Resolution...

Well, here we are, at the fag-end of another year… and not a vintage year. 2020 won’t have to be anything very special, I reckon, to be an improvement on 2019. Trump in the White House, Boris in number 10… and the citizens of these two great nations actually voted for them in free and fair elections! My prediction - that we would never actually leave the EU - may finally have run out of road (though the story may yet have a few more twists and turns before we bid adieu to our European neighbours).

The problems that face the world in 2020 make my one and only resolution seem rather trivial: to get my book profitably into print. Nevertheless, it deals with an important subject (and, even after fifty books, that’s not something I’ve ever been able to say before). It’s had yet another edit. Now’s the time to see if there’s anyone else on God’s green earth who’d like to see it published between hard covers. I’m in the mood for some feedback… hopefully positive.

Licensed today: yacht and steamer on Windermere...

Medication...

Called in at the Howden Medical Centre this morning, to pick up my new prescription. Instead of treating the attacks of gout when they happen, I’ll be taking pills which will hopefully stop them happening at all. I’m a proper old geezer now; I’ll be able to excuse any lapse in behaviour by saying “I forgot to take my medication”.

An old lady at reception was asking how she could get back home from the medical centre. She couldn’t remember where she lived, so I gave her a lift. We drove around Howden until she recognised her apartment block. That’s my good deed for the day, and now the pub’s open…

Broad Leys...

Licensed during the 'end of year flurry'... which will hopefully continue for a couple more days: Broad Leys, the Arts & Crafts house, designed by Charles Voysey, overlooking Lake Windermere...

Tractor run...

Excitement in Asselby this morning, with about fifty old tractors setting off for a tractor run around the marshland villages, to raise money for the Air Ambulance service…

Santa...

In a county as flat as East Yorkshire, Santa accepts any opportunity to hone his abseiling technique...

Xmas...

Ah, Christmas... the time of year when we eat sprouts, bring trees indoors and feel our own shortcomings most keenly. By ignoring the crass commercial aspects, I try to remember the true spirit of Christmas: celebrating the birth of Santa Claus.

Ambleside... at Christmas...

Virgin birth...

An interesting article on the Guardian’s website today, about Christianity’s twin obsessions with sex and virginity. The Christian cult of virginity may be due to a mistranslation in an Old Testament prediction: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14). The Hebrew word ‘almah’, used here, can mean either ‘virgin’ or ‘young woman’ (the confusion might have arisen from the blithe assumption that a young woman would have been a virgin). It is just possible that one of the foundational beliefs of Christianity is no more than a slip of a transcriber’s pen.

Licensed today: kite-surfer and offshore windfarm at Redcar...

Stock pix...

Looking for twenty more image sales before the end of the month, if I am to beat last year’s total. However, even with a flurry of sales, total revenue will be down by a few percentage points. It’s not that the market for stock photography is contracting. Quite the opposite, in fact. But the supply of imagery is outstripping demand… with predictable results. Everyone's a photographer these days.

Licensed today: The Bear pub in Crickhowell...

Fallon Sherrock...

Darts isn’t really my game. It should be; I’ve certainly practised enough, over the years. But I’m still rubbish…

The PDC World Championships are currently in progress at Lakeside: an event which wouldn’t normally engage my attention. But this year’s a bit different. In beating Ted Evetts 3-2 last week, Fallon Sherrock became the first woman to win a match in the competition. And she repeated the feat yesterday by beating the 11th seed, Mensur Suljovic.

Having watched the highlights of her matches on YouTube, I can see that her victories were no fluke. She’s only 25; can she become the first female world champion?

Ted Evetts shouldn’t worry. Whatever he accomplishes in darts, he's already written his name in the record books!

Licensed last week: boats for sale...

Shovel...

Bought a small coal shovel today. At this time of year you have to take your pleasures where you find them. The shovel is great. It doesn’t need batteries, or a power cable, or an instruction manual. It won’t need upgrading. I won’t have to go online to register it, or download a patch to resolve some software issue.

Licensed today: the rather splendid interior of All Saints church, Northampton...

