Methodists...

According to an article in the Guardian, Methodists will decide this week whether to take a significant step towards allowing same-sex marriage. The Methodist church set up a task group in 2016 to consider its definition of marriage in the light of legal and social changes. A report from the group (to be presented to a conference this week) highlights “the hurt felt by those who perceive that the current definition implies they are ‘lesser persons’ ”. Yes, I can see that many gay and lesbian people might feel marginalised by the church’s traditional teachings. However, the report also mentions feelings of “alienation and distress” among those adhering to a traditional definition of marriage. Honestly, what kind of “distress” is involved in letting other people live their lives how they want? Homosexuality isn’t compulsory, and it can't be 'caught' like a disease. In fact, the presence of gay people on planet earth inconveniences the righteous in no way at all. The only “alienation” that traditional Christians might suffer is detachment from common sense.

Just licensed: a shot of some miserable old bugger waiting for a bus on the Isle of Skye (according to his watch, the bus is thirty years late)...

Spoonbill...

Called in at Blacktoft Sands this evening, hoping to see one of the breeding barn owls. No luck... but I saw a spoonbill flying north: my first Yorkshire sighting of this remarkable and distinctive bird (pic from Creative Commons, not me)...

England 3, Norway 0...

I watched England women beat Norway women last night, in the company of a couple of blokes. The oldest guy had been drinking, he said, since 11am, so was happy to stare gormlessly at whatever was on TV. “Are they all dykes?", he wondered. The other guy coached a kids’ football team, and was quite a vocal advocate for women’s football. The women in the pub seemed more interested in their cocktails and chat.

It was a pretty good game, and England took their goals well. The third goal was a screamer, by Lucy Bronze, from outside the penalty area, which nearly burst a hole in the net. Conspicuous by their absence were players rolling around, pretending to be injured. They didn’t spend half the game passing the ball sideways. They seemed to keep their egos in check, and didn’t harangue the referee whenever a decision failed to go their way. England will now face the winner of tonight’s game, USA vs France, in Tuesday’s semi-final.

Licensed today: blurred bus passing through the village of Corfe Castle...

Lakenheath Fen...

Time to retrieve my bike from its hiding place in the rafters, to cycle into Howden. England women are playing Norway women in the world cup. A semi-final match awaits the winner...

Licensed a pic of Lakenheath Fen today, where, this time last year, I saw fifty hobbies hawking for dragonflies...

Volunteering...

I am now a part-time volunteer warden at Blacktoft Sands, an RSPB reserve. The highlight of my first day? Probably chatting to a lady who was making her first visit to the reserve, and who had never seen a marsh harrier. As we scanned the reedbeds, the harriers seemed to have taken a break. Then one appeared, in the distance, then another. As we watched, through binoculars, the numbers increased, and a couple of harriers started hunting over the lagoon, in front of the visitor centre: twisting, turning, hovering, before dropping into the reeds. We saw the harriers do a ‘food-pass’: a mid-air manoeuvre with one bird dropping food and the other bird catching it. The harriers are feeding young, which will soon appear. The woman was thrilled to have witnessed such a ‘show’, and said she'll be back.

The end-of month sales surge is in progress, including this shot of Winchester Cathedral...

Carlton Marshes...

Licensed today: swans at Carlton Marshes, a Suffolk Wildlife Trust nature reserve...

Hawkshead...

Just read an excoriating take-down of Boris Johnson, and his qualificatons to hold the top job in British politics. The writer is Tory grandee, Max Hastings, who used to be Johnson’s boss on the Daily Telegraph. He doesn’t pull his punches. Hastings calls Johnson a “tasteless joke”, mentions “his moral bankruptcy, rooted in a contempt for truth” and reckons that “he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification”. There’s plenty more in this uncharitable vein. If I had to choose one word to describe Boris, and his demeanour, it would be 'shifty'.

More bikes... outside the King's Arms in Hawkshead... licensed today...

