Tadcaster...

 The freedom of the open road... in Tadcaster...

Oakham...

Licensed last week: a quiet corner of Oakham, the county town of Rutland...

Welcome to Scotland...

Licensed yesterday... but shot a few years ago, when I started to realise that stock photography wasn't about taking 'pretty pictures'...

 

Semerwater...

Licensed today: two swimmers wading into Semerwater in the Yorkshire Dales...

Fell Foot Park...

 Licensed today: visitors relaxing at Fell Foot Park, at the southern tip of Lake Windermere...

Langwathby...

Licensed today: the Cumbrian village of Langwathby...

Bramhope railway tunnel...

Licensed today: the memorial, in the graveyard of All Saints Church, Otley, to the men who died while constructing the Bramhope railway tunnel…

 

Old Town...

 The Old Town, Hull, yesterday...

Humber Street...

Whitefriargate has been Hull’s main shopping street for a couple of generations, but times change, and one by one the shops are closing. The hip place to shop for cocktails, fancy food and inessential fripperies is now Humber Street, close to the marina, which used to be the site of the city’s fruit market.

 

Bishop Burton

I’m getting into the habit of putting on a face-mask as soon as I walk into a shop, though I’m not too sure why we are being asked to do this now. If wearing a mask helps to stop viral transmission in August, then it would surely have been just as effective back in March. The mask feels uncomfortably hot, and I can’t stop my glasses from steaming up. Worse, I can’t use a facial expression to communicate a covid-related civility such as “Thank you for moving out of the way while I come through.” Or that peculiarly English apology: “You stood on my foot. I’m so sorry”.

Bishop Burton this afternoon...

 

Stoodley Pike...

Licensed today: taking the old road to Stoodley Pike...

Saxton...

 A quiet corner of Saxton...

Lowther Castle...

Lowther Castle, licensed today. If there's an uglier building in Cumbria then I don't know about it. Extravagant in design, and ruinously expensive to build, it was always more of a folly than a home for the self-regarding Lowther family...

 

Swinside...

Why is anyone surprised that bookmakers are “taking advantage” of the poor, the gullible, the luckless and the foolish? In a story I read today, a severely disabled man was helped by Paddy Power and Ladbroke Coral to squander the compensation money he had received after a botched hospital operation. Over three years he lost more than £500,000. Taking advantage of people isn’t some unfortunate by-product of the gambling industry; it’s precisely what they exist to do. And asking betting companies to regulate themselves is like putting foxes in charge of a hen-house… 

Licensed today: Swinside stone circle in Cumbria...

Driffield...

 A quiet corner of Driffield...

Pawnbrokers...

 Window shopping at the pawnbrokers...

Cawood Castle...

According to a new poll, Joe Biden’s greatest attribute is that “he isn’t Donald Trump”. Maybe America needs a period of relative calm and quiet reflection, over the next four years, with "Sleepy Joe" at the helm. I reckon he could have a productive presidency just by sitting in a rocking chair, on his front porch, drinking iced lemonade…

The gatehouse of Cawood Castle...

Main Street, Asselby...

 

Postie...

 

Wetherby Whaler...

 Social distancing in Wetherby today...

Constantine...

Emperor Constantine (c288-336 CE) was a pivotal figure in establishing the Christian church as more than a group of warring factions. To succeed his father as emperor, Constantine had to defeat his rival Maxentius. On the eve of battle he saw a cross in the sky accompanied by the inscription “By this symbol you will conquer.” The next day he ordered his soldiers to paint a cross on their shields... and his army won the day. In gratitude, he transferred his allegience to Christianity. He decreed that all religions were to be allowed within the Roman empire, though Christian churches would benefit, then as now, from tax concessions. He ended the Roman empire’s persecution of Christians and set out to reconcile the disputes among the Christian sects.

Constantine was proclaimed emperor in York, in the year 306 CE, which is why this statue was commissioned in 1998 and erected outside the minster. No one (to my knowledge) has questioned the rationale behind the memorialisation of Constantine in bronze, even though he was a brutal sociopath who murdered his eldest son, decapitated his brother-in-law and killed his wife by boiling her alive (and that was after he had converted from worshipping the sun god to embracing Christianity!)…

 

Never ever...

