charles barrow's writing

I'll always take a moment to stop and read a blue plaque, when I see one affixed to a house or building, to see who is being honoured, or remembered. Who once lived, or stayed, visited briefly, or otherwise bestowed their glorious presence upon said house or building. By definition, the plaques memorialise eminent people; the great and the good (but hopefully the slightly shady too), otherwise, what's the point? Who would care about a plaque dedicated to someone who achieved nothing of note? Maybe their close family would care, but the rest of us? Probably not. And what I would be curious to know is the minimum amount of time an eminent personage needs to remain in a building before that building can claim bragging rights and raise a plaque dedicated to that personage. The case of Charles Dickens is the reason I ask this question. I have spent years, all my adult life, living in various towns along the south coast of England, and almost all of them have had a blue plaque dedica...

I've been dipping into AirBorne over the last few days. It's a massive free airshow in the skies over Eastbourne that's been running for the past four days. Luckily for me, I live only a ten minute walk to the seafront, where the whole spectacle takes place. I had some family come down to stay, and we made a day of it on the beach with a picnic both yesterday and on Friday, and I wondered down again today to catch some highlights. The variety of aircraft and talent on display was incredible. We'd no sooner finished applauding the stunt pilot, when the paragliders leapt from a plane and coasted down to land on the beach in front of us. We'd only just waved off the wing-walkers (hats off to those insanely brave women), when we had to jamb our fingers into our ears to stop from being deafened by the Typhoon jet. The Battle of Britain Memorial flight, brought a Lancaster bomber and a Spitfire jet into view, and a tear to the eye. There was a Chinook helicopter, and a co...