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We've been using more gas than we've been using- if you see what I mean. The central heating has been turned off for the summer and yet the boiler has been running almost continuously. We indulged ourselves in various theories, then called Sergei in to give us an informed opinion- and, incidentally, service the boiler. He suggested something we hadn't even considered- that there's a leak somewhere on the hot water system. OK, that makes sense- and now I know what I'm looking for I think I know where it is. It's in the area where Damian will be working over the next few weeks- converting the garage and adjoining areas into a bedsit- and if I'm right he'll be able to sort it along with everything else- and I can dial down the anxiety levels. The worst thng in a situation like this is not knowing- and feeling powerless.
I watched a bit of Wimbledon yesterday. It gives me an excuse to be sitting indoors out of the lovely sunshine. There exist pictures of me as a teen with my shirt off- and they shock me rather because it's been many decades now since I've enjoyed being out in really hot weather. I think the horseflies in Switzerland may have cured me of sunbathing. If one of those 'orrible little fuckers bit you you stayed bit.....
I watched a bit of Wimbledon yesterday. It gives me an excuse to be sitting indoors out of the lovely sunshine. There exist pictures of me as a teen with my shirt off- and they shock me rather because it's been many decades now since I've enjoyed being out in really hot weather. I think the horseflies in Switzerland may have cured me of sunbathing. If one of those 'orrible little fuckers bit you you stayed bit.....
A Kindly Light Amid The Encircling Gloom
Jun. 30th, 2025 10:12 am Today will be hot. Tomorrow, they say will be even hotter. I looked out and the air was so clear it seemed the hills had moved a mile closer.
A Friend gave us a talk yesterday about the Samaritans and their work in prison. At least one of our other friends said, "Suicide and prisons? No thanks. I'll give it a miss." But the talk was inspiriting. Our prison system is horrible. It shuts up unhappy people in conditions guaranteed to make them even unhappier. But the Samaritans- who train inmates to be "listeners"- bring a little light into the gloom. Our friend says the work keeps him sane.
Here's Lewes Prison (not my picture)
It makes me think of my boarding school. For two reasons.
1. We used to drive past it on the way to school- and as we turned the corner by those high, horrible grey walls I knew my own incarceration was only half an hour away.
2. It's a building of the same period (mid-19th century) and of a similar design. The Victorians thought you could terrify people into good behaviour. It doesn't work.
Unbelievably... no, scrub that and substitute all too believably....Lewes Prison is a Grade Two listed building, which means the fabric can't be altered without permission from on high. In consequence the people who run the prison have to pay a recurring fine to the authorities for further uglifying their ugly building by topping it off with razor wire.....
A Friend gave us a talk yesterday about the Samaritans and their work in prison. At least one of our other friends said, "Suicide and prisons? No thanks. I'll give it a miss." But the talk was inspiriting. Our prison system is horrible. It shuts up unhappy people in conditions guaranteed to make them even unhappier. But the Samaritans- who train inmates to be "listeners"- bring a little light into the gloom. Our friend says the work keeps him sane.
Here's Lewes Prison (not my picture)
It makes me think of my boarding school. For two reasons.
1. We used to drive past it on the way to school- and as we turned the corner by those high, horrible grey walls I knew my own incarceration was only half an hour away.
2. It's a building of the same period (mid-19th century) and of a similar design. The Victorians thought you could terrify people into good behaviour. It doesn't work.
Unbelievably... no, scrub that and substitute all too believably....Lewes Prison is a Grade Two listed building, which means the fabric can't be altered without permission from on high. In consequence the people who run the prison have to pay a recurring fine to the authorities for further uglifying their ugly building by topping it off with razor wire.....
Bits And Pieces
Jun. 28th, 2025 08:17 am When I was chopping the tall grasses down a week or two back I left a clump of barley standing next to the bird bath. This morning I watched a jackdaw jump up, pull a stalk down onto the path and proceed to peck away at it. Clever bird!
