As I followed my friend Ferval...wrong thread too...

For anyone with a spare few minutes to contemplate the meaning of life;



The Darwin Awards

( otherwise known as the idiotic ways in which human beings can kill themselves )

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I'm sorry but, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

US pastor Tony Perkins, who believes natural disasters are sent by God to punish gay people, has fled his flooded home in a canoe.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/christian-home-destroyed-flood-tony-perkins-natural-disasters-gods-punishment-homosexuality-a7196786.html

"This is a flood of near-biblical proportions," he said in an interview with the Family Research Council. "We had to escape from our home Saturday by canoe. We had about 10 feet of water at the end of our driveway. Our house flooded, a few of our cars flooded."

Tut, tut, didn't he have an ark ready rather than all those cars?

Halloween on Monday.

Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor looks really spooky.

"Black Shuck" as reported in 1577:

Slains Castle, Aberdeenshire, as it appeared in the 1890s when Bram Stoker visited the area:



and as it appears today:

The naff end of a local town High Street where few shoppers make an effort to visit has suddenly sprung to life because an enterprising family have opened a Belgian Waffle shop. It has been packed since opening and I doubt they could cope with take away for a while. I reminds me of a shop I saw abroad called 'Just Desserts' which is only  take away and was always busy. No one seems to be counting calories as  we are pressed to. The dessert selling shops in Turkey really are a delight........

The Takahanga marae (Maori meeting house) at Kaikoura were very impressive with their response to the 7.8 earthquake a week ago, feeding hundreds of tourists and locals with 10,000 meals and 1700 emergency food packages and providing places to sleep. They served their "last supper" today.  1.5 tonnes of crayfish were served when people's freezers couldn't be powered and people donated the left-over food in them.  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11751819 

Kaikoura's economy is very dependent on whaling and tourism, and Ngai Tahu is the Maori iwi (tribe) that services the whole of the South Island.  It has been the recipient of a treaty settlement of millions of dollars and has used this money very wisely and grown it a lot, and is a major player in the southern economy. 

It's been a wonderful effort.

Kudos to the same people for their archaeological savvy too, Caro, an incidence of which I found when googling their recent history.

When the Ngati Kuri received permission in the 1980s to rebuild the Takahanga Marae on their site (the scene of an 1828 battle which had destroyed their settlement there) they found the 450 year old remains of the foundations of their original meeting place destroyed in that battle. Building of the new "standing place" was deferred by them until a proper excavation and preservation of these foundations could be completed. The new building was then changed in its design so that it would not interfere with the preserved sub-structure and effectively now serves as protection for these remains.

I also like that they have preserved the privacy of the Takahanga Marae and have banned incidental tourism from wandering in and around their locale despite their acknowledged dependency on that industry (apparently if one is polite enough to request an invitation then one gets rather more than just a guided tour but also a lot of history thrown in to boot).

It's general to ask permission or await invitation before visiting a marae.  There are protocols of welcoming and order in the procedures.  I remember my son and I following tourist signs to Parihaka, the site of a historic stand-off between peaceful protesting Maori and avenging Pakeha, and quite a well-known historical event at least in recent years.  We were given friendly waves while we were there and when I asked if I could take photos, I was told I could.  But when I returned to the Information Centre in nearby New Plymouth and wondered why they didn't have information about this place, they growled at us and said we shouldn't have gone there, despite the brown tourist signs that in New Zealand at least signify a place to visit. 

But at most marae you wouldn't go there without going through the formal channels.  Some schools etc have "marae" on them so they can perform official powhiri (welcomes), though I did read a few years ago where some Maori were querying these.  I think that is just the more radical and political Maori and I haven't heard of complaints in recent years.

What is going on? Minette and Catty will no doubt pop up later - Ghosts of Res His Past.

I do hope so.

Minette is still suffering a decline after she was upstaged by Philipa as the chief mourner of the nun's bones found under the carpark. She'll never recover from the shock that she wasn't one with the greatest crush on a 600 year old skeleton, nor that it wasn't her that got to weep, wail, pull hair and beat breast over the grave site on international telly.

Ah - alas, 'tis all too true.


