Heading south...

Typically, for the first public holiday of the year, the weather is vile: cold and rainy. I’m in Otley library, trying to lick the chapters into shape. It’s about time I headed south…

Hawfinch...

It’s not everyday that you get to fulfill a small ambition, but this morning, at first light, I parked up at Sizergh Castle, near Kendal, to see if I could spot a hawfinch. In light drizzle I spotted some chaffinches, goldfinches, a pair of bullfinches, a song thrush (no longer a common bird) and tits looking for nesting sites. Then I saw my hawfinch, perched on top of a tree: slightly bigger than a bullfinch, and thickset, with a disproportionately large head and beak (able to crack cherry stones). To celebrate I had breakfast at Booths in Carnforth.

I called in at Leighton Moss too, and saw my first summer visitor: not a swallow but a sand martin, dipping and swooping over the water. There was plenty of wildfowl: pink footed goose, canada goose, teal, pochard, wigeon, shoveler, mallard, tufted duck, gadwall, little grebe, great crested grebe and five snipe, amazingly well camouflaged against the reeds. The little egrets are now so common that birders no longer point them out. The marsh harriers were quartering over the reed-beds; I heard a cetti’s warbler singing and a greater spotted woodpecker drumming. A lady with a jamjar full of mealworms had robins feeding out of her hand. You wouldn’t want a hawfinch on your hand; it might snip a finger off with that massive beak…

I've licenced a few church pix lately; this is St Botolph's in Limpenhoe, Norfolk...

Haverigg...

It's the lull before the storm around Bowness and Windermere; they'll be packed over the holiday weekend. Having a blood test in a couple of hours, before heading off to somewhere quieter.

One of my pix was used to head up a Guardian article about Gwent (It's not my fault that the Brecon Beacons in my shot are in Powys).

Haverigg and the River Lazy...

Rites of passage...

There are many rites of passage in life: first kiss, first pint of beer, first sexual experience, sex with another person, passing your driving test, wedding day, birth of a child, getting nine wickets in a cricket match… and, today, having a rectal examination. It was quick, painless and strangely unembarrassing (with nothing untoward encountered).

Heavy horses on Silecroft beach...

Ravenglass...

Sunday was my first proper day’s photography since I got my camera mended. I had a wander around some favourite places on the Cumbrian coast, including Ravenglass, where I found this ‘kit’ plane. I wasn’t sure how it was going to take off, because Ravenglass beach is pebbles, not sand. Then the guy taxied the plane straight into the water; yes, it’s a miniature seaplane! He stepped on the gas and the little plane was airborne in seconds. It made a landing on water too: as smooth as silk...

Not cricket...

I’m rather nonplussed about the ball-tampering episode, described in Saturday’s Guardian as perhaps “the darkest day in Australian cricket history”. In 2018 batsmen tend not to walk when they’ve nicked a ball to the slips. They stand their ground and wait for the umpire to make a decision. If the umpire didn’t hear the nick, or failed to see the ball deviate, the batsman will know he’s got away with it. Cheating? Probably. A fielder takes a catch very close to the ground. Did the ball ‘carry’? Umpires used to take a fielder’s word as to whether the catch was good or the ball touched the ground. Now we rely on slo-mo replays… which tend to be inconclusive.

Cricketers have many ways of altering the condition of the ball (to make it swing or seam). They can shine one side (using sweat, and a rub on the trousers) and scuff up the other side. This is reckoned to be OK. But no bottle-tops in the pocket, or any other ‘agent’ to alter the condition of the ball (which is what the TV camera’s caught Aussie player, Cameron Bancroft, doing. Then, while cameras were trained on him, he tried to stuff the evidence down his trousers). In the spirit of the game? Probably not, and the shit really has hit the fan, as the captain and vice captain have had to relinquish their role (for the remainder of the game). Worse is yet to come, and the boorish behaviour of the Aussie team in recent years will no doubt be alluded to.

It looked like a storm in a teacup to me, and the media outcry rather hysterical (especially in Australia). After a wholehearted apology, I thought we’d be back to normal. But this bizarre little saga looks to continue. I’m not sure I really understand what all the fuss is about. In terms of damaging the spirit of the game, many behaviours seem worse to me: trying to con an umpire, disputing an umpire's decisions, boorish ‘sledging’, bowling bouncers at tail-end batsmen, etc. I did learn something new from the incident: I wasn’t aware that Cricket Australia had such a post as ‘Head of Integrity’. He’s going to have a busy few days…

Train on viaduct in Sowerby Bridge...

Hodbarrow...

The new battery in the laptop is giving me about four hours of writing time per charge, which makes a big difference. And a day like today, with plenty of sunshine, gives me more power, thanks to the solar panel on the Romahome’s roof. And the clocks have gone forward. Light… warmth… longer evenings… Spring must be finally here. Hooray!

