So many questions

When Robert Leiper had been in London he had gone to a second-hand bookshop in Mayfair. While looking through one of the books a postcard fell out, which he kept (dubious moral grounds as he didn’t buy the book) and gave to me. I reproduce it here because I found it interesting.

On one side the postcard features a photograph taken in 1959 of a chic woman looking through a very impressive telescope, accompanied by an elderly man about twenty years her senior. They are in what looks like a whitewashed spare bedroom (single bed). The bright light suggests a Mediterranean location (actually Tangier on the northern tip of Morocco).



Below the photo is some writing:

With all good wishes for Xmas and 1960 to you and the boys from James and Marguerite. Tangier.



On the other side are two messages, both written (I would guess) by the chic 50-year-old from the photo. One message obviously comprises New Year greetings, written previous to the holiday and put on one side ready to go out (perhaps as part of a larger batch). Underneath this she has added a postscript explaining that the old gentleman had died after a short illness, the bright hopes for the future becoming a sad souvenir of the past.

The full text is:

We can easily see thru the Straits of Gibraltar and 49 miles into Spain but the future looks a bit murky – and we wish we could see you. Love (and the signature was a stylised drawing of a flower – presumably a marguerite, which is a type of daisy).

PS 3 Dec . 1959
You will be sad to know that James died on the 1 December after an illness of 10 days – and is being buried today. He was very fond of you all and so I know you will be glad to have this photo. M.

There are so many questions raised by this postcard.

Boxing Day – 26th December

Note the actual date of this post is Wednesday 31st January 2007.

By the time breakfast was cleared away the morning was almost gone. Robert Leiper wanted a walk so I sent him off in the direction of the next village (a distance of about five miles). I have to say I felt relief at being on my own for a while. He came back wailing about his clothes (which he is obsessed by), having been completely unprepared for the amount of mud a December walk in the countryside would generate.

When Robert Leiper returned we had lunch – cold turkey, chestnut stuffing, sausagemeat, boiled potatos, Brussels sprouts, with a chilled Sancerre to drink. To follow were slices of cold Christmas pudding (with more of the sauternes we opened yesterday). Robert Leiper asked for two helpings of the cold Christmas pudding, a request I have never heard made before (he seemed to regard the pudding as a great delicacy).

Afterwards we all had some tea and sat at the table talking.

It was one of those tedious lunchtime conversations when we talk about nothing at all. The chintz style of decoration in the house was commented on, and Robert Leiper said: “In America it is known as English Country House”. Robert Leiper then described various big arguments he has had with various people culminating in the clash that lost him his job.

It was dark when we took the dog for a walk to the end of the road (the dog was more appreciative of the muddy walk than we were). We had a red torch to light the way, but didn’t need it as there were absolutely no vehicles about. Robert Leiper talked about skiing in the Adirondack Mountains, his admiration for Jeremy Bloom (someone I had never previously heard of), and his plans to go skiing in Germany.

A very late tea (past nine o’clock). Smoked salmon, a variety of cheeses, hot vol-au-vant, Dundee cake, cups of tea. “All we do is eat” remarked Robert Leiper, “tomorrow I want to go out someplace”. I explained that in Christmas week almost all places of interest would be shut – even the medieval churches were likely to be locked.

Later he launched a very long discussion about a publishing venture he wants to set up. I wondered how serious he was. It was unclear what he wanted my role to be (although it was very clear he wanted me to have a role).

Christmas Day – 25th December

Note the actual date of this post is Tuesday 30th January 2007

Everyone was busy during the morning getting the lunch ready. Robert Leiper got up late and had his breakfast alone in the Dining Room. He then came to stand in the Outer Kitchen while I helped do the washing up, expressing surprise at the amount of food being prepared.

He gave me a present (unwrapped) of two eighteenth-century engravings he had bought at Christies in New York. They were magnificent steel engravings, mounted and in plain varnished frames. The subjects were two medieval towers in a neighbouring county (one was a church tower, the other was a castle fortification).



Above: Robert Leiper also gave me some very expensive French wine which he brought over from New York in a Kenneth Cole bag.

At noon we began to drink Champagne, and Robert Leiper changed into a Banana Republic blue mohair suit. At one o’clock we had lunch of roast turkey, Brussels sprouts (from a stalk chucked over the fence by the farmer), roast potatos, roasted parsnips with black pepper, chestnut stuffing, sausagemeat, bread sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy. Then a homemade Christmas pudding, round in shape, which we had with brandy butter and a glass of sauternes (Robert Leiper was fascinated by the pudding which is not common in America - they have pumpkin pie).



Above: Brussels sprouts (from a stalk chucked over the fence by the farmer).

The meal lasted until three o’clock when we took our drinks into the Sitting Room. The Queen’s Speech came on and Robert Leiper stood up for the (British) National Anthem, the only person in the room to do so. Her Majesty talked about family life.

Most of the afternoon I spent talking and reading. At one point I must have dropped off for about an hour. Later Robert and I took the dog for a walk as far as The Grange, a distance of about half a mile. No-one else was about. Robert talked about the band he had been in last year and the attempt to generate interest via MySpace. The enterprise had been a complete failure.

Back at the house tea was ready – including cold turkey, ham, bread and butter, Gala pie, savoury biscuits, chocolate biscuits, Brussels pate, cheeses (eight kinds, including a large Stilton), Tunis cake, Christmas cake. The meal was interrupted by telephone calls from friends and relations (including calls Robert Leiper made to his family in San Diego) so that we were not finished until past 11pm. This did not mar the meal in any way – it was the sort of meal that benefited from being drawn out.

Christmas Eve – 24th December

Note the actual date of this post is Monday 29th January 2007

At 9 o’clock I went downstairs with the dog. Out in the garden the day was mild, the white Christmas Roses in full flower. Robert Leiper was already up and having breakfast in the dining room (tea with toast and marmalade - Frank Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade).

I was concerned to know how well Robert was getting on with everyone as he has a controlling persona. If you are not firm with him you can end up being pushed around in your own house. For instance when showing him the main Sitting Room, which has seven armchairs and two sofas, I told him one of the armchairs was only used by my aunt. Not surprisingly, when I next went in there he was sitting in my aunt’s armchair. I knew this was a test of will so I told him to move. I would have ejected him had it been necessary.