"...Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom..."

I suppose we must all be grateful that Temps didn't take Swahili as her main subject....... still, on reflection I bet they probably don't have as many poems.

Wise people then P. But it wouldn't matter whether it is English or Swahili, poetry is completely lost on me.

Over on the Rant thread, ferval posted this:







Wonderful tapestry - Stirling Castle? I have to go there in 2017 (DV). I  also want to visit Dunbar where Mary Stuart apparently spent an ecstatic few days with Bothwell before everything went even more pear-shaped than it already was. And Lochleven - I cannot believe I have never been there except in my imagination.

I love those stripey tights. Who's the bloke wearing them, ferval? Is it James IV, or V?

PS Had a massive five-minute huff about my poetry quoting. I offer a nice bit of culture to you all and get mocked for my pains. You'll all be sorry. Just you wait...

Here's some more about the tapestries Temp:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunt_of_the_Unicorn

and here:


http://www.stirlingcastle.gov.uk/discover/highlights/the-stirling-tapestries/


I'm usually a bit sniffy about recreations of the past but the palace at Stirling is I feel is very effective in conjuring up an impression of a renaissance palace in its pomp, it's the impact of all the vivid colour as opposed to the faded splendour to which we are accustomed.

The 'heads are great fun as well, both the replacements:




nd the originals:





Have you been to Linlithgow in your M, QoS tours? It's another example of the Scottish renaissance style and such a contrast to some of the gloomy old castles. The setting is wonderful and the fountain has been refurbished.

Hurrah Temp, our favourite philosopher is coming back on the telly.


Philomena is now on a festive mission to track down the true meaning of Christmas, and find out exactly what it is he wants. It's an insightful documentary which takes her on a journey from pagan winter festivals and the nativity story, via "Sir Charles Dickings" all the way up to today's obsession with Santa.

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/cunk_on/episodes/1/2/

ferval wrote:

Hurrah Temp, our favourite philosopher is coming back on the telly.


Philomena is now on a festive mission to track down the true meaning of Christmas, and find out exactly what it is he wants. It's an insightful documentary which takes her on a journey from pagan winter festivals and the nativity story, via "Sir Charles Dickings" all the way up to today's obsession with Santa.

Hurrah indeed! Thanks for alerting me to that - I might have missed it.

I wonder if our Philomena will discuss the Haggadic midrash interpretation of the nativity narratives with expert Jeffrey John? I bet she does!

Oh goody.

Jeffrey John: Yes, the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew's Gospels are quite obviously examples of Haggadic midrash - midrashic interpretation being an attempt to penetrate into the spirit of the text, to examine the text from all sides, to derive meanings not immediately obvious, to illustrate the future by appealing to the past. You do not ask of midrash, "Did it all actually happen?" It is more useful to consider, "What was there about this birth that caused it to be incorporated into the midrash tradition?"

Philomena: You mean they made it all up then? That's an absolute bloody disgrace - someone should report the pair of them.

ferval wrote:

Philomena is now on a festive mission to track down the true meaning of Christmas, and find out exactly what it is he wants. It's an insightful documentary which takes her on a journey from pagan winter festivals and the nativity story, via "Sir Charles Dickings" all the way up to today's obsession with Santa.

Just watched it - really disappointing. Never thought I'd say that about our Philomena, but...

The best bits were the children she interviewed - they were  brilliant. There is some hope for the future then.

I did like the question she posed to the "food expert" about Tudor Christmas feasting though. Perhaps MM can give a better answer than he did. Actually, I don't think he gave an answer - he just mumbled something about them not really eating peacock.

PC: What goes with peacock? What sort of gravy?

A ginger sauce seems the correct late 14th century accommpaniment in England (from 'Forme of Cury', circa 1385):

Pecockys and pertrigchis schul be yperboyld & lardyd & osted. þe sauce schal be gynger.

