It’s ironic: we keep each other safe, during a pandemic, by keeping our distance. Now, with vaccines on the way, I’m looking forward to routine interactions that I used to take for granted. I want to greet an old friend with a hug. I want to give someone a slap on the back. I want to punch someone on the arm, to accompany the punchline to a joke. I want to lean in… not lean away.
The last licence of the month: the Caledonian Canal at Fort Augustus…
The American legal system is standing up, robustly, to Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud. The Philadelphia judge, Stephanos Bibas, summed up the legal response to Trump’s latest lawsuit with clarity and brevity. “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here”.
Licensed yesterday: Whitby harbour...
A few words from Krishnamurti, which just arrived in my email inbox...
"We have divided the physical world as the East and the West. We have
divided religions: the Christian religion and Hindu, Muslim and
Buddhist. We have divided the world into nationalities. We have the
capitalist and the socialist, the communist and the other people, and so
on. We have divided the world; we have divided ourselves as Christians
and non-Christians. We have divided ourselves into fragments, opposing
each other. Where there is a division there is conflict"
Licenced today: a typical street scene in Thornbury, Gloucestershire...
Mundane pix can sell... if they make a point. Licensed today: a house to let in the Cotswold village of Lower Slaughter...
They’re at it again. The Bishop of Blackburn is the latest cleric threatening to leave the Church of England if it abandons “orthodox biblical teachings” about sexuality and identity. Though it’s true that the Bible condemns homosexuality, the ‘good book’ also condones slavery. Any man who promotes “orthodox biblical teachings” should, by rights, be advocating the taking of sex-slaves as well.
Licensed today: a narrowboat on the River Nene near Oundle…
Just read an article: How can you tell when someone has a dog? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. Everyone in Asselby seems to have a dog - sometimes several - which soon become the sole topic of conversation.
This is the kind of scene I used to encounter in the good old days, when I toured around in the Romahome and visited characterful pubs in the middle of nowhere. Having been sitting on his own, the guy on the right suddenly announced: “Right… I’ll get the dogs from the car”. The couple on the left had been debating how much their house had increased in value between lunch and tea-time, but the dogs (or are they ponies?) quickly monopolised both the conversation and every available inch of floor-space…
I appreciate that most people are wanting a traditional family Christmas this year, with all the trimmings. However, bringing kids and old folk together in a confined space, with too much food and booze, is going to create, first, a spike in infections, followed by a rise in hospital admissions, and then, as spring approaches, more deaths and funerals. Now that safe and effective vaccines seem just around the corner - and not just wishful thinking - this isn’t a good time to catch the virus. I’m likely to be more cautious, over the coming months, not less.
Licensed this image today, for calendar use. If a mundane pic of a clock tower in the Cambridgeshire town of Chatteris has 'made the cut', it's going to be a pretty boring calendar...
Donald Trump has been locked into the Oval Office of the White House, with a fifth of bourbon and a pearl-handled revolver, and told to “consider his options”.
Still selling pix of the topiary gardens at Levens Hall...
I make lists of my favourite words, which include nubile, lithe, lissom, mollify, rigmarole, budgerigar, kerfuffle, skullduggery, catamite, termagent, quibble, avuncular, moist, plinth, sashay, demarera, sponge, beaver, doolally. So someone who was nubile, lithe, lissom - and moist - would tick a lot of boxes.
Licensed today: Loch Ainort on the Isle of Skye...
Hull, twenty-odd miles from Asselby along the M62, is now the nation’s coronavirus hot-spot. The city managed to avoid the worst of the first wave and went into September with low immunity, but is now seeing what the leader of the city council has called an “astonishing and terrifying” rise in Covid-19 cases, which have jumped ten-fold in just five weeks to become the highest in the country.
Licensed today for use on a calendar: Flatford Mill in Essex...
Donald Trump starting a small war in some “shithole country” represented my worst-case scenario for a demented dictator backed into an electoral corner: a kind of mirthless joke. But today I read that he asked top aides last week about the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. The senior officials “dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike”, warning him that an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency. Trump still has access to the nuclear codes; the sooner he is out of the White House, the safer the world will be.
