England beat Ecuador on Sunday

In the World Cup England beat Ecuador on Sunday (the winning goal scored by Number 7 David Beckham). As the competition ratchets upwards in intensity there is resentment from groups who want to see England lose (Guardian journalists, Scottish devolved ministers, feminist groups – an informal coalition of sentiment that seems confirm jibes about the loony left). Over the weekend there was trouble in Stuttgart when German fans attacked English fans (is the word “fan” an abbreviation of “fanatic”?). In Scotland there have been racist attacks against people wearing England football shirts (including a child and a disabled person). In the small market town near my home there was fighting in the square following the win over Ecuador (“I have never seen bouncers in Weatherspoons before – they just picked up a big Polish bloke when he started to make trouble and took him outside until the police came”). To paraphrase Clausewitz: football is war by other means.

The political implication of supporting (or ostentatiously not supporting) a particular team has many precedents in the past. The Hippodrome stadium in Constantinople, during the period of the Later Roman Empire, was split between the Blue and Green factions. Through the mobilisation of popular feeling they had the power to decide the fate of emperors.



Above: I am currently reading The Mediterranean World In Late Antiquity by Averil Cameron. It is full of ideas – concepts that really make you stop and think. I used to go to lectures by Averil Cameron at the Institute of Archaeology in Bloomsbury (she would deliver tendentious and provocative ideas in a dry ironic style that gained her a lot of admirers).

The Georgian and Regency consumers were literally buying a quality brand

Above: Despite its eighteenth century appearance, the Red Lion is a very ancient public house. Soldiers were billeted in the building during the Civil War. It is the perfect place for a quiet drink on just before the longest day of the year (still light at ten o’clock in the evening – you can sit outside in the pub garden and feel the heat of the day slowly cooling).

At the weekend I went down on the plain to a little village that throughout the centuries of its existence always seems to have been poor, the parish an appanage of an absentee lord (an appanage is hereditary property that can be given to a family member for a lifetime but can never be sold out of the family patrimony).

The Domesday Book describes the settlement as comprising thirty acres of common meadow, and three caracates (a caracate was the amount of land that could be tilled by one ox-drawn plough in a year, so about a hundred and twenty acres). The population at that time consisted of twenty-eight Sokemen. A Sokeman was a peasant farmer who owed labour services to the absentee lord, and could pass on his land to his son by payment of a heriot, a heriot being the arms and equipment of a soldier (thus under the feudal system land generated military assets for the knightly class).

The Red Lion pub stands on the highest point in the parish – even so this eminence is barely above sea level (“You can see the marks on my garden wall where the water came up during the floods in nineteen fifty-three – sea level is about door-handle height in most of the village”). In the middle ages the village (consisting of mud and brick huts roofed with thatch) was in the centre of the cultivated land, which in turn was surrounded by marshes and tidal pastures. Apart from farming there was fishing and fowling, and summer grazing on the tidal pastures for cattle and sheep.

Because of the nature of the common tidal pastures each village in the area had to mark its livestock with a distinctive brand. The mark of this village was an “S” and this brand remained in force until the nineteenth century when the marshes were drained and the common lands enclosed. The beef and lamb produced by the village in the eighteenth-century was highly prized, and the Georgian and Regency consumers were literally buying a quality brand.

One of the most interesting aspects of the village is the fact that the lives of the ordinary people changed so little during six hundred years. The Elysium existence of the villagers (described in the writings of one of the Rectors who was an amateur poet) came to an end in the 1750s when the marshes were drained. Although the nature of farming changed and life became easier, many in the region still hankered after the old way of life, and there were riots and disturbances throughout the period of the drainage – the terse writings of the parish’s Overseer of the Poor records the new class of tradesmen that emerged after the enclosures: miller, tailor, boatman, shoemaker, butcher, baker, thatcher, coal dealer, chimney sweep, wheelwright, horse-breaker, with the Rector doubling as Headmaster of the small village grammar school.



Above: Framed Enclosure Map. The Enclosure Acts in England cleared the land of subsistence peasant farmers, and drove most of them into the towns and cities. The social effects were terrible, reducing a generally contented rural population to urban poverty and destitution. However the enclosure of the common land (basically the theft of the land by the more prosperous cash-crop farmers) meant that land titles could be legally enforced and property bought and sold as an asset. The result was a huge explosion of capital wealth, circulating and accelerating and helping to fund the world’s first industrial revolution. This industrialisation in turn generated the cash to pay for overseas military adventures and led to the establishment of imperial glory.

England vs Trinidad

Above: Kit Kat bar with image of Bobby Moore holding the World Cup in 1966. It’s not alright to eat sugary junk food, but it IS alright to celebrate a win with this special commemorative snack. For the World Cup tournament Kit Kat has turned itself into a kind of festival ambrosia (the food-of-the-gods type of ambrosia, not the tinned milky pudding).

The office closed early yesterday afternoon to allow everyone to watch England vs Trinidad. I watched the match on Sky but with the commentary from Radio Live 5 (not my combination choice). There was a dichotomy between the doom and gloom Live 5 commentary (including some really irritating Australian) and what was happening on the pitch (as if the journalists had already made up their mind what they were going to say – I suppose in a sense they are always commentating on the last match before the one they are watching).