Or if you want something more sophisticated and in the continetal style there's this (from 'Libre del Coch', Spain, 1520):

TO MAKE SAUCE FOR PEACOCK. For five dishes, take a pound of toasted almonds, and grind them well in a mortar, and take the livers of the peacocks or capons or hens, which should be cooked in a pot, and grind them with the almonds, and then take a crustless piece of bread which should be soaked in orange juice or white vinegar, and the bread must be toasted; and then grind it all together with the livers and with the almonds; and after everything is ground, thin this sauce with two egg yolks for each dish, and then strain it through a woolen cloth with the said fine spices; and when it has been strained, put it into the pot with the sugar, and taste it or sample it for sourness, which should be moderate, and then cook it until it is done to a turn; and when it is cooked, prepare dishes, and put sugar and cinnamon upon the sauce.

It was rather limp, I preferred her bits in Charlie Brooker's 2016 Wipe.

This is sure get taken down very soon, the Brian Cox segment towards the end made me smile.

At last!  2016 can go out with one very good thing.

China to ban ivory trade by the end of 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/30/china-ban-ivory-trade-2017-elephants-wwf

Just seen an excellent piece on The One Show about London's lost rivers and wanted to have a little rave about it. They had this chap on who organises what sounds like fascinating tours around lost rivers in the capital.

http://www.londonslostrivers.com/


During the short but interesting programme segment, Arthur Smith and Paul Tilling (the author of London's Lost Rivers) were filmed climbing down into the London sewage system to show us the infamous River Fleet. It's still there all right. The bowels of London, Tilling called these underground waterways: some apparently moving rather sluggishly, but others, like the Fleet which we viewed, still remarkably swift-flowing.

Some of the lost rivers have great names: I particularly like Mutton Brook.

What I didn't know is that there are "lost rivers" flowing underground in many of England's cities and towns: the programme mentioned Bradford Beck and also rivers in Bristol and Sheffield which are being "restored". There has been a very successful project in Rochford: the River Roch, which disappeared under the town's tram network around 1900, is now a "proper" river again.

http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/planning-and-building/regenerating-the-borough/river-roch/Pages/default.aspx


The River Roch, which has been hidden underneath Rochdale town centre for more than a century, has been uncovered, alongside its historic bridge, as part of a wider £250m regeneration programme.​

The bridge was built in the medieval period and expanded as the town grew, with sections dating back to the Regency, Georgian and Restoration periods.

By the early 1900s, the bridge and river had been covered over and they’ve been hidden from view ever since. But ​now they're on display once again, offering visitors a stunning historical attraction and an attractive place to sit and watch the world go by.

As well as giving visitors a glimpse of Rochdale’s glorious past, the project reduces the flood risk in the town centre. The opening will also re-naturalise the river and help attract new wildlife into the area. Brown trout, K​ingfisher and Pied Wagtail​s have all been spotted.​​


I think this is wonderful - hence my putting it on the Rave thread. I don't know why I find "old" rivers so fascinating, but I do. I'm glad so many are being "restored".



PS This writer, U.A. Fanthorpe, has (sadly) been mocked elsewhere on Res His, but, as Arthur Smith read her poem Rising Damp (about London's lost rivers) on The One Show this evening, I shall take the risk and quote it here. This is where Eng. Lit. and History collide - but happily so, I think. Well, at least I hope so.


RISING DAMP, U. A. Fanthorpe

'A river can sometimes be diverted but is a very hard thing to lose altogether.'
(Paper to the Auctioneers' Institute, 1907)

At our feet they lie low,
The little fervent underground
Rivers of London

Effra, Graveney, Flacon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

Whose names are disfigured,
Frayed, effaced.

There are the Magogs that chewed the clay
To the basin that London nestles in.
These are the currents that chiselled the city,
That washed the clothes and turned the mills,
Where children drank and salmon swam
And wells were holy.

They have gone under.
Boxed, like the magician's assistant.
Buried alive in earth.
Forgotten, like the dead.

They return spectrally after heavy rain,
Confounding suburban gardens. They inflitrate
Chronic bronchitis statistics. A silken
Slur haunts dwellings by shrouded
Watercourses, and is taken
For the footing of the dead.

Being of our world, they will return
(Westbourne, caged at Sloane Square,
Will jack from his box),
Will deluge cellars, detonate manholes,
Plant effluent on our faces,
Sink the city.

