End of the month...

A frustrating day. I paid £7.50 to park all day in the National Trust car park at Lulworth Cove (I’ve bought cars for less than that). The cove was very busy, and the light was bland: landscape ‘value’ nil. Paid £2 for some chips. To borrow an old Woody Allen joke, they were awful… and such a small portion. I thought I’d book into a campsite, to process a backlog of pix, but they wanted £37.50 for the privilege. OK, it’s half term… but that’s extortionate. I’m parked up in Wareham instead, busy uploading pix at my favourite unpopular pub. And my ‘last day of the month surge’ of Alamy licences amounted to just two sales…

Corner shop in Poundbury...

Overpriced lager...

Back in Poundbury; can’t stay away. It’s a great place for wandering around with a camera, to see what will happen next. The answer, basically, is not much. But that can make it easier to get pix of all the architectural curiosities, without too many people getting in the way. Enjoying another vastly overpriced pint of lager at the Duchess of Cornwall pub. An early night beckons…

Weymouth Harbour...

Lulworth Cove...

Up at dawn, to photograph Lulworth Cove. The sun had barely touched the remarkable ‘folded’ rocks before it disappeared behind a long bank of cloud, and didn’t appear again. But at least I’d done my best; that’s better than sleeping through some golden dawn…

More pix of Poundbury...

Wareham...

Sunday morning, still in Wareham. The heat has gone, as have the thunder and lightning. It’s back to something more seasonal: just pleasantly warm. I wrote 1,500 words of my book before breakfast, then went, on a whim, to a service at St Mary’s Church. Very traditional, apart from a female vicar (and maybe that’s almost traditional now). Towards the end of the service everyone wandered around, shaking hands with each other. I’m sure there are social benefits in going to church every Sunday, especially for those who are old, unwell or feeling lonely.

The members of the congregation sang the hymns, gave the appropriate responses, said the Lord’s prayer, etc. The sound of the words are comforting, as is the repetition; I wonder how many of those present really wonder what the words actually mean…

Poundbury... the building on the right is the Duchess of Cornwall pub, modelled on the Ritz Hotel. On the left is Strathmore House, seemingly taking its inspiration from Buck House...

Funeral parlour, Poundbury...

Thunderstorm...

The heatwave broke in the night, with a violent thunder storm. For half an hour the lightning seemed constant, lighting up the sky, and, as the storm got nearer, the thunder made the van rattle.

A pleasantly idle day today, parked up on heathland near Wareham. I read, wrote and listened to the commentary from Southampton, where England are playing South Africa in a one-day game. I had a brief thought, this morning, about heading to Southampton for a day’s live cricket. But I’m perfectly happy to listen to the radio, and follow the game in my imagination. I’m back in Wareham, to watch Arsenal beat Chelsea in the cup final…

Poundbury...

Arne...

Had a day in a campsite near Swanage, to process a backlog of pix. I’d hoped to edit and upload 50 pix; in the end I managed 75. When I emerged from the van, about noon, it was blisteringly hot, and I had to shade my eyes from the harsh light from a cloudless sky. I heard on the radio that today was a record for solar power in the UK, supplying a quarter of the day’s requirements for electricity. Facts like this always cheer me up.

I had a chat with the guy in a big family tent on the next pitch. He looked like he’d been there some while; his tent was surrounded by potted plants which he was watering with a hose. Hot and bothered, I asked him to put his thumb over the end of the hose and give me a spray. He obliged; it was just what I needed. The weather forecast suggests this heatwave will last one more day, then break.

Took a stroll this evening in the RSPB reserve at Arne, on the edge of Poole Harbour. Not many birds about, but it was good to walk in the cool of the day. Tonight I’m parked up, a couple of miles away, in Wareham, where I have found a pleasantly unpopular pub…

Poundbury...

Poundbury pictures...

Busy editing pix of Poundbury. I took a lot; I wonder if they'll sell. It's a great 'walk around' place for a photographer, with broad streets and vistas...

The myth of moderation...

Having edited and uploaded 100 pix, while staying in a campsite, I’ve listened to a lot of the coverage of the Manchester bombing and its aftermath. Lots of love for Manchester, lots of candles, lots of ‘coming together as a community’ to blame ‘extremism’. But not one suggestion, in all those hours of radio broadcasting, that such acts of violence are mandated in the Koran. Some typical quotes…

“When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks.” (47:4)

“Fight against those who do not obey Allah and do not believe in Allah or the Last Day and do not forbid what has been forbidden by Allah and His messenger even if they are of the People of the Book until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (9:29)

“When the sacred months have passed, then kill the Mushrikin (ie those who do not worship Allah) wherever you find them. Capture them. Besiege them. Lie in wait for them in each and every ambush but if they repent, and perform the prayers, and give zacat then leave their way free.” (9:5)

“When your Lord revealed to the angels, ‘Truly I am with you. So, keep firm those who have believed. I will strike terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved. So, strike them at the necks and cut off their fingers.’” (8:12)

‘Moderate’ muslims believe that the Koran is the inerrant word of God, just as ‘extremists’ do. Moderate Islam is a myth. And the taboo against criticising Islam remains firmly in place…

Had a pint this afternoon at the Square & Compass Inn, near Swanage...

