Goodbye to 2020... and good riddance...

The seasonal salutations are unchanging and formulaic. “Happy Christmas and a merry new year" is an unthinkable construction… especially at the end of 2020. In lieu of anything more positive to say about 2021, here’s a picture of some sheep…

 

Lives at risk...

Yesterday set the sort of record that no one wants to see, with 53,135 new cases of the virus in the UK. The hospitals are full, yet, even if the whole country now goes into severe lockdown, the number of admissions will continue to rise. Such is the entirely predictable - and preventable - consequence of allowing people to gather together over Christmas.

I’ve been reading an account by a senior registrar in intensive care medicine: essential reading for anyone who still thinks that the virus is some kind of hoax, or who may be considering a new year’s knees-up.

“Long gone are the days of claps on doorsteps. Things put in place to support NHS staff during the first wave have been taken away at the time they are needed most. Free parking. Access to tea and coffee during the long nights. Mental health support. Let alone the promised pay rise. And now, even as staff continue to put their lives at risk every day that they turn up for work, they find themselves at the back of the queue for a vaccine”…   

Birdoswald...

Christmas, traditionally, is the time of year when I obsess gloomily about my many shortcomings… when I am confronted most starkly with the contrast between the goodness in the world and the badness in me. Not this year, though. It doesn’t mean that I’m becoming a better person, alas; it just means that the world is going to hell in a handcart.

Licensed today: Birdoswald Roman fort, on Hadrian's Wall, near Gilsland, Cumbria… 

Ambleside...

Another place, another time...

 

Change of use...

Just read an interesting article on the Guardian website, by Simon Jenkins. He notes that barely 2% of the nation regularly go to their Church of England parish church, and a third of them are over 70, with only 1% of 18- to 24-year-olds now identifying as Anglican. This decline in Christian observance leaves a lot of churches surplus to requirements. What, he asks, should we do with them? The situation is complicated by the fact that some 70% of England’s churches are listed and undestroyable, including 45% of the country’s Grade 1 historic buildings. Unless they are de-listed, we can’t allow them to crumble into picturesque ruins.

Though it may seem strange for an atheist like me to be concerned about the fate of old churches, atheism is not, in fact, a belief system. Atheists can appreciate religious art, ecclesiastical architecture and the church's place in social history; we’re not the Taliban!

Some churches are being re-purposed, with many currently serving as much-needed food banks. The church in my pic - at Beech Hill, near Reading - doubles up as the village shop. Everything folds away behind screens, when the building is required for services: the counter, displays and even the frozen food cabinets…

 

Flatlands...

Sodden fields, this afternoon...

St George...

Licensed today: a statue of St George killing the dragon, in Alnwick, Northumberland…

 

Royal Armouries Museum...

We have ‘old’ covid, ‘new’ covid, and, now, ‘new new’ covid. If we’re unsure how to respond to today’s restrictions, and need a rationale for scaling down our Christmas get-togethers, we only have to think about the people who work in the NHS - already exhausted - who will nevertheless look after us if we fall ill. While we may not think too highly about the government’s handling of the pandemic, we can at least do our damndest to avoid occupying another hospital bed.

Licensed today: a display in the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds...

Bah humbug...

Oof… my distaste for the festive season has been commodified. Warburtons are producing their sliced loaves with two different designs on the wrapper. Customers can plump for either the ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Bah Humbug’ versions…

 

Goole...

When the town of Goole - and its associated docks and waterways - opened for business in 1826, it must have looked futuristic. Six roads meet where the clock tower now stands, on a roundabout, so this was the centre of the original town. The building with the arched windows is the City and County, a Wetherspoons pub, which used to be a branch of the York City and County Bank. Pic licensed this morning for the best price of a poor month… 

Selby Abbey...

Preparing Selby Abbey for the white supremacists' Christmas pot-luck dinner and dance...

  

Home cooking...

A Michigan man has successfully sued his parents for getting rid of his pornography collection, and can now seek compensation. David Werking said that boxes of films and magazines worth an estimated $29,000 (£21,500) had gone missing, and his parents admitted that they had indeed destroyed the stash. Case closed. I'm searching, in vain, for a moral to this story.

The moral to this story: don't take a phone call while there's a pepperoni pizza in the oven. I've uploaded the image to Alamy, with high hopes of a sale... 

 

Postie...

The local postman gets another airing in a national newspaper...

Santa needs a wee...

We should resist the urge to provide a happy ending for a year as shit as 2020. The year doesn’t stop being shit just because Mariah Carey is top of the charts - finally - with All I Want for Christmas is You. Christmas with family could mean a spell in hospital - or worse - for older family members, and it will be doctors and nurses, not Boris Johnson, who will be charged with clearing up the mess in the new year. Count me out.

The Junction Arts Centre in Goole is closed, much like everything else in the town. But, according to an email I received today, they are still putting on a show. Father Christmas Needs a Wee, based, possibly, on one of Philip Larkin's lesser-known poems, is available online. I might give this a miss too.

Retail multi-tasking in Ulverston, seconds before the shop proprietor came over and threatened to knock me out if I took another photo of his shop. My usual response - "I don't care to be spoken to in that tone of voice" - had the required effect, leaving my good looks intact...

 

Hebden Bridge...

Licenced today: Market Street in Hebden Bridge...

Ruthwell Cross...

Licensed today: the anglo-saxon Ruthwell Cross in Ruthwell Kirk, Dumfries & Galloway…

 

Crosthwaite...