Tan Hill...

Licensed this shot today. The Tan Hill Inn is, at 1,732 feet, the highest pub in Britain (not the “tallest pub”, which is what a couple of American tourists insisted they were looking for, when, years ago, they asked me for directions)…

Pontification...

More than twenty years after the Catholic Church was first engulfed in the scandal of clerical child abuse, the Vatican has finally decided to abolish the rule of pontifical secrecy.

The Catholic Church has traditionally seen itself as above the law, protected by a wall of silence. Because of the secrecy rule, church officials were not obliged to share information with either state authorities or the victims of sexual abuse. Instead of being reported to the police, abusive priests were more likely to be moved from one parish to another, where, of course, their offending behaviour could continue unchecked (and, worse, with new victims). Those who suffered at the hands of paedophile priests were treated by the church more like perpetrators than victims. The church imposed on them the obligation of silence, in the hope that the problem would just go away.

I can’t bring myself to celebrate this apparent change of heart by the Catholic Church; the Pope only abandoned the rule of secrecy because no other course of action was available. The church has consistently put its own reputation before the welfare of victims. Instead of abandoning the rules on pontifical secrecy, the Pope should be begging for forgiveness.

Questions remain. Predatory priests seem remarkably unconcerned about the posthumous destinations of their own immortal souls. Don’t they believe in heaven and hell… and, if not, why not? Or do they know that their entire religious project is nothing more than a cynical sham?

Another twilight shot: The Sun Inn, in Kirkby Lonsdale, taken exactly five years ago and licensed today...

X-ray...

Went for an X-ray on my knee today at Goole Hospital. The nurse looked askance at my facial tattoo - which features the sinking of the Belgrano and the taking of Goose Green - and told me to remove all my piercings. That’s twenty minutes I’ll never get back.

Licensed today: the railway station at Letchworth Garden City...

Leek...

Licensed today: a shot of Leek at twilight...

The Old Sunday School...

Anger management...

Time magazine’s person of the year is Greta Thunberg: a worthy recipient, I reckon. For a 16-year-old girl on the autistic spectrum, thrust into the limelight, she has handled herself with great dignity. She implores people to listen: not to her, but to the scientific consensus building up around the issue of climate change. She speaks up… then disappears back into the crowd.

She’s certainly piqued Donald Trump, whose sarcastic tweets serve only to demean the office of president. After her speech to the UN General Assembly, he tweeted: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” After she had received the honour from Time - an honour which Trump no doubt expected to come his way - he tweeted: “Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”

On both occasions Greta simply changed her Twitter ‘handle’, which currently reads: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.” I’m not sure why the most powerful man in the world feels obliged to mock a young girl; I just know that her responses are pitch-perfect. Go, Greta, go!…

No miracle...

A fitful night, drifting in and out of sleep, as I listened to the election results. I’m not sure why I bothered. As soon as I switched on the radio, at 10pm, I heard that the exit polls predicted a Tory landslide… which was a bit like picking up an Agatha Christie who-dunnit, only to find, on page one, that “the butler did it”. Thousands of pollsters had stood in the rain outside polling stations, asking people how they had voted… for the sole purpose of letting us know the result about twelve hours before we were going to know it anyway. That doesn’t seem like a very good use of resources and so many people’s time.

As anticipated, my vote didn’t count for much in Haltemprice and Howden, where David Davies held onto his seat with an increased majority. He won 62% of the vote, the Labour candidate just 21% (in 2017 the figures were 61% and 31% respectively).

Licensed today: the Unicorn, once a coaching inn and now a Wetherspoon pub, in the marketplace, Ripon...

Election Eve...

The Guardian has been publishing a ‘poll of polls’, giving equal weight to a dozen different polls. Though the Tory lead is narrowing, there is still a significant gap between the most pessimistic figure for the Tories and the most optimistic figure for Labour. So I’m not anticipating any electoral miracle tomorrow; in terms of what is possible or likely, I’m not even sure what a good result would look like.