I took a walk around Hodbarrow, near Millom, seeing all the birds I saw yesterday, plus great crested grebe, red-breasted merganser, a whole raft of eider ducks and a flock of ruffs, coming into breeding plumage…

Haverigg...

Wound up at Haverigg yesterday evening, where the Lazy River (that’s its real name) meets the Duddon estuary. With my monocular to hand I saw a lot of birds on the tidal mudflats: shelduck, wigeon, goldeneye, tufted duck, ringed plover, lapwing, a big flock of redshanks and, best of all, a pair of eider ducks.

Want to see a video of a crow 'snowboarding' down a snowy roof? Strange that a creature with the ability to fly would find it so much fun.

Another crow... Leaving 'blank space' in a pic give designers the option of combining your pic with words (I add the keywords 'copyspace' and 'copy space')...

Writing...

Had a long and productive morning on the laptop. Still a couple of weeks before I put the chapters together; the more work I can do between now and then, the easier the book will be to edit. Staggered out of the van at noon and had a much-needed shower (the guy at the Ulverston Leisure Centre apologised because the price had gone up... by 5p).

Finally getting to upload some new pix. Here's a friendly robin at Leighton Moss...

Ulverston...

Holed up in a campsite in Ulverston today, dividing my time between writing and processing new pix. I woke up in the middle of last night to hear that England were 27 for 9: an example how a test series can be lost in the space of a couple of hours.

Licensed this shot today: St Mary's Church, Winchfield, Hampshire...

Leighton Moss...

Called in at Leighton Moss this morning, and joined the RSPB. The guy at reception wasn’t used to anyone joining voluntarily, without first being worked over with the rubber truncheon. I heard a Cetti’s Warbler, my first this year (even though it’s one of the few warblers which stay here all winter). There were plenty of ducks on the water: pintail, teal, wigeon, pochard, tufted duck, shoveler, gadwall and mallard, all in breeding plumage. A pair of great crested grebes chased a pair of little grebes away. The best sighting was a snipe, just a few yards away, amazingly well camouflaged against the reeds. Other birds included reed bunting, marsh harrier, buzzard, cormorant and a flock of pink footed geese. The wetland scene looked good in the harsh spring light, though it was still very chilly…

Book...

Had a productive writing day today, in a couple of lay-byes along the A65, on the way to the Lakes. I’ve discovered a foolproof method of getting the work done: sitting down and actually writing the book, instead of just talking about it. And, though I can hardly believe it, I’m almost finished. Once I put all the chapters together, it will look like a proper book. Even if I choke on a chip, or get run over by a bus, a family member (yes, that’s you, Chas) would be able to give it a final polish and get it published. I need to find out, next, if it’s any good…

Innocence...

A quote from Krishnamurti, in my email inbox this morning...

What is age? Is it the number of years you have lived? That is part of age; you were born in such and such a year, and now you are fifteen, forty or sixty years old. Your body grows old and so does your mind when it is burdened with all the experiences, miseries and weariness of life; and such a mind can never discover what is truth. The mind can discover only when it is young, fresh, innocent; but innocence is not a matter of age. It is not only the child that is innocent - he may not be - but the mind that is capable of experiencing without accumulating the residue of experience. The mind must experience, that is inevitable. It must respond to everything - to the river, to the diseased animal, to the dead body being carried away to be burnt, to the poor villagers carrying their burdens along the road, to the tortures and miseries of life - otherwise it is already dead; but it must be capable of responding without being held by the experience. It is tradition, the accumulation of experience, the ashes of memory, that make the mind old. The mind that dies every day to the memories of yesterday, to all the joys and sorrows of the past such a mind is fresh and innocent…

Some great images in the Sony International Photography Awards, 2018...

Putin...

A “landslide victory” for Putin? That’s like “Matadors 6, Bulls 0”…

Licensed today: cottages in the village of Downham, Lancashire...

David Byrne...

Another Sunday and the Arctic weather has returned. I’m parked up in Hebden Bridge, with snow falling and settling. I’m in the van, under a duvet, editing the chapter about heaven and hell, while David Byrne, of Talking Heads, is annotating his favourite music on Desert Island Discs (that’s a sentence I may never write again). I didn’t know he was born in Scotland.

One of his discs is Mr Tambourine Man, not by Bob Dylan, but by the Byrds. From the moment the guitar kicked in - Roger McGuinn’s Rickenbacker - Byrne said he had a musical epiphany. He sensed that something new was happening. “This was music for people like me”, he said. “and I knew I had to find other people who shared my tastes”. Mr Tambourine Man was my musical epiphany too (I’d heard Dylan already, though I wasn’t initially impressed. He sang, I thought, like an old man). It still sounds great, half a century later. If it wasn’t for the Byrds, I wouldn’t have found Dylan (it took me a while to ‘get’ him), or Neil Young, or Van Morrison, or the Velvet Underground, or Talking Heads…

Licenced a couple of pix today (unusual for a Sunday), of an over-stuffed bookshop in Eastbourne...

