Chas...

Like a scene from the Godfather, or John F Kennedy announcing his presidential candidature, or Frank singing My Way, this is son Chas giving the best man's speech at his best friend's wedding. Kudos to the photographer (not me!) for demonstrating why people should hire a professional photographer to do their pix...

Greta Thunberg...

My admiration for Greta Thunberg went up another notch today, when I read that she has just turned down an award by the Nordic Council, and the £50,000 that goes with it. “The climate movement does not need any more awards,” she writes. “What we need is for our politicians and the people in power to listen to the current, best available science”.

Licensed today: walkers in the limestone dales, along the Dales Way...

Postman...

Licensed today: a shot taken in a narrow cobbled street in Howden. For anyone living in Asselby, Howden is 'town'...

Cockermouth...

Licensed today: the broad high street in Cockermouth...

Lockington...

A couple of cyclists, yesterday, riding through the village of Lockington...

The Old Workhouse...

In villages all over the country I see houses called the Old Smithy, the Old Post Office and, of course, the Old Sunday School... which reflect the local amenities which have been lost. But this is the first house I've seen called The Old Workhouse, in the characterful village of Lund, where I was today...

Rudston...

Licensed today: the Rudston monolith, in the churchyard of All Saints church, Rudston, a village between Driffield and Bridlington. At 25ft it is the tallest standing stone in Britain (though not the best known)…

Aysgarth...

Licensed last week: the village of Aysgarth in Wensleydale...

Sitting on a Saturday...

Today, the media have decided, is ‘Super Saturday', the first occasion in forty years that parliament has been required to convene at the weekend. We’re also told that the issues will look clearer by the time parliament votes for - or against - Boris Johnson’s deal this evening. That seems optimistic. I couldn’t list these issues on a sheet of A4 paper, and I imagine that most people would baulk at the task.

The question we were asked in 2016 - leave or remain - now looks absurdly simplistic. The genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no way to get him back in. The MPs who will vote today cannot be categorised as ‘leave’ or ‘remain’ either; they all have their own agendas, which include giving a ‘bloody nose’ to their unloved and unrespected party leaders. There are MPs interested in just a single issue. There are MPs who, because they won’t be standing at the next election, will feel able to listen to their conscience rather than express any loyalty to their party. No-one seems to know which way the vote will go… only that it will be close.

It’s pointless trying to shoe-horn complex issues into a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote. It didn’t work in 2016, and it won’t work now. I’ll be relieved if we can get through this convoluted Brexit saga with our democratic traditions intact.

There's World Cup rugby today too, but I find rugby as baffling - and boring - as Brexit.

Licensed yesterday: a terrace of houses in Midhurst, West Sussex...

Ranworth...

There's a heartwarming story in today's Guardian about a nine-year-old boy from St Cloud, Minnesota, who won a 10km race for adults by accident. He'd entered the kids' race - 5km - and, having been misdirected, just kept running.

Licensed today: one of the painted screens from St Helen's Church in Ranworth, Norfolk...

Capitulation...

Royal Mail van...

Pedant's corner...

The figures in this artwork - the Crossing, on the waterfront in Hull - are gazing out to sea, and are meant to represent a North European family emigrating to a new life in America. Unfortunately, the inscription on the base could have used a bit of proofreading before being etched into stone. Statue donated 2001 to Kingston upon Hull by the Sea Trek Foundation of America as they retraced their descendants journey in Tall Ships from Northern Europe. Though I can overlook the lack of an apostrophe, I have to take issue with ‘descendants’. Our descendants are those who come after us; the word that should be on the plinth is ‘ancestors’…

Black Swan...

Heard this evening - from the horse’s mouth - that our village pub will be re-opening in three weeks.

Licensed today (rare for a weekend): a remote house on the Isle of Mull...

Cardinal Newman...

Prince Charles has been invited to attend one of the more unusual events in the history of the Catholic church. On Sunday, in St Peter’s Square, Rome, Cardinal John Newman (1801-1890), will become the first English person born since the 17th century to be declared a saint.