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

It is the other rivers that lie
Lower, that touch us only in dreams
That never surface. We feel their tug
As a dowser's rod bends to the surface below

Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, Styx.

Ursula Andress Fanthorpe isn't half bad when she sticks to aquatic urban geography. It's only when she wanders into the drunken Persians bearing gifts category that she gets a bit iffy.

I was on a tour of London's underground rivers some years ago (they're not lost) and we clambered down into several. The Fleet was one, accessed legally through a manhole around Holborn (the Fleet being the "bourne" in its name). Others were slightly less than legal, I remember thinking, and one wasn't a river at all but a rather smelly part of what may have been originally excavated in Roman times as a cloaca but now bears stock exchange poo down to the Thames sewage line that runs under Thames Street (though used to go straight into the river).

It can't have been the same bloke doing the tour - unless Talling is pushing on 90 or so. Fascinating stuff, right enough, and tremendously exciting as we took turns doing nixer to keep an eye out for the rozzers as we hopped down manholes under the stewardship of our host doing a passable imitation of a paratroop commander ushering his charges out the plane door.

I had to look up "nixer". I have learnt a new word.

For me too, Temperance...

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/nixer

Kind regards, Paul.

And for me three ...

My Sunday paper's review of this week's upcoming TV included this:




If only.......

When I was working in London I remember walking on the "Green Way" which is on top of part of the sewerage system that Mr Bazalgette diverted some of the "lost" rivers too.  I think the Tyburn flows through the gardens of Buckingham Palace though I don't know if it's culveted now - have to ask next time I'm invited there for a cuppa (that's my slight attempt at humour).

This isn't Burns ( it's Monty Python)

Horace
Much to his Mum and Dad’s dismay
Horace ate himself one day.
He didn’t stop to say his grace,
He just sat down and ate his face.
“We can’t have this” his Dad declared,
“If that lad’s ate, he should be shared.”
But even as he spoke they saw
Horace eating more and more:
First his legs and then his thighs,
His arms, his nose, his hair, his eyes...
“Stop him someone!” Mother cried
“Those eyeballs would be better fried!”
But all too late, for they were gone,
And he had started on his dong...
“Oh! foolish child!” the father mourns
“You could have deep-fried that with prawns,
Some parsley and some tartar sauce...”
But H. was on his second course:
His liver and his lights and lung,
His ears, his neck, his chin, his tongue;
“To think I raised him from the cot
And now he’s going to scoff the lot!”
His Mother cried: “What shall we do?
What’s left won’t even make a stew...”
And as she wept, her son was seen
To eat his head, his heart, his spleen.
And there he lay: a boy no more,
Just a stomach, on the floor...
None the less, since it was his
They ate it – that’s what haggis is.

Well yes, quite ... and having been ripped off for the past couple of years buying a MacSween's haggis online through a specialist épicerie based in Paris, this year I decided to make my own. None of the ingredients were difficult to obtain from the local shops, with the sole exception of the vital stomach. But having made up my mixture "to an auld recipe" I just put it into a lightly floured cloth to be boiled like a clootie dumpling (I hope that's acceptable Ferval).

I've just put the wee beastie into the pot to simmer for tonight. Meanwhile, as I prepare my neeps, I'm listening to Bruch's  Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra (op.46), while of course having a wee dram. And here, just to give us a bit of Highland weather, it has also just started snowing:



... but the animals have all been fed, the log fire is lit, and I've food and drink enough for days if necessary. And I've a reeking rich pudden to look forward to tonight.

Do let us know how the clootie haggis turns out, I presume that it will have an edible skin if left to dry for a little just like the dumpling. Not that I've ever been a fan of the skin, nor the dumpling to be honest, unless sliced and fried up with bacon and eggs.

Snowing? It's sunny here and the temperature is in double figures and even warmer up in the Highlands.

Snow ... in the south of France! This is my poor olive tree:



... though I'm actually more concerned about the two rows of broad beans that I'd planted in November ... the little plants (all about 3" tall) had been doing so well.

Snow makes for beautiful pictures, though, doesn't it? 

