The Sunday Ramble: Life in The Black Country

The Black Country

You probably think writing a blog like this is easy; it’s not. There are lots of technical things you have to know. It’s no good me writing this stuff, if no one finds it and reads it. Is it? I have to optimise it for the search engines like Google and Bing. Today, my focus key phrase is “The Black Country”.

That’s it I should now have “The Black Country” in the URL, the title, the heading and the first paragraph; I think that should satisfy the robots that crawl cyber-space. I had to learn this stuff, but most of it’s common-sense.

This week’s news from the Black Country includes news that the south bound slip road of junction 9 on the M6 is to be closed. Too many people are using it to go to Ikea. I think some people could be coming up from Warwickshire to use B&Q too, but that’s just my theory on what’s going on. On the other side of the motorway, there is always a queue at Morrisons for the cheap petrol and a queue at the lights to turn right to Bescot station, the Sunday market and Walsall football club. Farmfoods and Matalan and that new store are down there too. Its just common-sense to shut the slip road, that’ll  stop the traffic jams. It’s terrible on Bank holidays when they all have a sale.

The Black Country flat-capped idiot who lives down that way said they should ban Bank Holiday sales. How stupid; they make money!

Walsall Manor hospital

On the other side of the motorway from me is the Manor hospital where they declared ‘a major incident’ this week,  “as staff struggle to cope with demand in its Accident and Emergency unit.”  They have the same problem sometimes in Aldi, they quite often have to open another till.

Offended?

I hope no one is offended by me making fun of them on a Sunday morning.

“At the end of the day in a free society, people have to be free to offend each other. You cannot have freedom unless people are free to offend each other. We have no right not to be offended.” Nick Clegg this week commenting on the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Nick should know, people say offensive things about him all the time, but he probably deserves it for sucking up to the Tories.

Junction 9

Junction 9 is in the heart of the Black Country (got it in again) with junction 10 just a couple of miles away. So I think if you have an accident south of junction 9 and the ambulance can’t leave the motorway at junction 9, it will have to go to junction 10 and then either come back down the motorway and take the south bound slip road at junction 9 and go to the already overstretched Manor Hospital or leave at junction 10 and then go to New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton. The Black Country has ways of doing things that are ahead of it’s time…

The Metro

Anyway for all those who can’t afford a car, there is always the Metro. It doesn’t go anywhere near a hospital, but you are safer on that than the motorway; so less likely to need a hospital. I might go and take photos of it today for my series of articles on photography over on a Zillion Ideas. The tram lines going away from me will give a lot of perspective to the pictures. The trams are quite colourful as well, so that’ll help. I want some shots with the camera set on landscape today. That’s what I’ll be covering this week, landscapes. I’ll also be giving readers a gentle introduction into shutter speed and aperture. I think I’ll make that a very gentle introduction, in very simple terms…

The Weather

It’s nice and sunny in the Black Country this morning and really good light for photography. I just need to have lunch early and then I’m off out! I just need to decide whether I need full thermals or just the usual thermal hat, gloves and parka today. I think it’s going to be quite cold, so maybe I’ll go for the full Monty; long johns and all. There is more to photography than you might think, I’ll be watching the sky for two hours to judge the light before I even go out. My camera is actually more sensitive to light than my eyes and probably adjusts to it quicker too. With the camera adjusting to the light, the pupils in my eyes adjusting and my transition lenses in my glasses making their adjustments it can be as confusing as knowing which exit to take on the M6 motorway.

That’s it for today, why not subscribe and receive emails when I post these great informative articles? There is a thingy to subscribe in the sidebar. You can also share your thoughts in the comments box or follow me on Twitter even…

Smile if you see me down the Metro station later… I’ll be the one in the thermals…

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