The World Cup saturation of popular culture continues. On MTV they were showing Footballers Cribs (all repeats) where they take you round the houses the players live in. All these residences look of a kind – big spacious rooms, new furniture and furnishings, ultra modern designs. “We don’t really use this area much” the player says as we are shown a big white living room, “we don’t really use this room much” (indoor swimming pool) “we don’t really use this room much” (formal dining room laid out for a banquet). Lloyd Samuel could have played for either Trinidad or England last night. But like so many people he has fallen between two stools.

We can see modern humanity taking the same road

Above: head of a Cyberman on the cover of Radio Times. The Cybermen are among the most terrifying creatures invented for the Doctor Who children’s science fiction drama. The horror relies upon psychological factors rather than special effects. It is the relentless inhumanity of the Cybermen that is so appalling (as the anthropologists tell us: "otherness" is invariably a threat, and "extreme otherness" means extreme danger). In the storyline the Cybermen were once human but gradually modified their bodies until they became machines. This is probably the basis of the horror – we can see modern humanity taking the same road. It is a theme that has been developed for adults in the American science fiction series Battlestar Galactica. The Cybermen were designed in the mid-60s by Dr Kit Pedler and redesigned over the years by different production teams. The design seems to draw heavily on the whore-robot in the 1927 film Metropolis.



Above: the whore-robot in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Fritz Lang said he based the design upon an African mask. Metropolis is one of the most influential films ever made, inspiring feature films such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and music videos by Madonna, Queen and Shakespeare’s Sister (among many others).



Above: African mask in a window display of Heals furniture store in Tottenham Court Road. Heals is more than just a shop - it has become an institution. Along the road used to be Maples furniture store, just as good as Heals (the demise of Maples, as a result of a bungled take-over bid, was a disgrace).

Most popular song of the evening was the Crazy Frog

I don’t usually go to the pub on a weekday as it makes me too tired the next day. But Monday was so hot that I agreed to go along for an hour – and ended up staying all evening. I went along after work and was surprised how crowded the bar was for a Monday, and also how many underage drinkers there were (under 18s – they were over sixteen, but from their boisterous shouting were obviously being served alcohol).

Also there was a girl I have seen a number of times – blonde, slightly top-heavy, aged about twenty-five. She has a way of moving smoothly through an absolutely packed bar, getting through even the densest groups without pausing. She holds her drink high above her head, so that she resembles the Statue of Liberty.

The karaoke (which I didn’t get involved in!) featured World Cup songs. Julie went up twice, belting out Embrace’s World At Your Feet and Tony Christie’s Is This The Way in her Scottish accent (being half-English, she has no hang-ups about supporting the England team). Easily the most popular song of the evening was the Crazy Frog’s We Are The Champions Ding A Dang Dong – not a karaoke option but whenever it played on the jukebox everyone in the bar joined in.

England win over Paraguay

Above: someone brought these celebratory World Cup iced buns into the office and handed them round.

The sense of euphoria that resulted from the England win over Paraguay on Saturday lingers on. It is one of the features of the World Cup competition that the matches are so close together that the rush of emotions associated with winning (elation, excitement, exultation) are still reverberating when another win sets the cycle in motion again. The escalating nature of this emotional sequence builds to such a state of intensity that forms of release become imperative – it is typically at this point that waves of consumer spending take place (as members of a spectator-nation “self-actualise” their new persona of winners-by-proxy by equipping themselves with the trophy material goods associated with “success”). Emotional release can also take the form of excessive binge-drinking. There is also the possibility of violence (usually irrational and spontaneous). Feeding every stage of this experience is the desire and demand for information, provided through multifarious channels (especially real-time), and pitched at every level from sardonic (The Guardian) to shameless (The Sun).

The England team itself has been so saturated by media commentary that the individuals have acquired mythological and heroic status (so that when Joe Cole appeared in a sports item on the Today Programme yesterday, it was surprising how ordinary he sounded).

A walk around the lake

It was extremely hot yesterday, temperatures in the high eighties. The dog gulped water from his dish and then went to lie down on the stone floor in the kitchen (the only surface that was cool). After lunch (roast chicken, strawberries to follow) I went for a drive – never have I been so glad of air-conditioning in my car!



In the fields the water sprays created rainbow arcs in the fierce sun.



Sheep (most of them shorn of their coats) gathered lethargically in the shade of spreading trees.



The horses had on their fly fringes (sometimes they wear masks of gauze that fit over the ears and hang over the face like a veil).



At the Hall there was no answer from the front door.

Walking round to the back the elderly chatelaine (last of a banking family) was sitting out on the terrace, under an awning. After some moments of polite conversation I said I would go for a walk around the lake. As I set off down the lawns her voice carried after me:

“There’s over eight different kinds of oak around the lake. The cedar trees were put in when the house was built. Have a look at the sunken garden, it was dug by my father in the nineteen-fifties – we were hoping at the time he was digging a swimming pool!”



