Friday foto - Superwide, hi-res view of Street and Glastonbury Tor

I drove along Collard Hill in Somerset today and stopped to take pictures. Here is the result of 6 pictures being stitched together. You can see the large warehouse roof that belongs to Clarks shoes in Street and of course the famous Glastonbury Tor in the distance.

I wish it had been a little clearer.

Zoom in and enjoy!

Yeovil Saturday night, cinema, closed shops, closed eateries

For a variety of reasons we found ourselves able to take a night out in Yeovil on a Saturday. Fantastic. "Let's go to the cinema" says she. "Great idea" I say, it's been a long time since we went.

A quick check online shows a few films that look interesting. Good.

Taxi to cinema. Chaos inside. Huge queue, ticket desk closed, what the hell is going on? In what is I presume a cost cutting measure, you can buy tickets from the snack desk or the ATM but not at the ticket counter. Not great, but tickets purchased, we rejoin the queue. We are going to see 'Rock of Ages'. I wish I had read the reviews...

If you like stage musicals maybe this is your thing. I thought it was going to be an updated version of Spinal Tap. I was very, very wrong. It's a string of '80s rock tunes (so far so good) held together with some dodgy acting and awful dance scenes. It's the first film I can recall walking out on in a long time; but we did. (The huge queue of people were waiting to see the Westlife tour film. It had to be better than Rock of Ages.)

OK we said, "Lets go eat..."

Where?

Umm..not too many choices in Yeovil town centre actually. OK Let's try the Green Room, we had heard nice things about it. "Table for 2?" I enquire. "Sorry we stop serving at 9pm" (it's 10 minutes  past nine).

Alright, what about Mulberrys say I. Same story. Kitchen closed at 9pm. What a bloody farce. Does nobody want to eat after 9pm? Spanish visitors (notoriously late eaters) to Yeovil must think we are in the dark ages. Even Burger King was closed. As we walked to the taxi rank I took the picture below; it was around 9.30pm.

Yes it's raining but there there was virtually nobody on the streets of Yeovil.

9.30pm Saturday 23rd June, Middle Street, Yeovil AKA Ghost Town

So off to the Indian restaurant then. A decent meal was had at the Mem Saab at the bottom of Silver Street.

Now the question, what is happening to Yeovil? Shops are closing right through Middle Street and into the town centre. The only restaurants that can be bothered/can justify staying open past 9pm on a SATURDAY NIGHT are Chinese or Indian; why?

Have we locals forgotten how to work? Our first taxi driver was Romanian our second was (I think) Polish.

It rather feels like a long and terminal slide into irrelevance and this is coming from someone who chose to live here and has done so for 10 years. It's not good and it's getting worse. Sorry.

I downloaded Apple iTunes into my laptop this evening.

The idea is that I'll upload my hypnosis MP3s to bring them to a wider audience.

Not discovered how to become a content providers on iTunes yet but I'm sure it will come.

Did spot some interesting and some very dodgy hypnosis products on there already. I feel the need to check out the other offerings.

Words are important...

I hear many people say "I'll try..." and then they fail.

Try implies failure!

Choose a different word and change your mind.

Give "I'll strive to do that ..." a road test. You might be surprised by what you achieve!

A tidal wave of news that swamps the mind

I like to stay up to date with current affairs. I listen to the radio, watch TV news (less often) and follow blogs. But there are times when it can all feel a bit too much. When the tidal wave of negative images and stories makes me forget just how great the human spirit can be.

Then it's time to turn off and reflect on what I have (and you have too) rather than what may or may not happen in the future. And while you are turning off the news flow a picture can calm the mind. This one was taken in Lyme Regis earlier this week.

Sun rise at Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK - click to enlarge