Mevagissey...

Licenced today: the harbour, Mevagissey, Cornwall…

Snowed in at Tan Hill...

Having travelled to the Tan Hill Inn to see an Oasis tribute band, 61 ‘music’ lovers have spent three nights holed up in the snow-bound pub. Apparently there was enough food and drink to go round. I’m very jealous. Being snowed in at Tan Hill is one of my fantasies! My pic is from five years ago, and the date was the last day of April…

Iceland...

Another less-than-stellar pic, earning me a sum which would barely buy a bag of Turkey Twizzlers...

Sports Direct...

It’s ‘Black Friday’ - a day that now seems to last a week - and I’ve so far refrained from spending any money. But after another day spent writing, I may head over to the Black Swan for a couple of beers. An hour of racist banter? I’m tempted.

Licensed today...

Furness Abbey...

Just found a slim book, in a jacket pocket: a freebie I must have picked up from somewhere. It’s called Try Praying. On the first page I read that “God knows what you think and is aware of all you do. You can talk to him about anything”. That’s got to be a rather strange and one-sided conversation, even if there really is someone ‘up there’, since you can’t tell God anything he doesn’t already know, and he already knows the contents of your thoughts. Is God really going to listen to your gripes? Since he already knows what you’re going to say, will he be tempted to finish your sentences for you?

All four gospel writers are in agreement about prayer (though not much else). Prayer works! Whatever you ask for, in Jesus’s name, you get! It sounds too good to be true - and of course it is - though you have to read the small print in the Terms & Conditions of the divine enterprise before you see that the offer is entirely conditional on you becoming your most abject and submissive self. Oh, and if prayer doesn't seem to work, you can be sure that the fault is yours.

Licenced today: Furness Abbey, near Barrow-in-Furness, South Lakeland…

Electricity supply...

My electricity supplier, Bulb, the seventh largest energy company in the country, has just gone bust. It’s been expected for a few weeks. According to a spokesman, “The most important thing for consumers to know is that their energy supply will continue to run as it always has done, and any credit balances will be protected”. I’ve built up a bit of credit with Bulb, so that’s one thing I don’t need to worry about…

Get the jab...

According to an article in today’s Guardian, by a respiratory doctor who prefers to remain anonymous, “in hospital Covid-19 has largely become a disease of the unvaccinated”. He (or she) cites people who reckoned they were too healthy to catch covid, or who wanted more evidence of the vaccine’s efficacy, or who hadn’t yet got round to making an appointment, plus one or two who believed the more outrageous conspiracy theories. These are the people who are now in the intensive care units.  

The doctor admits to feeling frustrated. “I am now beaten back, exhausted, worn down by the continuous stream of people that we battle to treat when they have consciously passed up the opportunity to save themselves”. The best way for the rest of us to help ourselves, the people around us, and the over-burdened NHS, is just to get the jab.

Licenced today: a detail of the Anglo-Saxon cross in Ruthwell Kirk, Dumfries & Galloway…

Sally Clark...

This image, from yesterday's Guardian, is one of the saddest photographs I’ve ever seen. Sally Clark was sentenced to life in prison, in 1999, for murdering her two baby boys and blaming it on cot death. According to the damning testimony of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, the self-styled expert on child-abuse, the chances of having two cot deaths was “73 million to one”. She also lost the right to be a mother to her surviving child.

The flawed research of Professor Meadows having been discredited, Sally Clark’s conviction was ruled unsafe. She was freed in 2003 - when this photo was taken - but the damage had already been done. She died four years later. We can see in the photo the thousand-yard stare of a woman, badly let down by the justice system, who finally had no more tears left to cry…

Cedric Robinson...

Sad news today. Cedric Robinson, Guide to the Sands for more than half a century, has died aged 88. The role was created in 1548, during the dissolution of the monasteries, when the reigning monarch inherited an obligation to appoint guides for travellers over the sands of Morecambe Bay. For a salary of £15 a year (plus rent-free accommodation in Guides Farm in Kents Bank) Cedric steered hundreds of thousands of people away from the quicksands and fast-filling channels of the ever-changing bay. The pic is of the River Kent at Arnside: the starting point of many cross-bay walks…

Booster jab...

Wobbled into Howden on my bike today, to get my Pfizer booster jab. Everything at Howden Medical Centre was organised, as usual, with unhurried efficiency. After the jab, we all had to sit for 15 minutes in a room. To avoid anyone sneaking away too soon, each of us was issued with a wind-up kitchen timer, pre-set to 15 minutes. When my alarm went off, I could leave. It was like one of Monty Python's longer. more baffling and less funny sketches…

Village Pinfold...

Licenced today: the Village Pinfold, an artwork by artist Andy Goldsworthy, in the village of Bolton, Cumbria… 

Public schools...

According to an article in today’s Guardian, the Nazis based their elite schools - set up to groom future leaders of the Third Reich - on British public schools such as Eton and Harrow. Apparently the Nazis wanted to learn from the “character-forming” example of the British school system. They also saw the largely independent role of the school headmaster as an embodiment of the “Führer-principle”. Now why does that not surprise me?...

Wetherspoon...

Licenced today: the Dog Beck - a Wetherspoon pub - in Penrith, Cumbria…

Poppy day...

Today in Asselby...

Cawfield Quarry...

A rare weekend sale: Cawfield Quarry, on Hadrian's Wall near Haltwhistle, Northumberland National Park…

Prejudice...

