Broad Leys...

Licenced today, for the best price of the month: Broad Leys, the clubhouse of the Windermere Motor Boat Racing Club...

Refugees...

A dead cat was found in the village and reported on Asselby’s Facebook page. Result? Two dozen messages of sincere condolence. Someone else announced, the same day, that she was collecting clothes for Afghan refugees. Result? A blizzard of spittle-flecked posts, suggesting that “charity begins at home” and recommending that refugees be left to drown in the sea.

Licenced today: learning to drive on a tree-lined road near Ulleskelf...

House sold...

Licenced today: a property transaction concluded in an East Yorkshire village...

Angela Merkel...

After 16 years in power Angela Merkel has departed the world stage. This is how I will remember her. I don't know what was being said, on this occasion, but I don't need to: the body language says it all...

Thorne canal...

Licenced today: the Stainforth & Keadby Canal, at Thorne, South Yorkshire...

Panic buying...

Grant Shapps has urged the public not to panic-buy petrol and diesel. The result, as predictable as night following day, is queues of cars at petrol stations and a shortage of fuel at the pumps…

Unprecedented times?...

Every generation is convinced that it is living in unique times. And not just unique, but uniquely unique: unique in new and surprising ways. The truth has proved, so far, to be more prosaic: our own times are ‘special’ merely because we happen to be living through them. For most of my three score years and ten, I have made the blithe assumption that tomorrow will be better than today. However, this progress - even this idea of progress - now seems to have stalled. In 2021 the world seems to be either burning or drowning. Democracy is retreating, while radical Islam in on the charge. We have a global pandemic, with a virus that might mutate, at any moment, into something altogether more deadly. Maybe, just maybe, these are unprecedented times.

Licensed on a Saturday: Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds...

Islamic law...

A hardline member of the Taliban has said in an interview that executions and amputations of hands will resume, in accordance with Islamic law, though perhaps not as a public spectacle. Mullah Nooruddin Turabi warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers. “No one will tell us what our laws should be”, Turabi said. “We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran”.

During the Taliban’s last period in charge, from 1996 to 2001, executions of convicted murderers were usually by a single shot to the head, carried out by the victim’s family, who had the option of accepting ‘blood money’ instead, and allowing the culprit to live. For convicted thieves, the punishment was amputation of a hand. For those convicted of highway robbery, a hand and a foot were amputated. Most of these punishments took place in Kabul’s sports stadium, or on the grounds of the Eid Gah mosque, often witnessed by hundreds of Afghan men.

Licenced today (though only a particularly poor church mouse would be happy with the fee): the interior of the church in the grounds of Belton Hall, near Grantham, Lincolnshire...

Incredible Edible...

Licenced today: an artwork, publicising 'Incredible Edible', in Todmorden, West Yorkshire... 

Late September heatwave...

Old friends from Taunton, Trish and Gordon, relaxing outside a café in Howden...

Poundbury...

Licenced today: a street in Poundbury, Dorset...

Sir Clive Sinclair...

The Guardian has published a rather lukewarm appreciation of Sir Clive Sinclair, who has died aged 81. As a schoolboy I can remember trying - and failing - to get to grips with a slide-rule. Then - thanks Sir Clive! - we had access to the Cambridge pocket calculator. Wow! At a time when computers were as big as a room, requiring teams of programmers and technicians, his Spectrum computer brought home computing to the masses. For a few years, with a virtual monopoly on the cheap ’n’ cheerful sector of the home computer market, he was a multi-millionaire. He was knighted and made ‘businessman of the year’.

Then - oh dear - it all went tits up. The Sinclair C5 was a low-slung, three-wheeled, lightweight, open, plastic-sided vehicle. The top speed was 15mph and the battery needed recharging every 20 miles. It was a deathtrap. When the C5 was launched, to a chorus of mocking laughter, I was working in Peterborough on Camera magazine. The guys who worked on Motor Cycle News had a C5… not to drive on the road, of course, but just to get from one end of the building to the other, in a pleasingly ironic way. Sir Clive’s reputation never really recovered, and, for years, he was seen as a bit of a joke. History will be kinder to him, I reckon, than the writer of the Guardian obituary. The man invented the pocket calculator! He was a hero!… 

Abandoned C5: best not tangle with a lorry...

Pen Hill...

A mother and daughter have died, just days apart, from Covid. Both were unvaccinated, and had been sharing conspiracy theories about the virus. As a grieving family member told the BBC, “These people who are not taking the Covid-19 injection - they’re not thinking of the other people that they leave behind”.