At the end of the lawn I looked back and took this photograph. The steps you can see lead up to the terrace. They are actually quite steep steps, encrusted with lichen. It was on these steps in 2001 that my mother became “stuck” – too frightened to move in case she might fall (really, more frightened of what people might think of her rather than the physical effects of falling). This was when her illness and frailty became so apparent that we could no longer pretend there was nothing wrong. I have often thought about these steps, and seeing them again, after five years, I looked at them carefully as if they might provide some kind of explanation.



A gentle walk clockwise around the lake, no relief from the heat even under the trees. Occasionally there were glimpses of the Hall across the wide expanse of water. All pervasive was the smell of nettles heated by the sun (a wonderful syrupy smell).



The Hall was built in the 1840s and has been lived in by the same family ever since. These photographs make it look gloomy but in reality the sun was blazing down. I think the excessive sunlight has made the camera overcompensate.



At the farthest end of the lake, where I guess few people ever go now, the yellow flag irises were grouped in big clumps in the water – it must have taken decades for them to grow like this. The colours in this photograph havn’t come out very well, but it gives a good impression of the glaring heat of the afternoon, washing the colour from the landscape. Across the ornamental stone bridge, the balustrades half-covered by ivy (very sweet fresh smell at this point – I think it could be the cedar trees).



Two trees reflected in the water, the ducks streaming across. The sense of peace was cathartic, compensating for the week spent in the hot city. Is it justifiable for so much natural beauty to be held and enjoyed by a very few people (or would opening it to a wider public destroy the silence and tranquility?).

It has become a causal force

The World Cup tournament opens in Germany today. On all levels (cultural, economic, psychological) it is already registering big surges in the national nexus (that inter-relation of links and connections that holds society together). It has become a causal force driving all sorts of motivations unrelated to sport.



Above: “England, England, England” proclaims the window stickers in the Ben Sherman shop in Carnaby Street. Carnaby Street was one of the fashion centres of the swinging sixties. It went through a trashy tourist-trap phase in the 1970s and 80s, before reinventing itself as a retail showcase for men’s fashion.



Above: As well national enthusiasm for the current tournament there is a nostalgic fascination for 1966, as seen by these replica souvenir shirts. Already the excitement generated by the World Cup has translated into millions of retail transactions. If England were to reach the final (or win the tournament) the "feel-good" factor will have serious economic and political consequences.



Above: I was given one of these England awareness bracelets (which I wore for all of five minutes!). Not sure if it is worth keeping some of these ephemeral England items – tomorrow’s antiques? Awareness bracelets are more for teenagers (but I might possibly wear a red string Kabbalah to ward off the evil eye – Hindus also wear red string bracelets, but I think it is more to do with their marriage status).

One of the hottest and hippest shows on satellite television at the moment is Miami Ink

Not sure I really understand the attraction of tattoos. It seems to be taking “branding” to the ultimate limit (has anyone used a corporate logo as the basis of a tattoo?). Having an irrevocable design stained on your skin seems to represent “commitment”, “passion”, “belonging” (all the ideals that radical youth appropriates to itself).

Tattoos are interesting however in that they are undeniably tribal and relate to a community’s sense of identity. Herodotus writes of Thracian women being tattooed with signs of nobility. Sir James Frazer, writing in The Golden Bough (the chapter describing the fetish of “The Soul as Manikin”) says that people who had themselves tattooed “believe that at death the soul, the little entire man or woman inside the mortal frame, will go to heaven blazoned with the same tattoo patterns which adorned the body in life”.

According to Kim Blacha: “One of the hottest and hippest shows” on satellite television at the moment is Miami Ink – a programme that looks at the everyday routines of a Miami tattoo shop. I have only watched the programme once (last weekend) when an American man called Justin, aged early twenties, had his back decorated with a large shield displaying a lion rampant, explaining his choice of image by referring to a desire to celebrate chivalry and commemorate a friend who had died of a drugs overdose. What I found interesting was the survival in twenty-first century Florida of symbols and visual codes (including chivalry, which I define as the cult of knighthood) that first emerged in Europe eight hundred years ago.



Above: By chance earlier that day I had gone to look at some medieval carvings, and took this photo of a shield with a lion rampant, exactly like the image used in Miami Ink. I find it really interesting when you can trace links in this way. It makes you realise the power of symbols in defining identity.



Above: This tattoo on the back of someone’s head (photo taken in a shop in the West End), looks to me like a barcode.

In the car park the temperature had registered eighty-six degrees

Lunchtime I went to Rico’s, the café more crowded than I have ever known it, almost every table occupied. In the car park the temperature had registered eighty-six degrees. Long queue at the counter with at the head of the queue a deaf-blind man, head lolled to one side, and his translator (spelling everything out to him, Helen-Keller-like, in symbols traced on his hand – there were also three people in wheelchairs sat at the outside tables so possibly Rico’s is marketing itself as somewhere that welcomes people with disabilities).

Ham, cheese and tomato ciabatta, lemon frangipani slice, and (in a daring innovation to my usual pedestrian routine) a Mocha coffee instead of the usual filter.