It’s not every day that I’m inspired by a quote from Cher, the seemingly ageless singer and actress. When asked today how Donald Trump has changed the culture of the United States, she replied, “It’s toxic. People who just disagreed with each other before are now enemies”.

Democracy relies on the peaceful transition from one government to the next. If ‘your’ party wins the election, you have every right to punch the air or dance a jig. If ‘your’ party loses, you have every right to show your disappointment. But no one should attempt to undermine the legitimancy of the election itself, by insisting - without any evidence - that it was rigged. It’s hard to see Trump’s baseless lawsuits, since the election, as anything but an attempted coup. He’s encouraged his followers to take to the streets, fully armed. Cher’s right: Trump has sowed discord… and enmity.

Licenced today: the South Lakeland village of Crosthwaite...

 

Brexit...

Brexit celebrations start early in Maryport...

 

Windermere...

Rugby...

There’s a call today for rugby to be banned in schools, because an increasing number of professional rugby players are being diagnosed with early onset dementia. Eight former players, all under the age of 45, are proposing to bring legal proceedings against the game’s governing bodies over what they claim is their failure to protect them from the risks caused by concussions.

The news comes too late for me. I played rugby at school, but only because I had to. I would run up and down the touchline in the hope that the other players might assume I was watching, while spectators might assume I was playing. This ploy worked pretty well until someone was thoughtless enough to pass me the ball.

Licensed today: another shot to illustrate that home delivery is endemic. We used to go shopping; now the shops come to us... 

Dangerous delusions...

A neat summation of post-election chaos by Stephen Collinson of CNN. “Trump’s dangerous delusions about a stolen election represent the most overt attempt in modern history by a president to overthrow the will of the voters. But they have reached the point of no return after the conservative-majority Supreme Court largely crushed what remaining hallucinatory hopes Trump harbored of reversing his defeat. The Court’s devastating first response to the post-election fray sent a clear signal that the top bench disdains frivolous and long-shot cases already witheringly rejected by lower courts. The denial of Pennsylvania Republicans’ request to block the certification of their state’s results, for which there were no noted dissents, was a humiliating repudiation of Trump’s fundamental misunderstanding that three justices that he installed on the Court would swing him a disputed election. It also showed that evidence-free conspiracy theories might thrill the president’s base and his media propagandists, but they don’t cut it in court”.

Hull marina...

Dedham Vale...

Coventry is - for a day - the epicentre of the medical world, as a 90-year-old woman from the city is the first recipient of the Pfizer/BioNTech covid vaccine. Things are likely to get a good deal worse before they get any better, but, hey, it’s a start. When my turn comes, I’ll be there in the queue with my sleeve rolled up.

Licensed today: a pollarded willow tree by the River Stour, Dedham Vale…

 

God's will...

We have to take responsibility for our own health. If we trust in the almighty, rather than wearing a face-mask, we increase the likelihood that we’ll become just another covid-related statistic. According to an article I just read, in the Guardian, a Muslim shopkeeper in Blackburn has this to say about his customers.

“They say, ‘but it’s written by the almighty!’ They think if it’s Allah’s will, he will protect them. But I say to them: ‘Allah also gave you a brain’. It’s suicide not taking Covid seriously”. The fatalism promoted by Islam may account - at least in part - for the disproportionately high incidence of infections in some of our northern towns and cities.

Hull, a couple of days ago...

Shock & awe...

I read a five-star review about Once Upon a Time in Iraq, a series of five BBC documentary films about the Iraq invasion of 2003 and its violent, chaotic aftermath (the “mission accomplished” announcement, a month after the fall of Baghdad, by a smirking George Bush, having been ludicrously premature). I watched the first film… then the other four. That’s how engrossing it was.

The events were described by those who witnessed them: an American marine, a journalist, a photographer and Iraqi civilians who had been caught up in the war (war? As Bill Hicks pointed out, “it’s only a war if two armies are fighting”). Despite their harrowing tales, they all seemed relieved to know that they were finally being listened to. For me it was five hours well spent; I might even watch the films again.

When Hull fishermen haul in their nets for the last time, they have the option of moving into these rather splendid almshouses... 

Elloughton...

A cottage in the village of Elloughton this afternoon...

 

Harnessing the wind...

The USA has 4% of the world’s population but 19% of its deaths from Covid-19. Yesterday 2,879 Americans died from the virus: almost as many as in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. And what has Donald Trump said? Nothing. He’s too busy trying to overturn the result of an election he clearly lost… 

Licensed today: a kite-surfer and offshore windfarm near Redcar...

 

Books...

Licensed today: one of the many rooms - all equally overcrowded - in Camilla's Bookshop in Eastbourne. I met Camilla, briefly, before she headed out "to buy more books"... 

 

Poundbury...

Licensed today: a row of terraced houses in Poundbury, the vanity project, near Dorchester, dreamed up by Prince Charles...

Christmas...

Whatever we can - or can’t - do over the Christmas holiday, surely we're all aware by now that gathering together, in boozy, multi-generational clusters, is going to create more infections, then more hospitalisations and, finally, more funerals. With vaccines on the way - and not just on the nation’s wish-list - this winter seems like a time for caution, not recklessness. I’ll be keeping my head down; I don't want this to be my last Christmas... and I don't want to be a burden on the NHS.

Licensed today: the Manor Hotel in Moreton-in-Marsh…