He also seems to be a bit of an exhibitionist, and I got reports that he was undressed this morning with the lights on and the curtains open. This information was provided by one of the farmers who use the sheds in the old farmyard – he told me seriously “the old biddies won’t like it”, referring to the locals who use the lane as a shortcut up to the church. I had to explain to Robert that although the house was isolated, lots of people use the lane and the footpath through the old farmyard, and they can see through into his room, especially if he leaves the light on (these are not people who would understand the Californian concept of letting it all hang out).

Other feedback I got concerned Robert’s loud exuberance (“does he have to be so hip and happening?”) and the amount of mud he was bringing into the house (“doesn’t he know how to use a doormat?”). Old advice about not mixing friends and family came back to me. I decided to get him out of the house as much as possible to minimise the culture clash.

We had a big lunch – as it was a Sunday we had roast pork, sage and onion stuffing, roast potatos, carrots, cauliflower. For pudding we had mince pies. After lunch and a cup of tea Robert Leiper wanted to explore the local area.

Just below the escarpment is a small market town that is halfway between the hills and the coast (because of an estuary it also has a small port). With a population of about fifteen thousand inhabitants, it has a mostly Georgian and Victorian appearance, the streets packed closely round a great church in the centre (the size of a small cathedral, with a lofty tower). Seen from a distance, and from the vantage point of the escarpment, it resembles one of those gothic cities in a medieval Book of Hours.

We drove into the centre of the town and parked in the cobbled Market Place. As it was late afternoon on Christmas Eve nowhere was open, but I was able to show him the exterior of various buildings. So we looked at the Assembly Rooms, the Old Custom House, the blue-plaqued birthplace of an inflammatory sixteenth-century rabble rouser (author of a Martyrology), the Guildhall, and the great church itself (soaring perpendicular, intricate gothic, dazzling complexity of flying buttresses and lofty pinnacles).

Returning home we joined the others, had some tea and talked for several hours. Robert Leiper seemed mesmerised by the town we had just visited and the size and scale of the church/minster/mini-cathedral that dominated the centre. He wanted to see inside, and looking in the local newspaper I found that there was a Christmas Eve Carol Concert at seven o’clock.

At 7pm we drove down onto the plain to the small town again (Robert Leiper had put on a dark Dolce & Gabbana blazer – “Cost me eight hundred and fifty bucks” – with a t-shirt that said Starboard Attitude). The church was lit up, from both within and without, vast in size, the gothic tower looming upwards 272 feet into the dark sky. In through the porch, we entered the enormous gothic interior and found seats on the left hand side of the nave, fairly near the front (the nave was nearly full). As we came in and were given the Order of Service we were also presented with one lit candle, but Robert Leiper went back and insisted that we had TWO candles (he is very competitive). I pointed out the fine transitional windows. “Gothic upon gothic my abbey rises round me” said Robert Leiper appreciatively, quoting a minor poet (and typically getting the quotation wrong).

The service was comprised of Lessons and Carols, the format very familiar to me (all the usual carols were sung including Once In Royal David’s City, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, Joy To The World etc). The Lessons were read by various members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy (which is extensive at the church/minster/mini-cathedral) in an escalating order of importance. The service ended with the choir and clergy, led by the cross holder, processing to the back of the church to bless the crib.

In many ways it was a very ordinary Christmas Eve service. Possibly even a little clichéd. But Robert Leiper was delighted with the event, calling it “classically English”.

After the service, when everyone was milling around at the west end, Robert Leiper’s loud American accent attracted the attention of one of the wardens of the church and he was given a brief impromptu tour. As Robert looks young for his age I thought it worth pointing out that he was a Doctor of English with an interest in medieval manuscripts. This immediately led to an invitation for him to return later in the week to see the church/minster/mini-cathedral’s Library (not normally open to visitors).

Robert Leiper and I returned home and had some more tea. Once again we talked for several hours. Because our lunch had been very substantial neither of us was hungry.

Midnight Mass

At 11.30 in the evening we went out once more, this time all of us going to a local village church. Bells pealed into the night sky as we entered the building. Robert Leiper was very excited (like a child) when we entered the church and saw the bell-ringers working away under the tower (apparently it was the first time he had seen bell-ringing). The church was almost full. We sat on the right hand side of the nave, halfway down. There was a fuss when the lord of the manor (who is also the local MP), wearing red cord trousers, arrived with his party, ostentatiously taking their places in the front pew.



The church is filled with many treasures, chief among these being a great brass chandelier, with about a fifty candles in several tiers, dating from 1722 and hanging over the central aisle. The sight of this chandelier lit up for Christmas was very beautiful. The service was a Midnight Mass, being Holy Communion for Christmas Day. We sang traditional carols: O Come All Ye Faithful, Away In A Manger, God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman etc. We went up with everyone else to take the Eucharist bread and wine (Robert Leiper crossing himself). When the offertory hymn was sung a collecting plate was passed around and Robert Leiper placed in this a £20 note (a sight almost as ostentatious as the lord of the manor’s red trousers).

The service ended and we emerged from the church at the same time as the party from the manor. Most of them got into cars, but the MP said loudly that he wanted to walk across the park and climbed over an iron gate to go back on foot to his Queen Anne hall (one of the nicest houses in the area). The night was cold.

We returned home and had (another cliché I’m afraid) hot mince pies and glasses of sherry.

Arrival of Robert Leiper - Saturday 23rd December

I had expected Robert Leiper to arrive by the 12.22 train and went to the station to meet him. Several people got off the train, but not Robert. I wondered whether he had arrived by an earlier train, and spent some time looking around the railway station (station bar, waiting rooms, surrounding streets) before returning home.

At home the telephone rang – Robert Leiper had got off the train at the wrong station, and now had to wait for the next branch train. When this train eventually arrived I was there to meet it. Robert Leiper was one of the last passengers to descend the footbridge steps, weighed down with luggage.

Robert Leiper is a mixed-race American, aged about thirty. I have known him about ten years. He is very sports-orientated, but is also interested in serious subjects, such as the environment, and Democratic politics (enthusiastic about Hilary Clinton). In mid-December he had been fired from his job with an academic association in New York and had now come to Europe with the intention of becoming a writer. He intended to go to Paris and duplicate the career of Ernest Hemingway. On the way he was spending some time in London, and I had asked him to my house for Christmas. He spends a huge amount of money on clothes, and will always tell you what he is wearing, whether you are interested or not. It’s as if he depended on clothes for his identity. Today he had on (I listed them down) Tommy Hilfiger jeans, American Apparel black T-shirt with a sort of collar, black Tod’s trainers, nondescript coat that he had bought second-hand.