There isn't a lot to rave about being in a wheelchair (mostly, though I can walk 10 or so metres with a stick), though no-one expects me to do any work, and sometimes it's quite nice to be pushed places instead of walking.

But on Friday, when we were going in and out of a restaurant in Dunedin people had to shift to let my wheelchair through the door in and out, and when I apologized for disturbing them so much, the woman holding the door open for us made it sound as if we'd done her a favour.  "It was an honour/privilege," (or something of that nature) she said. My heart warmed.  There is no doubt that a wheelchair brings out people's smiles and a willingness to talk - I suppose there is no threat from me, and it is a way to show sympathy.  Though the man driving out of a park next to us going into the disabled car park looked at us very suspiciously, so my husband got out of the car quickly and opened the boot and hoped he saw the wheelchair.

Caro wrote:

Snow makes for beautiful pictures, though, doesn't it? 

There isn't a lot to rave about being in a wheelchair (mostly, though I can walk 10 or so metres with a stick), though no-one expects me to do any work, and sometimes it's quite nice to be pushed places instead of walking.

But on Friday, when we were going in and out of a restaurant in Dunedin people had to shift to let my wheelchair through the door in and out, and when I apologized for disturbing them so much, the woman holding the door open for us made it sound as if we'd done her a favour.  "It was an honour/privilege," (or something of that nature) she said. My heart warmed.  There is no doubt that a wheelchair brings out people's smiles and a willingness to talk - I suppose there is no threat from me, and it is a way to show sympathy.  Though the man driving out of a park next to us going into the disabled car park looked at us very suspiciously, so my husband got out of the car quickly and opened the boot and hoped he saw the wheelchair.

Caro,

that all sounds familiar. Last year my wife couldn't go some 100 metres, but today its better. But nevertheless for visiting towns I push nevertheless her wheelchair, as I have done in the Spanish Tenerife (her wheelchair with the plane and everywhere priority on the airport). Even as in the Tower of London, some weeks ago, a free ticket for the "pusher" of the weelchair (that was me).
And everywhere as in your case the same politeness. But then and that was here in Bruges...we were without weelchair...a woman in a weelchair coming on the "terrasse" (outdoor café) making noice (cursing) about to many tables and chairs not easy to pass...and that before anyone could interfer to let her pass...

Hope you are reasonable well Caro in your present life...all the best from Paul.

ferval wrote:

Do let us know how the clootie haggis turns out, I presume that it will have an edible skin if left to dry for a little just like the dumpling. Not that I've ever been a fan of the skin, nor the dumpling to be honest, unless sliced and fried up with bacon and eggs.

Snowing? It's sunny here and the temperature is in double figures and even warmer up in the Highlands.

How did it turn out, Meles?

Only asking as another item I've blundered across is Polsa, the Swedish version of Haggis, which comes without a skin.

Polsa

It turned out really well ... I only very lightly dusted the pudding cloth with flour, just to get it sealed. So the haggis didn't really get a skin or crust, certainly nothing like the quarter-inch suety crust on a classic boiled/steamed steak'n'kidney pud. It was just like a 'normal' haggis really, just naked once out of the bag. I made two, each about 1kg in weight. The second batch of mixture I put into one of those heat-resistant plastic roasting bags you can get. That one is still in the freezer but I expect when defrosted and then boiled up for an hour or so it will turn out much like the first. And they were very cheap ... the most expensive ingredient was probably the box of Quaker porridge oats that I had to use, ground to a fine meal, in place of regular oat-meal as I failed to find that even in the big Auchan hypermarché at Perpignan.

Mmmm haggis ... I might have the second one this weekend, and over the following few days - haggis is very filling and a 1kg one certainly goes a long way.

In our Cale Society abroad we used whisky for gravy to pour over/drench  the haggis. This came as a shock i Essex at the Burns night do when I did the Burns Speech and I had thought it a normal thing to do.... and still do.It livens it up no end. On the other hand I expect I would be shocked if someone did similar to a Pease Pudden..... would that I could make it like wot muvver did in a clof bag.

