Burns Night, celebrating the poet Robert Burns

Above: my sister married a McDonald, which means we are familiar with all the recognisable items of the Scottish diaspora (several generations removed its homeland) - a dried Scottish thistle, single malt whisky, haggis, the poetry of Burns, a tartan napkin (I have questioned whether it is a McDonald tartan), what looks like a dirk etc.

This evening is Burns Night, celebrating the poet Robert Burns.

According to today's Daily Telegraph more Burns Night celebrations are held in England than in Scotland (or anywhere else in the world), which makes it arguably an English cultural event as well as a Scottish one.

Burns' most famous poem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lAi9A9s5lg&playnext=1&list=PLEA05651F9B270D73&index=40

The Wolf Moon

It's a full moon today - the Wolf Moon. Driving home (this was about 6.30pm) I was so struck by the beauty of the moonlit landscape that I had to stop the car and look at it properly. In the above photo you can see the Wolf Moon shining down on the wayside manor-house and the cedar tree and the deep swift-flowing river.

The combination of silvers and blues was breathtaking.

It's a reminder that for all our post-agrarian post-industrial virtual-society sophistication, the phases of the moon still appear in the sky just as they appeared to our paleolithic ancestors.

(I know this is a kitsch song, sneered at by music critics, but I've always liked it) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt8d3Shlfrg

Mystic Nativity

All over the county churches are preparing for the Christmas services. This remote church has a gigantic three-dimensional representation of the Mystic Nativity by Botticelli hanging over the nave. Notice the overhead heater on the right - even with the heaters full on it was freezing cold.

Although a masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, the painting has been in London for two hundred years, and has become part of English culture - as an intellectual icon and the subject of BBC2 documentaries; as a devotional icon (still, even after all this time); as an icon of kitsch being reproduced on hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of middle-class middle-income middle-England Christmas cards.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/sandro-botticelli-mystic-nativity

St George's Day

Above: the 2010 gold sovereign on the cover of a Royal Mint brochure.

Today is St George's Day, the English national day (although not yet a national holiday). St George was a saint made popular by the crusaders. Contrary to widespread belief, the day has always been officially marked through ceremonies and religious services.



Above: part of the cover of today's Daily Mirror.

What has been new, over the past few years, has been the significance of the day in the popular collective consciousness. Google today has a small graphic representation of St George and the Dragon in front of Windsor Castle (the castle contains St George's Chapel). I noticed that Sainsburys today put out St George's flag bunting over the fresh produce section.



Above: the Betjeman Arms at St Pancras Station is using the day as a marketing opportunity.

In London there are official parades and celebrations marking St George's Day - this is a completely new phenomenon.



Above: the London Review of Books recently gave away this anthology of English poetry.

Is the rising consciousness of St George's Day (and English identity) reflecting a popular mood or is it being led from above?



Above: recent window display at Foyles, with a new book by Labour politician Roy Hattersley (dedicated to his dog).



Above: new play by left-wing musician Billy Bragg about English identity (although I describe him as left-wing, be has in the last week announced he is voting Liberal-Democrat in the general election on the grounds that the Labour Party has "abandoned the white working class").

In the first seconds of St George's Day I was watching Andrew Neil's This Week. Andrew Neil announced that it was St George's Day, and then initiated a discussion on the meaning of patriotism. Taking part in the discussion was Andrew Neil (Scottish), Charles Kennedy (Scottish), Michael Portillo (child of Spanish refugees), Diane Abbot (child of Jamaican migrants) and Gurinder Chandha (born in Kenya to Indian parents). All of these people have a right to an opinion on English patriotism. And all these people are welcome to call themselves English if they wish. But the absence of an indigenous English voice in the debate did strike me as ironic.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. It is a time for "giving up" things - mainly as a way of creating space for the serious study and prayers that lead up to Easter. Very effective Thought For The Day on Radio 4 this morning.

Fasting has been secularised, commodified and made into a retail "experience" in the post-war period, and is now marketed under the generic branding of "detox" (I know "generic branding" is a contradiction in terms, but I am writing this in a hurry). It is another example of the way consumerism has corrupted and supplanted the religious impulse. You pay more (vastly more) and you get far less.

Shrove Tuesday

Yes, I know this is cheating, but my efforts at cooking pancakes are not universally appreciated.

John Taylor writes about pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in Jack a Lent (1625), the Jack a Lent being a traditional custom of the day.

More: http://www.jstor.org/pss/4174383