There was a lot of difficulty getting all of Robert Leiper’s luggage into the car. Among the items was a long black case (about six feet in length) that held his skis. It was a waste of time his bringing them as the only snow in Europe was in Norway.

We got to my home and introduced him to everyone (I will have to refer to them obliquely as they have specifically requested not to appear in this blog). I gave him a cup of tea and offered him a choice of a meal or going out to see something of the country (we would have to go immediately as the light was already beginning to fade). He chose to go out (we took the dog with us).

We went down onto the plain, and across to the sea coast (not a long journey – it takes about twenty-five minutes from my house to the shore). Most of the coast is inaccessible, but one point where you can get to it is at a tiny seaside hamlet represented by two former hotels (one converted into holiday flats, one ruined) and a scattering of cottages strung out along the inner sea wall (a great grassy bank of earth). The salt water had retreated from the hamlet, and we walked to the next sea wall (via a connecting bank) and then the sea wall beyond that before we were finally at the edge of the coastal marshes.

For about two miles we walked in isolation along the outer sea wall. The bleakness of the landscape (the colours comprised of muted greys, browns, dull greens), the crying of the sea birds, the steady salt-scented sea wind (not really cold) taken together created a mood of solitude and melancholy. Like most visitors, Robert Leiper seemed surprised at the haunting beauty of the coast. As we walked he talked about his continuing obsession with CW. Not for the first time I wondered whether he might be mildly stalking her. I advised him to keep away from Sussex while he was in England.

We returned home. Dinner of poached salmon with asparagus and boiled potatos. Robert Leiper was very interested in “chavs” having read an article on them in the New York Times. He wanted to see some chavs during the holiday. I told him it would be impossible to avoid them. His continual references to chavs sounded weird - are the fashions and lifestyle mores of the ASBO generation starting to register on the international tourist itinerary?

On previous visits to the United Kingdom Robert Leiper had complained of the cold, and so instead of giving him a bedroom upstairs (most of them hard to heat) I had set up a portable single bed for him in one of the downstairs rooms where the cold is not too bad, despite the room having a stone floor.

A few snapshots of the Christmas period

Over the weeks of my illness I look back to the last proper entry I made, and wonder whether so much time has elapsed that this blog is no longer viable. The readership may have wandered away, the momentum (never very strong) of regular entries may have lapsed, the sense of purpose I once had may be impossible to regain.

What concerns me most are the wads of notes I made during my illness that need typing up and posting with photographs. Many times I have considered junking them and starting again. Many times I have also considered giving up and closing this site down.

But, more for my own record than anything else, here are a few snapshots of the Christmas period:



(Above): artificial Christmas trees in the windows of Saatchi and Saatchi.

Metropolitan presentiment

The weather was unseasonably mild, almost warm, for December. At seven o’clock in the evening I walked along Charlotte Street past the artificial Christmas trees in the windows of Saatchi and Saatchi (was this some kind of 1970s revival, I wondered?). The north end of Charlotte Street seemed full of people just leaving the office for the day (emerging from corporate front doors and walking purposefully towards Goodge Street tube station). As I walked southwards the character changed, and the street became livelier. I passed several pubs and bars filled to bursting and generating noise. Eventually I arrived at Pied-a-terre.



(Above): Pied-a-terre in Charlotte Street.

Pied-a-terre is one of the best restaurants in Fitzrovia, and has one Michelin star. It is one of the smallest restaurants I have been to (roughly the size of a small shop). You go up a couple of steps, through a sort of reception area and then into the restaurant itself – tables covered in white linen, walls of black glass, ostentatious table lights that looked as if they were made entirely of crystal.



(Above): ostentatious table lights that looked as if they were made entirely of crystal.

Gary Spencer and Jason Kramer had already arrived and were at a table in the far corner. My seat was actually in the corner itself, so that I felt a bit squashed (literally squashed up against the wall). Gary and Jason had ordered some champagne (£78 a bottle).

All the tables in the restaurant were full, but we didn’t have to wait to get served. The staff (French, all dressed in black) were very efficient, but not intrusive. Although we were hemmed in by other tables it was quite private in our corner.

I had roast Mallard duck with choucroute and a ragout with mushrooms and quails eggs, followed by roast venison with a quince sauce, mashed potato, bacon, cabbage and walnuts, followed by a large muille fuille slice. In between courses we were brought little extras such as an apple sorbet, and various other savoury tasters (most of them I didn’t care for). Apart from the champagne we had Pouilly Fuisse with the main course, and coffee at the end.

It was a very good-natured meal even though we mostly talked about difficult subjects - economics, politics, business. Our views coincided so that there were none of the usual arguments when these emotive subjects are raised. At one stage we discussed possible business ventures. Jason suggested founding a restaurant in one of the villages just outside Cambridge. Called “Proust” the restaurant would be decorated in a belle epoch style and only serve the meals mentioned in A la recherche du temps perdu (as the book is packed with descriptions of elaborate meals, there would be plenty of options for the menu). Possible sources of funding were suggested.

We also discussed plans for a journey across Europe in 2008, taking in Paris, Munich, Zurich and Vienna.

Very late we finished our meal. After saying goodbye to Jason Kramer, Gary Spencer and I decided to walk back to the terminus instead of getting a taxi. The onset of the Christmas holiday was imminent, and I voiced my concerns about the arrival of Robert Leiper and the difficulty of keeping him entertained and occupied during Christmas week (he was coming over from New York and staying at my house over Christmas before going on to Paris and Berlin).

PS thanks to everyone who has commented and e-mailed and sorry about not responding - I havn't even had the energy to log on.

Apologies for not updating - there was the Christmas holiday and now I have a terrible 'flu sort of illness.

The Wall Of Heaven Where The Bad (But Not Very Bad) Are In Temporary Discomfort

Above: Tondal views The Wall Of Heaven Where The Bad (But Not Very Bad) Are In Temporary Discomfort

Freezing fog the last few days, which makes driving to work in the mornings very slow. One of the compensations of being late this morning was that I was able to listen to some of Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time on Radio 4 (it starts at 9 o’clock when I would normally be at my desk). It is one of the most erudite and intelligent programmes on broadcast media.

This morning the panel of experts looked at the idea of Hell in European culture, from the earliest Egyptian influences to the Greek shadowlands and into the medieval Christian imagination (at that point I arrived at the office and had to switch off). They talked of Dante’s Inferno (from the Divine Comedy) and how Dante was guided by the poet Virgil through the different levels of Hell. This reminded me of when I worked at the J.Paul Getty Museum in Malibu (I was a sort of intern in their Public Affairs office). One of the treasures of the Museum is an illuminated medieval manuscript called the Dream of Tondal.