I will cast my vote tomorrow, at a farm in the village. Though my respect for our democratic traditions is undimmed, I wish we had better choices. The current crop of politicians doesn’t inspire much confidence; any competent leader of the Labour party would surely be able to take on the Tories and win.

Licensed today: a street in Woodbridge, Suffolk...

Quiet times...

Things are a bit quiet, so I’m off into Goole to get a facial tattoo. It’s not every day you get to fulfil a lifetime’s ambition.

A shot of Ironbridge, licensed today...

Voting...

With only three days to go before the election, I’m mildly surprised that no one has yet knocked on the door of the Old Sunday School to ask if they can count on my vote. It may just be a ‘done deal’, with party activists choosing instead to target more marginal constituencies. David Davies held the seat of Haltemprice and Howden for the Tories in 2017, with 61% of the vote (Labour coming a distant second on 31%). My vote may not count for much.

Licensed today: a sunken lane near the village of East Coker in Somerset...

Home deliveries...

Now that we no longer shop in the high street, and have our stuff delivered instead, there seems to be a ready market for pix like this, licensed yesterday...

Elon Musk...

I learn this morning that Elon Musk can take to Twitter, call someone a “pedo guy” (ie a paedophile) and suffer no adverse repercussions. This isn’t some run-of-the-mill insult, but apparently the jury saw it that way. Shame on them.

The marina at Hartlepool: one of those "should I even bother to upload it?" pix. Nevertheless, it was licensed last week for TV use (and for the best price in a couple of months)...

Blencathra...

Licensed today: Blencathra reflected in Derwentwater...

East of Eden...

Residents of Asbestos, a small Canadian town, are hoping that a change of name will give the place an economic boost. Companies have proved resistant to relocating to a place that shares its name with a cancer-causing mineral banned in sixty countries.

Here in Yorkshire we have communities called Bedlam, Crackpot and Wetwang. Just down the road from Asselby is The Land of Nod, which takes its name from Genesis 4:16. “So Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and lived and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden”…

"Responsible" gambling...

The Health Survey for England, 2018, reports that more than half the population (53%) gambled last year, even if that was just buying a lottery ticket or scratch card. There’s a call for gambling companies to “take their responsibilities seriously”, but I’m not convinced that these companies - now mostly operating online - see themselves having any “responsibilities” at all… beyond making as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, from as many people as possible.

When betting shops continued to open, mostly in the poorer parts of town, it wasn’t because greater numbers of punters were betting on football matches and horse racing. It was because each betting shop was allowed to have a maximum of four fixed odds betting terminals, known in the trade as the “crack cocaine of gambling”. The maximum bet for any gambler on an FOBT has now been reduced, by law, to £2, with the result that many betting shops are disappearing from the high street. This does not, of course, suggest that these businesses have suddenly become “responsibile, but merely that more and more gambling activities are going online. Punters now monitor their bets on their phones, instead of standing around in a bookmakers with a fistful of betting slips.

Football fans watching matches on TV are now assailed by advertising - before, during and after the game - almost all of it from online betting companies. The pitch is relentless, with punters being encouraged to think that a big win requires little more than pressing the ‘Cash Out’ button on their gambling app. Gambling can now be even more private, and there is really no limit to how much money a gambling addict can ‘donate’ to these companies (many of them sited offshore, to minimise their tax liabilities). If we wait for these businesses to become “responsible”, we’ll be waiting for ever.

Licensed today: Pullwood Bay, luxury accommodation on the shores of Lake Windermere...

Xmas lights...

There were half a dozen guys putting the tree up. Me: “Have you got an angel for the top?" Guy on ladder: “How are you fixed?”…

Hull...

Another view of Hull, from yesterday...

Winter...

From a meteorological point of view, today is the first day of winter, which means that winter will last until the end of February. However, the winter solstice this year (AKA the shortest day) is on December 22, and, by this astrological reckoning, winter won't be over until March 20.

Hull, today, with my first sight of the new footbridge, which will link up the marina to the city centre. There'll be no more need to cross the busy A63 arterial road...