"I dodn't suppose anyone falls out with you," said Mark. "Oh, but they do," I replied,"And especially since I became a Quaker elder." I forebore to mention that he'd come close to falling out with me himself a few weeks before.
I'm reading Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour. It's not what you expect. There's comedy, but it's no longer heartless- and there's an understanding- that there rarely was in the earlier books- that people, even obnoxious people, are trying their best. When Waugh divests himself of farce he stands revealed as deeply unhappy. It's not exactly autobiographical- Crouchback is very much not Waugh himself- but it follows the trajectory of Waugh's own wartime experience- which wasn't glorious- and gives a lot away. It's a stoic book. I'd even call it brave......
"I dodn't suppose anyone falls out with you," said Mark. "Oh, but they do," I replied,"And especially since I became a Quaker elder." I forebore to mention that he'd come close to falling out with me himself a few weeks before.
I'm reading Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour. It's not what you expect. There's comedy, but it's no longer heartless- and there's an understanding- that there rarely was in the earlier books- that people, even obnoxious people, are trying their best. When Waugh divests himself of farce he stands revealed as deeply unhappy. It's not exactly autobiographical- Crouchback is very much not Waugh himself- but it follows the trajectory of Waugh's own wartime experience- which wasn't glorious- and gives a lot away. It's a stoic book. I'd even call it brave......
Improving My Posture
Jun. 27th, 2025 07:41 am I walk with a stoop. I've done it all my life. Comes of being a bookworm.
But now I'm 74 people see me prowling around with my eyes on the ground and mistake me for an old man- and we can't have that. Time to straighten up.
But now I'm 74 people see me prowling around with my eyes on the ground and mistake me for an old man- and we can't have that. Time to straighten up.
The Future Of Movies
Jun. 26th, 2025 07:48 am Judy is annoyed about a book that says Hollywood is finished because in a few years time movies will be entirely constructed in AI- with no need for actors or cinematographers and- what hits her hardest- screen writers.
I'm not going tp play the prophet but I'm inclined to think- as she does- that old-style movie making will continue as a craft- just as other things superceded by the machine have done- like cabinet making or lace making or watercolour painting.
All the same I cannot help noticing how AI image-making proceeds by leaps and bounds. I have been making AI pictures for less than two years and when I started it was cutting edge and now the things I'm producing are looking a bit old hat. This morning on YouTube I was watching some nice little clips of people walking with dinosaurs that were created using MidJourney. Very good they were too. Effects that once cost millions can now be knocked off in someone's back bedroom.
I'm not going tp play the prophet but I'm inclined to think- as she does- that old-style movie making will continue as a craft- just as other things superceded by the machine have done- like cabinet making or lace making or watercolour painting.
All the same I cannot help noticing how AI image-making proceeds by leaps and bounds. I have been making AI pictures for less than two years and when I started it was cutting edge and now the things I'm producing are looking a bit old hat. This morning on YouTube I was watching some nice little clips of people walking with dinosaurs that were created using MidJourney. Very good they were too. Effects that once cost millions can now be knocked off in someone's back bedroom.
Not With a Bang....
Jun. 25th, 2025 09:29 am According to the media the mysterious bottle that cleared several streets in the heart of Eastbourne was found in a house previously occupied by squatters. The contractors tasked with clearing the property called the police who summoned the bomb squad who sent in a robot to blow it up.
Was there a mighty explosion?
Apparently not.
Was there a mighty explosion?
Apparently not.
The Eastbourne Open
Jun. 24th, 2025 05:57 pm The police had discovered a bottle of "mysterious liquid" in a house in the centre of town and had sealed off and evacuated the surrounding streets. It was all very discreet and if the Daily Mail hadn't told us to look left as drove up Grove Rd we'd not have guessed anything was out of order. Entrance to the afflicted area was sealed off with tape and a single affable copper was standing by to deter the general public from ducking under it.
