The usual...

The lights came on in the Black Swan yesterday, and stayed on, as the locals trooped in. It’s been six months since the pub closed, and a lot of people in the village hadn’t seen each other during that time. Without a place to meet, a community hub, a small village can become quite insular.

Not the Black Swan... but the Wellington Inn, in the village of Lund, where I was taking pictures today: a pub so posh that it's like being back in Hampshire. When I ordered a pint, I was asked "Will you be dining with us today, sir?"...

Race & religion...

Despite what Tory peer, Lady Warsi, intimated today, Islam isn’t a race. It’s disingenuous - and just plain wrong - to muddy the waters by conflating race and religious affiliation. What binds all Muslims together isn’t race, ethnicity or skin colour; it is the content of their beliefs.

Licensed today: the Kirkstile Inn, Loweswater, with Mellbreak in the background. While some pix sell because they sum up a place, or a mood or a concept, this shot keeps selling because, strangely, it’s the only decent shot of this characterful pub on Alamy…

Woodbridge...

Licensed today: the Tide Mill in Woodbridge, Suffolk...

Gone fishing...

I read on the Guardian website that Emma Watson (who played Hermione in the Harry Potter films) is happy, aged thirty, to be single. The phrase she uses - “self-partnered” - encouraged the writer of the article to bang out 500 words on the various ways that singledom can be represented in these gender-fluid times (and the ways that people - women, at least - can feel stigmatised for not ‘coupling up’). Feeling positive about being single is now a 'movement', apparently.

Though I didn’t plan to be a bachelor for most of my adult life, I can’t say I envy any of my married friends. I’ve been called “selfish”, for staying single, on a couple of occasions, though I’m not sure why. There aren’t many songs which celebrate the single life, but here is the first verse and chorus of Better Off Without a Wife, by Tom Waits.

All my friends are married
Every Tom and Dick and Harry
You must be strong if you're to go it alone
Here's to the bachelors and the Bowery bums
Those who feel that they're the ones
That are better off without a wife

Cause I like to sleep until the crack of noon
Midnight howling at the moon
Going out when I want to
And I'm coming home when I please
Don't have to ask permission
If I wanna go out fishing
Never have to ask for the keys 

Self-enslavement...

It’s inadvisable, of course, to call people stupid for believing propositions which are palpably untrue. I'm aware that criticising - or mocking - irrational beliefs may actually serve to strengthen them. And it's hard to find the words to describe people's willingness to, first, embrace religious beliefs and then to deny themselves the opportunity to leave them behind. It’s intellectual incarceration by choice, like walking into a prison cell, locking the door from the inside, then throwing the keys through the window bars. There must be a simple, elegant metaphor to describe this mindset of self-enslavement; I’ll have to sit down with a thesaurus and see if it comes to me in a ‘eureka’ moment.

Licensed today: the harbour and lighthouse at Maryport, on the Cumbrian coast...

Beverley Minster...

Licensed last week: the nave of Beverley Minster, looking very Christmassy...

Halloween...

Halloween has come and gone. I was told that buying loads of sweets was the best way to avoid structural damage, by disgruntled trick or treaters, to the Old Sunday School. I stocked up with love hearts, lollipops, wine gums and chocolate money (hoping to keep the transaction on a firm financial footing). But no kids came! Now I’m stuck with a skip-full of Haribo and a sugar rush.

Untutored in Halloween etiquette, I’d neglected to place a pumpkin outside. Trick or treaters won’t knock on the door, apparently, unless they see a pumpkin. At least I’ll know what to do next year, and I won't need to buy any more sweets. I probably have twelve month’s supply of gummy bears, and about twenty quid in loose chocolate change.

Licensed yesterday: the marina at Pwllheli in Wales...