In this 1470 French manuscript (based on a much older tradition that predates Dante) the young off-the-rails knight Tondal is guided through Hell by an angel, as a warning of what will happen to him if he doesn’t give up his selfish licentious lifestyle. The twenty illuminated images fascinated me and I used to look at them every day (because I was working there I had access to the curatorial departments and could see things close up, even handle them – wearing special gloves).

One image in particular so impressed me that I had a print made of the Museum slide (and have now scanned it in to post on this site – so this image is several generations removed from the vibrant original – copyright held by the J. Paul Getty Trust). It shows the naked knight Tondal being shown The Wall Of Heaven Where The Bad (But Not Very Bad) Are In Temporary Discomfort. Looking back I think I liked it because of its Monty-Python-And-The-Holy-Grail absurdity.

I have a recurring dream (about once a year) that I am in one of those niches on the outside wall of Heaven, detained as one of the Bad (But Not Very Bad). In the dream I am quite comfortable but have to be careful not to move since there is a terrifying drop below me. I suppose there could be worse fates.

He is just being cruel

The Guardian yesterday reported that Work and Pensions Minister John Hutton is proposing that long-term unemployed people should have their benefit stopped unless they get a job. John Hutton complains that immigrants have no problem getting jobs therefore the long-term unemployed should be able to do the same. He is reported as saying: “If workers from Poland can take advantage of these vacancies in our major cities, why can’t our own people do the same?”

This is an entirely bogus and disreputable comparison to make.

The immigrants who come here are almost always the best people overseas countries can offer – the most enterprising and ambitious. Highly motivated and determined to succeed. Prepared to do whatever it takes to establish themselves, even if it means taking dirty jobs and working long hours.

The indigenous long-term unemployed on the other hand are often late-middle-aged, depressed, de-motivated, usually poorly educated. They have been harassed and humiliated by Job Centre staff, who keep giving them ridiculous hoops to jump through. Often they are just tired of life and don’t see any point to modern consumerist society.

Increasingly we are living in a dog-eat-dog world, and to expect the demoralised long-term unemployed to compete with the enterprising post-war immigrants who have come here is like putting an elderly slow-moving spaniel in the same room as a starving rottweiler.

John Hutton is a cruel idiot to even suggest this proposal.

Except that he isn’t an idiot.

Which means he is just being cruel.

We need to accept that a proportion of the population (perhaps twenty per cent) isn’t going to be highly-motivated and eager to make a success of their lives. They could be anxious worriers, scared of making decisions, have poor social skills, slow learners, perhaps drink a little too much, perhaps just not see the point of “modern” society. They may be literally worthless as economic units, but as a tax-payer (and I pay a relatively high level of tax) I want these people looked after and treated with a reasonable level of respect.

The effect will be to make government services more remote and faceless

There is widespread anger at the government’s proposals to close thousands of post offices. Inevitably the majority of these will be in rural villages. The move is seen as yet another example of the cynical way in which the government is trying to strip resources (police services, Accident and Emergency services, postal services) from rural communities to concentrate them in inner city areas where the core of New Labour’s supporters reside.

The effect will be to make government services more remote and faceless, particularly for elderly people who are unable to travel into the towns.

Mrs Warner did the above floral tribute to the rural postal service using Mrs Welham’s old Royal Mail bike (it’s painted in Royal Mail scarlet and you can see the Royal Mail logo). The display is part of a drive to make the church flowers more relevant to issues in the news. It is unlikely that the government will take any notice of such mild protests (to paraphrase Stalin: How many armoured divisions does the Mothers’ Union have?).



Above: The red letter box was first introduced by Anthony Trollope and went through several design incarnations before becoming standard throughout the country. In tacky London souvenir shops the red letter box is seen as one of the iconic images of the city along with red telephone boxes (designed by Edwin Lutyens) and the clock tower (“Big Ben”) of the Houses of Parliament (designed by Sir Charles Barry). Obviously the models in the picture are of different scales.

Images of scythes

Today I have been thinking about how images of scythes are used in Western culture.

In the summer I had a day’s holiday and got up quite late (10 am). I went round the house opening the curtains, and from one upstairs window saw a small white van parked on our land near the house. I went out to see who it was, and found emerging from a deep ditch a council worker carrying a scythe on his shoulder. He looked like a character from a film by Serge Eisenstein (one of those montages from October where the land workers unite with the industrial workers to storm the Winter Palace). I asked him what he was doing and he said he was part of a council team keeping the drainage ditches clear. Apologies for the lopsided photo.




Above: Sickles and scythes hung up on the exterior wall of a stone barn. The hammer and sickle was adopted as the official emblem of the Soviet Union in 1922, and later became recognised as a communist symbol around the world. The hammer and sickle is meant to symbolise the unity of the peasants and workers (a statue of sickle-weilding workers from a collective farm adorned Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition.








Above: stone carving in a dark corner of a cathedral. Azreal, one of the four Archangels, is traditionally known as the angel of death (the grim reaper) and is supposed to be the angel of the Lord who took the firstborn children in the tenth plague of Egypt. Azreal works continually at a great book, listing all the living on the Earth (entering their names at birth and erasing them at death).

Feature in yesterday's Guardian

You may need to click on the image and then click again (when a square ikon appears in the lower right hand corner) to enlarge it so that you can read it. It's a feature in yesterday's Guardian. I'm posting it here as it is tidier than trying to keep the original cutting.

They have a micro-culture that goes back in an unbroken stream

Church bell, 16th century, at a village in the west of the county (under the internal cliff). The bell was taken down when the bell loft in the tower became unsafe (there are still five bells remaining in the belfry which are rung every Friday evening and Sunday morning). As well as calling the villagers to church services, in medieval times a single bell was rung to announce the angelus (three times a day) and the curfew.

Bells would also solemnly toll to announce the death of anyone in the village – “nine tailors” (tollers) for the death of a man, six for a woman. Dorothy L Sayers titled one of her most famous detective stories “The Nine Tailors”. The expression Nine Tailors also crops up in a limerick, recorded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There was a widespread belief in the county that the sound of bells could cleanse the air of evil (associated with the miasmic theory of disease). Petitions were made in the 17th century for the church bells to be rung to allay popular concerns (fear of plague, fear of witches, fear of “foreigners” sighted in the district). Betjeman wrote: “The sound of English bells is the music of Heaven itself”.

