St George's Day

Today is St George's Day.

Indeed, one can hardly avoid the fact, given the number of lefty politicians and SPADs "reclaiming" the day for the left on Twitter (to the disgust of Labour turncoat Dan Hodges in the Daily Telegraph http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100268700/the-patriotism-police-cant-force-me-to-celebrate-st-georges-day/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter).

Such is the patriotic fervour of the left that the LabourList website http://labourlist.org/ has turned itself over for the day to articles musing on the nature of Englishness by such Labour luminaries as Jon Cruddas, Sunny Hundal, and Chi Onwurah MP - though none of them seem to be calling for a bank holiday on 23rd April.

With such left-wing politicisation of identity issues, how then should non-lefty people mark St George's Day?

Let us look back a hundred years to the Great War, and remember that so many parents chose to portray their dead sons as St George.  It was mainly officers who got individually remembered in expensive and dazzling stained glass (as in the above example), but collective village memorials also follow the St George theme.  On this day, in this centenary year, let us try to live up to the patriotic example they have set us.

Crowned heart

St Patrick's Day, and Google have chosen a "Claddagh" or crowned heart design for their celebratory logo.

The crown used is an imperial crown (with hoops), which in heraldry is a symbol of "victory, sovereignty, and empire".

No native Irish king ever wore an imperial crown (although the British monarch is descended from the O'Neil high kings of Ireland, and still reigns over Northern Ireland which is an integral part of the United Kingdom).

 

Curiously this article in the Guardian (by an anonymous "staff reporter") makes no mention of the crown but instead talks about a shamrock:  http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/17/st-patricks-day-google-doodle

Today is the Feast Day of Thomas Cranmer

Thank you Vicky Beeching (Research Fellow, Writer & Broadcaster on Technology, Religion & Feminism) for reminding me today is the Feast Day of Thomas Cranmer.

I wonder how many other writers would have Cranmer's courage in burning the hand that had written a falsehood ("Fire being now put to him, he stretched out his right hand, and thrust it into the flame, and held it there a good space, before the fire came to any other part of his body; where his hand was seen of every man sensibly burning, crying with a loud voice, 'This hand hath offended.' ").

I have left the Petridis tweet on as it adds a profane accent to the sacred anniversary.

http://vickybeeching.com
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/cranmerspeech.htm

St Patrick's Day

Why, at the age of forty-two, is Salma Yaqoob only now bothering to find our about the culture of the United Kingdom?

Did she pass through forty-two previous St Patrick's Day celebrations entirely incurious as to their origin and cultural significance?

This is according to the Guardian "the most prominent Muslim woman in British public life".

Not a very good advertisement for the effectiveness of multi-culturalism that such a "prominent" BME person could be so ignorant of her Irish neighbours (there are more people of Irish descent in the United Kingdom than in the whole of the Irish republic).

Presumably she is equally ignorant about St David's Day, St Andrew's Day and St George's Day.

St David's Day

Today is St David's Day.

Which makes me ask:  what does Wales mean to me?

The place of birth of my sister in Penarth.

Beer and chips in the Sarah Siddons pub in Brecon.

The fabulously hideous church at Brithdir.

Clambering on the walls at Harlech castle (ignoring the strictly no climbing on the walls signs).

The eerie atmosphere at Castell y Bere.

Coffees and ice creams on the terrace of the seaside hotel in Portmerion when we were all too lethargic to look around the arty village.

The passive menacing immobility of the deep cold water at Bala Lake.

The caravans on the coast at Borth.

The roast dinners at the Cambrian Hotel in Aberystwyth (where they served up whole roast onions with the roast potatoes).

St Valentine's Day

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday.

I had to stay late an hour to work on a Powerpoint presentation (which has been fussed over so much over the last few days that I am now sick of people coming to me with amendments).  Therefore I was not able to go to the Ash Wednesday evening service.  I passed the church on my way home, lots of cars outside and the lights on, and I felt concerned that I was not there.

So now we are in Lent.

It is a time of year when I feel safe.

But paradoxically today is also St Valentine's Day - flowers could be allowed but surely not chocolates.