Nothing to see here. Now move along please.....
We were on our way to the tennis. The Eastbourne Open has been downgraded this year but a good number of top players have shown up anyway. I sat myself down alongside Court 4 and watched this match....
Note that Rakhimova doesn't get a flag which means she's Russian.
Here she is
And here's Cocciaretto....
Rakhimova won.
I've never been to Wimbledon. A friend who has been to both says Eastbourne is quiter, more relaxed and better tempered. There's no champagne, no strawberries and cream, but the sea-food infused mac and cheese I bought off a kiosk was perfectly nice. They have a big screen so that those who haven't paid for seats on Centre Court can watch the action at one remove. No extra charge is made for the very comfortable deckchairs.....
You know, I think this is the very first time I've attended a professional sporting event of any kind.
Nothing to see here. Now move along please.....
We were on our way to the tennis. The Eastbourne Open has been downgraded this year but a good number of top players have shown up anyway. I sat myself down alongside Court 4 and watched this match....
Note that Rakhimova doesn't get a flag which means she's Russian.
Here she is
And here's Cocciaretto....
Rakhimova won.
I've never been to Wimbledon. A friend who has been to both says Eastbourne is quiter, more relaxed and better tempered. There's no champagne, no strawberries and cream, but the sea-food infused mac and cheese I bought off a kiosk was perfectly nice. They have a big screen so that those who haven't paid for seats on Centre Court can watch the action at one remove. No extra charge is made for the very comfortable deckchairs.....
You know, I think this is the very first time I've attended a professional sporting event of any kind.
I remember a blind man telling us that what he saw- in his mind's eye- was not darkness- as we'd presumed- but a "wonderful golden light".
A "wonderful golden light " is what I "see" when I close my eyes in the Meeting House.
"Golden" is not quite right. There are other colours there. You know when you look at a sunset and you can't tell where one colour ends and and the next begins and you call it golden because words fail? Well, its a bit like that- only the colours don't shade into one another but are all present at once. Also it's soft and deep, as gold, the metal, isn't.
And I don't just see, I also hear and feel. And all these verbs are approximate. The light is bound up with the silence and has dimensions beyond the senses. It has consciousness, an internal movement as of motes in a sun beam- and is somehow involved with Peace and Love....
A "wonderful golden light " is what I "see" when I close my eyes in the Meeting House.
"Golden" is not quite right. There are other colours there. You know when you look at a sunset and you can't tell where one colour ends and and the next begins and you call it golden because words fail? Well, its a bit like that- only the colours don't shade into one another but are all present at once. Also it's soft and deep, as gold, the metal, isn't.
And I don't just see, I also hear and feel. And all these verbs are approximate. The light is bound up with the silence and has dimensions beyond the senses. It has consciousness, an internal movement as of motes in a sun beam- and is somehow involved with Peace and Love....
Back To The Meeting House
Jun. 22nd, 2025 08:25 am I dreamed I was attending a church service. It was sort of Anglican, sort of Methodist, sort of Quaker. The building was very grand. I was sitting next to an old lady who was being friendly and I was racking my brains to remember her name. A snarly man stood up and made a nasty comment and someone else started arguing with him and I thought, "This is horrible. I need to get back to my own Meeting House...."
Next to the church the nudists were lying on the grass, sunning themselves and indulging in rough horseplay. "I can't go that way..." I thought.
The route I took led up hill, through town. It was a very large town. I had been separated from my wife (who wasn't Ailz) and this bothered me....
I woke and there was a thunderstorm going on.
Next to the church the nudists were lying on the grass, sunning themselves and indulging in rough horseplay. "I can't go that way..." I thought.
The route I took led up hill, through town. It was a very large town. I had been separated from my wife (who wasn't Ailz) and this bothered me....
I woke and there was a thunderstorm going on.