Kirk Yetholm...

Licensed this shot today: the Border Hotel in the village of Kirk Yetholm, the destination for Pennine Way walkers. In days gone by anyone completing the long-distance walk could order a pint of beer, and Alfred Wainwright would foot the bill...

Stephen Hawking...

Sad to hear that Stephen Hawking has died. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, aged 21, in 1963. Despite being told by doctors that he only had two more years to live, he made it to the age of 76. I know how highly he was thought of by those who work in the rarified air of quantum physics, though, of course, I could fit everything I know about quantum physics in a matchbox… without taking out the matches. 

This is the last sentence in his best-known book, A Brief History of Time: “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of reason - for then we should know the mind of God”, which some people have taken to imply a religious faith. It’s not; it’s a metaphor, pace Albert Einstein’s equally famous quip: “I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos”.

This quote better expresses Stephen Hawking’s views on the relationship between science and religion. “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority; and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works”…

Another twilight shot, licensed today: the Three Tuns in Alcester...

Spitting...

Jamie Carragher, ex-Liverpool player and, until yesterday, a Sky pundit, was caught on-camera spitting at the occupant of another car, while both cars were travelling along a main road. A 14-year-old girl, in the passenger seat, was the target of his spittle. Once the video clip had been posted online, Carragher apologised unreservedly for his action, though he fluffed his lines when he said that although he knew the passenger was female, he didn’t realise she was only 14 years old.

Why do people do something as horrible as this and then insist, once they’ve been found out, that “it doesn’t reflect who I really am”?

Spitting at someone is the ultimate insult. I heard Robbie Savage, on Radio 5 Live, say that he didn’t mind being “clattered’ in a heavy tackle, but was mortified when another player spat in his face. I’m not sure why spitting is so uniquely offensive; it just is. And everyone is aware of this, including Jamie Carragher, who has also been on the receiving end. In a column in the Daily Mail in 2015, Carragher wrote: “I was spat at once in my career. It came during a Uefa Cup game against Celta Vigo in 1998 and the player in question was a Russian midfielder called Aleksander Mostovoi. I was shocked more than angry when he did it because I couldn’t believe what had happened.”

Spitting at an opponent or any other person, on the field of play, is seen by the FA as a sending-off offence. Sky have suspended Carragher from his million pound a year role as a pundit. But that’s a yellow card… and it should have been a red…

Not much of a shot - a nondescript barn in Swaledale - but someone thought it met their needs, because it was licensed today, for a better-than-usual price...

Doddy...

Enjoyed this article in today's Guardian, about Ken Dodd. He seemed to be a comic everyman, with one simple aim in life: to make audiences laugh for as long as possible (his live shows could last for hours). His comedy was irresistable; you'd need a heart of stone not to laugh at his silliness... and his tickling stick...

Licensed today: the River Nene as it flows through Wisbech...

Spring?

Spring light, longer evenings, temperatures rising - just - into single figures. Hmmm… maybe I’ve survived another winter…

Book...

Not taking many pictures with my camera, which is now working fine, but at least I’m getting on well with the book: on track to have all the chapters ready to consolidate into a single document on the day I see the first swallow (on or about April 11). The word count is currently about 65,000; it fluctuates as whole sections come and go. There will be a lot of editing and re-editing to come, but, on the whole, I’m very happy with the way it’s going…

Trump & Kim...

I’d like to be a fly on the wall when Donald Trump meets Kim Jong-un: two men with gigantic egos and ridiculous hair…

Women's Day...

Well, men seem to have all the other days, so it seems only fair to have a Women’s Day. I’ve been writing my chapter on gender in the holy books, and it doesn’t make pleasant reading. It came as no surprise to me that women were treated as ‘second class citizens’ in both Christianity and Islam, though I wasn’t prepared for the sheer nastiness of the misogyny on display.

These attitudes have come down to us, essentially unchanged, in many parts of the world, where rape goes unpunished, yet adultery (sex outside marriage, essentially) may be punishable by death, for the woman at least. If a woman is raped, but does not shout loudly enough, she may be found guilty of adultery (she has, after all, had sex outside marriage. This sounds like a sick joke... but isn't).

FGM (female genital mutilation) isn’t a specifically Islamic custom, and there’s nothing in the Koran to demand that young girls should undergo this barbaric practice. Yet FGM proliferates in Muslim-majority countries, where people believe it to be integral to their faith. It is typically inflicted on girls too young to offer informed consent; nowhere in the world do we see adult women queueing up to be mutilated with a sharp stone or nail or razor blade.