This quote from Krishnamurti, which arrived in my in-tray this morning, really ‘spoke' to me…

Am I aware of you if I am prejudiced against you? My prejudice projects itself and prevents me from looking, and therefore I am not aware of you. To be aware, I must be aware of my prejudices, of my likes and dislikes, aware of my conditioning, that I am a Dutchman, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim. Whatever I am, I must be aware of it. And to be aware of it, I must not deny it. I mustn’t deny what I see in myself; I must look at it.

I must be aware without choice, saying, ‘I’ll keep this, I won’t keep that.’ So awareness means to be aware without choice so that I can look. I can look into myself without any choice. I won’t say, ‘This is good, this is bad, this is beautiful, I’ll keep it, that is ugly, I won’t keep,’ but I will look. I will see but not judge. Can I see without judging? Can I see violence in me without judging it? This means without the censor, without the entity that judges, that says violence is wrong. Can I look at it? I can only look if there is no opposite.

If I don’t have the ideal of non-violence, I can look at violence. I have been conditioned to accept the ideal, and I see that prevents me from looking at violence. So can I look at it without any ideal? And if I can look at it without an ideal, I have broken down the conditioning. Therefore the mind can look freely. So I have learnt something: the mind can be free and not be a slave to environment… 

Cows...

 Licenced today: cows at a feeding station, Bouth, South Lakeland…

Going through the motions...

The English language is wonderfully nuanced, with some words having a very narrow and specific meaning. ‘Scrumping’ isn’t just stealing fruit; it’s stealing apples. ‘Punnet’ is a container, but only for soft fruit. We have a word - ‘defenstration’ - to describe falling, or being pushed, out of a window. ‘Tines’ have one meaning only: the prongs of a fork. ‘Genuflection’ is kneeling. An ‘embrasure’ is a refuge for pedestrians on a bridge.

We also have some odd gaps in the language, as exemplified by a DIY testing kit for bowel cancer, which arrived by post yesterday. According to the instructions, you take the little stick and drag it across the… well, what? We have ‘faeces’, ‘shit’, ’turd’, ‘stool’ and ‘excrement’… but the writer of the instruction booklet has settled on ‘poo’. Does anyone really say ‘poo’… unless they’re talking to, or about, a toddler?

Two pix licenced today: taken on the same day, and within 50 metres of each other, at River Head in Driffield...

The call of the wild...

When I was a Samaritan a lot of calls would come from phone boxes. The ‘house phone’ in the hallway offered no privacy, especially for people who were experiencing domestic abuse. We would take the phone number of the call-box, so that, if they ran out of coins, we would be able to phone them back.

Since then, of course, with the ubiquity of mobile phones, the red telephone boxes have been disappearing (or taking on other roles: library, museum or somewhere to install a defibrillator). I’m reading in today's Guardian that, under plans drawn up by Ofcom, about 5,000 public phone boxes around the UK will be protected from closure. They will remain in locations "with poor mobile coverage, high accident or suicide rates, or higher-than-average use". 

Not sure what the future holds for this particular phone box, which seems to have escaped into the wild…

Hand signal...

Just read a story about a teenage girl in America who was being abducted. By using a discreet hand gesture, she was able to catch the attention of a passing motorist who then called the police. A good idea... and, on this occasion, a tragedy averted…

Penance...

A day after the Catholic church has accepted responsibility for decades of child abuse, French bishops are “kneeling in penance” at Lourdes. Of course, by putting themselves under God’s justice, they are essentially doing nothing. Paedophile priests should be handed over to the police, like any other criminals, to face the legal consequences of their actions. Paedophile priests shouldn’t be doing “penance”; they should be doing time.

Licenced last week: Broughton Hall, near Skipton…

Topiary garden...

Still making regular sales of pix from Levens Hall topiary gardens...

Sunderland Point...

Licenced today: a pic that brings back lots of good memories. Sunderland Point, near Lancaster, a community only accessible by a causeway that floods twice a day… 

Smartphone...

I can empathise with the woman who writes, in today’s Guardian, about her efforts to hang onto her ancient Nokia flip-phone. It’s getting harder and harder to live without a smartphone. It’s virtually impossible to buy a ticket for any event without one. I could get texts on my old guys’ ‘feature phone’, but it was the devil’s own job to send them. A few weeks ago I wasn’t allowed in a particular pub because I hadn’t downloaded their app. So, with some slight reluctance, I now own an Apple iPhone SE. 

Licenced today: farmland in the Eden Valley, near Great Salkeld, with Cross Fell and the North Pennines in the distance…

Silent fireworks...

Bonfire Night seems to be in retreat. I can’t say I’ll miss it… and nor will the good people down at A & E. With everyone in Asselby having a dog or cat or horse, there won’t be any (official) fireworks display in the village. Someone on the village FB page was advertising silent fireworks, but, as a concept, that seems as pointless as low-alcohol beer…

Pontefract...

Greta Thunberg can carry a tune. If you want to hear her singing “You can shove your climate crisis up your arse”, you can find it here.

Licenced today: the Liquorice Bush pub in Pontefract…

Headingley cricket...

The UK has had its highest number of daily Covid deaths reported since late February, as another 293 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test. We could be facing a difficult winter.

Licenced today: The Carnegie Pavilion at Headingley Cricket Ground…

Christmas in a can...

They're sold out... already. And I so wanted one!