Manchester bombing...

Woke up with news of the bombing in Manchester. These are the first paragraphs of The End of Faith, a book by Sam Harris...

The young man boards the bus as it leaves the terminal. He wears an overcoat. Beneath his overcoat, he is wearing a bomb. His pockets are filled with nails, ball bearings, and rat poison. The bus is crowded and headed for the heart of the city.
 
The young man takes his seat beside a middle-aged couple. He will wait for the bus to reach its next stop. The couple at his side appears to be shopping for a new refrigerator. The woman has decided on a model, but her husband worries that it will be too expensive. He indicates another one in a brochure that lies open on her lap. The next stop comes into view. The bus doors swing. The woman observes that the model her husband has selected will not fit in the space underneath their cabinets. New passengers have taken the last remaining seats and begun gathering in the aisle. The bus is now full. The young man smiles.With the press of a button he destroys himself, the couple at his side, and twenty others on the bus. The nails, ball bearings, and rat poison ensure further casualties on the street and in the surrounding cars. All has gone according to plan. 

The young man’s parents soon learn of his fate. Although saddened to have lost a son, they feel tremendous pride at his accomplishment. They know that he has gone to heaven and prepared the way for them to follow. He has also sent his victims to hell for eternity. It is a double victory. The neighbors find the event a great cause for celebration and honor the young man’s parents by giving them gifts of food and money.

These are the facts. This is all we know for certain about the young man. Is there anything else that we can infer about him on the basis of his behavior? Was he popular in school? Was he rich or was he poor? Was he of low or high intelligence? His actions leave no clue at all. Did he have a college education? Did he have a bright future as a mechanical engineer? His behavior is simply mute on questions of this sort, and hundreds like them.  Why is it so easy, then, so trivially easy—you-could-almost-bet-your-life-on-it easy—to guess the young man’s religion?...

The religious mind...

I get a quote from Jiddhu Krishnamurti in my email inbox each morning; this one hit the spot for me...

The religious mind is something entirely different from the mind that believes in religion. You cannot be religious and yet be a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. A religious mind does not seek at all, it cannot experiment with truth. Truth is not something dictated by your pleasure or pain, or by your conditioning as a Hindu or whatever religion you belong to. The religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is...

The ramparts of Maiden Castle, the iron-age hill fort near Dorchester...

Weymouth...

The place names of Dorset sound like the morning register of boys at one of England’s minor public schools: Langton Herring. Minterne Magna, Hazelbury Bryan, Winterborne Stickland, Fifehead St Quintin, Tarrant Rushton, Sturminster Marshall, Compton Valence, Winterbourne Abbas, Melbury Osmond, Burton Bradstock… and Puddletown.

I spent yesterday afternoon shooting pix in Weymouth; the town is rather handsome, especially around the harbour. A middle-aged woman on a mobility scooter caught my eye. At some point in her life she’d given up all thoughts of ‘keeping up appearances’, and decided instead to transform herself into a gargoyle, a curiosity. Her face was bright red, and she had a pair of metal ‘fangs’ inserted into her top lip for the ever-popular ‘vampire’ look. She had a beard too, but at least it was neatly trimmed. In a world where women are judged by their looks, she’d really gone ‘out on a limb’.

HQ of the Poundbury Wealth Management company...

Maiden Castle... again...

Up early to photograph Maiden Castle. The pix are… OK. It’s one of those places that makes more ‘visual sense’ when viewed from the air than from the ground. But I did my best, with the early morning light. I saw another corn bunting, plus goldfinches, a yellowhammer singing and - a rarity these days - a whole choir of skylarks…

Dobbin admires the view from Hambledon Hill...

Maiden Castle...

Spent the morning taking pix at Maiden Castle, “England’s finest iron-age hill-fort”, according to an information panel. Aerial photographs tell the whole story, with ditches and ramparts creating an impressive fortification. Shooting from ground level is more difficult; I’ll have another go this evening when the sun is lower in the sky.

On my circuit of the earthworks I saw linnets, goldcrests and a pair of stonechats. Then I heard birdsong that I haven’t heard for maybe 40 years. It sounded like a bunch of keys being rattled: unmistakably a corn bunting. These tubby finches have declined in number over recent years, due to loss of habitat, so it was good to see one singing from the top of a fence post.