There is a fraternity among the bell ringers of the county that goes beyond their normal village territories. As a distinct community they have a micro-culture that goes back in an unbroken stream several centuries. And yet so precarious has the rural way of life become that it could all vanish tomorrow (yes, I know I am exaggerating).



Above: The bell ropes, tied up high to prevent any miscreants (particularly children) ringing the bells without authority.



Above: The complicated “changes” are chalked up on a board for the bell-ringers to memorise.



Above: The bell-ringers form a tightly-knit community. They have their own rituals and hierarchies. Their achievements are recorded in plaques put up under the tower.

Act of votive placation

There is concern about the fate of the English cricket team facing the ruthlessly professional antipodeans (with the ironic implication that ruthless professionalism is not really “cricket”). There is anxiety that the Ashes might not be retained. Mrs Warner (who is doing the flowers for this Sunday) has included a cricket themed shrine as one of her famous window ledge displays (why has she done this? - is it an act of votive placation to the sporting muse?).

The church flower rota is an intensely political affair with factions, uneasy truces and unwritten rules-which-must-not-be-transgressed. The Rector refuses to get involved in it. You would have to be very brave (or extremely foolish) to criticise the flowers on your way out after Morning Service (previous complaints: the smell of tuberoses brings on someone’s hay fever, the big display on the chancel step obscures someone’s view from the north aisle, even one extremist who told the Rector that flowers in the church contravened the commandment about graven images).

Russian dissident murdered in London

Above: Russian doll in the window of a champagne shop in the West End.

It’s interesting to follow the story of the Russian dissident murdered in London through Polonium poisoning. It’s like a short story by Somerset Maugham (one of his 1928 Ashendon series or Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent). My brother collects videos of spy stories – as well as being inordinately interested in James Bond (we plan to go and see Casino Royale as soon as the cinemas become less crowded) he has an old video of John Le Carre’s Smiley’s People which he watches regularly, as well as (my favourite) The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Richard Burton in a very seedy black and white view of 1950s inner London where tinned peaches represented the height of sybaritic luxury).

Matryoshka dolls date from the 1890s and have become a cliché of the Russian image as seen from the West (one enigma contained within another).

The Russian agents must be feeling very confident for them to murder someone so openly in the centre of London (unless they had the collusion of the British Government, which would not surprise me given how morally bankrupt the current administration has become).

Post Office Tower... from Old Compton Street

View of the Post Office Tower (I think it has a different name now, like BT Tower) from Old Compton Street. Architects of the tower were Bedford and Yeats working for the Ministry of Works. It was opened in 1966 by the then Postmaster General Anthony Wedgwood Benn (now Tony Benn).

It used to have a rotating restaurant on the 34th Floor called (unsurprisingly) Top of the Tower. In the 1967 film Smashing Time (a satire on 1960s swinging London) the rotation mechanism spins out of control (it looks funnier than it sounds) and blacks out the whole of London. In 1971 the IRA tried to blow up the tower and it was closed to the public.

The lack of access adds a sense of mystery to the building.

Working dogs

Display of working dogs at a village on the heath. The dogs are Jack Russell terriers, for a long time not recognised as a breed by the Kennel Club. Fearless and fast, the dogs are ideal for rural areas (especially good at hunting rats). They are also good guard dogs as they will bark at any unfamiliar noise. We used to have a Jack Russell dog called Patch. When he died we got another Jack Russell called Charlie – except that Charlie has grown tall, and has such a mild temperament that he is obviously not a pure bred terrier but a gentle old-fashioned mongrel.

The vast majority of social problems can be traced back to family breakdown

There was an interesting discussion about poverty on the Today Programme this morning. Talking it over with friends at lunchtime (including a solicitor who defends a lot of petty criminals) the vast majority of social problems can be traced back to family breakdown. Noting down some of the suggestions:

1 Divorce is too easy and encourages people to walk away from their responsibilities – amend the law so that if you have children under 18 you cannot have a divorce.

2 Where a marriage doesn’t exist the law should automatically create a basic civil partnership the moment a child is born, even if both biological parents cannot immediately be identified.

3 Abandoning children before they are 18 (by mothers or fathers) should be socially unacceptable, regarded as a form of child abuse, and carry financial penalties (on top of maintenance payments).

4 Grandparents should have access rights – this would increase the amount of scrutiny and family control over a child’s upbringing.

5 Soap operas have acquired an unreasonable influence over social groups D and E, and they need to be more responsible about the messages they are giving out (lazy writers create attractive characters and then have them drift from one improbable relationship to another – critics need to be a lot harder on these writers).

6 Make the existing laws work.

On a subliminal level

The television advertisement for PC World currently running has to be one of the most wooden and clunky commercials ever aired. It comprises sequences of “customers” talking to “sales assistants” (all played by actors) with pedestrian dialogue that resembles a government information film. The ad ends with a gigantic masonic handshake filling the screen (are they unaware of the cultural implications of this image? Is no-one advising them?).

Previously PC World ran TV commercials that featured a lead “face” (an alpha male sales manager) stamping on the showroom floor, the force of his stamping supposedly forcing the floor lower. The message of the ad is that PC World is stamping down prices. Every time I saw the ad I was reminded of George Orwell writing in 1984: “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever”.

This image has entered western culture, and not just the obvious German goose-stepping example (transmogrified into marching hammers in the Pink Floyd animation accompanying Another Brick In The Wall). You can see the motif in rock music, vacuous Jessica Simpson videos, even a logo for Dover Council’s unit for suppressing anti-social behaviour (on a subliminal level I find the use of this logo by Dover Council disturbing and seemingly a vindication of Orwell’s vision. Anti-social elements could be non-conformists and dissidents just as much as delinquents and vandals. And in any case I would prefer a “hug a hoodie” policy to Orwellian-style stamping on people – but then I live in a rural area where crime is extremely low, and I might have a different view if I lived on a south London sink estate).

Bookshop in Great Russell Street

Antiquarian bookshop in Great Russell Street – there has been a bookshop in this builidng for over a hundred years. Formerly the home of book illustrator Randolph Caldecott. Good for rare editions of Dickens.

The film Marie-Antoinette

I went to see the film Marie-Antoinette at the weekend. Directed by Sofia Coppola, it starred Kirsten Dunst as the ill-fated young queen. Rather than being a sequential biography (which could have been a bit boring given the Thomas Paine “rights of man” moralising which usually accompanies any examination of this period), the film was comprised of a series of set-pieces that cleverly resembled the theatrical tableaus of the 18th century.