Asda have devoted their latest in-store magazine to the ritual day.  Do C2 shoppers have an affinity with the third-century Anglican saint and martyr? Obviously Asda thinks it can make money out of it (and they are no fools).

Lunchtime in Costa.  I think they put the hearts on all the time, not just for today.  And I have only just realised we were drinking hot chocolate, so I've failed at the first hurdle.

Observance of rituals is a deep-rooted human need

Today is All Hallows Eve.  Tomorrow is All Saints Day.  Friday is All Souls Day.

The local minster (which is high church Anglican) has designated from today until Sunday as "All Souls Tide".

The Anglican church has debated recently about the creeping nature of pseudo-Harry Potter fun-paganism that is infecting "Halloween".  They need to counter this by taking back public commemoration of the day.  For instance, they could reinstate the ringing of church bells on All Hallows Eve - meant as a tribute to the living mourning the dead.

Observance of rituals is a deep-rooted human need and will not go away.  The Anglican church needs to either take control of ritual days or recognise that if they don't they will be ceding control to others.  Allowing "Halloween" to develop along its present course and to continue to influence the imaginations of children is not good for society.

Perhaps Nairns could bring out an annual "special edition" oatcake for All Souls Day as oatcakes are a ritual food associated with the day.

Summer has always been marked by festivals

I am on holiday at the moment.  Not doing anything in particular.  Just using up my annual leave.

One of the interests I have is the way rituals govern our lives - official rituals, private rituals, unconscious rituals.

Three examples:

Above:  the recent heavy summer showers have made the meadows lush with clover or Trifolium repens.  Living in the country, you cannot help being influenced by the passing seasons.  The appearance of clover flowers in late May, lasting until September, are one of the unconscious reminders that this is summer (whatever the weather indicates).

Above:  this London pub has a cider festival during July.  Summer has always been marked by festivals - food and drink festivals as the seasons change; religious festivals of the ancient past; modern music festivals etc.  The ritual nature of these festivals are so ingrained that we hardly notice their influence on us.

Above:  a comparatively modern music festival are the Promenade Concerts held at the Albert Hall.  If I lived in London I would probably go to most of them.  I will go to the Mahler concert on 7th August, and listen to Radio 3 for Grainger on 2nd August and Shumann on 19th August.

A celebration for Ascension Day on BBC Radio 4

Above:  listing in the Radio Times.

Today is Ascension Day.  At 8 o'clock I listened to a live broadcast of the Ascension Day service from St Martins in the Fields in Trafalgar Square.  Vaughan Williams psalm.  The Archbishop of Canterbury gave the sermon and talked about "the great truth".  The hymn Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken (which is never heard - I can't remember when I last heard this hymn).  A life broadcast always seems much more significant than a recorded version.

Since the medieval period the three days before Ascension Day have been marked by Rogation processions or walks around the parish boundaries combined with blessing the crops and reading the Gospels in the open air.  The Rogation processions were fixed in England as far back as 747 (the Council of Cloveshoo) which makes the custom one of the most ancient ceremonies still surviving - a fragment of the Anglo-Saxon world.  Ronald Hutton records examples of refreshments being provided on the routes by farmers anxious for their crops to be blessed.

You can listen to the broadcast on BBC iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio

 

















Above:  surprisingly the live broadcast was highlighted in The Times (admittedly a very small highlight - The Times prefers to sneer at the Church of England and employs as religious correspondent the pedestrian journalist Ruth Gledhill - formulaic contrarian style of simply disagreeing with whatever she is writing about, presumably on the grounds that this will make her controversial and daring - her Twitter account is http://twitter.com/#!/ruthiegledhill).

Recently there seems to be a pattern emerging of churches holding Ascension Day services on the tops of towers: 

St Johns College Cambridge http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/chapel_and_choir/chapel/ascension_day/

Southwark Cathedral http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/997

Exeter College Oxford http://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/alumni/news/item?gid=1273846893

Bank Holiday

Today is a bank holiday in the United Kingdom, and effectively is a ritual day - for doing nothing. 

