My new book

My new Book is published called "Hidden in View Photography 2011".
For a preview or to order a copy go to:

Hidden In View Photography 2011 by John Brooks | Make Your Own Book

Want to learn Chinese??

My wife is getting more and more work now teaching Mandarin and Cantonese at schools, businesses and many private students on a one to one basis. She enjoys it very much and gets great results too. All her GCSE students did well. You can find her website at www.chinese-tuition.co.uk and on various index sites for local resources e.g.
Bristol Chinese Tutor

and Gumtree

The students take lessons for leisure, business or academic purposes and seem to really enjoy her friendly and interesting teaching style.

Back to China

The Icelandic Volcano delayed our visit to China by a few days and having already booked a return flight to Beijing, I was less than pleased at having to buy extra flights to Hong Kong! Also had then to fly up to Nanjing for myy first meeting. Then to Chengdu, then Changsa and next by high speed train(200mph+) to Guangzhou.

The symposiums went well and were well attended with up to 200 attendees and I enjoyed the way in which my presentations were received and translated so well by Luo Huizhen.
We visited the hometown of Mao Tze Dong and had some great meals and rice wine which I am very fond of!

Great team of people to work with in each City and got to know the regional managers this time in addition to renewing aquaintenances with the President who is extremely good.




After a weekend in Guangdong we went back to Beijing for the final meetings with Lucy Zhou and Mr Ciao the President of the Beijing company. They took us to another superb restaurant and tea house and to the Temple of Heaven.

Birth Day Boy

Easter Sunday and a very auspicious day for the birth of our first grandson, as yet name undeclared, although Charles, Theo and Archie have been mentioned recently. Anyway baby brooks tumbled into the world at 3.13am 12th April weighing 8 lbs and 3 ozs but looks much older as he was a while overdue and came with a good head of hair!! So as our Lord is risen the baby was born which has to be a good start in life.
Our friends Marcus and Yue arrived back from Cuba minus the promised bottle of Cuban Rum!! Sadly for them their flight was routed back through Paris rather than direct to Heathrow or Gatwick and the French customs took the precious bottle of Legendario 7 year old rum, the bastards!!
While in Cuba they looked up our old friends Gasper and Hugo which was a great occasion for all as the Cuban colleagues have fond memories of other British visitors.

It was also the 50th birthday party of another friend on Sunday, so Melvin invited us to join him and his family for the celebrations which were blessed with lovely sunshine giving everybody the chance to enjoy the outdoor party. Thankfully his bottle of Jamaican Rum arrived ok!!

This Country??

The picture has nothing to do with the content of this blog but I thought it was an interesting one to grab your attention!!
After a busy week at a conference in York, Weymouth and Bournemouth and a visit to Tesco, I scanned the Radio Times for the week just to check what might be presented to us for Holy Week, in particular on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
At first my hopes were raised when I noticed that on the page that listed Good Fridays offerings, the margin of that page was decorated with images from the crucifixion in an artistic and tasteful manner. Imagine my disappointment and even disgust when I found NO religeous content at all on within the programmes listed!! I now discover that Great Britain, according to the BBC, is no longer a Christian Country!!!!!
There is NO reference to the Last Supper and no reference to the Crucifixion apart from Fridays tenuous link at 11.45am to "The Greatest Story Ever Told", rather an ancient american depiction of the story of Christ.
What harm would it do to have some religeous material on these days, tucked away on BBC3 or BBC4, by means of a televised service from Westminster Cathedral (not the Abbey, the lowest of low services) or any church that gives a worthwhile service with some reverence, good music, good silences and meaningful spirituality within it?
No wonder the country is falling apart at the seams and completely lost its way! We are more likely to hear or see references to a non-christian service on television nowadays. The government and the Beeb have gone far too far with its PC policies giving in to all other races, beliefs and non-British culture at the cost of sacrificing most of Britain's culture and history.

