Bird news...

Licenced today. I can never guess which picture will sell next! Before Afghanistan, Covid, Brexit and climate change, this was the kind of news which engaged our attention...

Top Withens...

I’ve been accepted - finally! - into village life, having been recruited to Asselby’s vigilante group. We meet, every other Wednesday, down at the docks (knock three times and ask for Vince). The vigilantes don’t aim to throw foreigners out of the village; they prefer to exclude them before they arrive. 

Licenced today: Top Withens, possibly the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, on Haworth Moor…

Scouting for boys...

Just been reading an article in the Guardian about ‘champing’: camping out in old churches. For £49 (£25 for kids) you can spend the night in St Mary’s Church in Longsleddale, St Leonard’s Church in Old Langho or any of a dozen other churches dotted around the country (though none, as yet, in Yorkshire). With so many churches now surplus to all religious requirements - yet still requiring money to maintain them - this sounds like a good idea. Further info on the champing website.

Licenced last week: the statue of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the boy scout movement, on the quayside at Poole in Dorset. He's looking across to Brownsea Island where, in 1907, twenty boys pitched their tents and learned about self-reliance and the outdoor life…

Joe Root...

Despite a big crowd turning up at Headingley, in expectation of a day’s cricket, the Indian batsmen subsided tamely before lunch. England’s victory, by the huge margin of an innings and 76 runs, made Joe Root the most successful England captain in the history of the game, having notched up 27 wins in 55 games (as well as centuries in the last three matches). According to a report in the Guardian, he celebrated with the team, before enjoying “a golden afternoon on the outfield where, in his socks, he and Jos Buttler, and later Anderson, played cricket for more than an hour with their young children”.

Seen in the Guardian this morning: Ghaistrill's Strid, on the River Wharfe near Grassington...

Glimmers of light...

Since the news is bad, and getting worse, I’m trying to find a few glimmers of light in the gloom. McDonalds have run out of milkshake. England are thrashing India at Headingley. Belgian nuns have sold their convent and relocated to a castle in southern France, along with a Mercedes-Benz and a stable of racehorses. A white-tailed plover has appeared in Yorkshire for the very first time (I’d drive the ten miles to see it, at Blacktoft Sands, if it didn’t mean queuing up outside a hide with a load of twitchers).

Licenced today: walkers in the village of Rosthwaite, Borrowdale… 

'Lord Ted'...

My first taste of live cricket came in 1963, when my dad took a 12 year-old me to see England playing the West Indies at Headingley. Though I can still remember the names of all the West Indian players, my memories of the day’s events are patchy. I recall Wes Hall’s run-up: so long that he pushed off from the pavilion steps. And whatever Gary Sobers did - batting, fielding, bowling fast, bowling spin, or just putting his collar up - he did with a languid elegance. We talked to the players - it was all very informal in those days - and got a few autographs. Ted Dexter captained England throughout that summer… and he has died today.

Window shopping in Grantham...

Basingstoke Canal...

Sister Kari on the towpath of the Basingstoke Canal...

Penrith...

I’ve read a tragic story in today’s Guardian, about Alta, a two-year old girl in hospital on life support, who has no hope of recovery. There is an ongoing legal battle between the hospital and her ultra-orthodox Jewish parents about whether she should be allowed to die in hospital or at home. Lawyers for the family have argued that Alta’s religion has not been adequately taken into account in legal hearings. “In Jewish culture one becomes a member of the faith at conception and Alta’s religion forbids the withdrawal of life-saving care”. It’s bizarre - to me, at least - that such a statement should pass without comment. Are we really supposed to believe that a two-year old child has a religious faith? It only adds to the tragedy that a little girl will end her short life as a martyr to her parents’ religious delusions.

Licenced today: a street scene in Penrith...

Betting shops...

Some research seems superfluous… merely telling us what we already know. According to a report in today’s Guardian, the UK’s most deprived areas have more than ten times the number of betting shops than the most affluent parts of the country. “Those with the least resources are being targeted more,” the report suggests. Carolyn Harris, who chairs a cross-party group of MPs examining problem gambling, said: “It’s targeting the most vulnerable in society, both economically and those who may have a problem. It’s a testament to what we’ve always said, which is that the industry puts profit before people. It’s not unexpected but it’s disturbing".

Adjacent betting shops in Boston, Lincs...

Making a point...

Two men pointing the way, both licenced this morning. Top: Statue of statesman W E Forster, next to Marks & Spencer store in the Broadway Shopping Centre, Bradford. Bottom: carved figure of a green man, greeting visitors at the Forbidden Corner, Coverham, in the Yorkshire Dales...

Kirkstile Inn...

Licenced today: the Kirkstile Inn, near Loweswater...

Taliban...

In 2001, as defeated Taliban fighters melted back into the Afghan population, Mullah Omar famously murmured “You have the watches, we have the time”. Now, twenty years on, his words sound both prescient and inevitable. The Taliban have swept unopposed across the country in just ten days, with US-trained Afghan soldiers offering little resistance. Many towns surrendered without a shot being fired. 

Despite the conciliary tone of the Taliban leaders, speaking from the recently vacated Presidential Palace in Kabul, there are reports of people being beaten and killed. Fighters are going door-to-door in search of anyone who had ever worked with the American and NATO military forces. Women have been told to quit their jobs; they shouldn’t leave home unless wearing a burqa, and accompanied by a male guardian. Hard-won human rights are being trampled on. However, if we’re looking for the people who follow Quranic teachings most closely, we need look no further than the Taliban.