Sussex Charmer
Jun. 21st, 2025 08:16 am The Summer Solstice- and it's going to be another in this run of very hot days.
Yesterday we drove across the County to buy the intensely local cheese they make in Rudgwick up against the Surrey border. The cheese is called Sussex Charmer and I've been eating it at the Long Man Inn. The outlet in Rudgwick has a cafe alongside where the speciality is toasted cheese and just about everything they serve is finger food. Where are the knives and forks? we wondered. But, of course there aren't any. This fed into the dream I had last night where I was working at a school and my job was to give out cutlery to the children then collect it up at the end of the meal. It was a peach of a job (though it entailed early rising) and I got on wonderfully with the kids.
Rudgwick has a church. I thought it a very average sort of a church. The pictures I took of it were very average too (the sort of uninspired, documentary pictures I've taken in a hundred different places: view of the tower from the south-west, check, close up of tower, check, view looking eastward down the nave, etc.....) so I wasn't particularly upset when I got home and found I'd been snapping away without a memory card.
Yesterday we drove across the County to buy the intensely local cheese they make in Rudgwick up against the Surrey border. The cheese is called Sussex Charmer and I've been eating it at the Long Man Inn. The outlet in Rudgwick has a cafe alongside where the speciality is toasted cheese and just about everything they serve is finger food. Where are the knives and forks? we wondered. But, of course there aren't any. This fed into the dream I had last night where I was working at a school and my job was to give out cutlery to the children then collect it up at the end of the meal. It was a peach of a job (though it entailed early rising) and I got on wonderfully with the kids.
Rudgwick has a church. I thought it a very average sort of a church. The pictures I took of it were very average too (the sort of uninspired, documentary pictures I've taken in a hundred different places: view of the tower from the south-west, check, close up of tower, check, view looking eastward down the nave, etc.....) so I wasn't particularly upset when I got home and found I'd been snapping away without a memory card.
After 30 Years
Jun. 20th, 2025 08:27 am We hadn't seen Joyce in something like 30 years. No problem. It could have been 30 minutes. We just carried on as we always have done. Friendship never ends (that's Yeats again) or as I said to her (and it's one of my favourite things to say) "Time is an illusion."
She's been visiting Eastbourne with a bunch of "wrinklies" (her word) on a coach holiday. Yesterday she spent the morning with us at the Meeting House. Our Quakers were lovely with her. They're a friendly crowd.
She's had good weather for it. Temperatures in the mid 20s.
She's been visiting Eastbourne with a bunch of "wrinklies" (her word) on a coach holiday. Yesterday she spent the morning with us at the Meeting House. Our Quakers were lovely with her. They're a friendly crowd.
She's had good weather for it. Temperatures in the mid 20s.
The Savage God
Jun. 19th, 2025 09:31 am I've had Maxwell's Silver Hammer popping into my head for weeks now.
It's a song the other Beatles hated- mainly because McCartney took it so seriously and made them work overtime to get it right.
They thought it was a throwaway bit of Granny music, but it ain't. For one thing it's about a mass murderer, for another it treats its subject with unbecoming levity. It's nihilistic but cheerful with it- in the best tradition of Mr Punch and the English music hall.
And this morning I stumbled across a piece of info that pulled everything together:
Macca had been taking an interest in Alfred Jarry, That's why "pataphysical"- a Jarry coinage- crops up in the first verse.
Jarry, you may or may not know, wrote a play called Ubu Roi- about an obscene little fat man who murders his way to the throne of Poland. It is absurd, scatalogical and an affront to all the decencies. Yeats was at the first night in 1896, cheering it on, but then went away and was sad because he knew it meant the end of the Celtic Twilight and all that greenery-yallery stuff that was his stock in trade and he'd have to toughen up if he wanted to survive in the new artistic environment. "After us," he wrote, "The savage gods."
