Brexit regret...

Today is Transfer Deadline Day in the world of football: one of the great days in the social calendar, along with the second Sunday after Ascension. At 11pm today we shall also be marking the third anniversary of the moment that the UK left the European Union. The consensus amongst economists is that Brexit has been harmful to the UK economy, with the IMF saying it expects the UK to be the only G7 country where the economy will shrink this year. Nevertheless, Rishi Sunak is marking the Brexit anniversary by claiming the benefits will “continue to empower communities”. According to Downing Street, Brexit is “a huge opportunity to deliver on the prime minister’s priorities to the British public”. The public themselves have other ideas, with a recent poll suggesting that 57% of us are suffering from 'Bregret' and would like to re-join the EU.

Licensed today for an excellent fee, just like the ‘good old days’: a yacht for sale at Derwent Water Marina, in the Lake District…

Still a Christian country?...

An article in today’s Guardian reminds us of what we already know: that more people under 40 in England and Wales now declare “no religion” than profess to be Christian. The census findings also reveal that more than 50% of twentysomethings are not religious, compared with under 37% a decade ago. We are still nominally a ‘Christian country’, with schools obliged to provide “broadly Christian” daily worship, but for how much longer? I look forward to the day when the deliberations of the Archbishop of Canterbury receive no more attention than the drunken ramblings of some guy at the far end of the bar.

I kipped in the car, last Friday, next to Crowland Abbey...

Barrow-in-Furness...

Licensed today: Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, with the BAE submarine works in the background...

Kirk Yetholm...

Licensed today: the Border Hotel in the village of Kirk Yetholm, Roxburghshire... the finishing point of the Pennine Way…

Chippy...

I’m mildly intrigued by this article in the Guardian, featuring the “ten best blankets for the British chill”. I wonder who the article is aimed at, since the people who can afford a blanket – made from “responsible wool standard (RWS) certified wool”, and costing £499 – are unlikely to be too concerned by the size of their winter fuel bills.

The mobile fish 'n' chip van came this evening, as the fog lifted... 

Levelling up...

It only takes a brief promenade around Goole to realise that the “levelling up” promised by our political masters isn’t working yet. If we want to know why blighted northern towns like Goole are failing to get the investment they need, we may get some clues from a talk Rishi Sunak made last year to Tory leaders in Tumbridge Wells. He was filmed making this remark. “I managed to start changing the funding formulas to make sure areas like this are getting the funding they deserved. We inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone. I started the work of undoing that”…

Leighton Hall...

Licensed today: Leighton Hall, home of the Gillow family, near Carnforth, Lancashire… 

Serial rapist...

I’ve been reading about David Carrick, the met officer (now ex-met officer) who has pleaded guilty to multiple rapes, on many women, over twenty years. Now that a trial is not needed, some truly awful details are emerging. Apparently, in the wake of his many crimes, the met are now going to investigate 1,000 reported incidents, featuring 800 more serving officers. This raises the question of where these 1,000 reports have been until now. Locked in a filing cabinet and marked ‘No further action required’, or slid under the nearest rug?

Spotted in the Guardian today: a Royal Mail van parked in the village of Boxford, Berkshire… 

Pocklington...

Another sale today for a pic of new housing near Pocklington...

Lavenham...

Licensed today: the Swan at Lavenham, Suffolk…

Cluttercore...

It’s good to learn something new. From a brief perusal of the Guardian this morning, I learn that not tidying up is now an actual thing… called Cluttercore. And from another article I learn that "homewear" - pyjamas, slippers, dressing gowns and other “sleepwear-inspired pieces” - is the “new staying-in staple”, post-pandemic, for “housebound fashionistas”. Housebound fashionista: I like the sound of that…

Jeff Beck...

Though never a big Jeff Beck fan, I have this wonderful Curtis Mayfield song on CD, by Beck, Bogart & Appice. Jeff Beck, known as the guitarists’ guitarist, died today. I'll listen to the whole CD this evening…

Leaving the EU...

Our petulant exit from the EU seems to have become a ‘lightning rod’ for the other EU members. Their support for leaving the EU has dropped significantly in the years since the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016. Having learned from our mistakes, they show no desire to follow in our doomed footsteps…

Epworth cross...

Licensed today: the village cross, Epworth, North Lincolnshire...

Faithless...

Booths...

Licensed today: the Booths supermarket in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire... 

Chattel slavery...

The Church of England has committed £100m to a fund it is setting up to compensate for having benefitted, over the years, from the slave trade. Unfortunately, the users’ manual - all 770,000 words of it - hasn’t been upgraded to acknowledge that it’s no longer OK to buy and sell people like farm machinery. Nowhere in the Bible is slavery condemned. When slavery is mentioned in the Old Testament, it’s generally to offer advice to masters about the practicalities of slave-ownership, and a warning not to sell fellow Jews into bondage. In the New Testament Jesus had many opportunities to condemn chattel slavery, though, significantly, he never did.

Licensed today: the gazebo in Lyddington village, Rutland…

Windermere...

Licensed today: a tiny sailing dinghy moored near Waterhead, Lake Windermere…

Selby Abbey...

Licensed today: Selby Abbey and the George Inn…

A sense of fear...

“In the search for power, we are escaping a deep sense of frustration and fear – fear of life, fear of being uncertain, fear of death, fear of non-existence, and the fear which has been instilled in us through the organised religions of belief. Whether Christianity, Hinduism, or any other organised so-called religious movements, they have always created a sense of apprehension, a sense that you have to be saved by an external power, symbolised in a human being or in certain ideas. This has created in man – who is after all the result of centuries of development from the animal, and is still the animal – a sense of fear, which has been inculcated and sustained” (Krishnamurti, from a talk in 1966)…

Wordle in one...

Some days I do Wordle, some days I don't. Some days I get the chosen word in a few tries, some days I get 'timed out'. Today the word 'ANTIC' popped into my head, unbidden, and, blimey, it's today's word. Wordle's response: "Genius!"... and who am I to argue?...

Cartmel...

Licensed today: a quiet corner of Cartmel, in Cumbria...