Above:  the expected rain ("it always rains on bank holidays") is a comforting reminder of the need to do nothing.  It's not even possible to spend time in the garden.  Roses in the rain is something of a cliche.

Above:  nothing to do after lunch except read the newspapers.  Interesting article by Tim Horton in the Guardian.  Interesting article by Josephine Moulds in the Business section of the Daily Telegraph about Kraft's arrogant and contemptuous CEO Irene Rosenfeld (when are the Kraft shareholders going to realise that this woman is a PR disaster?).

Above:  at hundreds of village fetes across the country the rain sends everyone running indoors, but the Teddy Bear's picnic still goes ahead to the delight of the children.

The Royal Wedding from a marketing perspective

Above:  if we were to open the box marked "royal wedding" what intangible attributes might we find there?

I didn't intend to write about the Royal Wedding today.  Not because I want a republic (far from it) but because there didn't seem anything new to say.  Everything seemed to have been said many many times over.

But an article in today's Independent by Economics Editor Hamish McRae asked what the wedding was worth in terms of brand awareness for the United Kingdom.  Which made me think about the Royal Wedding from a marketing perspective.  To do this I've tried to leave on one side all subsidiary factors and just concentrate on the business case.



Above:  both The Times and The Guardian today carried on their front pages audience estimates of two billion.

The cost of the wedding is supposed to be £22 million.  Assuming the television audience estimates of two billion are correct that gives a media cost per thousand of £11 for the whole session.  Obviously if you split the hour of the actual ceremony into 30 second spots you get a cost per thousand of 9p (3p if the audience watched on average for three hours).

By any standards that is good value for money, even without counting the hundreds of thousands of column inches the event will generate in magazines and newspapers around the world.

This makes you ask:  what was this event intended to do? 

It was of course a celebration of a wedding; and it was certainly a national party; but in many ways it was also a free gift to the world (France 24 covered it live, the Chinese news channel CCTV covered it live, the Indian news channel NDTV covered it live etc).

Having "given away" £22 million, what can we expect to get back?

Many people have attempted to quantity the direct benefits in terms of tourism etc.  And "goodwill" must have been generated on a fairly large scale.  But I want to look at more intangible factors, since they are often overlooked.

I think we can identify three likely subliminal messages unintentionally encoded in today's event:

1)  The United Kingdom is a well-organised society where everything functions superbly well.  Anyone who travels by public transport will no doubt disagree with this statement, but most of today's global audience will have gained the impression that this is a country where things happen on time and to a very high standard.  This has value particularly in terms of inward investment, since no investors want to go to a location that is shambolic or where the people are poorly motivated.

2)  The demographic of the British population is relatively wealthy, subscribes to middle class values and has a cheeful optimistic outlook (looking at the two thousand guests in Westminster Abbey and the million or so people around Buckingham Palace).  Of course, this is not really true (as a walk through Woodberry Down estate will soon tell you) but as Marshall McLuhan said perception is reality.  Companies around the world looking for new markets will see the United Kingdom as an attractive place to do business.

3)  The United Kingdom is a safe and stable country where institutions (the monarchy, the church, the army etc) can endure for centuries without any calamity.  This is not to devalue the argument that royal occasions give the "wrong" impression of Britain as old-fashioned.  But looking purely at the flows of "hot" money around the world, cash always gravitates to a safe haven - and today's event above all said London was "safe" (and possibly the safest place on earth).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11767495 

Some anthropological thoughts on St George's Day

Above:  Today is St George's Day.  This is the George & Dragon pub - St George's Day is increasingly a drinking festival on the scale of St Patrick's Day.  Notice that this pub has equipped itself with a flagpole, and although I took this photo some weeks back I have no doubt that if I went there now I would see the flag of St George flying.

Above:  earlier today there were Anglican services to mark the Feast of St George (the Roman Catholics do not recognise the saint, which must cause them problems in trying to overcome the idea that they are, in England, an alien religion). 

Above:  in churches dedicated to St George the 23rd April celebrations take on the added significance of a patronal festival.  Here you can see the flag has been placed on the altar with a display of red and white flowers.  I took this photograph last year (or the year before possibly) as you can tell from the green altar frontal (as well as being St George's Day today is also Easter Eve and so in Anglican churches there will be no altar frontals on show until tomorrow).