Before we condemn these countries (in any list of economic viability, they occupy the bottom places), we need to put our own house in order. A disparity in pay between male and female newsreaders may seem trivial, when compared with what’s happening in Africa, Afghanistan, Yemen or Indonesia, but it’s all part of the same narrative. In terms of gender equality, we still have a long way to go…

I recall taking some pleasing pix of Charlestown in Cornwall, but this is the pic that was licensed today...

Baloney...

How do we differentiate between sense and nonsense, truth and lies, fact and fiction? Who can we trust on topics such as climate change, quantum mechanics or gun control? What kind of evidence is the most compelling? Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptic Society, recommends that we try to keep an open mind… “but not so open that our brains fall out”. Some schoolkids have take Dr Shermer’s Baloney Detection Kit and created a rather splendid graphic (click graphic to enlarge)…

Licensed this pic today: the Calder & Hebble Navigation at Elland…

Otley...

I exit the van most mornings to find a small town waking up; this morning it’s Otley. A tubby, moon-faced man says “good morning” with such exuberance that it puts a spring in my step. A woman opens up the Post Office, a window-cleaner carries a ladder over his shoulder, the mechanics at a tiny workshop survey the collection of MOT failures parked out front. A man in a hi-viz jacket does nothing all day except help the buses to reverse out of the little bus station. The lights come on in the library, a woman presses a button by the door and I get a seat at what is now my usual table. I’m soon joined by a middle-aged couple who like to come into the library, read the papers and debate the pressing issues of the day… like how many packets of crisps you get in a multi-bag, and how much cheaper they are if you go to Lidl rather than ASDA…

Otley's a bit like this (illustration from a Richard Scarry Book)...

Writing...

Worked on my book yesterday, from 9am-6pm, a rather long stretch. Back in the library today, but I think I'll be done by lunchtime. Writing for long periods can be counter-productive, with diminishing returns; three or four hours is long enough...

Licensed this pic of Ennerdale today...

Elizabeth Eckford...

Instead of listening to the Oscars last night, I heard Elizabeth Eckford reminiscing about her role in the Civil Rights movement, when, aged 15, she was one of nine black students to enroll at the previously segregated high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. When she saw the soldiers of the National Guard, she assumed they were there to offer protection to the students; instead, under orders from the Governor of Arkansas, they barred her way.

In her own words… “I stood looking at the school; it looked so big! Just then the guards let some white students through. The crowd was quiet. I guess they were waiting to see what was going to happen. When I was able to steady my knees, I walked up to the guard who had let the white students in. He didn’t move. When I tried to squeeze past him, he raised his bayonet and then the other guards moved in and they raised their bayonets. They glared at me with a mean look and I was very frightened and didn’t know what to do. I turned around and the crowd came toward me. They moved closer and closer. Somebody started yelling, "Drag her over to this tree! Let's take care of that nigger!”

The last recorded lynching in the USA occurred as recently as 1981, when a young black man, Michael Donald, was picked up at random by KKK members, taken into woodland near Mobile, Alabama, beaten to death and then hung from a tree.

The photograph, shot in 1967 by Will Counts, shows Elizabeth Eckford running the gauntlet of hatred as she approached the school gates, and became one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century…

Padstow...

I was going to attend Quaker meeting in Otley today, but only four people turned up and none of them had the key. So I headed for the library, to work on my book (and watch the snow falling outside). I’m busy with the chapter on women in the Bible. Anyone who can find positive affirmations about women in the good book are delusional. A commoner attitude is the one expressed by the Roman writer Tertullian (generally guaranteed to provide a good quote): "Woman is a temple built over a sewer".

I enjoy taking twilight shots, so it's good that they keep getting licensed: boats in the harbour at Padstow, Cornwall...

Still wintry...

The snow is still here, due to the sub-zero temperatures, but the roads in Halifax are clearing (this will be little comfort to the people stuck in their cars a few miles away on the Pennine section of the M62). Many thanks to Helen for putting me up - and putting up with me - these past few days…

Licensed this pic today: Kirkby Lonsdale at twilight...

The big freeze...

I remember weather like this from my childhood. We didn’t call it the ‘Beast from the East’; it was just ‘winter’. In the big freeze of 1962-63 the weather never went above zero for weeks, which meant that Windermere was frozen over from Waterhead to Newby Bridge (apart from a stretch of water, about 100 yards wide, kept open by the ferry going to and fro). Mum and I skated on the ice; for half a dozen different reasons, that won’t happen again…

I’m still at Helen’s, working on the book and watching the snow being whipped up by gusts of wind…

Licensed this pic yesterday: the summer game being played at Hartley Wintney...