Reds...

The snow is turning into slush, but the sky has a look that suggests ‘more snow’. Finishing off some writing - but slowly - and I’ll hope to find a pub later on where I can watch the Liverpool v Man United game. I’m not sure why, since I can’t remember the last football match I really enjoyed. It’s come to the point where I’m mostly interested in the hold that football has over the popular imagination. I don’t really care who wins; I try to care, and pretend I’m a Liverpool fan, but a win for the Reds doesn’t really make me want to punch the air in triumph, and a loss does nothing to spoil my day. As someone reminded me a while ago, I’m not a “real” fan at all…

Old Town, near Hebden Bridge...

The Revenant...

In Barrow this evening, so I parked up near the Vue Multiplex and took in a film. I’d read good things about The Revenant, and it didn’t disappoint. Leonardo DeCaprio plays a trapper trying to make some kind of living hunting and collecting pelts. After he’s horribly mauled by a bear, he’s left for dead by a couple of fellow trappers. Against the odds, he survives, but God knows how, because the landscape is huge, remote, frozen and overwhelmingly harsh and inhospitable.

DeCaprio’s character, Hugh Glass, crawls through snow, falls into ice-cold rivers and rides his horse over a cliff. In those temperatures a badly wounded man would surely not survive a plunge down a waterfall. With no way to dry his sodden clothes when he sleeps in the open, he would surely die of hypothermia. But, in the age of the blockbuster film, the paying public need to suspend their disbelief. Glass eats what he can find - berries, raw fish, raw bison liver - and spends one snowy night, naked, inside a dead horse. Yes, inside a dead horse…

After that cinematic ordeal I won't be complaining about the half inch of snow here in Barrow. No raw fish or bison liver to be had, so I'm making do with McDonald's. Instead of a dead horse I have a sleeping bag and a duvet...

The harbour at Maryport...

Freeze-up...

The weather's taken a turn for the better. Or worse. More normal anyway, for January, as temperatures have dropped to below zero. Black ice on the roads around Brampton tonight; thankfully I didn't have far to drive...

Gravestone at Lanercost Priory...

Non-news...

According to the Guardian website, Scottish Secretary, David Mundell, is “the first member of the Tory cabinet to come out as gay”. It must surely be a slow news day for this to be the lead item. Roll on the day when such ‘news’ will merit nothing more than a footnote. Between now and then, of course, a Premier League football will come out as gay. He’ll have to be brave, and thick-skinned. The last top-flight footballer to bear his soul was Justin Fashanu, in 1990. Eight years later he hung himself in a lock-up garage…

Made a detour to Dumfries yesterday, another place that’s suffered from flooding. I found a little pub, close to the river, and joined three guys at the bar to talk amiable bollocks for a couple of hours…

Kirkandrews Tower, a fortified house near Longtown...

Ground Control to Major Tom...

Woke up to the news that David Bowie has died. I know he’s a major figure in modern music, because everyone on Radio 5 Live is saying so. But Bowie was - and remains - a blind spot in my musical upbringing. I just didn’t get it. Hunky Dory I liked - Changes in particular - but not much else. He appropriated the singing voice of Anthony Newley and, chameleon-like, adopted many different personas from the dressing-up box of androgyny. But his costume changes - and voice - seemed too mannered for my tastes, aimed at shocking Middle England: a rather facile ambition, I thought, like shooting fish in a barrel.

Bowie’s songs helped to define the last five decades, and I appreciate that a lot of people will be heartbroken at today’s news. There’ll be plenty of his songs played on the radio… though I think I’ve had my fill of uncritical hagiography already… and it isn’t even breakfast time…

Preston & Blackpool...

The Romahome feels a bit lighter, now I’ve put some books into storage, and given stuff to a charity shop. The process begins again, of course. I picked Landranger 102 - Preston and Blackpool - from a pile of Ordnance Survey maps in a charity shop. “That’s a good one”, said the old guy behind the counter, looking at the map, front and back, and nodding his head sagely. I agreed it was a wise choice… at least for someone who might be planning to visit Preston or Blackpool. For a tour of the Black Country or the Cotswolds, however, the map would be useless…

Morecambe...

In Morecambe, and it's still raining. I'm sorting out stuff - mostly books - that I can drop off in my tiny storage unit here... to avoid the Romahome grinding to a halt...