Above:  Scouts on parade outside their corrugated iron Scout Hut, St George's Day 1914.  Three months later the First World War will break out.  I found this photograph in a display of local history (the Scout Hut has been replaced with a more modern building).

Above:  martial images of St George, especially in war memorials, are so ubiquitous that people hardly notice their iconic significance.  This First World War memorial caught my notice however because of its contradictions.  It shows a captain in the Highland Light Infantry, a Scottish regiment, and yet he is shown as St George, the English patron saint.  Did his ethnic loyalty over-ride his regimental loyalty and presumably his loyalty to the fallen men of his company?  Click twice on the image and look at the head - this is obviously a real portrait with the appearance of a sepia photograph.  The eyes unmistakeably look upwards, towards the cross of St George.

Above:  St George vanquishes the dastardly Black Knight, watched admiringly by his young squire and a serving wench.  We are conditioned in our society to think that good will always triumph over evil.  This has been a recurring motivating theme of history (not least in 1940) - but does the fact of good always triumphing create the conditioning, or is it the other way round?

Above:  this fascinating image forms part of the reredos of a side altar in a village church.  You might want to click on the picture to see it more clearly.  It shows Jesus with a group of children in Enid Blyton-style clothes, including at least one boy scout and girl guide.  Notice the date of 1960, which is quite late for iconography of this kind (and it is still in place today and hasn't been removed by some trendy vicar!).  The two central children catch the eye - a fair-haired boy in golden armour and a dark haired (but with flecks of gold) girl in what is obviously meant to be white samite.  The two children are clearly destined for sainthood - a martial saint in the tradition of St George and a virginal saint in the tradition of the Virgin Mary.  Presumably the side aisle was used by the church youth groups, so I wonder what went through the minds of the young people gazing at this image while the priest droned on?  This was not a picture on the wall, this was (is) on the altar itself.

Above:  this April issue of the New Statesman (with a cover pic of David Cameron as a Muslim) is a special issue on the topic of English identity.  Professionally I interview dozens, if not hundreds, of people a year on issues of identity (who they are, what they buy, why they make certain decisions) and I have yet to meet anyone from an ethnic English background who is "confused" about their identity.  So where does this idea that the English are somehow confused and in crisis come from? 

Anyway, some anthropological thoughts on St George's Day. 

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, warmest Good Friday anyone can remember.

At the big minster church on the plain there was a devotional concert at 7.30pm the gothic interior cool after the heat of the day.

Instead of the choir the church singers performed the concert.  About forty men and women, all ages.  The men wore dark suits and blue ties, the women in black clothes and blue scarves.

The priest stood in front of them and said Good Friday had been a very long day, tiring and emotional.  Because this was a devotional concert he requested no applause until the end.  He then read the Collect and the concert began.

Bruckner, Brahms, Liszt - all expertly performed.

Today is Maundy Thursday

Above:  one of our neighbours has a set of Maundy Money.  Given in 2000 I think.  The silver coins (which are minted especially) were given in the two leather purses, and she later put them in this plastic display case.

Above:  screenshot of the BBC news report (note the mace-holder on the left).

Today is Maundy Thursday.  At Westminster Abbey this morning the Queen gave out the Maundy Money.  By her side was someone holding a heavy-looking medieval mace - in previous times if any one stepped out of line he would hit them (which seems a good system of crowd control, even today).  The choir sang Zadok the priest.  The Duke of Edinburgh read the Lesson (about the separation of the sheep from the goats).  The Cosmati Pavement was on show.

Rituals are important in society because of their symbolic value.  Probably a society could not function properly without them.  But it is not always clear what the symbols mean or what the values signify.

To unpick an 800-year ritual like Maundy Thursday would not be easy.  And even if you managed to trace back the various strands to the 12th century you may well find that the origins go back even further, maybe another eight hundred years, or eight thousand, or even eighty thousand.  What I am trying to say is that society is a lot stranger and deeper than most people realise.