Outside in the shopping mall the continuous frieze of consumers flowed backwards and forwards. The café is not in a wealthy area, and I noticed that many of the women in their thirties and forties (mature beauties with subtle fake tans) were wearing gypsy-style skirts that were in fashion two summers ago. The café sound system was playing Dusty Springfield (whose music is enjoying a revival currently and is used in a Cadburys TV commercial featuring a Wayne Rooney lookalike – another “look” of the moment – although it’s not clear why the commercial uses the Dusty Springfield version of Take A Little Piece Of My Heart instead of the more famous Erma Franklin release).

Something Toad of Toad Hall would have favoured

At a country fair I saw this car (a Trojan), which looks like something Toad of Toad Hall would have favoured. The original illustrations for Wind In The Willows were by EH Shephard. The drawing for Toad Hall was supposed to be based on a mansion on the River Thames, but I think it is more likely to be a building in Chesham.
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Bank Holiday pictures

Above: The northernmost edge of the escarpment (an area I rarely visit). Looking up the slope from the road, you can see the hawthorn (May tree) in blossom, with yellow gorse bushes dotted here and there. We are (today) now in June and the white May blossom has mostly faded.



Above: village cricket, the school pavilion in the background, English flag flying from the church tower. Notice the dark clouds rolling towards us (a few minutes after I took this picture there was a sudden downpour of rain). Profusion of buttercups in the foreground.



Above: motherly sow summoning her litter in a big field of mud.

Portraits from the Globalised World Number 3

Above: I could look out through the clear letters in the frosted glass, watching the passing traffic on the avenue outside

Two days training and team development. Once again we were in the small suburban hotel, the building completely deserted of any other guests, the staff listless and doubling up to carry out every little request we had. Once again we were in the annex, in a boardroom that had been created out of a downstairs bedroom (they will put it back to a bedroom after we have gone).

One of the unit PAs giggling as she told us that this downstairs bedroom is rented out at an hourly rate to casual couples who want somewhere quiet “to rest for a while”. Did the atmospheric vestiges of these carnal activities intrude into our meetings I wondered? Or alternatively, did our earnest deliberations about off-the-page advertising and catalogue page yields linger on to dampen the ardour of the next couple to hire the room?

Normally the training and development days finish at six o’clock, but this evening there was to be a special dinner at the hotel to celebrate the birth of a child to one of the senior unit personnel. It was to be a themed Moroccan dinner, with free drinks in the bar beforehand. The Moroccan theme was decided by the hotel manager, who comes from Casablanca (via Fez and Paris).

Although dark-skinned, the manager appears more Italian than Arabic. Aged in his late twenties, he is good-looking in a flashy sort of way, gelled hair combed backwards, always laughing and smiling (but his manner a little too ingratiating, like a hip twenty-first century Joel Cairo). Over the last six months I have seen him emerge from the kitchen, where he was/is chef, to become hotel manager, ousting the previous incumbent and pushing to one side more capable but less charismatic candidates.

The manager is a perfectionist, very visually minded about the way things are presented. He is passionate about his work, and warns the other staff that they better not involve him in their day-to-day work unless they want him to take over. I have seen him with the staff move from being close to tears, to raging anger, to protestations of undying friendship (all this is done publicly). With guests his friendliness is almost overwhelming, and you have to tell him several times before he will accept that you do not want anything (“Are you sure?” he will ask, “Are you sure? Are you sure?”). He speaks to some staff in perfect French, usually finishing with a command delivered in English (“Let’s rock and roll” he says in a loud, slightly falsetto voice). At times he appears to be manic, driven by a shining-eyed enthusiasm that seems to have an underlying anxiety.

During the training sessions our party from the office split into little groups. My group set up base in the hotel dining room, at a table in the bay window – I could look out through the clear letters in the frosted glass, watching the passing traffic on the avenue outside. While we worked on our marketing presentation people came into the dining room delivering Moroccan accoutrements (large bulbous amphora-type jars, exotic lamps, ornamental plates) for the themed dinner.



After lunch everything in the hotel fell silent, the Eastern European girl at the Reception desk looking listless. Even our marketing groups fell prone to enervation. In the garden court the hanging baskets cast shadows against the painted wall.

As the preparations for the evening were being made the manager always seemed to be popping up, dressed in different clothes, supervising operations (“All these things are from my house” he said to us proudly). His energy seemed inexhaustible. In the morning, in his role as manager, he appeared in a dark pin-stripe suit with pastel pink shirt and pink silk tie. Early afternoon (when he was off duty, working a split shirt) he was in faded Levi 501s, and grey hoodie, roaring into the carpark in his brand new Jeep. Early evening he was in full chef’s apparel of checked trousers, white overall, blue apron, chef’s hat. Later in the evening, while the Moroccan meal was being served, he had changed yet again, and bustled around the table dressed in a Moroccan embroidered top and wearing a black fez (no tassel).



At six o’clock our party from the office gathered in the small panelled lounge, the bottles of spirits back lit behind the bar. A couple of commercial travellers had also arrived at the hotel. Shortly afterwards we all went into the dining room, where I sat with my colleagues at a long table that dominated the room.

