Ennerdale Bridge...

Licensed today: the village of Ennerdale Bridge and the Fox and Hounds, which is now a community-owned pub...

Back to work...

The lights stopped twinkling on Asselby’s Christmas tree a few days ago, because somebody backed their car into it. Now the tree itself is gone.

Licensed this shot today, of a horse and foal in the New Forest, for the best price in months (it's going on a book cover)...

God on our side...

“We have God on our side”, Donald Trump said yesterday at a rally of Christian Evangelicals, following the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s most senior general. The Iranians say the same, of course, and when God is recruited to validate two opposing views, violence is bound to follow.

The wall over the woodburner in the Old Sunday School needs a picture, and this is the image I have in mind. The pub is the Fleece Inn, in the Vale of Evesham, which hasn't changed very much over the last 200 years. This old man was sitting in one of the high-backed wooden settles, and looked very much at home. The light came mostly from the fireplace to the left; fortunately I had my tripod to hand, and it wasn't too hard to persuade a man of 97 to sit still for a couple of seconds. His gaze is so direct, so dignified...

Bisexual umbrella...

As I read in today’s Guardian, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran has come out as “pansexual”. Asked to define the term, she said: “Pansexuality, to me, means it doesn't matter about the physical attributions of the person you fall in love with, it's about the person themselves. It doesn't matter if they're a man or a woman or gender non-conforming, it doesn't matter if they identify as gay or not. In the end, these are all things that don't matter - the thing that matters is the person, and that you love the person”.

According to the LGBT Foundation, “Being bisexual means being attracted to more than one gender, while being pansexual means being attracted to people regardless of gender. Pansexuality is included under the bisexual umbrella, which covers anyone who experiences sexual or romantic attraction to more than one gender."

Sexual orientation is getting ever more complex these days, and and I’m not sure I’m keeping up with developments. But one thing I do know: what people get up to, in a consensual relationship, is no business of mine. I can happily leave the judgement of other people’s sexuality - and sexual behaviour - to the religiously affiliated, who seem happy to oblige.

After two years of wrangling over the validity of same-sex marriage, leaders of the United Methodist church - America’s second-largest Protestant denomination - have announced plans to split the church in two: pro-gay and anti-gay. Churches have traditionally found it easier to break than bend; splits and schisms have been a common feature of the last 2,000 years. This explains how we now have 40,000 denominations which call themselves Christian… all convinced that they - and only they - have unique access to the truth…

Broken bridge...

An even more boring pic... but it sold today. This is Pontefract. I have lived, as a proud Yorkshireman, for 68 summers, without realising that Pontefract means 'broken bridge'...

Delivery...

Another mundane pic... but it sold!

New year...

The new year was going to arrive anyway, whether I was in a drunken stupour or asleep, so I had an early night… only to be woken at the stroke of midnight by fireworks. Can there possibly be another spectacle as bereft of meaning as a fireworks display (and the bigger the display, the emptier it is likely to be: a perfect metaphor for the dawning of another year and the ‘magic’ of round numbers)?

At least we can say goodbye to the season of prescribed greetings. It’s “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” (not, please note, “Happy Christmas” or “Merry New Year”). The days are just starting to get longer, today is sunny and unseasonably warm, and I don’t have a raging hangover…

The first pic sale of 2020 is my only night shot of Drax power station (in the news because it is now fuelled by biomass)…