Moreover there is a very strange anomoly presented by HM Government! My wife, who is an immigrant, has to take a citizenship test shortly and has been avidly studying the course available on a CD/DVD. One of the questions was what perecentage of the UK is Christian? The answer apparently is 71.6%! Well, you could have fooled me on that one. If this is so why doesn't the BBC represent this within their programming over the most important religeous week of the Christian calendar? Just in passing, my wife has converted to Christianity during her 2 years in this country including baptism and confirmation.
Well I have had enough of this nonsense and would say that if immigrants don't like British culture, beliefs,laws, religeon and politics then they can go back to where they came from!
If any Brit tried to reject another countries culture,law and beliefs in say a Muslim country, then the Brit would end up in prison, or at best deported.
We are happy to tolerate freedom of belief and cultural differences but NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF OURS.
SO BBC, PLEASE GIVE US OUR CULTURE AND BELIEFS BACK?
Interestingly enough, just to prove how far the rot has set in, a colleague of mine recently told me of someone he knows who is getting married on Good Friday"! So just as they nail Christ to the Cross the unfortunate couple will be at their marriage, what about bad taste and bad luck? I am amazed beyond belief at their ingnorance or their lack of taste and equally amazed that none of their family or friends told them what they are doing. Also I am surprised that the Registrar agreed to marry them that day, or am I? After all the Registrar IS a CIVIL SERVANT and A) would not know any better and B) the Government would not know any better either. They are too busy working out how they can further enhance their earnings or expenses like charging pornography to the public purse!

Hold on please!!

This week I visited a remote farm and barn in Herefordshire and was confronted by an amusing sight. The picture illustrates the temporary support measures that the local builder provided to the wall of the barn..............

As you can see there is a canvas strap through the window / door reveal opening and then it is ties around the nearby TREE!!!!
I also went to Cardigan and spotted this sight outside the Town Hall.


Last night I attended a Faculty dinner where the guest speaker was Ann Widdicombe, who , to my surpise, was quite entertaining. The star of the evening though was Terry Langdon of Gleeds, the incoming President, who had me in stitches. He described the professional members of the Building Team as follows:
The Architects as knowing a little about quite a lot but as they progress through their careers end up knowing very little about nearly everything; the Structural Engineers as knowing a great deal about very little and who end up knowing everything about nothing; the Quantity Surveyors he described as those, who after the battle, go around bayonetting the wounded; and finally the Lawyers who follow them by skinning the dead!
My apologies for anyy errors in my memory of these descriptions. But I firmly believe that the Faculty will have a good year under Terry's guidance.
Have a good weekend.

Praze-an-Beeble

The title of this blog, Praze-an-Beeble, is the name of a the village which I drove through to get to Godolphin House, a superb grade 1 listed granite built building dating from Tudor and Stuart times where once lived the Godolphin family until the 18th century. It is now owned by the National Trust but currently closed for some urgently needed restoration work. The collonade has some structural problems which the architects, conservation specialists "Architecton", aked me to look at.
Anyway, back to Praze-an-Beeble, which I hazarded a guess at the origin of this peculiar sounding appellation. I enquired of the National Trust buildings man, Malcolm who is a local person and extremely amiable, and confirmed my guess. The inhabitants of the eponomous village were strong Methodists and the adjoining villages referred to them as "all praise and bible people" hence the Cornish vernacular corruption into praze-an-beeble!


The other property which I visited was a fairly remote farm over the moor from the famous Daphne Du Maurier Jamaica Inn. It was a medieval hall house which was greatly changed over the centuries but retains its original "crossing" twixt animal house and human house. There are a number of ancient original features around the building too including granite gate posts, animal water troughs and steps.



The property can only be accessed by a track, which crosses a stream, and is totally unsuitable for any vehicle apart from a 4WD, so on this occasion I excuse the owners for possessing one!!! It is truly a beautiful collection of buildings encompassing a lot of history and set in a wonderful location. Once again I am lucky to see and work on such places.

Spring must be here! (Cornwall and Somerset)

In my role as a consultant in things "historical for the repair of structurally" I get to see some interesting buildings, places and countryside, and as such I am extremely lucky. This week is proving no exception.
A visit to a mediaeval barn in Somerset provided an opportunity to see some newly born lambs, and their mums, in addition to a magnificent barn which needs some serious work doing to it.





The barn is being restored and thankfully will remain as a barn as the owner of the farm recognises the important status of the building. The very caring consultant overseeing the structural aspects is my dear friend Patrick Stow, who also acts for Somerset County Council in things of historical importance.

Back in the fog

Our return flight from Beijing was delayed by one hour at departure due to "technical problems" on the incoming flight, always a bit worrying, and then we had a really smooth good flight as compensation. However when we neared Heathrow there was the inevitable fog and we were "stacked" in loops around the airport to allow waiting flights to get landed and others to take off. The food was as bad as ever and I fail to see why BA cannot serve up a half decent meal like Virgin does!
As we had landed so late we missed our connection and had to re-book and pay an extra fiver for the privelidge! We eventually arrived home after 10pm instead of the anticipated 7pm and dropped into bed without eating and just pleased to be at home again.
We might need to go back to Nanjing in March or April so should be a bit warmer then.