Licenced today: Pen Hill, in Wensleydale...

Porlock Weir...

Finally - finally! - my book is coming together, and I’m on target to finish it by the end of October. Sunny days have come and gone, and the camera has stayed in its bag, while I've prioritised the re-re-re-editing of the text. Though the word count has remained constant for many months - about 130,000 - the book is now very different to what I first had in mind. I feel both exhilarated and exhausted… but mostly exhausted!

Licenced today: a kayak lesson at Porlock Weir, Somerset…

Still life…

Licenced today: busy doing nothing… in Chichester…

Boston Stump...

Licenced today: St Botolph's Church - AKA the ‘Stump’ - and River Witham in Boston, Lincs...

Afghan women...

As announced last week, the Taliban government is entirely male and 100% bearded. Just to make sure no one misunderstands their intentions, they have abolished the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and replaced it with a simple directive for Afghan women: “Go home… and stay there”.

Licenced today: a branch of Tui travel agents…

Emma Raducanu...

Since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon, back in 1977, there hasn’t been much to cheer about in British women’s tennis. There has been plenty of hope, as one player after another tried to climb the greasy pole of tennis success, but not many trophies in the cabinet (and not a single major). So Emma Raducanu’s achievement, in winning the US Open last night, is extraordinary.

She had to come through qualification for the event - that’s three extra matches - and didn’t lose a single set on her way to the title. She is the first woman to win a major at only her second attempt. She is the first qualifier, man or woman, to win a major. And, at 18, she is the youngest major champion since Maria Sharapova in 2004. Going into the tournament her world ranking was 150 (now it will be 23).

I watched the match last night: a couple of hours well-spent. I don't know how those girls hit the ball so hard, and find the corners of the court with such precision and regularity. Emma will need a removals van to carry all the money she's going to make over the next ten years, and the film of her meteoric rise to stardom, in just three months, will soon be in production. There’s no need for the BBC to nominate anyone else for the Sports Personality of the Year Award. All bets are off; the destination of the trophy has already been decided...

September 11, 2001...

I can remember where I was on 9/11, twenty years ago: sat on my sofa in Hebden Bridge, unable to tear myself away from the TV screen. The TV coverage was graphic, mesmeric. When a plane ploughed into the Pentagon, I felt sure the White House would be next. Having gone to work as usual that September morning, thousands of people were faced with an unimaginable choice: confronting a raging inferno or jumping from one of the upper floors of the World Trade Centre. In the days that followed we learned that 3,000 people had perished, comprising non-combatants from thirty different nations. This wasn’t an attack on the World Trade Centre, or America, or ‘the west’; it seemed, at that moment, like an attack on humanity itself.     

Commentators questioned why well-educated people (most of the hijackers were college educated and middle class; eight of them were engineers) should have taken over the controls of civil aircraft, to kill the passengers, crew, thousands of other people and themselves. We were forced to confront the hijackers’ implacable faith: the belief that they were doing the will of God, their God. It takes a true believer to embrace a martyr’s death. The victims, in contrast, worshipped one God, or another God; some acknowledged no God at all; many of them were Muslims. Though they might have prayed to their God for deliverance from that existential nightmare, their prayers went unanswered…

Called off...

Cricket fans are converging on Old Trafford for the fifth and final test, England v India, of the summer. They’ll be listening to the car radio, and learning that the game has been called off, after some of India’s staff (but none of the players) tested positive for covid.

Every seat in Old Trafford had been sold, and spectators will presumably get a full refund, but the wicket has already been prepared, and all the sandwiches made. How about putting on some kind of game (England v England B, say, or two county sides), and dedicating the event to the men and women of Afghanistan’s international cricket teams?

Two cricketers on Bootle beach on the Cumbrian coast. We just need another twenty players to turn up at Old Trafford, and we can put on a game...

Corfe Castle...

Wise words from Krishnamurti which arrived in my in-tray this morning... "Religion is the gathering of all energy in that quality of attention. It is that quality of attention that regenerates man, that brings about real transformation with regard to his conduct, behaviour and whole way of relationship. Religion is that factor, not all this foolery going on in the name of religion. To inquire, the mind must put aside all the structure of thought built around that word".

Licenced today: Corfe Castle, Dorset, in autumnal mood...

Taliban...

Taliban spokesmen promised to respect women’s rights to work and get an education, “within the limits of Islam”. This morning, however, the deputy head of the Taliban’s cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, said that women will not be allowed to play any sports. “I don’t think women will be allowed to play cricket because it is not necessary that women should play cricket,” he said. “In cricket, they might face a situation where their face and body will not be covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen like this”.