Licenced yesterday: Rick Stein's restaurant in Winchester…

Noah's Ark...

When I saw this tableau, created by local school-children in Hertford, I rushed back to the van to get my tripod. We’re familiar with the story of Noah: all the animals going into the ark, two-by-two (though taking those woodpeckers, in a timber-built boat, was probably a mistake). This is, of course, the moment that the children have captured in their tableau, rather than what happened next.

The sign on the right asks a question. Noah has three sons: can you name them? There are more pressing questions that I could ask. Where, for example, was desert-dwelling Noah able to source a pair of penguins (bottom pic, far right, beneath a member of Noah's family who appears to have been lynched)). And, even more importantly, why did God decide to destroy his creation, in its entirety, apart from one family? 

It was only after the flood that an omniscient God realised that he had killed the wicked, but not wickedness itself, so drowning almost everyone in the world achieved nothing. God promised Noah that he would never pull this stunt again: a promise which came too late for those whose bloated bodies littered the postdiluvian landscape (and which - surprise, surprise - appear nowhere in the children's tableau)...

Tide Mill...

Licenced today: the Tide Mill on the quayside, Woodbridge, Suffolk…

Brecon canal...

Licenced today: the canal basin of the Brecon and Monmouthshire Canal, Brecon, Powys…

Tenby...

Licenced today: a fisherman painting his boat on the beach at Tenby, Pembrokeshire...

Erectile disfunction...

I watched the test match yesterday, between lunch and tea, in a pub in Hertford. It was great to see Joe Root piling on the runs and giving England a slender lead. The session was punctuated by adverts for a company which offers help to men with ‘erectile disfunction’ (they’ve presumably done market research about who might be watching test cricket on a Saturday afternoon). Among the images used in the ads (a rocket launch in reverse, a balloon deflating, etc) one image was rather troubling: a chainsaw that wouldn’t start. A chainsaw?…

Moving house...

Licenced today: removal vans in the village of Askham Richard, near York...

Isle of Mull...

To judge from the photographs printed in the papers this week, the only students to get good GCSE results have been young, attractive, photogenic females… who particularly enjoy leaping into the air.

Licenced today: the Romahome parked up overlooking Glen More on the Isle of Mull...

Subway...

I’m busy working on my book, for at least three hours each day… starting as soon as I have a mug of tea to hand. Mornings are the time of day when editing is easiest… when the words, sentences and paragraphs seem to re-arrange themselves into a more lucid configuration. The word count stays constant (about 130,000), and the text I’ve cut - and pasted into another document - is approaching this number. Essentially, I’ve written the book twice!

Licenced today... for about the price of a foot-long sandwich...

Howden homes...

Licenced today: a new housing estate in Howden from Bellway builders...

Quiet, please...

A quote from Krishnamurti, which arrived in my email in-box this morning... "When the mind is utterly silent, what is the immeasurable, the everlasting, the eternal? Not in terms of God and all the things man has invented but actually to be that. Silence, in the deep sense of that word, opens the door because there you have got all your energy; not a thing is wasted. There is no dissipation of energy at all, and therefore in that silence, there is the summation of energy. It is not stimulated energy, not self-projected energy, and so on, which is too childish. There is no conflict, no control, no reaching out, searching, asking, questioning, demanding, waiting, praying – none of that. Therefore all the energy that had been wasted is now gathered in that silence. That silence has become sacred".

Coincidentally, this plea for silence was licenced today...

Fletching...

Licenced today: the church of St Andrew and St Mary the Virgin, Fletching, East Sussex...

Dedham Vale...

A rare Sunday sale: a pollarded willow tree on the banks of the River Stour in Dedham Vale, Suffolk...

Answered prayers...

Just read an inspiring article on the Guardian website, for which people who went through intensive care with Covid were reunited with those who nursed them back to health. Very moving, though one quote, from a 60-year-old Salvation Army minister, left me feeling rather queasy. “From day one there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people praying for me. And I believe to this day that those prayers were answered”.

Sentiments of this kind have a superficial appeal - a good news story to counteract so many Covid-related tragedies - but only until we give them a moment's thought. The faultlines in such faith-based certainties soon become apparent. God, the minister is suggesting, could have saved everybody else in the intensive care unit, but, for whatever reason, he chose not to. What a morally bankrupt idea!

Licenced yesterday: children playing on a beach at Eyemouth, Scotland…

Burnley...

According to a report in today’s Guardian, the Indonesian army will no longer be subjecting female recruits to a virginity test. The procedure, known in Indonesia as “the two-finger test”, is carried out by doctors, to check whether the hymen is still intact. If not, the candidate is rejected. There is, of course, no test for male virginity (and we can be pretty certain that nobody is looking for one).

Licenced today: Burnley at dusk...

York protest...

Shot yesterday as a favour for an old chum from York: a protest about limited access to the city centre for disabled Blue Badge holders...

Bungay...

Licenced today: a street in Bungay, Norfolk...

Calke Abbey...

Licenced today: a bedroom in Calke Abbey, Derbyshire. When the house was handed to the National Trust in 1985, many of its rooms had been abandoned for decades and were in a state of rapid decline. The NT decided not to restore these rooms, but rather preserve them as they were found...

Redcar windfarm...

Licenced today: offshore windfarm and kite surfer at Redcar, North Yorkshire...

Solar panels...

Licenced last week: new homes on the outskirts of Kendal, with pre-installed solar panels...