Broadband...

BT have emailed to ask me if I would like a free, ‘super-fast’ upgrade to my broadband. Isn’t this a rhetorical question? Is there anyone who, if offered a slow or a fast connection, at no further cost, would opt for ‘slow’? I would have preferred to press a button marked ‘YES, OBVIOUSLY!’, and be done with it. Instead I had to navigate through page after page of special offers, family and friends, parental guidance about blocking questionable websites, free texts every weekend between midnight and 6pm, and all the rest.

The contract for my free upgrade will last for 18 months; after that the price goes up. I’ve left myself a reminder, to read in November 2020, to take another look at broadcast provision. I look forward to a faster connection; it’s desperately slow at present. It will be good to upload a pic to Alamy in seconds rather than minutes, and to be able to watch YouTube videos without ‘buffering’.

Bike storage in the Old Sunday School...

Jeremy Hunt...

The Guardian has tackled head-on the most pressing question of the day: why have so many experienced broadcasters been unable to say “Jeremy Hunt” without lapsing into profanity? The latest broadcaster to fall into this linguistic trap is Victoria Derbyshire, who immediately apologised (though the apology was rather spoiled by her insistence that “it’s usually men who say that”). The problem is not merely that ‘Hunt’ rhymes with ‘cunt’; it’s the juxtaposition of the word ‘Hunt’ alongside his job title, ‘Culture Secretary’, which creates the possibility for an embarrassing Spoonerism. Also, the only other Jeremy in front-line politics is Jeremy Corbyn, whose surname starts with the letter ‘C’.

Broadcasters must be acutely aware of the need to get Jeremy Hunt’s name right, which means they must be equally aware of the possibility of getting it wrong. Which means that the name ‘Jeremy Cunt’ will already be lodged in their minds, so that even a broadcaster as experienced as Victoria Derbyshire can let it slip out.

I've played on some picturesque cricket grounds over the years. And this is Drax...

Faringdon...

Licensed today: the market place, Faringdon, Oxfordshire...

Wensleydale cheese...

Found in today's Observer...

Boris Johnson...

OK, I've had a beer - in a Keith Floyd way, while cooking - but Marina Hyde's article in today's Guardian is the funniest thing I've read for some time. Her take-down of Boris Johnson is hilarious. "Johnson looks like Chucky if he’d borrowed a suit for a court appearance, or a Yewtree version of Worzel Gummidge, or what would happen if you started making Margaret Rutherford out of papier-mache but got bored halfway through".

Licensed today (a good price, for a change): one of the ponds near Selborne which would have been very familiar to naturalist Gilbert White...

Acid tongue...

Comedian Jo Brand is in hot water for a joke suggesting that “unpleasant characters” in the political realm should have battery acid thrown at them, rather than milkshakes (when he heard the words “unpleasant characters”, Nigel Farage immediately recognised himself). By chance I heard the radio programme live, and winced when I heard the joke. Not because it was offensive, but because it broke the first rule of comedy by not being funny. Jo Brand, I thought, can do better than that. Too many people really do have acid thrown at them, and a disproportionate percentage of the victims are women.

Licensed today: the seafront at Aldeburgh in Suffolk...

The Macintosh Arms...

It’s hard to imagine finding a decent pub in Goole. A discreet STD clinic, perhaps, or a convenient dogging site, but not a really good local boozer. And yet…

I called in at the Macintosh Arms, near the docks, last week. It’s a characterful little pub full of memorabilia about Goole’s great days as an inland port (hint: we’re not talking about the 21st century). I passed the time of day with the barman, chatting about this and that. It was only when he said “You’ll be retired, then”, making it sound more like a statement than a question, that I said I was a writer… and would carry on scribbling until I was too old and stupid to string two words together. He said he’d started to write a book, but had never finished it. The book was about Islam until he realised that “all religions are as bad as each other”, so he broadened the scope to include Judaism and Christianity as well. Gobsmacked by this bizarre coincidence, I said “That’s the book I’ve just written!”