The Moroccan dinner was laid out in a buffet at the end of the room – we went up and helped ourselves, the hotel manager introducing each dish:

“This is our national dish” (sausages) he said. “This is called Royal Lamb. This is chicken with lemon. This is made with aubergines – it took me over three hours to make!” For a pudding we had pastries soaked in honey. Strong coffee to follow.

I asked the hotel manager about his life and he told me he had left Morocco as a child and grew up in Paris and later London, so had always lived among foreigners.

“I love England” he said. “In Morocco I could have my own hotel, everything” (the word everything emphasised by dramatic slicing movements with his hands) “but I don’t like the Moroccan policies. Always giving bribes for everything. In Morocco the houses are always open – anyone can go in there. In England I can have my private life.”

He smiled with pleasure as diners came up for second helpings. The Indian waiting staff brought in the coffees. In the background tinny Moroccan music played.

The power of images

Whatever you think about the political issues, John Prescott’s foray into croquet playing is a disaster in terms of his image as a politician. Formerly he was seen as “northern”, “working class” proletarian, uneducated (but not unintelligent). When attacked by an egg-thrower he responded with his fists rather than witty repartee.

Now the name John Prescott is associated with “grace and favour”, “country house” and, most incredibly, “croquet” (a game of elitist, effete social climbers). Newsnight yesterday lampooned this episode by linking it to the croquet game in Alice in Wonderland, implying John Prescott inhabits a topsy-turvey world where nothing makes sense anymore. This level of ridicule is destroying John Prescott’s credibility as we watch – it is unlikely that anything can save him now (unless the government has already accepted, as John Major did in the late 90s, that the next election is already lost and therefore it doesn’t matter what the people think).

It proves once again the power of images.

A possible cure for arthritis

In the countryside the dogroses have finally started flowering in the hedgerows. After the flowers will come the rose hips. Rose hips have recently been identified as a possible cure for arthritis.

The plane trees brooded motionless...

Tottenham Court Road, early evening, towards the end of May (just before the Bank Holiday). London Plane trees can be seen all over the city. In Keep The Aspidistra Flying George Orwell wrote: “The plane trees brooded motionless, dimmed by faint wreaths of mist…”

A village down on the plain

There is an escalating sort of process between hearing about a place, reading about it, then thinking about it and constructing it in my imagination, then going there and seeing it all as it exists. It is like a dramatisation, a dream that takes on tangible form and comes to life. Occasionally I am disappointed, but often the reality is more real, more vivid, sometimes more startling than the vision I had formed in my mind.

Last week I went to a village down on the plain. Although the landscape was absolutely flat, the presence of woodland softened the usual austerity. The village was a place you could drive through and think unremarkable – it’s only when you stop and look carefully that you begin to comprehend the layers of significance.

The descriptive word “countryside” is derived from the belief that the tiny fiefdoms held by knightly family clans in the later middle ages were literally “countries” self-sufficient and independent of the outside world. For instance, medieval MPs summoned from each shire would “return to their countries” at the end of the parliamentary session. The village I visited last week was associated with a family of great antiquity, not famous in any way, settled on the same piece of land for centuries, struggling to keep intact their traditions, family honours, patrimony.

At the road junction a war memorial in the form of a white obelisk marked the edge of the village. Driving beyond this marker and into the settlement you got the feeling (a very palpable feeling) that time had stopped – a sensation enhanced by the complete absence of any human life. It was obvious I was in a landscape controlled by a large estate – mature trees, maintained hedges, architectural integrity to the cottages (brick built, small and fancy).

The Hall, built in 1725 in the Queen Anne style, is one of the grandest houses in the district (Pevsner uncharacteristically raves about the “gorgeous” rainwater heads on the downpipes). I could only see the house from across a vast lawn – the building is notoriously private and difficult to get inside, so I knew there was no point in trying to go closer. There is also another family residence on the estate, called the Old House and notable for its plain but sophisticated façade and a garden wall with huge false battlements.

The grey stone medieval church of St Mary the Virgin was big and solid with a massive tower supporting a broach spire (so-called because of tiny hooded windows giving the spire a distinct appearance). The church was in the centre of the village, surrounded by grass meadows and lots of trees. Entering, I walked into an airy and spacious aisle. The atmosphere was welcoming, and I got the impression the church had been waiting for me (difficult to express this – it was as if the building had been waiting for me through all the long centuries of its existence). Sound penetrated the stone walls easily, and even after I had shut the door behind me I could hear piercingly loud birdsong and the baaing of sheep in the pastures outside. The roof of the nave was very high, supported on two rows of slender columns.