In the meantime I’m back at Poundbury for a leisurely stroll with my camera. I popped into the Duchess of Cornwall pub for a pint of Peroni. “That’ll be £5.05”, said the barmaid. Would I like a receipt? Of course... as a souvenir of the most expensive pint of beer I’ve ever bought…

Poundbury...

Hambledon Hill...

After a day of torrential rain, I was up at dawn this morning to photograph the iron-age hill-fort on Hambledon Hill. The low sun helped to emphasise the ramparts, ditches and terraces, and by 10am I had all the pix I needed. Back in Poundbury now, hoping to get more pix this afternoon of Prince Charles’s carbuncle-free architectural folly. Maiden Castle, another location for the book, is nearby…

Hambledon Hill...

Bridport...

A few hours spent in the vanity project that is Poundbury made me yearn for cheap lager and Southern Fried Chicken, so I’ve ended up in Bridport, a few miles west. A damp and foggy day has not been wasted. I’ve started a new chapter of my book and written nearly 4,000 words: good going even though much of it was simply cut and pasted.

My first photo location is the iron-age hill fort at Hambledon Hill. The weather tomorrow looks very wet - another writing day, I reckon - with better weather on Thursday...

Poundbury...

On a breezy, overcast day I’m exploring Poundbury, the suburb of Dorchester in Dorset, built on the architectural principles of Prince Charles. It’s a strange place, taking its design inspirations from a variety of sources, it seems: collonades from the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, balconies from New Orleans, the layout from the American ‘model town’ of Seaside, which was used as a film set for the film, The Truman Show, and the general ambience from our future king’s puffed-up self-regard.

Cottages sit side-by-side with smart town houses, their blocked-up windows recalling - for no good reason - the way people blocked up windows in the 18th century to avoid paying ‘window tax’. Strathmore House, a development of luxury apartments in Palladian style, recalls a pared-down Buckingham Palace. The building’s neo-classical flourishes - pillars, columns, archways, etc - are repeated around Poundbury.  I’m having a cup of tea in the pub, the Duchess of Cornwall. It’s hardly a pub at all, being modelled on the Ritz Hotel, a favourite haunt of the Queen Mother (whose statue overlooks the building). Another block of twenty exclusive flats - and a spa - is being built on the other side of the square; it will be called the Royal Pavilion, apparently, named after one of the Queen Mother's racehorses. 

Poundbury might as well be called Poundland. It’s fake, bogus, ersatz, counterfeit, a vanity project, a mere pastiche of town planning. It exhibits a sublime irrelevance… a bit like Prince Charles himself…

Not the Duchess of Cornwall pub in Poundbury, but the bar of the Seymour Arms in Witham Friary...

Cricket at Taunton...

The Camino...

Had a very enjoyable weekend in Somerset, which began with a lightning visit to Greylake, an RSPB reserve. Though there weren’t many birds about - gargany, heron, bitterns booming, a distant marsh harrier - I chatted to a guy in one of the observation hides. I mentioned the great white egret as a bird I’d like to see, and he said that one had been seen the previous day. At that very moment a dazzling white bird the size of the heron flew up briefly and landed in the reeds: unmistakably a great white egret!

I socialised with friends Gordon and Trish in Taunton, which included a full day at the cricket: a 50-over game between Somerset and Essex. The visitors scored 334 - Alistair Cook hit an elegant 65 - and Somerset started their reply at a canter, with opener Myburgh hitting fours and sixties to every corner of the ground. Somerset were scoring at a good rate, but kept losing wickets, and eventually fell 72 runs short. It was a great day’s cricket, and Taunton’s county ground, under billowing cumulus clouds, looked a picture.

Gordon is starting the Camino pilgrimage walk later this week, from the Pyrenees in France to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain: a distance of about 500 miles. He seems blissfully unaware of the effort that will be required, especially for a man with dodgy knees. I hope to be kept informed of his progress across northern Spain. Walking 500 miles is a life-changing adventure (just ask the Pretenders…) and, with some slight trepidation, I wish him all the best…

Eurovision...

We’ll find out tomorrow what the rest of Europe thinks of us, when Ukraine hosts the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. There is a long tradition of bloc voting, with the Nordic countries voting for each other, as do the Balkans. But now, with Brexit on the horizon, and Russia not entering this year, the competition will have a new whipping boy. The UK entry - Never Give up on You - will be garnering an awful lot of ‘nul points’…

Lovin' death...

According to today’s Guardian, Ukip’s Brexit spokesman, Gerard Batten, has prompted outrage after he said non-Muslims should have a “perfectly rational fear” of a faith he characterised as a “death cult” steeped in violence. Hmmm… it sounds like a perfectly sensible comment to me.