Canonisation isn’t just a matter of plucking an individual out of the chorus line and installing him or her into the heavenly choir; there are procedures to follow and strict criteria to meet. The first saints were all martyrs, honouring their willingness to die for their beliefs. After the 4th century CE, those who lived particularly pious lives might also qualify for sainthood. By the 10th century, Pope John XV had developed an official canonization process. These days a candidate for sainthood is first venerated, then beatified. If there is proof that he or she is responsible for two posthumous miracles, then sainthood can follow. It all takes time.

A file on Newman was first opened in 1958. In 1991, he was proclaimed ‘venerable’. He was beatified in 2010, after Jack Sullivan, an American cleric attributed his recovery from a spinal cord disorder to Newman. The second miracle involved the unexplained healing of a pregnant American woman from a life-threatening diagnosis. These ‘miracles’ were considered - and rubber-stamped - by a panel of theologians and the cardinals of the Congregation for Cause of Saints. It’s hard to imagine a more egregious waste of clerical time by a cabal of pious men who were presumably bright enough to dress themselves and tie their own shoe-laces.

Not the best shot I've ever taken, but, hey, it sold...

Lenny Henry...

Lenny Henry has a book out: Who am I Again? It’s not a book I’m likely to read, but I like a joke he quotes, from one of his early routines, which neatly skewers the racist attitudes that were prevalent in the 1970s. “Enoch Powell says he wants to give me £1,000 to go back to where I came from. Which is great, because it’s only 20 pence on the bus from here to Dudley.”

Amazon Prime delivery, Pontefract, yesterday...

Mood Swings...

Can't wait for Xmas (though 'Mood Swings' sounds menopausal rather than musical). According to the poster, you have to bring your own "cold snacks", and the event will last for "decades"...

Ginger Baker...

Ginger Baker, drummer with Cream and many other bands, has died. Despite being voted “the man least likely to survive the Sixties”, and having taken heroic amounts of class-A drugs throughout his chaotic life, he survived to the age of 80.

Disraeli Gears, featuring songs such as ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’ and ‘Sunshine of Your Love’, came out in 1967. I didn’t need to buy the LP because a boy at school played it continuously from his study across the corridor… only stopping to turn the record over. It sounded like the future.

Cream split, acrimoniously, after Baker pulled a knife on bassist Jack Bruce, thereby creating a self-destructive template for every other band he subsequently joined or started. While touring, his demands were specific: two black prostitutes and a limousine to be provided at every venue. He wasn’t a good man to work with… or to marry. I’m at a loss to know why four women decided to walk up the aisle, and say “I do” to this monster of a man.

Baker never mellowed into a comfortable old age, being lionised by fans, but just become ever more embittered. A documentary film, Beware of Mr Baker, made in 2012, reveals a man who had run out of money and friends, and could not hide the contempt he felt for every musician he had ever played with.

Licensed today: the original Co-Operative shop on Toad Lane in Rochdale...

In the polls...

In the midst of political and governmental chaos, the Tories still have a comfortable 15-point lead over Labour. How incompetent, exactly, would the Tories have to be, for Labour to take advantage and win the next general election?

Licensed last week: a new housing development near Telford...

Something completely different...

It’s fifty years since Monty Python was first aired on TV. I was living in Leeds at the time, and a group of friends would convene in the same bed-sit at 8pm every Thursday evening to watch half an hour of anarchic humour. It was only after the first series had finished that one of the group asked “Who’s the guy who sits on the end?” We looked at each other. “I thought he was a friend of yours”. “And I thought he was a friend of yours!” Nobody knew who he was… only that he enjoyed silly walks and spam as much as the rest of us (and presumably didn't own a TV set).

Licensed last week: a few nondescript exhibits from the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverston (the birthplace of Stan Laurel). The 'boys' were, incidentally, a big influence on John Cleese and the rest of the Pythons...

Gainsborough...

Another pub bites the dust...

Rutter Force...

Licensed today: one of the first pix I uploaded to Alamy: the old watermill, and Rutter Force, near Appleby...