Licensed today: a display of daffodils in the graveyard of Jesus Church, in Troutbeck, Cumbria...
Well, here we are… in the middle of Lockdown 2.0. Everyday life doesn’t seem so very different (from my perspective, at least) to the way things were two weeks ago… which merely shows how far my horizons have contracted. I keep telling myself how lucky I am - roof over my head, food in the fridge, woodburner blazing - but I don’t feel lucky. I feel stuck, stalled, stymied. Writing is hard. I can barely concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time, and what I am able to write looks distinctly uninspired. But, hey, another vaccine candidate has been announced this morning. Roll on springtime…
Licensed today: a VW camper passing Crummockwater...
The crowds have been out in Washington, waving banners, shouting slogans and refusing to accept the results of a free and fair election. The blame lies entirely with Donald Trump. To his already long list of personal failings, we can add another: he’s not just a loser… he’s a bad loser. His claims that the election was rigged are entirely baseless, his lawsuits without merit. If he had conceded defeat, and congratulated Joe Biden on winning the election, then (most of) his followers would have accepted the result too… albeit grudgingly. Instead he is whipping up his followers into a frenzy, and putting democracy at risk, just to give himself an outside chance of a second term as president.
The battle in the USA is no longer between Republicans and Democrats; it’s between democracy and mob rule. People will die as a direct result of Trump’s intransigence. Worse, they’ll die in vain, because his cynical ploys won’t work. Donald Trump will vacate the White House, one way or another, and Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president…
South Dalton in the Yorkshire Wolds...
I read on the Guardian website about the death of Peter Sutcliffe; just seeing it in print made me jump, as memories flooded back of living in Leeds in the 1970s. Sutcliffe’s first victims were prostitutes. It was obviously easier to target the women working the streets of northern towns, because they needed little persuading to get into his car. The police response was muted initially, with suggestions that the killer was doing the police’s job, by “cleaning up the streets”. Sex workers, it seemed, were dispensible. It wasn’t until Jayne MacDonald, a student at Leeds University, became his fifth victim, that the police investigation was stepped up. She was described by police as the first “innocent” victim, who “didn’t deserve to die”.
The investigation took a wrong turn when a cassette tape was sent to George Oldfield, Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. “I’m Jack”, claimed a mocking voice in a Wearside accent. “I see you are still having no luck catching me”. That hoax tape, broadcast continuously to shoppers at the Merrion Centre, distracted the police for 18 months. While they looked for a man from Wearside, three more women were killed. Peter Sutcliffe was interviewed on nine separate occasions by police, and released each time because he had a Yorkshire accent (but if they had searched his garage, they would have found the tools of his grisly trade).
Joy and I were sitting in the Little Park pub in Burley - demolished years ago - when someone burst through the door shouting “They’ve got him!”... and no one needed to be told who “he” was. Peter Sutcliffe murdered 13 women, attacked many more and left 23 children without a mother…
Greg Clarke has resigned as Chairman of the Football Association for ill-considered comments he made while being interrogated by MPs. He used the term “coloured” to describe black, Asian and minority ethnic people and suggested that “different career interests” led south Asian people to choose careers in IT over sport. He also described a gay player coming out as a “life choice” and recounted an anecdote about girl footballers being afraid to be hit by the ball.
According to a survey of UK sporting organisations, the term BAME (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) is “insulting” and should be retired. Arun Kang, the CEO of Sporting Equals, is suggesting that “ethnically diverse communities” (or “diverse ethnic communities”) should be used instead. We seem to be running out of inoffensive acronymns and euphemisms. I’m not surprised that Greg Clarke used an anachronistic term; despite his elevated position within the FA - and salary to match - he’s not the sharpest knife in the box. It could even be seen as an honest mistake by a man who failed to keep abreast of current trends in racial terminology.
Ironically, you only have to attend a football match, or watch a game on TV in a febrile pub atmosphere, to hear language unmoderated by any attempt to avoid offence. “A fucking lazy thick nigger” was pundit Ron Atkinson’s verdict on Marcel Desailly after a match, when he thought his microphone had been switched off. I wonder what percentage of the population believe that only white people can genuinely claim to be called English or British. The majority, I suspect.