I’ll be back at the ‘Mac’ some time soon. I’m sure there will be many other stories to hear, as I stare out of the window at the cranes and lifts and hoists.

The Town Hall, Pontefract...

A new broom...

Licensed today: an Otley man choosing a new yard broom...

Aloneness...

Today's excerpt from Krishnamurti's Book of Life...

Though we are all human beings, we have built walls between ourselves and our neighbors through nationalism, through race, caste, and class—which again breeds isolation, loneliness. Now a mind that is caught in loneliness, in this state of isolation, can never possibly understand what religion is. It can believe, it can have certain theories, concepts, formulas, it can try to identify itself with that which it calls God; but religion, it seems to me, has nothing whatsoever to do with any belief, with any priest, with any church or so-called sacred book. The state of the religious mind can be understood only when we begin to understand what beauty is; and the understanding of beauty must be approached through total aloneness. Only when the mind is completely alone can it know what is beauty, and not in any other state.

Aloneness is obviously not isolation, and it is not uniqueness. To be unique is merely to be exceptional in some way, whereas to be completely alone demands extraordinary sensitivity, intelligence, understanding. To be completely alone implies that the mind is free of every kind of influence and is therefore uncontaminated by society; and it must be alone to understand what is religion—which is to find out for oneself whether there is something immortal, beyond time.

Sugar Mill Ponds...

There are lots of industrial workings in the area, now 'going back to nature'. This pic is of Sugar Mill Ponds, at Rawcliffe Bridge, which used to be a brickworks...

Pontefract...

The male gaze: yesterday in Pontefract...

Jinx...

Since I arrived in Asselby, less than two months ago, the village pub has closed down, the pub in the next village, Barmby, has stopped doing food (a questionable business plan, surely, for a pub at the end of a long cul de sac) and the Waterways Museum in Goole is in the hands of administrators. Am I jinxing the place? My paranoia was ratchetted up another notch yesterday when I saw that Barclays (where I bank) are closing their branch in Goole.

The plot next door...

Vacant lot...

More changes in Asselby. It seems like planning permission has been granted for the plot next to the Old Sunday School, because it's being sold, "by informal tender", for £125,000. The permission, according to the estate agent, is for a two bedroom house.

Another 'pub at twilight' shot, licensed today: the King's Head in Beverley...

Whitby...

Just licensed: the River Esk, and abbey, at Whitby...

Avocets...

Ten days ago I was ensconsed in Townend hide at Blacktoft Sands, gazing through my monocular at a small island where about fifteen pairs of avocets were nesting. I spied a couple of avocet chicks; all looked well. I was back at Blacktoft Sands a couple of days ago, having promised friends that they would be able to see the chicks. It was quite a shock to find the island vacated. Instead of avocet nests, the island was covered with grass. The avocet colony felt like a mirage, something I’d imagined. After half an hour, a couple of avocets flew in. As they looked around the island, their piping call sounded particularly mournful. With so many marsh harriers quartering the reedbeds, in search of food for their own offspring, I doubt if any of the avocet chicks had survived.

Despite this setback, avocets are thriving. I remember seeing my first avocets, maybe forty years ago, following their return to Minsmere in Suffolk. When the RSPB was looking for an emblem, it was an avocet they chose. Now these beautiful birds are plentiful once again, especially around the coastal fringes of eastern England.

Bargains...

Instead of going to Quakers I checked out the Sunday morning bargains at the North Cave car boot sale. I found a bathroom cabinet, as new, and a couple of chairs; that’s £10 well spent. I wasn’t tempted by anything from a stall piled high with sweets… because the sweets were dusty.

Licensed last week: The Sun Inn in Kirkby Lonsdale...

Booze...

Had friends to stay. To deposit all the cans and bottles in the bin, I'll wait for the cover of darkness.

Licensed yesterday: the Leeds Armouries Museum...