If you were able to go back eighty thousand years you would probably see a tribal chief, protected by a guard holding a club, issuing gifts to the poorest members of the tribe (while warding off the plague with bunches of herbs and flowers).

We flatter ourselves that in a marketing-led consumer-choice society like the United Kingdom we are in control (mostly) of our lives and make all our decisions based on rational thought processes.  On a superficial level this might be true, but as soon as you look more deeply at why people make buying decisions you realise we are not in control at all.  The cultural instincts we obey were laid down centuries ago, probably millennia. 

What is a fair price?  Why is silver valuable?  Who decides what high status is? etc.

You tell me.

More  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13155577

Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday.

At the 11 o'clock service:

Hymn:  All glory laud and honour to Thee redeemer king.

Reading from Isaiah:  "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways..."

The sermon looked at the true meaning of "hosanna" - which can be translated as "bring salvation now".

St Patrick's Day

Above: I saw this man selling the Big Issue outside Russell Square tube station. He had gone to some trouble to decorate his stand for St Patrick's Day. Originally I just wanted to photo his display, but he insisted that I took his portrait as well in case anyone "back home" would see it who might know him.

Today is St Patrick's Day. In southern Ireland the saint is called Padraig, which is ironic as he was actually Romano-British and presumably would not have pronounced his own name with an Irish accent. St Patrick is buried at Down Cathedral in Northern Ireland.

Ten per cent of the British population (6 million people) have at least one grandparent who had/has Irish ethnicity. Occasionally you come across small communities which are identifiably "Irish" but most of these immigrants are completely absorbed into the main population leaving only surnames as a clue to their ethnic origin. Often they become "more English than the English".

An article in the Guardian late last year speculated that as many as 120,000 Irish people could be planning to migrate to the United Kingdom due to the severe economic climate in southern Ireland.



Above: the usual celebration of St Patrick's Day is related to excessive drinking.

Patrick Bergin and Jessica Grist appear in Steve Mac's Paddy's Revenge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl6vZ0POzZY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mac

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

I went to the 7.30pm service at the great minster, where a Trollopian atmosphere remains intact.

The choir gathered at the extreme west end to sing the introit, the sacred noise booming through the shadows and gothic arches of the darkened nave to where the congregation sat in the candlelit chancel.

The priest reminded us "we are only here for a short season". Marking with ashes ("dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return"). Holy Communion.

Shrove Tuesday

Today is Shrove Tuesday.

In ritual terms this is a significant week - Collop Monday, Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday.

Shrove Tuesday was/is a day of gluttony, amateur theatricals and sport (especially football - Hutton mentions "silver sports" presumably related to the trophies awarded).

Out of the Lent Eve feasting of the past only the pancake remains as an example of ritual food.



Above: pancake recipes were in almost all newspapers this year, and famous chefs took seriously a simple peasant dish intended to use up scraps.



Above: pancake parties continued to be celebrated in village communities - an example of the Big Society (except that they pre-date the Big Society by centuries).



Above: I have also noticed restaurants celebrating Pancake Day with pancake races, complete with prizes (not exactly silver trophies, but the same idea).

St David's Day

Today is St David's Day.

The Utah Saints video for Something Good 08 is set in a South Wales working men's club (the Dowlais club perhaps) on St David's Day 1989 and supposedly captures the moment when the Running Man dance craze was invented: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMLCrzy9TEs

The video was directed by Eran Creevy: http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/29295709

The minimal lyrics were sampled (but with a different singer) from Cloudbusting by Kate Bush (in turn referencing the autobiographical work of Peter Reich, son of controversial psychologist Wilhelm Reich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbusting ).

The Eran Creevy video is a revival of late-flowering decadent 1980s creativity - lush, romantic, and subtly seditious.

PS have been away for a few days.

Walpurga's Day

Today is Walpurga's Day (not to be confused with Walpurga's Night which is a German celebration).

Walpurga is of interest because she was probably the first English female author, writing an account of her brother's visit to the Holy Land in the 6th century.

Although Walpurga is mostly connected with Germany, there was also a cult of the saint connected with Wimborne in Dorset.

A 1610 painting by Rubens illustrates one of St Walpurga's miracles.