Selby Canal, this morning. The leaves may be going brown, but the algae is still a vivid green...

The royals...

According to a statement on the Royal Family’s website, re recruitment: “We are proud to champion diversity throughout the organisation. We employ and reward the very best talent, regardless of gender, race, ethnic or national origin, disability, religion, sexual orientation or age. And that’s how we seek out future potential too, recruiting from the widest available pool. Our approach to recruitment and selection is fair, open and based purely on merit.” Thankfully, “merit” plays no part in the composition of the Royal Family itself... otherwise Prince Andrew might be doing time right now.

Licenced today: a Yodel delivery van...

England v Andorra...

England beat Andorra last night, though the 4-0 result should be viewed in context… since the capacity of Wembley stadium - 90,000 - is greater than the entire population of Andorra.

Licenced today: the Drunken Duck gastro-pub, near Ambleside... 

Home delivery...

I’m surprised that Iceland is still in business when so many other stores have gone under. A few years ago the company took the bizarre decision to sell only organic food. At the time I wondered just how many people might be wanting organic food shaped like Disney characters. Chastened by the sales figures, the company has sensibly returned to its original business model: selling a dozen nutrition-free ‘burgers’ for 99p.

Pic licenced last week...

The hierarchy of heaven...

An Anglican bishop opposed to the ordination of women has resigned to join the Roman Catholic church. Jonathan Goodall, currently the bishop of Ebbsfleet, said he came to his decision “after a long period of prayer” (rather than, say, a long period of pandering to his prejudices).

In the Roman Catholic catechism “God is neither man nor woman: he is God.” Nevertheless, as recently as 1977, Pope Paul VI rationalised the exclusion of women from the priesthood because “our Lord was a man”. The face of God has traditionally been perceived as male, and church fathers believed that male supremacy, here on earth, reflected the hierarchy of heaven.

In fact, of course, it was the other way round. It was the all-male hierarchy of the Catholic church, here on earth, which determined the level of testosterone in the heavenly realm. It was pious and self-serving men who wrote the prospectus of heaven, established the entry criteria and issued the tickets. 

Licenced today: the Fish Inn, in Buttermere village...

Lakeland cottage...

Found one of my pix in the Guardian today...

White tailed plover...

What a morning! Headed off early, past the marshland villages, to Blacktoft Sands, for my first visit since the start of the pandemic. I wanted to avoid the crowds, because twitchers have been converging on the reserve over the past week to see a white tailed plover: the first Yorkshire sighting for a bird which should really be in Asia rather than Humberside.

Within ten minutes I’d found it, picking its way through the shallows on long, yellow legs (not my pic, but it looked exactly like this). Plenty of other birds around too: a pair of little stints, snipe, ruff, black tailed godwit, common sandpiper, green sandpiper, redshank, ringed plover, water rail, little egret, marsh harrier, cetti’s warbler, reed warbler and a flock of bearded tits…

Child abuse...

According to an article in today’s Guardian, children are vulnerable to sexual abuse in a variety of religious settings, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, Methodists, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism and nonconformist Christian denominations. The Catholic Church and the Church of England had already been investigated - and damned - in a previous report. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has highlighted the hypocrisy of religions which purport to teach right from wrong, but fail to protect children.

Transgressive priests - and their superiors in the church hierarchy - should read their Bibles more often. Jesus said “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:1-6). How can a man preach continence from the pulpit on Sunday morning, and then abuse a child? A true believer knows there’s no escape from divine supervision (according to Job 28:24, God “looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens”). So how is it possible for a man of the cloth to be so careless about the posthumous destination of his immortal soul, unless he knows, cynically, hypocritically, that heaven, hell - and the judgements of God himself - are the sheerest of pretences? 

Always good to wear your heart on your sleeve. Your neighbours really do need to be reminded of your beliefs every time they walk past your house. Aldbrough, yesterday...

Ghyll Head Reservoir...

I have a few shots of anglers on Ghyll Head Reservoir, in South Lakeland, but this is the first one that's ever sold...

The Gleaners...

According to a post on Asselby’s Facebook page, the factory is unable to process a local farmer's crop of peas. They will be ploughed under in a few days, but, in the meantime, anyone can go and pick them… which is why I have a shopping bag full of sweet, freshly-picked pea-pods to enjoy. The scene in the pea field looked just like this painting - The Gleaners - by Millet...

Great Dixter...

Licenced today: the gardens of Great Dixter, in Northiam, East Sussex...