Mark you no one would have a posh do with Pease Pudden on the menu....... perhaps Morris Men could dance it in and someone chant the nursery rhyme in a broad dialect. I dare say I could manage a 12 min totally irrelevant speech as ever.

Re the lost rivers of London, on the 13th February 1867, work began on covering over the River Senne in Brussels:

Covering of the Senne

Thank you so much Triceratops. Learned a lot about Brussels that I didn't know. Did some further research about the subject in Dutch and French...

Kind regards from Paul.

Trike, your post prompted me to do an internet search on the Senne (or Zenne).  Apparently it was dreadfully polluted in the Brussels area at one time.  It looks very pretty flowing through Rebecq (which I think is upstream from Brussels).

and

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Trike, your post prompted me to do an internet search on the Senne (or Zenne).  Apparently it was dreadfully polluted in the Brussels area at one time.  It looks very pretty flowing through Rebecq (which I think is upstream from Brussels).

and

Lady in retirement,

Rebecq indeed upstream from Brussels.
http://www.rebecq.be/view_pages-5-history.html
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.573717
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenne
There is more in the Dutch wiki
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenne

 Kind regards, Paul.

I hope there is truth in the news that will be a relaunch of the good ol' Nokia 3310. Could it catch on? People just using a phone to talk? Oh that I might reduce the constant head down busy thumb texting  habit that makes people seem so insecure. I am about to meet up with people who when in a group text each other while others talk. I am thinking about some ploys to use when this happens. Any ideas?
Leaving suddenly with a telling exit line appeals.

I do not use a smart phone and have forbidden  the gift of one brought in from abroad - cheaper that way - whilst understanding the advantages I deplore the obsession. But then my life now runs at a slower pace  with priorities long sorted. I  will never need the projected Wi Fi on Mount Everest. One of my joys in the Himalayan foothills was no telephone - I once got someone to voice call over the valleys to a place where we hoped to get lunch. And we got it - with upside down pud for afters, as I recall. And custard.

I thought I was the only person in the known universe who hasn't got a smarty pants phone. I hate them, especially people who insist on taking pictures of pieces of cake with them. I've got one of these on my desk - it works too, although it's a bit crackly:



It was a present from my husband who knew how fond I am of old junk. It even has the nice old cord thing instead of a curly, plastic wire. He put "Whitehall 1212" (remember that?) as the number in the round middle section. I always loved the names of the old London telephone exchanges - so much more evocative than a string of numbers. Having a posh exchange name was like having a posh postcode these days.

I too do not have a mobile phone, largely because there's no coverage here and I rarely go anywhere anyway. Mind you the fixed line sometimes doesn't work either and the internet, being via satellite, is also a bit flakey if it's raining or there's fog. But smoke signals and semaphore still work between here and the neighbours. However I do think I perhaps might get one for emergencies, such as if I break down or have an accident, nothing fancy just a simple pay as you go phone.

My mum was a GPO telephonist before the days of subscriber trunk dialling and all that modern malarky: "Please hold the line caller ... putting you through now" etc. And our first home phone, mid 1960s, was a so-called 'party line', so if you wanted, you could listen in to the neighbours' telephone conversations ... and equally they of course could listen in to yours.

So that's 4 people in the world who don't have mobiles or smarty phones. I don't either and don't see the point of them unless one travels a lot.  As I work at home, have a landline/wifi and a pc I can't think of any reason why they'd be of any use at all.

And like P, I loathe people talking/texting on phones when they're out with other people, what's the point of going out anyway if they are just going to ignore everyone? It is really quite rude.

The phone was always in the freezing cold hall, wasn't it, often on a special table. Vintage telephone tables are apparently collectors' pieces now.


This is a really horrible one, but still probably worth a few bob. I suppose someone will sand it down, re-paint it and put some trendy fabric on the cushions. But those legs are dreadful! I like the spaces for the phone directories though. Remember them?




This one is rather trendier: I actually quite like it (but not the seat which is a foul colour and appears to be vinyl - yuk). Very early 60s, I suppose.








I read somewhere that Paul Getty (not sure which one) had pay phones installed in all guest bedrooms. Bit mean, but then again probably very wise.