The windows of the church were small but the interior was not gloomy in any way – so bright was the sun outside that shafts of light lit up the nave and chancel with an intense white brilliance, like a complicated light-show of unusual subtlety. Very high Rood Screen in plain wood, with old varnish that made it look almost black. Recumbent effigy, much worn, of a 14th century lady in a long gown. Stained glass window of 1903 showing an angel holding a white lily. A gigantic battered wooden chest from the Tudor period. Norman font with typical interlocking arches round the outside of the bowl. The church had been conceived on an even larger scale than that executed. Of those planned extensions only the south transept had been built – now housing the Lady Chapel, with a large south-facing window through which the sunlight streamed onto a uneven floor of medieval red bricks. Under the tower were ostentatious wooden plaques recording the achievements of the bell-ringers (A peal of Treble Bob Minor 5,040 changes, 2 hours 59 minutes, rung for the marriage of Lieutenant T. N. Eaglen RNVR on 21st May 1945; or Saturday April 23rd 1938, 3 hours 3 minutes, peal of London Surprise Minor 5,040 changes etc).

I turned my attention to the Eaglen memorials. There were lots of them throughout the building, mostly simple and straightforward, without much in the way of grandeur. There was probably no information on the monuments that I couldn’t have got from the documents or printed sources, but seeing them in situ was very poignant (I felt I was meeting people I knew). Crude inscriptions cut deep on window lintels along the north aisle. Engraved brasses. Two slate memorials from the 18th century, one listing the Eaglens buried in the church since 1561 (with an additional date of 1220 which I am a bit dubious about), the other listing those Eaglens buried “away from their ancestors”.

One unexpected find was a big late-Victorian window of five lights, each light containing three stained glass coats-of-arms making fifteen in all. This was an attempt to prove seize quartiers, which is a degree of family status whereby all sixteen great-great-grandparents of an individual are armigerous (that is, they come from knightly families entitled to bear coats-of-arms, the sixteenth escutcheon being that of the Eaglens themselves). Basically it was a stud book in stained glass.

The window was opulent and decorative but beneath the colourful heraldry were deeper, more disturbing meanings – an obsession with blood purity, a veneration of martial violence, a reverence for the possession of property. The debate that has gone on since the 18th century right up to modern times is whether such tribalism is best allowed codified and formalised cultural expression or should be suppressed in the interests of a wider community (with the risk of sudden explosive reactions, as demonstrated on a regional level in the Balkans or Somalia).

Although the Eaglen memorials were generally modest there was one exception. The centre of the church was dominated by a massive brass chandelier comprising three tiers of twenty-six candlesticks. It was hung so low that you could reach up and touch the brass sphere that forms its base and on which is the inscription: the gift of Coney Eaglen Gent for an example to all pretenders of love to the church which by their actions don’t show it Anno Dom 1722 (the papers describe little family rituals at Christmas and Harvest Festival when the candles on this chandelier would be lit).

As well as the big medieval parish church the Eaglens also built in the 19th century a much smaller private chapel (part of the way in which families became more in-ward looking and devotional). Fowler was the architect. Although on the estate, it also bordered a lane, so access was quite easy.

I had no expectations of finding the chapel open, but as I drove up I saw someone in the little churchyard cutting the grass. He turned out to be the organist and unlocked the door for me and showed me round. Soft grey stone outside, but inside it was all polychromatic brick, coloured encaustic tiles, narrow lancet windows displaying stained glass in cheerful colours. Porphyry marble (a sort of brownish-purple) columns either side of the little apsidal chancel. Delicate silver candlesticks and a silver cross on the altar. Candles everywhere (no electric light).

Everything was immaculately kept up. The organist, who was very elderly, talked about the estate, and described a tiny resort that used to be on the side of the great sea-water lake (now almost entirely gone, the beach turned into marsh, the two hotels closed – one now a ruin, the other turned into holiday lets). He sat down at the organ and did an extemporary performance of Lord Let Me Know Mine End, a sombre anthem written by Sir Hubert Parry at the outbreak of the First World War.

Later I looked at my documents, notes and books and wondered what I was doing all this for. Is it all just a colossal waste of time? I already have enough material for twenty books (but all in the form of rambling and non-sequential notes).

Prize bull

The prize bull was led out, wearing his winning ribbon, a cordon bleu resembling the sash of the Order of the Garter.

“I’m trying to find the image of a satisfied woman”

Sex sells (one of the primary rules of marketing). Therefore I was not surprised when I heard a marketing executive in the next room say “I’m trying to find the image of a satisfied woman”. Trawling through the various electronic libraries of photographs we hold, the art director couldn’t come up with anything suitable.

Later in the day the image appeared in my mind of Darryl Hannah in the video for the Robbie Williams song Feel. A blonde woman in her early forties, smiling slightly, leaning on a fence in the American Mid West. Kim Blacha was able to e-mail me a still, and it represented the post-coital state exactly.

The Feel video is one of the best short films ever made. Directed by Vaughan Arnell, the film stars Darryl Hannah as a ranch owner, with Robbie Williams as a drifter-slob (a role he plays very convincingly) employed as a ranch hand. After establishing shots of employer / employee (Hannah literally looking down on Williams from the upper floor of a barn), the two embark upon a brief affair culminating in a backseat tryst in a car on a roadside lay-by (an incredibly beautiful shot of the rain falling and trucks speeding past). The coupling of Williams and Hannah is mirrored by shots of rodeo riders being thrown from superb-looking wild horses (picking themselves up looking bruised and aggrieved). Eventually the affair fizzles out, Hannah distances herself and treats Williams with indifference. Williams is left looking confused.