The symbolism of the film had several ironic layers of meaning so that you could read the story in different ways. For instance the Queen of France seemed to be constantly eating elaborate cakes. Versailles in the early morning light had a haunted quality that paralleled the later (20th century) sightings of a ghostly Marie-Antoinette returning to the scenes of her former excesses. The anachronistic soundtrack suggested that the entire movie was inspired by the career of the Princess of Wales in the late 1980s. It was a complex film that covered many issues and could be read through several interpretations. Not obviously commercial, but the sort of film that will acquire a considerable following through a “long tail”.

I went to see the film with Helen B and Kim Blacha. When we emerged from the cinema they seemed to be in a state of shock. “The clothes” they gasped to each other, “did you see the clothes!”

Feelings of nausea, horror and fascination

In the local newspaper was a report about the retirement of one of the paper’s senior reporters. In the article she thanked various people for their help over the years and recounted the various “top” stories she had been involved in over the years (as this is a very quiet part of the world none of them were particularly eye-catching – the local by-pass campaign, the occasional visit from minor royalty, late night fights among youths in the Market Square etc). However, one story did interest me.

Her first story as a trainee reporter was to follow up a report of a partially decomposed body uncovered on a local farm. She had gone out to the farm and arrived at the same time as the police, meeting the farmer who had uncovered the body when ploughing a field. The farmer was in a terrible state, distraught that such a tragic discovery should have been made on his land.

With feelings of nausea, horror and fascination, the trainee reporter accompanied the police as they walked though the muddy furrows to where the body was lying. The police prodded the body, and muttered to each other. The “body” turned out to be a gigantic mandrake root, rotten and stinking.

Mandrake roots are unusual in that they roughly approximate to the human form. Locally they can grow to a good size, although very seldom are they over five feet long. More on mandrakes at http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/specialcollections/images/ELIZ%20%20WEB/Gerarde,%20Mandrake.jpg

It was a local holocaust

Saturday (tomorrow) is Armistice Day and Sunday is Remembrance Day. In the Village Hall a scale model of the Cenotaph has been set up, with an exhibition of medals, photographs and letters. The plan on Sunday is for the service to begin at the War Memorial, then process to the church for the usual Morning Service, and then finish with coffee in the Village Hall.

There are three War Memorials in the village – a gothic pillar on the edge of the green, a marble monument to the fallen in the north aisle of the church, and a framed list (elaborate calligraphy including gold initial letters) of all who served. Looking at the list of casualties, there are about fifty names from the First World War (including many family groups), and five from the Second.

The many names from the 1914-18 conflict reflects the large numbers of manual labourers who for generations had worked on the surrounding farms (the young men finished the harvest before volunteering in early October 1914, many of them never returning). The First World War had a devastating effect on the village. It was a local holocaust.

Recently an American-style “Veterans Day” has been introduced on June 27th. This is supposed to be an additional opportunity to honour the armed forces. Cynics say that the government has introduced Veterans Day with the intention of dropping Remembrance Day at some point in the future (Remembrance Day has long been criticised as “anti-European” and not politically correct).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/remembrance/history/cenotaph.shtml

It was as if I had just seen the Pied Piper of Hamelin

My car was out of action and a work colleague had to drive me to the local train station so that I could get home by public transport. We left the office just as it was starting to get dark. We made good progress into the town centre and I was confident of catching the train.

However, within a quarter mile of the station we were stopped by police standing in the road. They made no attempt to search the car or ask us to get out or anything, they just walked up and down in the road, as if killing time. Traffic began to build up behind us.

The streets around us were completely deserted (it’s the sort of town were everywhere is closed by about five o’clock). It had been raining and the dying sun created a sheen on the wet road. Minutes passed and I began to wonder whether I would catch the train. Very faintly we heard the sound of flutes and drums. Gradually the noise became louder, then louder still. The police in front of us stood to attention – very slovenly.

From the pedestrianised street to our right came a pipe and drum band, comprised of youths in a sort of bottle green uniform and wearing berets. They were marching two abreast, and were followed by platoons of navy cadets, army cadets and then RAF cadets, all in uniform and carrying pennants. Immediately following were a group of elderly men in dark suits, and women in smart clothes. Then there was a small coterie of people in what looked like fancy dress – fur-trimmed robes, tricorn hats with ostrich feathers, golden chains of office. Because the cadet troops at the front were marching at quite a pace these dignitaries had to walk very fast to keep up – it looked as if they were power-walking. Following behind was a troop of Brownies, then Girl Guides, then Boy Scouts. At the end of the formal procession came a ragtag assortment of people in anoraks, laughing children, people wheeling bikes. I scrabbled in my folder and found my camera, just managing to take pictures of the dignitaries as they passed in front of the car. Apologies for the quality of these photos – they were walking very fast, and the light was fading.

“It’s the Mayor and Corporation” said my colleague. “I wonder where they’re off to. There’ll be a good dinner in it for them no doubt.”

After the procession had passed the police stood aside and waved us through. The scene had been very surreal. It was as if I had just seen the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Marks & Spencer announced a 35% increase in profits

Above: Directed by Paul Nelson, the M&S television commercials were beautifully shot in a variety of London locations. 1960s model Twiggy starred in the advertisements (obviously it's not Twiggy in the picture above - it's one of the other models in the ad). The soundtrack was by Bryan Ferry (who is also a “face” of M&S menswear).

Marks & Spencer announced a 35% increase in profits today, industry insiders crediting the rise to its autumn advertising campaign. M&S was notorious for decades as a major company that spurned all idea of media advertising. They thought that because they had developed a unique way of retailing they would always command customer loyalty.

This hubris nearly destroyed the company as imitators copied their sales formula and then added the power of media advertising to make their offering irresistible. On a personal level I suffered from the M&S blinkered approach as I used to work as a marketing manager for a company that supplied Marks & Spencer. Whenever I suggested an advertising campaign I was rebuffed (as if I was some poor simple fool) and told that Marks & Spencer was a sterling example that media advertising was just an expensive waste of money.

“Apple Day” organised by an organic society

Recently I went to an “Apple Day” organised by an organic society at a local school hall. On tables all along one side of the hall were examples of apples displayed in rectangular wooden frames like some kind of surrealist installation. As well as the formal displays there were also lots of different kinds of apples to taste.

The place was packed with people who had brought along apples to be identified.

In front of me in the queue was an elderly couple clutching a small cardboard box filled with apples. They were wearing identical beige-coloured raincoats. The woman’s hand was on the man’s arm.

“We’ve recently moved into an old house with an overgrown garden” the man said. “We have ten apple trees in the garden. We are hoping someone can tell us what they are.”

