The Chuffington Post

The Bard of Barnsley, Ian McMillan, states in his book Neither Nowt Nor Summat that more people live in Yorkshire than in Scotland. Is he right? Let's check, shall we? According to the 2011 census Yorkshire had 5,288,200 inhabitants. That's North, South, West & East Yorkshire rather than the ceremonial county which would still include Middlesbrough and other bits of what is now called Cleveland. Scotland's population was 5,313.600. Ooh, that's close. And a bit of a surprise to me, to be honest. Only 4 of Scotland's cities are in the Top 50 most inhabited towns & cities in the UK, with Dundee only just making the cut in 47th place. Glasgow comes third and Edinburgh 9th, and Aberdeen pops up at number 29, but Yorkshire has Sheffield (6th), Leeds (8th), Bradford (11th), Hull (15th), Huddersfield (40th) and York (45th). Places 51 to 100 include no Scottish places at all but Doncaster, Rotherham, Wakefield, Barnsley and Halifax are all in there. Something...

...that the warmest place in Britain yesterday was London; the coldest was Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire. And it frequently was; in fact I was disappointed on the odd day that Eskdalemuir was not the coldest place in the country. Sometimes some other pretender like Aberdeen or Stranraer would claim the prize instead, but I wasn't having that, and I resolved that one day I would go there and find out the truth for myself, so today I fulfilled a lifelong dream. I have been to Eskdalemuir. Of course you've got to get there first, which probably means going to Langholm; at least that's what our road atlas told us. We should have taken the A7. If you ever want to go to Langholm from the South, my advice is to take the A7 because the other roads that appear on your map are cunningly disguised to send you in the wrong direction. At one point I calculated that we were 4 miles away, only for a road sign to point back to where we had come from and give us the unwelcome message LAN...

So, here we are, North of the Border, or rather West of it because if you travel due east from here through Gretna and out the other side you'll be back in England again. That's England in the picture, across the Solway Firth. Berwick-upon-Tweed is about 80 miles to the North of where we live now, but this is Scotland, alright.  The day we arrived our furniture was still in Sheffield. We couldn't work out how to put the central heating on, there were no firelighters to get the log burner going even if we were capable of doing it and the gas fire doesn't ignite, so it was a cold 'un. I had to admire Petal's quick decision, when we went for an early night on a couple of airbeds, to assign the one that had gone flat to me. Consequently, I spent the night on the floor. As if that wasn't uncomfortable enough, when I did finally get to sleep I was awakened by cats sitting on my feet. They had been such heroes on the journey up that we'd decided to l...

55 years on from my first football match at Chesterfield, to what, today, might be my last, since in 3 weeks time we are flitting across to the other, colder side of Hadrian's Wall and it's not very likely that I'll be coming back just to watch the Spireites. In fact, I've been watching Sheffield United instead recently but that's another story and besides, that doesn't wipe out all the memories, going back to that first game, a 2-2 draw with Workington in October 1963. The 1960s were a 4th Division era, the 1970s a 3rd Division one, with the time since then spent alternating between the two. This long spell of respectable mediocrity has been interrupted by 2 significant events; the Anglo-Scottish Cup win in 1981 and the out-of-character FA Cup run to a semi-final replay in 1997. As the Anglo-Scottish win slips further into the distance, some folk are beginning to remember it (or in most cases, hear about it) as Town beating Rangers in the Final, but t...

That's a pretty good epitaph. Bob died aged 59 in a road accident, when his car overturned on the M1 (no-one knows why) while he was driving to London. His wife Ann was also injured, but recovered to become his successor as MP for Keighley. Their son John is currently the member for Leyton & Wanstead, 200 miles away from the city of Bradford where Bob was born and where his gravestone stands now, in Undercliffe Cemetery. With the best will in the world Bradford isn't a beautiful place but Undercliffe cemetery is probably its most attractive spot, especially for anyone who likes graveyards. JB Priestley lies there as well, along with numerous Octaviuses, Jeremiahs, Mary Anns and Sarahs. The old Pennine tradition of giving boys first names that should be surnames produced the likes of Bassett Banes and Fountain Read. If Bradley Hardacre had really existed I expect his grave would lie in the cemetery as well. There are numerous huge, impressive towers and monuments er...

No wonder Peppa Pig looks upset. She's been mocked on Twitter for choosing the wrong wine to go with her swill. That's a bit like the fate that befell a young woman (she has a degree and works for Deliveroo, so she's probably got enough on her plate with a £50,000 debt) who was last night's social media laughing stock. She was unwise enough to tweet her anger at discovering that the pizza she'd bought for £4 from Sainsbury's had meat in it. She didn't know that Prosciutto Cotto meant Ham, you see. What an ignoramus! Naturally, it goes without saying that I didn't know, till last night, what Prosciutto Cotto is, either. Today I passed by a shop advertising Chicken Mole. That's something new to me as well. Either it's a very strange hybrid of two very different animals, or a mole who runs away at the first sign of danger. Because I live in Sheffield I see a lot of stuff on Twitter about tree-felling. There is a very well organised campaign...

We woke up full of anticipation on Monday since two different people seemed to love our house so much they were about to compete with each other to buy it. Neither of them has been heard of since. I can only conclude that they are freaks who like looking around people's houses just to be nosey. Very frustrating. Meanwhile I was back in the tribunal court today & although the results weren't as good as last week the experience was much more pleasant, the judge and doctor much friendlier and consequently the whole thing less of an ordeal for the claimants. The doctor doesn't like me very much (we had a fallout in the past) and will not pass the time of day with me but she has the right bedside manner with appellants and that's what matters. She's alright. The media isn't as anti-claimant as it used to be. When New Labour were in opposition to the Con/Lib coalition anyone on benefit was considered fair game for abuse but these days they've tended to ...