Everything about the film is perfect. I have seen it many times and always notice new details. Sometimes I watch it without sound – the effect is totally different.

It’s all swings and roundabouts in terms of the world economy

Above: swings and roundabouts at a village show last summer

Vauxhall Motors at Ellesmere Port announced nine hundred job losses today. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Gordon Brown) and the Trade & Industry Secretary (Alistair Darling) scuttled down there on what was obviously a PR damage limitation exercise, to make it seem that the government is taking action. In reality they will do nothing since it is all swings and roundabouts in terms of the world economy (what manufacturing jobs we will lose because we have a lightly-regulated economy will be more than compensated for by the high-skill professional jobs we will gain).

The problem is that the people on Ellesmere Port who are losing their jobs will not be candidates for the financial services or marketing or property-related jobs that are being created elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

I used to believe that globalisation would be to everyone’s benefit but increasingly I am not so sure. It looks as if a comfortable class of professionals will be spread across the globalised world, with a desperate underclass beneath them. The middle classes in India and China will rise to Western levels of wealth and prosperity, but social groups C2, D and E in the West will regress (not to third world destitution, but a lot lower than their current standards of living).

In the long run the world economy should expand so that everyone is better off, but in the long run (as Keynes pointed out) we are all going to be dead.

Because I knew people who worked at the Vauxhall works in Luton I always bought a Vauxhall car. Brand new (bought at Shaw & Kilburn), always Vauxhall, always painted blue. But when the Luton works closed I stopped buying Vauxhall cars and bought an Alfa Romeo (it was only loyalty that kept me buying from Vauxhall so long).

I would like to see heavy prison sentences for politicians and civil servants found lying

The white "candles" have come out on the chestnut trees, filling the garden with waves of delicate scent.

May blossom is on the hawthorn trees.

In the fields there are squares of bright yellow oil seed rape. The crop has only been grown commercially on a large scale since the Second World War, changing the look of the landscape (not unpleasantly – sometimes the effect can be very striking, like a Van Gogh landscape). Oil seed rape, as the name implies, is used to produce oil (used in processed food and for commercial applications).

Use of genetically modified oil seed rape is EXTREMELY controversial, and although it is being introduced covertly into the United Kingdom there is likely to be a widespread backlash against the politicians who are allowing this to happen.

The experience of BSE (which could have infected virtually the entire population) has made the British population very cynical towards government pronouncements about food safety. “Experts” from the cross-national corporate-governmental nexus cannot understand why the bland assurances of safety that have worked in America and Canada do not work here. It is because same experts issued the same bland assurances on the impossibility of BSE infecting the human food chain that they have zero credibility on the subject of genetic modification (I would like to see heavy prison sentences for politicians and civil servants found lying on this issue).

The Prince of Wales has put forward the suggestion that the whole of British agriculture should go over to organic methods of production. In marketing terms this makes sense as in globalised markets it would give British farm produce a unique identity throughout the world and justify higher profit margins (unlike the present situation where we are producing generic products that can’t compete with the economies of scale in the factory farms overseas). It’s unlikely anyone in the government will take up this idea and make it policy.

Apologies

Apologies for not posting - my PC is disabled with a virus.

A subliminal representation

Equestrian statue of Prince Albert (in a military uniform) at Holborn Circus. The sculptor was Charles Bacon, and the statue was unveiled in 1874. I took the photograph as I was coming out of Hatton Garden.

The granite base of the statue includes allegorical figures of History (exposing her breasts) and Peace (holding palms leaves and a cornucopia).

There is a relief (on the south side of the granite base) of Britannia sitting on the throne of the world, a lion at her feet. She is bestowing laurel crowns on the peoples of the world, who are kneeling before her dressed in national costumes. This relief is a subliminal representation of national self-confidence and patronising condescension at the moment it escalated into imperial arrogance.

A luminous sheen

A training course off-site. We went to the back room of a comfortable suburban hotel (the one we usually use for training courses). The training was interesting, very informal and relaxed.

We were sat around a polished board table (rather too large for the room) laid out with notepads, pens, bottles of still water, bottles of sparkling water, bottles of blackcurrent cordial, bottles of lime cordial. Missing was the big salver of artistically-arranged fresh fruit that normally formed the table centrepiece. A colleague complained to the hotel manager that the fruit was missing, treacherously blaming me for the grievance (the fruit was immediately brought in).

Also on the table was a bowl of mints. They were directly in front of me, and I noticed how the light from the window gave the tops of the mints a luminous sheen. The sight had an hypnotic quality – it was only a bowl of mints, but seemed to acquire more significance the longer I looked at it.

At regular intervals the marketing executive sitting opposite would lean over and take one of the mints. His movements were so frequent that I began to time them (an average of six-minute intervals). I began to fear that the mints would all be gone before I would have a chance to photograph them (my camera was in the car).

In a lull in the training the group discussed snoring.

“Do you snore?” I asked the marketing executive opposite.

“Only when I’m drunk” he said.