Above: Horticulturalists were identifying the different varieties. They rely on memory and also comparing the samples to the named varieties on show, looking for similarities in shape, colour and aroma. There is a system of Apple Passport Numbers (APNs) that will compare twenty or so points of reference and give each a numerical value (the APN of the Merton Beauty apple is 26-4-13-1-345-238-19-2-2-36-78-38-258-8-56-3-28-89-34-3-3-8-3-123).



Above: There are a huge number of apple varieties – approximately seven thousand five hundred. The Guardian recently did a free wall chart on apples which was very feeble – it only showed about forty varieties, half of which were the mono-culture varieties sold by the supermarkets. At the Apple Day there were about a hundred and twenty different apples on show.



Above: The Merton Beauty apple was first grown by a Mr Crane in 1932 at the John Innes Horticultural Institute in Merton, a suburb of south London. The tree is easy to grow and gives a good crop - aromatic apples tasting slightly of aniseed. Not to be confused with a Camberwell Beauty, which is a butterfly.



Above: Nonpareil is a variety introduced from France, probably in the 17th century. They are small apples, yellow-green in colour with streaks of brown russet and a faint orange flush. French scientists claim that the typhoid bacillus will not live in the juice of the Nonpareil apple.

Nonpareil means “unmatched” - there is a bird called the Nonpareil (http://www.oiseaux.net/photos/barry.kent.mackay/passerin.nonpareil.2.html) as well as a type of almond and a kind of sugar confection used to decorate cakes.

In A la recherché du temps perdu Marcel Proust wrote: “To return to Combray, we need only turn down an avenue of oaks, bordered on one side by a series of orchard-closes, each one planted at regular intervals with apple-trees which cast upon the ground, when they were lighted by the setting sun, the Japanese stencil of their shadows; then, sharply, my heart would begin to beat, I would know that in half an hour we should be at home…”



Above: Claygate Pearmain is a wonderful apple, crisp and heavily scented. The taste is very nutty. It was discovered by accident growing in a hedge in Surrey about a hundred and eighty years ago. In appearance the fruit is large, with red stripes and russet polka dots. Edward Bunyard (a very opinionated writer on the topic of apples) describes it as one of the top twelve finest apples in the world. It used to be widely grown in Victorian and Edwardian gardens but has now become quite rare. There is an old county remedy for sore eyes that involves rotten Claygate Pearmain apples used in a poultice.



Above: Gascoigne’s Scarlet was first grown by W. Gascoigne of Bapchild Court in Kent. As the name implies, the colour is a deep blood red. It keeps well (picked in September, it will last until January). Apparently it is good for growing on chalky soils. It is a “duel purpose” apple which means it can be used for cooking (apple pies, apple dumplings, apple puddings etc). Shakespeare’s Henry IV mentions a dessert made from apples and caraway.



Above: Histon Favourite is a yellow apple first grown by John Chivers (from the famous jam family) around 1850. It has a sort of acid taste that the experts describe as “brisk” (Bunyard describes it as “indiscriminate and undistinguished”). It was widely grown in Cambridgeshire to supply the London market.



Above: Peasgood Nonsuch was grown by accident by a sixteen year old girl who planted five pips from an unknown cooking apple. Only one of the seeds germinated and eventually produced gargantuan apples, each apple over a pound in weight. Many families in the county used to plant an apple tree whenever a son was born (and a pear tree for a daughter).

Sir James Frazer records rituals that accompany the tasting of the first-fruits of the apple crop each year. Unless these ceremonies are performed there is a danger that the “tree spirit” may be offended. Frazer also mentions how a straw man would be placed in the boughs of the oldest tree in an orchard, representing the tree spirit that would revive when the blossom appears in the spring.



Above: Reverend Tom Putt, Rector of Trent near Sherborne, is supposed to have first grown the famous Tom Putt cider apple in the late 1700s. Orchards of Tom Putt apples can be found all over the west country. “Wassailing the orchard-trees”' on Christmas Eve is a custom that still survives in the west (it used to be widespread in all counties). Farmers go into the orchards at night accompanied by their families and drink to the health of the trees in cider before throwing the remainder of the drink onto the tree trunks. Shotguns are fired into the branches, and special songs sung. Wassailing bowls were very ornate (http://www.swanseaheritage.net/article/full.asp?ARTICLE_ID=207).

Cider apple vinegar is a powerful detoxifying and purifying agent – you can buy a very pure version by mail order from Goldshield (http://www.goldshield.co.uk/products-ST02632-CV02/Cider-Apple-Vinegar.htm).



Above: Cider press in operation. Recently on Film4 I watched the 1998 film version of Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, directed by Phil Agland and starring Rufus Sewell. It is set in the New Forest in the nineteenth century and includes a very effective scene where woodsman Giles Winterborne holds a party in his humble home hoping to impress his promised fiancée (in a sort of arranged betrothal) Grace Melbury. The yokel neighbours also invited to the party become excessively inebriated with cider, and their drunken behaviour so disgusts Winterborne’s prospective father-in-law that the match is broken off (with tragic results). The drinking is not mentioned in the novel and is one of the few occasions where a film has improved upon a book. The Woodlanders is supposed to have been Hardy’s favourite among his novels.



Above: I usually stop at roadside stalls to see what they have on offer. In September I bought some incredible carrots – they must have just been pulled out of the ground. We had them at dinner and they were very succulent, completely unlike any carrots I have had before (I suppose most carrots get a bit dried out when being transported to the supermarket).



Above: Crab apple jelly. Crab apples are wild apples that are tiny in size and extremely sour (the final jelly is very sweet, copious amounts of sugar having been added when the apples are boiled up). Almost every farm has its own recipe for crab apple jelly, many involving alcohol.

Above: Baskets of windfalls were lined up for you to help yourself.

Apples feature prominently in mythology. The Trojan War began when Paris gave an apple to Aphrodite. The legendary Isle of Avalon is supposedly the “Island of Apples” (traditionally located at Glastonbury which is an area noted for its apple orchards). Eve tempted Adam with an apple from the Tree of Knowledge (more likely to have been a pomegranate as the Middle East is too hot for apples to grow).

