject: RE: WAV with Pics
From: GUEST,WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Oct 22 - 02:29 PM

Could be anyone but is (newly blocked) me - who has just added a couple of light-hearted pics to my poem "Repatriating - Australia to England"