In another lull we discussed hair-loss (the marketing executive opposite was very sensitive on this subject, even though his receding hairline is barely noticeable, and would go un-remarked if he didn’t keep drawing attention to it).

Every eight minutes another mint disappeared until I could stand the suspense no longer, and went out to my car to get my camera.

Bank Holiday (more or less a second Sunday in the week)

Throughout the world May Day is marked by expressions of fraternal socialist brotherhood. In communist countries it used to be celebrated by military processions, gushing expressions of homage to beloved political leaders, displays of inter-continental missiles. In England it is a Bank Holiday (more or less a second Sunday in the week).



I drove into the local market town where the May Fair was being set up (it lasts all week). Permission to hold a May Fair was granted centuries ago by a Royal Charter. In the past it was an occasion for the exchange of goods and services, and a massive boost to the regional economy (these days it is just a fun fair – locals complain about the noise and the mess and the fact that they can’t park on the marketplace).

Out in the villages various pre-Reformation customs survive, mostly associated with the rite of spring. After lunch on Monday I went with Marie-Astrid to see a display of May Pole dancing, carried out by children (her four-year-old daughter was too shy to join in). The first thing we saw after parking the car was this troop of Morris dancers doing a sort of jingling manoeuvre (they have bells sewn on the legs of their costumes), whacking their ornamental sticks together, prancing about to jaunty folk tunes.



Several attempts have been made to suppress Morris dancing. It was banned by the Puritans in the 17th century, then revived under Charles II, then nearly died out as the industrial revolution transformed society, and finally revived again by folklore enthusiasts at the end of the 19th century. Recently it has been ridiculed by “alternative” stand-up comedians and attacks on Morris dancing, which is basically a harmless pursuit, have become a clichéd part of “alternative” repertory.

After the Morris dancing there was the May Pole dancing. Marie-Astrid kept urging her daughter to have a go but she was too shy (there was a big platoon of Brownies commandeering most of the ribbons). Then the dancers, holding bouquets of flowers, formed a procession (women helpers walking alongside) and walked around the green, followed by the crowning of the May Queen (not sure how they selected her – traditionally it’s supposed to be the prettiest girl in the village but obviously that’s not going to be politically correct these days, and in any case could be traumatic for those who don’t make the grade).

All around the green were various May Day customs for the children to try out. Washing your face in May Day dew is supposed to give young girls perfect complexions. Breaking a sprig of hawthorn blossom (the May tree) in a certain way is supposed to predict what sort of marriage partner you will get.

There was a complicated ritual, which I didn’t really get, that involved throwing a cowslip flower up in the air and seeing how it falls. For all their ostensible innocence these traditions are basically fertility rites. In The Golden Bough Sir James Fraser described customs almost identical to the ones we were looking at.

This birch tree, planted at the gate to one house, has been decorated with May ribbons (according to Sir James Fraser this was to honour the spirit of the tree). Birch trees were regarded (by the superstitious rural population) as having special powers, and were planted at entrances to ward off witches. Note the horseshoe nailed over the door.

We were fairly close to the coast, so after the May Day celebrations we spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the sea front. From the pier (hardly worthy of the name) we looked out over the wide, almost-empty beaches. In the middle distance a line of donkeys returned with their diminutive riders (provoking demands from Mari-Astrid’s daughter that she wanted a donkey ride, but when we got down there her shyness took over and she changed her mind).

I don’t want to give the impression that life in England is all quaint customs and May Day revels. Life in the cities is completely different (as someone who works in a city and lives in the countryside I have come to realise that they are completely different societies – two nations almost). For a huge number of people a Bank Holiday evening means going to the pub and watching football.

The people's verdict on Tony Blair

Local elections are being held today. Although they are local they are being regarded as a verdict on the national government. In recent weeks government ministers have appeared on television and radio promulgating lie after lie after lie.

The people's verdict on Tony Blair is expected to be the writing on the wall: Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin – you have been cast in the balance and found wanting, your days are numbered, your kingdom will be divided and given to your enemies.

Picture: today the government will be cast in the balance (apologies for using this frou-frou image, which is the only scales I could find - it was in the window of a pub).

Arrest of rapper Snoop Dogg at Heathrow last Thursday

Sometimes an item from the news stays in my mind for days afterwards. I wish I had witnessed the arrest of rapper Snoop Dogg at Heathrow last Thursday. He had been refused entry to the VIP Lounge at the airport (not all his party held valid passes) and tried to force his way through the door.

A huge number of police were involved in dealing with the incident. One onlooker said the police were being thrown around like pillows (they only managed to gain control by using pepper sprays on the group). The news channels reported the confrontation as a mini-riot.

It was a clash of cultures. The laid-back anyone-is-as-good-as-anyone-else attitude of South Central LA meeting the First Class policies of the British Airport Authority. As a brand-building exercise both sides benefit - Snoop Dogg enhanced his reputation for rebelliousness (defiant to authority, loyal to his buddies, refusing to be judged by others); the BAA reinforced their image of exclusivity (even celebrities will be ranked according to behaviour and class).

As a dramatic incident it ought to be recorded on film, possibly as Snoop Dogg’s next video (and directed by Peter Lindbergh).