In the medieval period a relic purporting to be the apple given by Eve to Adam appeared in Egypt and was venerated at a church in Alexandria (Sir John Mandeville makes an oblique reference to this). It was stolen in 1365 during the Alexandrian Crusade and conveyed to Cyprus, and then Malta. According to notes left by Canon MVG (an amateur antiquarian, therefore not entirely reliable) it later shows up as one of TWO holy relics at a Cistercian house in Wales, one relic being the apple from the Tree Of Knowledge, the other being an apple from the Tree Of Life. The credibility of these two objects doesn’t seem to have been very high, even in medieval times, and the cult following was negligible. At the Reformation both of the apples are supposed to have been put in a box and sealed in a wall of the monastery, identified by MVG as Strata Florida. However in 1998 I stayed with Alan Nixon at his home in south Wales (the MVG papers belong to his family) and we thought that Cymer Abbey might be a better candidate. We drove up there the next day (if you have ever travelled from south Wales to north Wales you will understand what a difficult journey that was) but it was a wasted trip – there were hardly any walls of the abbey left standing, and none of them seemed wide enough to contain a hidden box. Had we found a box would we have dared open it? The apple from the Tree Of Life would be a relic that even an M. R. James character would have been wary of.

Political Correctness is the New Colonel Blimp

I spoke to someone who did History with me at university. He went on to do an MA then a PhD and now has a minor academic post (doesn't pay very much). It is the sort of career I once contemplated. Anyway, he has just written an article on the historical context of Political Correctness, demonstating that it is related to the Colonel Blimp phenomenon, which I thought was quite interesting (Political Correctness is the New Colonel Blimp - not sure what journal).

Note: Colonel Blimp was a cartoon figure of the 1930s that satirised establishment opinions: pompous, contradictory, hopelessly out of touch with the real world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Blimp
http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/cardiff/gallery/col_blimp.html

Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre

I went to see Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Avon. It was the matinee performance on the last day (we put off going for weeks and nearly risked not seeing it at all). We went to Stratford by train, which was a mistake as both going there and coming back there was massive disruption, breakdowns, signalling problems.

The play is one of Shakespeare’s most famous, but possibly not his best. I have seen it many times before – as a live performance and also on film (the Zeffirelli 1968 version and the Baz Luhrmann 1996 version starring Leonardo Di Caprio). This production was good apart from the tap-dancing fight scenes, which I thought looked silly. The set designs referred to 1950s Italy and seemed to be a bit skimpy. Rupert Evans played Romeo and Morven Christie played Juliet. The play was directed by Nancy Meckler.



Above: There is an aura to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon that adds an indefinable quality to the experience. You think that because it is being performed in Shakespeare’s birthplace it must be the definitive production. We wanted to see Troilus and Cressida at Stratford when it transferred from the Edinburgh Festival but we left it too late and missed it. The theatre is to close shortly for rebuilding. The plan is to make the building bigger and grander while incorporating the original features. The reopening is scheduled for 2010.



Above: Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet has inspired many other artists – writers, painters, musicians. Prokofiev used the play as the basis of his ballet Romeo and Juliet (which I’ve seen at Covent Garden). 1980s band Dire Straits had one of their most famous hits with the song Romeo and Juliet (although the original video with its waddling bespectacled hero is seldom seen now).



Above: How realistic is the characterisation in Romeo and Juliet? Obsessive first love between teenagers can seem pathetic, even when ennobled by the poetry of Shakespeare. You might think that teenagers these days are far too cynical to fall in love (this is the era of Vickey Pollard). During the summer I was sitting at a table belonging to an outdoor café. Anyway, I began to notice a teenage couple walking backwards and forwards. They didn’t just pass by once – they went up and down the street several times. They caught my attention for several reasons. First because they were dressed very similar (there is a theory that couples end up wearing similar clothes). Also they were walking with great speed, the boy with a determined look on his face, while they went into clothes shops, gadget shops, sports shops etc. But what really marked them as unusual was the way in which they were clinging to each other. The boy was striding along while the girl had to give little runs to keep up, all the time hanging onto his arm. I looked at them and thought: that’s Romeo and Juliet.

The Wicker Man

I went to see The Wicker Man at the weekend. The film stars Nicholas Cage as a Californian police officer who goes to a remote island off the coast of the state of Washington to investigate a missing child. Directed by Neil LaBute it is based upon the 1973 British film The Wicker Man (supposedly one of the six best British films ever made), but so hacked about that the final result is very poor.

Had the film been a straight remake, even transposed to an American setting, it would have worked. Had it taken a completely new direction, using the screen play but reinterpreting it completely, it would also have worked. But there were so many references to the British film (directed by Robin Hardy, screenplay by Anthony Shaffer) that all that it did was remind you how inferior the current version was to the 1970s original. The 1973 film portrays a weird society where the mundane co-exists with the fantastic so that you are able to imagine such a place existing. The American version never really develops a credible world of its own. There are some good moments (perhaps worthy of an episode of the X-Files), but far too much action and breathless characters explaining things to each other.



Above: The image of “the wicker man” has been adopted as an alternative ecological symbol (I took this photograph at an event where various “new age” pseudo-hippy stalls promulgated alternative lifestyles).



Above: In the closing scenes of The Wicker Man the Nicholas Cage character was burned alive in the organic idol (a giant “Waste Man” was constructed in Kent recently and set on fire producing similar images http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/5394550.stm ).



Above: the American Wicker Man lost all credibility for me when the woad-painted harpies started to appear. Are Hollywood producers so ignorant of basic history that they did not know face-painting with woad died out in the Iron Age? Or did they know the truth but chose to portray a falsehood because it looked better?

Face-painting with woad is also a feature of the film Braveheart which projects a retarded image of thirteenth century Scotland (http://www.movieconnection.it/schede/braveheart.jpg). In a film filled with many comical anachronisms the woad-painting was the most crass. Braveheart has been a tremendously successful movie, but one that I find unpleasant and disturbing. There is a sense of history being manipulated by Director Mel Gibson in a way that is not really acceptable. 13th century western Europe was a society where personal fealty was the universal social structure, and knighthood represented an international fraternity that crossed the borders of different kingdoms (which were very fluid anyway and grew or retracted according to dynastic alliances). Nationalism based on ethnic origin was a nineteenth-century invention, and ethno-nationalist conflict a twentieth-century development.

The countryside is changing

Above: field of sunflowers with wind turbines in the distance. An example of how the countryside is changing. John Prescott describes wind turbines as "beautiful" (fat lot he knows). In isolation one or two can look striking, but large numbers amount to visual pollution of the landscape. Fields of sunflowers are increasingly common, making parts of the county look like eastern Europe. When I drove past this field this morning the crop had been harvested.

Apologies for not updating recently - with the staff shortages at work, and my car being off the road, and everything else that's happening I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.