The end of faith...

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 mans 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?

These are the first few paragraphs from Sam Harris's seminal book, The End of Faith...

Cawood...

Licensed today: a Mercedes sports car in the village of Cawood...

The local...

Ebenezer Row...

Licensed today: Ebenezer Row in Chesterfield. Not really sure why I took the shot, except that I rather like vernacular architecture... especially of the modest kind...

'Promoting' homosexuality...

The High Court has ruled that there should be no more demonstrations outside a Birmingham school, where concerned parents - mostly Muslim, plus a few conservative Christians - are protesting that the school “promotes” homosexuality. This isn’t true, of course. The teachers don’t “promote” homosexuality or advocate a “gay lifestyle”; nor, as one meddlesome imam fantasised, do they instruct children about “anal sex, paedophilia and transgenderism”. I don’t even know how the “promotion” of homosexuality would work. “Go on, shag another bloke. You know you want to”?

Children are being taught to have respect for other people, whatever they believe, and whoever they are attracted to: an agenda we should be endorsing, not criticising. Respect, equality: who could possibly find fault with that? Well, here they are, mustering at the school gates with their placards and slogans and verses from the Bible and the Koran.

Same-sex attraction isn’t even a choice. We’re either attracted to members of the opposite sex… or we’re not. Hard-core believers prefer to think that gay people are freaks of nature who freely choose their “sinful” lifestyle. Otherwise they might have to face up to the uncomfortable idea that gay people are God's children too, made in his own image.

I appreciate that equality before the law is still an aspiration rather than a reality, but at least we’re trying. The High Court has drawn a line in the sand. This is is one occasion when we should back educational standards rather than acquiesce to religious sensibilities.

Licensed today: a Yodel employee delivering the High Court verdict...

Black Friday...

According to an article I’ve just read, Black Friday isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, with only one heavily-promoted product out of twenty being offered at the lowest price of the year. So you're fighting through hordes of sharp-elbowed shoppers, and you’re not even getting a bargain. As with Christmas, now exactly a month away… count me out.

I have a few pix of the Drunken Duck, near Ambleside, and they're regular sellers. This one was licensed today. The Drunken Duck was a gastro-pub even before we were familiar with the term. It gets a mention in every article about eating well in the Lake District... and the view from the beer garden is spectacular...

Leeds-Liverpool Canal...

I shoot lots of pictures of canals - they're so photogenic - and every now and again I sell one...

Dialling 999...

It’s good to learn something new each day. Apparently, anyone calling 999 can remain silent if, for any reason, they are unable to speak. Then, when prompted, they can key in the number 55, which will inform officers that there is a genuine emergency… allowing them to trace the call and take appropriate action. All without the caller saying a word... or calling attention to themselves.

Licenced yesterday: a shot of Yew Tree Tarn, near Coniston...

New neighbours...

I’ve just met the young couple - and their daughter - who will be building a house on the vacant lot immediately to the right of the Old Sunday School. Work starts tomorrow. It won’t look like this for much longer…

Tram...

Licensed today: a Nottingham Express tram, heading into the city. When I last went for a day's cricket at Trent Bridge, I found a good place to park up the van, next to a pub, in the village of Wilford, and the tram delivered me right to the stadium...

Workington...

Licensed today: a mural in Workington, a town on the Cumbrian coast...

Promises, promises...

The party leaders are trying to outdo each other with electoral promises, funded with money from who knows where. Do they take us for fools? Yes, they do. The promises will quickly be forgotten once the votes have been counted. While Boris Johnson’s approval rating is dire, Jeremy Corbyn’s figures are, remarkably, even worse. Trust in our elected representatives seems to be at an all-time low.

Licensed last week: the cloisters in Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria...

Cotswold cottages...

A row of quaint stone cottages in Broadway, licensed today...

Bob Cunis...

The England team are out in New Zealand, playing a couple of warm-up games before the test matches begin. I’ll enjoy drifting in and out of sleep throughout the night as the action unfolds, at a funerial pace, from, first, Tauranga, then Hamilton.