Anyone who criticises Islam is immediately tarred as 'racist', ‘Islamophobic’ or ‘anti-Muslim’. But there are more than a hundred verses in the Koran which call for Muslims to wage war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. One after another, jihadis say “We love death more than you love life”…

Lovin' it...

Avebury...

Spent the morning photographing the stones at Avebury. Got plenty of shots, though I didn’t find it easy to ‘tell the story’ in visual terms. One problem is that the stones have been ‘suburbanised’; another is the fact that the National Trust is in charge; another is the sheer volume of people who come to visit. I wouldn’t want to be here on a sunny bank holiday.

Avebury may be a World Heritage Site today, but the value of the stones hasn’t always been recognised. Our descendants were so careless of their heritage that they built a village within the circle of stones, and a road across the middle of it. The Red Lion boasts that it’s the only pub situated inside a stone circle!

Most of my pix reflect this rather downbeat impression of Avebury. They’ll sell as stock pix, even if they’re not very appropriate for a book about different landscapes…

Dog offering his opinion on the Avebury stones...

Marlborough...

In Marlborough today: a place I remember very well from my one previous visit two years ago (when I spent the whole day watching Ashes cricket on TV, with the cricket coach of Marlborough School… having seen Australia bowled out for 60). It’s cloudy today, so I’m getting some writing done. The weather forecast is better for tomorrow, and my plan is to spend a few hours photographing the stones at Avebury…

Rapeseed...

Phil the Greek...

Parliament has been dissolved, transforming MPs, at a stroke, into election candidates. And, at the age of 95, the Duke of Edinburgh has decided to retire from public life (and whatever it is he does for - gulp - 780 charities). He’ll be a hard act to follow. Those plaques won’t unveil themselves…

Abstraction in a shop window...

A nye of pheasants...

There’s an estate agent in Hungerford called Nye and Co, whose logo is a pheasant. As a kid I read about the collective nouns for different birds (most of which nobody uses), and a nye of pheasants was one. I remember a few others: a murder of crows, a covy of partridges, a bevy of quails, a watch of nightingales, a parliament of owls, a murmuration of starlings and a spring of teal. A group of wrens is called a herd, apparently: little used because wrens don’t congregate in numbers… just singly or in pairs. About the only collective noun I could use without blushing is a charm of goldfinches…

Hungerford...

In Hungerford this evening, where, in 1987, Michael Robert Ryan walked around the town with a handgun and two semi-automatic rifles. He killed 15 people, including his mother, before turning the gun on himself. Ryan’s last words, reported by the police, as they surrounded the local community college where he’d barricaded himself in: “Hungerford must be a bit of a mess. I wish I had stayed in bed.” That’s the only thing I knew about Hungerford, which joins other communities - such as Soham, Dunblane and Lockerbie - in being famous for all the wrong reasons. There’ll be a memorial somewhere in town, but I haven’t seen it…

Kingsclere...

Old and in the way...

I was going into a pub loo when a guy pushed the door from the other side and squashed me against the wall. “Sorry, old man”, he said, cheerily. Another guy, following me, was aghast. “I can’t stand it when people take the piss out of the elderly”, he said. Hmmm, guess which comment sounded most patronising…

What's left of the old brickworks at Stewartby, near Bedford...

Penryn...

Snooker...

Today is the final day of the snooker; this evening either Mark Selby or John Higgins will be world champion for 2017. Despite blanket coverage on TV, over 17 days, I haven’t seen any of the play. But back in 1985 I was on a ferry, returning from Ireland, and the TV room was full of people watching the final of the snooker. Half of the ferry passengers were cheering for Steve Davis, representing England, while the other half were cheering Dennis Taylor who, with his upside-down glasses, represented Ireland. We weren’t the only ones watching; the match attracted a record TV audience of 18.5 million.

It was a lively scene - and standing room only - in the TV room of the ferry, as the match went this way and that. The contest was still undecided when the ferry docked at Hollyhead, where we were told, over the tannoy, that we had to disembark. Except the viewers weren’t going anywhere. Eventually the captain came into the room and said we had to leave. We shouted him down and, wisely, he let us stay on board. He sat down with us to watch the last few frames.

The match stood at 17 frames apiece, with one last - deciding - frame to play. Amazingly the last frame turned out to be a black ball game. Steve Davis missed a black he would have got 99 times out of 100, leaving Dennis Taylor to pot it. He hoisted his cue, waggled his finger, did a little dance and kissed the trophy. The Irish viewers were ecstatic, and the rest of us could reflect on the fact that we’d just watched one of the great sporting contests. It was way after midnight when everyone drove off the ferry and into the night...