While it’s good to learn something new every day, there are gaps in my inventory of life experiences that might never be filled. I have never sold a car for more than I paid for it. I have never paid for sex. I have never eaten an egg. I have never had a tattoo or a piercing. I have never voted for anyone but Labour. I have never proposed, never been married. I have never been on a stag night. Though I have ventured into a betting shop on half a dozen occasions, I have never needed to go back and collect my winnings. I have read no Dickens, no Jane Austen, no James Joyce, no J K Rowling. I've never been in a courtroom (though this lapse will be remedied soon). I’ve never been arrested, never done time. Unlike Johnny Cash I have never shot a man just to watch him die. And, unlike these people in Malton, I have never seen Superman...

Prayers...

Spotted this banner yesterday in the handsome market town of Malton: food for thought rather than prayer. Let me get this straight. You’re petitioning a supernatural being, who is both omniscient and omnipotent, in the hope that he will listen to our prayerful entreaties and, presumably, act. You keep saying that God has a plan for us: a plan which currently includes the unchecked advance of a contagion for which we have no cure. We have to assume that his current plan for humanity includes thinning out the herd by picking off the stragglers. Is he really going to change his plan because a few people ask him to? Is he at the beck and call of true believers? Is this how an omnipotent being behaves? If God wanted to rid the world of coronavirus, he could do it in an instant. The fact that he doesn’t should give us pause for thought. May I suggest a more appropriate slogan: Light a candle, say a prayer, wallow in self-delusion…

 

The local...

 Another quiet corner of Beverley...

Jehovah's Witnesses...

It's always a pleasant surprise to see one of my images being used to illustrate an article on the Guardian website, especially about this particular bunch of religious zealots. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that they, and they alone, are "God's chosen people", and that everyone outside the sect is "controlled by Satan". In response to recent accusations of child abuse within the organisation, the Witnesses have taken the path already established by the Catholic Church: blaming the victims and shielding the perpetrators. This is what is likely to happen whenever religious fundamentalists are convinced that they are “answerable only to God"... 

 

Something new...

It’s good to learn something new every day. It keeps us intellectually nimble, while offering us something both precious and too seldom exercised: the opportunity to change our minds. I have enhanced my appreciation of our democratic traditions (and an understanding of just how vulnerable they are). I’ve learned that ‘petrichor’ is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry land. I’ve learned how to find the make, model and date of first registration of any car from its number-plate. I’ve learned that Finkle Street (a name found in many northern towns) just means ‘a street with a bend in it’. I’ve recently found out what ‘dog whistle politics’ means. I discovered that Pontefract’s name comes from the Latin for ‘broken bridge’ (obvious, really). I learned that McDonalds isn’t just a place for clean toilets and free wifi; apparently they make burgers too. And I finally realised that I shouldn’t try to mate outside my own species…

A quiet corner of Cawood...

 

Beverley...

 This evening in Beverley...

Dystopia...

A line from Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”. Compare and contrast with what Donald Trump said last week: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening."

Window shopping in Tadcaster...

 

Cawood...

 Postman on his round in Cawood today...

 

Tadcaster...

Tadcaster, this morning. John Smith's is a terrible beer... yet still isn't the worst beer brewed in Tadcaster (that accolade goes to Sam Smith's)...

Penrith...

Licensed today: walking the dogs past St Andrew's Church in Penrith...

The long haul...

Anybody who still thinks that coronavirus is a hoax might usefully read this article by a ‘long hauler’ who has suffered a long list of debilitating symptoms since she fell ill on March 25… 

“Four months later, I’m still dealing with a near-daily fever, cognitive dysfunction and memory issues, GI issues, severe headaches, a heart rate of 150+ from minimal activity, severe muscle and joint pain, and a feeling like my body has forgotten how to breathe. Over the past 131 days, I’ve intermittently lost all feeling in my arms and hands, had essential tremors, extreme back, kidney, and rib pain, phantom smells (like someone BBQing bad meat), tinnitus, difficulty reading text, difficulty understanding people in conversations, difficulty following movie and TV plots, sensitivity to noise and light, bruising, and petechiae – a rash that shows up with Covid. These on top of the CDC-listed symptoms of cough, chills, and difficulty breathing”…

When this pic goes on sale I'll add the keyword 'paranoia'...

Muker...

Licensed today: the village of Muker in Swaledale...

York Minster...

The south transept of York Minster, this morning...

Animatronic vicar...

This short quote from Krishnamurti arrived in my inbox this morning.

"There is no path to truth. Nobody can lead you to truth. Truth is something that comes into being only when you know the art of listening and seeing, where there is love and compassion, which has its own intelligence. Do not follow anybody spiritually. Do not obey. Have a free mind. Where there is freedom there is love, and without freedom one remains in prison."

The obvious answer to falling congregations: an animatronic vicar...

North Newbald...

A quiet corner of North Newbald...