Licensed today, for TV use: a night scene in Carlisle…
The Catholic Church, market leader in the child molestation business, has been criticised, yet again, for being more interested in the church’s reputation than in the welfare of victims. The 162-page report, the result of an independent enquiry, is damning: “The church’s neglect of the physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of children and young people in favour of protecting its reputation was in conflict with its mission of love and care for the innocent and vulnerable”. There will no doubt be another enquiry next year, and the year after that, but nothing much will change. The church will dip into its coffers to pay off some of the more persistent victims, while continuing to faciliate the abuse of children by predatory priests, whose vow of chastity looks like a sick joke.
Licensed today: Scale Lane Bridge in Hull...
Dispensing with hell was a hazardous move for the Church of England. Instead of blackmailing people into belief, by threatening them with an eternity of hellfire, church leaders are having to rely on persuasive argument… which puts them at a distinct disadvantage.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is promising that, by 2022, the church will have formalised its stance on sexuality. Currently the church does not allow same-sex marriage, and does not officially bless same-sex civil partnerships. Gay clergy are permitted to be in relationships so long as they remain celibate.
Will it really take two years for the Church of England to do the right thing? And, if they do, will anyone still be listening?
I’ve learned that Douglas, whose portrait hangs on my wall, died back in May, aged 101, having caught coronairus during a visit to hospital. He has been a reassuring presence during lockdown: stoical, serene, wise and non-judgemental…
We can’t say we weren’t warned. Back in 2016, during the last candidates’ debate, Donald Trump said “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win”. Four years on, nothing much has changed. A clearly rattled Trump spoke from the White House last night: a surreal half hour of lies and baseless accusations. “If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us”.
Biden needs just six more electoral college votes to reach the magic number of 270. It’s traditional for the loser in a presidential election to give a short speech of concession and - through gritted teeth, perhaps - to wish the new president all the best. Trump won’t do that, of course, but, in an hour or two, what Donald J Trump does or doesn’t do won’t matter so much any more...
Whether Joe Biden wins or loses the election, we know that almost half the American people thought Donald J Trump did a good job as president, and hoped to grant him four more years in the White House. That’s pretty damned depressing. Trump has no interest in the legitimacy of the electoral process, but only in clinging onto power at any cost.
I could-a been a contender! I could-a been somebody! But here I am, licensing a photo of a Harvester restaurant in Didcot, for peanuts. What the hell happened??…
Had a stroll along the Selby Canal this afternoon. I met a guy with binoculars, who said he was hoping to see the first of the winter thrushes. A flock of chattering fieldfares arrived, on cue, and attacked the berries growing along the towpath…
It’s election day in America, even though almost a hundred million people have already voted. One of the cornerstones of the democratic tradition is the peaceful transition of power from one government to the next. Yet, according to a poll yesterday, three quarters of the American people are expecting trouble. This may be Donald Trump’s malign legacy: attempting to transform a beacon of democracy into a fascist state, with Trump casting himself as Il Duce. I’m not suggesting he should be strung up, like Mussolini, from a lamp-post, though it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. There might be room, on his grave, for a small dance-hall.
I hope Trump will disappear, along with his Stepford wife and the rest of his over-entitled family. And I hope that Sleepy Joe will win so convincingly that Trump will be unable to bluff or bluster his way back into the White House for a second term as president.
Licensed today: twilight at McDonald's...
Predictably, religious groups have been critical of the new lockdown rule, which bans communal worship. Looks like they’ll have to thank God for his many gifts to humankind - coronavirus, cancer, floods, droughts, tsunamis, etc - from the privacy of their own homes.
High water in the River Ouse at Cawood this afternoon...
Well, here we go again. Back in March, most people obeyed the instruction to “stay home”. Six months down the line, and battered by virus-related restrictions, will we all be equally acquiescent this time around? With Asselby being quite a prosperous little village, I feel insulated from the worst effects of the virus… but I know that plenty of people are having a really tough time. With every shop that closes, more cash is being diverted into the coffers of Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, who is currently making about $321 million a day (does that include weekends? I’m not sure). At this rate he could become the world's first trillionaire by 2026…