One Kiwi player I recall more for his unusual name than his cricketing prowess: Bob Cunis, who played a few tests during the 1970s. John Arlott, the doyen of cricket commentators, may have had one glass of Beaujolais too many when he described the New Zealander’s eccentric bowling style as being, "like his name, neither one thing nor the other”.

More reflections in still water: the Maltings and Oulton Broad, licensed today...

Beccles...

Licensed today: the marina at Beccles, Suffolk...

Happiness...

Country by country, the world's happiest people...

The usual...

The lights came on in the Black Swan yesterday, and stayed on, as the locals trooped in. It’s been six months since the pub closed, and a lot of people in the village hadn’t seen each other during that time. Without a place to meet, a community hub, a small village can become quite insular.

Not the Black Swan... but the Wellington Inn, in the village of Lund, where I was taking pictures today: a pub so posh that it's like being back in Hampshire. When I ordered a pint, I was asked "Will you be dining with us today, sir?"...

Race & religion...

Despite what Tory peer, Lady Warsi, intimated today, Islam isn’t a race. It’s disingenuous - and just plain wrong - to muddy the waters by conflating race and religious affiliation. What binds all Muslims together isn’t race, ethnicity or skin colour; it is the content of their beliefs.

Licensed today: the Kirkstile Inn, Loweswater, with Mellbreak in the background. While some pix sell because they sum up a place, or a mood or a concept, this shot keeps selling because, strangely, it’s the only decent shot of this characterful pub on Alamy…

Woodbridge...

Licensed today: the Tide Mill in Woodbridge, Suffolk...

Gone fishing...

I read on the Guardian website that Emma Watson (who played Hermione in the Harry Potter films) is happy, aged thirty, to be single. The phrase she uses - “self-partnered” - encouraged the writer of the article to bang out 500 words on the various ways that singledom can be represented in these gender-fluid times (and the ways that people - women, at least - can feel stigmatised for not ‘coupling up’). Feeling positive about being single is now a 'movement', apparently.

Though I didn’t plan to be a bachelor for most of my adult life, I can’t say I envy any of my married friends. I’ve been called “selfish”, for staying single, on a couple of occasions, though I’m not sure why. There aren’t many songs which celebrate the single life, but here is the first verse and chorus of Better Off Without a Wife, by Tom Waits.

All my friends are married
Every Tom and Dick and Harry
You must be strong if you're to go it alone
Here's to the bachelors and the Bowery bums
Those who feel that they're the ones
That are better off without a wife

Cause I like to sleep until the crack of noon
Midnight howling at the moon
Going out when I want to
And I'm coming home when I please
Don't have to ask permission
If I wanna go out fishing
Never have to ask for the keys 

Self-enslavement...

It’s inadvisable, of course, to call people stupid for believing propositions which are palpably untrue. I'm aware that criticising - or mocking - irrational beliefs may actually serve to strengthen them. And it's hard to find the words to describe people's willingness to, first, embrace religious beliefs and then to deny themselves the opportunity to leave them behind. It’s intellectual incarceration by choice, like walking into a prison cell, locking the door from the inside, then throwing the keys through the window bars. There must be a simple, elegant metaphor to describe this mindset of self-enslavement; I’ll have to sit down with a thesaurus and see if it comes to me in a ‘eureka’ moment.

Licensed today: the harbour and lighthouse at Maryport, on the Cumbrian coast...

Beverley Minster...

Licensed last week: the nave of Beverley Minster, looking very Christmassy...

Halloween...

Halloween has come and gone. I was told that buying loads of sweets was the best way to avoid structural damage, by disgruntled trick or treaters, to the Old Sunday School. I stocked up with love hearts, lollipops, wine gums and chocolate money (hoping to keep the transaction on a firm financial footing). But no kids came! Now I’m stuck with a skip-full of Haribo and a sugar rush.

Untutored in Halloween etiquette, I’d neglected to place a pumpkin outside. Trick or treaters won’t knock on the door, apparently, unless they see a pumpkin. At least I’ll know what to do next year, and I won't need to buy any more sweets. I probably have twelve month’s supply of gummy bears, and about twenty quid in loose chocolate change.

Licensed yesterday: the marina at Pwllheli in Wales...