A Very Cold trip in Beijing

Our flight from Heathrow was delayed by nearly 2 hours due to the fog and allowing the waiting incoming flights to come in before our take off. 10 hours later we arrived at Beijing


We arrived in Beijing to a warm reception from our hosts who met us at the airport and whisked us off to our hotel but the weather was less than warm being a chilly minus 2. The next few days were spent in meetings with the Police and Army of the PRC and two outings.
We had a convivial time and some interesting meals, especially those in the country. We were accompanied by a colleague of mine this time who had not been to China before and it was all a bit of a shock to him!! I must say to his credit that he was brave and tried a number of unusual food items despite some initial misgivings. He even quickly learnt the use of chopsticks by necissity due to the lack of western "eating irons" in the country.



.


The Army camp was located a few hours North of Beijing, beyond the Great Wall, and getting near to Inner Mongolia. Hence the coldness was nearing that of Siberia not too many miles Northwest of us!!
The writer and his companion took shelter from the bitter wind in an army bunker!

Overall the trip was very successful despite some shortcomings on the client side and we now expect to return again in the summer.

Have you seen any foxes...? Happy New Year

A Very Happy New Year to all friends & family and anyone who reads this blog.
We celebrated the coming of 2009 over a few days with family and friends and neighbours in various ways,all of which were most convivial and enjoyable. We will not bore you with the details of these intimate times spent by relating names, places and details apart from an anonymous event which was amusing to all who were there.
The aspects of local wildlife came into the conversation and a long term friend and partner, who live in woodlands, enquired of my wife if she sees any foxes in China?
She thoughtt for a moment and then said "Yes, in zoos", then added helpfully "and in restaurants". Our friends at first looked puzzled but then their expressions turned into one of slight shock and horror as it dawned on them that the restaurant inclusion meant that fox was on the menu!! My wife then laughed to cover her embarassment and apologised to them, bless her. Thankfully it was all taken well and the evening continued in a harmonious state.

Christmas reflections

Christmas Eve we attended midnight mass, it being dry and not too cold for once outside, and was very warm in the church with about 80% full congregation. A very good service with some delightful music, Smiths Mass setting and a Tavener piece to inspire the soul. The sermon was forgettable but caused me to reflect upon those times this last year when the plight of others had been brought to mind by personal experience or witness of occasions. Two such events of contrasting, but by no means less meaningful, were respectively in Edinburgh and Chengdu. The first was the return parade of "the Scottish Regiment" along the Royal Mile. We stood outside the City Hall atop the hill and heard the bagpipes from the bottom of the hill gradually becoming louder as they ascended with the marching troops. As the soldiers passed the Brigadier and Sheriff they gave the salute. We were very moved by the sight of these battle worn men recently returned from Afghanistan and could see the battle stress in their faces. The column of troops was followed by one of their soldiers in his wheelchair.
The other event was at Chengdu Station in Sechuan Province, China where we alighted from the train and found hundreds of young soldiers on the platform with lots of gear waiting to go to Tibet. The Government had brought their parents to see them off and would transport them home subsequently.
To serve in Tibet is considered an honour as to be picked for duty you need to be very fit so that you can endure the harsh conditions and rare atmosphere in that part of the World. These young men are also facing the unknown and their families fearful for their safety and anxious about their returning home one day.
We have not yet been to Tibet but hope to in 2009 or 2010 if we have time. There is a new train service from Beijing to Lhasa taking about 4 days through very spectacular scenery which we would like to try along with two Chinese friends.
Anyway, these memories came to mind whilst at mass and reminded me of others who need us to include them in our prayers.
May your Christmas be peaceful and Happy.

Not another banking story........?

I took this photo in Nanjing in November and think that it is an apt subject for the banking fraternity, showing a forlorn, desperate man on the steps in front of a bank!
My latest experience with Lloyds TSB is pretty unbelievable. In September I used the bank to send a few hundred US Dollars to a person in China, by an express "International Moneymover" as they like to call it. the bank had sent me a text message confirming the completion of the process. I have done this on many occasions in the past. This was a first time payment to the particular recipient whose bank is located in Kowloon. The receipient recently called me to say the money had not been received, so I sent a copy of the Bank Form that had been completed, by the bank clerk, to them as proof of payment. A few days later the chinese person called again to say the money had definately NOT been received. I headed for the bank with copies of all the paperwork, including the recipients bank details which they had emailed to me and which I had given to the bank clerk to use on the bank form. I had checked all the details after the clerk had finished and before the bank sent it off. At the bank I related the facts and handed all the paperwork to "Bill" the friendly bank clerk who said it would take while to check it all out as they ahd to contact the International Dept. OK. After about 50 minutes Bill came back with the Branch Manager in tow, a female called Lucy. Lucy then proceeded to say that the bank form had been filled in wrongly as Kowloon (Hong Kong) is not in China!!!!!
I was flabbergasted by this statement and assured her that Hong Kong IS IN CHINA. She maintained her insistance about this and was very aggressive, defensive and assertive while poor Bill stood to one side in an embarrased fashion. I asked Lucy if she had ever been to Hong Kong and if she realised that the UK had handed back Hong Kong to the Chinese a few years ago. After confessing that she had NOT been to Hong Kong or anywhere near it she gave me a short lecture on her version of the history and status of Hong Kong. Having told her that I have been there 4 times in the last 3 years she merely said that the discussion could go on for hours like this and refused to concede the point. However she did say that as far as the Banking fraternity were concerned Hong Kong is not in China which belied the truth of the matter. Her staff needed more training about THEIR systems and to know this fact. In the end she agreed to re-send the money without further charge and to pay the difference in exchange rate between now and the original date as there was a difference of about 30 cents to the pound!! So I believe that she had admitted their mistake by that action. After she had vanished I looked at Bill who had a wry smile on his face, he is no fool. I told him that her behavious had been outrageous and was no way to treat a customer as the whole argument was in the main banking hall in front of all the staff and customers. I think she must have been suffering from PMT that day or had too much coffee that morning. She is not the right sort of person to be a branch manager and I intend to write to her superiors about the incident. When I returned home to my Chinese wife and told her that Hong Kong is not in China she looked at me in total disbelief!! Gone are the days when bank managers were educated gentlemen with polite and courteous manners. More's the pity. Perhaps if we still had them the current banking mess would not have happened?

Madness

On the subject of madness I believe that we all have the capacity for some madness, in fact it might be that the more intelligent we are the more capable of madness we are! You may ask why I make this statement? Well, given the recent events in the World financial markets and banking I think my point is copiously illustrated. The bankers and financial "wiz-kids" have been very clever in their conjuring with our money with sub-prime lending hedge funds, devised to make us (them) rich, have finally been exposed as totally indadequate in their profession. Further more their greed has caused them to panic and create even greater mayhem than necessary and probably to line their pockets even more through commissions on stock trading whether prices are going up or down.
Added to this is the further injury that no less than an ex-president of NASDAQ has just been exposed as the author of probably the world's largest single scam which may exceed $50 BILLION!!! The large banks bought into this scam, again a hedge fund, and now stand to lose billions themselves. So how does this leave us, the taxpayers, who have already baled out these inept bankers with our tax dollars?
Unlike the millions of people who have borrowed to the hilt on plastic at the encouragement of the banks, those of us who have no debts or mortgage but have endeavoured to lead to a financially prudent existence are the ones who are suffering most of all. With the possibility of a zero interest bank rate our savings are returning very little and our pensions invested in stocks have plummetted in value too. Whereas the "spend - spend" brigade with huge mortgages and on oversized houses and gas guzzling chelsea tractors are going to benefit the most from the governments two year payment holiday on mortgages at our expense!!
I believe that it is time to go back to basics where banks etc only lend 1.5 to 2.0 times the annual salary of the principal wagearner of the household and NOT 3 or 4 times the joint income. This would lead to more sensible property values and more affordable homes for ordinary people. Likewise overdrafts and credit card lending should be limited to the same restrictions and the banks get back to having real "bank managers" instead of these inexperienced twits who only want to sell you something (usually an overpriced service that you don't want or need) rather than to provide sound financial advice and sensible help when you need it.
So my friends, the inmates have been running the asylum for too long, it is time to lock up these idiots so we may retain our sanity.

What more pictures?

I've had complaints about not enough pictures of China but there is an album to view if you look at the previous blogs with a webaddress to go to for viewing it!!
But I will add some more pics here anyway so here they are.............

Final days in Guangdong

The last few days have been spent relaxing, dining with family and friends and attending wedding dinner number 3. Walked around the local village market and then realised with horror that the flight is tonight, not tomorrow!! The 00.40 flight from HK always catches us out, we forget that means go to HK Thursday NOT Friday as the 00.40 is Friday morning. This is the fourth time in succession that we have made this mistake, you would think that we would have cottoned on to it by now!?
Good return flight and slept for 10 of the 13 hours so arrived home 10am and went to bed usual time and awoke usual time next day so was not beaten by jetlag this time.
If you would like to see more photos of the trip please copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/83799077