Ever since he erupted onto the political scene I've thought of Donald Trump as Jarryesque. He's the living image of Pere Ubu. The savage god come into his own at last, or- Yeats again- the rough beast prophesied in "The Second Coming."
So here's the whole lineage: Mr Punch, Pere Ubu, Maxwell Edison, Donald Trump....
Maxwell's Silver Hammer is a song for our times.
It's a song the other Beatles hated- mainly because McCartney took it so seriously and made them work overtime to get it right.
They thought it was a throwaway bit of Granny music, but it ain't. For one thing it's about a mass murderer, for another it treats its subject with unbecoming levity. It's nihilistic but cheerful with it- in the best tradition of Mr Punch and the English music hall.
And this morning I stumbled across a piece of info that pulled everything together:
Macca had been taking an interest in Alfred Jarry, That's why "pataphysical"- a Jarry coinage- crops up in the first verse.
Jarry, you may or may not know, wrote a play called Ubu Roi- about an obscene little fat man who murders his way to the throne of Poland. It is absurd, scatalogical and an affront to all the decencies. Yeats was at the first night in 1896, cheering it on, but then went away and was sad because he knew it meant the end of the Celtic Twilight and all that greenery-yallery stuff that was his stock in trade and he'd have to toughen up if he wanted to survive in the new artistic environment. "After us," he wrote, "The savage gods."
Ever since he erupted onto the political scene I've thought of Donald Trump as Jarryesque. He's the living image of Pere Ubu. The savage god come into his own at last, or- Yeats again- the rough beast prophesied in "The Second Coming."
So here's the whole lineage: Mr Punch, Pere Ubu, Maxwell Edison, Donald Trump....
Maxwell's Silver Hammer is a song for our times.
A few more days and we'll be half way through 2025. Six more months and we'll be in the second quarter of the century.....
The 20th century was a drag. At least towards the end it was. Year after year after year- and the Millenium still such a long way off! As Ray Davies wrote at some point during that slow, slow process, "I'm a 20th century man but I don't want to die here...."
But now the 21st century is flying past.....
The 20th century was a drag. At least towards the end it was. Year after year after year- and the Millenium still such a long way off! As Ray Davies wrote at some point during that slow, slow process, "I'm a 20th century man but I don't want to die here...."
But now the 21st century is flying past.....
It's A Mystery
Jun. 17th, 2025 09:07 am "Should I know any of these people?" asked Ailz from the next room
"Which people?"
"The people in the photograph on the mantlepiece."
"There is no photograph on the mantlepiece."
"Yes there is. Come and see...."
And indeed there was. I hadn't put it there, Ailz hadn't put it there. I asked Carolina and she said it had been there when she entered the room and she'd carefully dusted round it.
Here's the photograph. I knew the image but I hadn't known we possessed this particular print. It shows a bunch of young people in fancy dress posing with some elders who have moved beyond that kind of frivolity. The only ones I can certainly identify are my grandmother and her three sisters- Ethel, Kathleen and Joan. Violet, my granny, is in the back row just off centre holding a parasol. My guess is she and the other parasol carriers are dressed as the "three little maids from school" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado. Joan, my favourite great aunt, is the kiddie in the foreground in the feathery hat holding what I think is a toy trumpet.
("For, God's sake, someone take it off her. She'll deafen us all!")
Did granny put the photo on the mantlepiece? Did Joan? Did they conspire together? What are they trying to say?
That they're still around?
Well, of course they are.
"Which people?"
"The people in the photograph on the mantlepiece."
"There is no photograph on the mantlepiece."
"Yes there is. Come and see...."
And indeed there was. I hadn't put it there, Ailz hadn't put it there. I asked Carolina and she said it had been there when she entered the room and she'd carefully dusted round it.
Here's the photograph. I knew the image but I hadn't known we possessed this particular print. It shows a bunch of young people in fancy dress posing with some elders who have moved beyond that kind of frivolity. The only ones I can certainly identify are my grandmother and her three sisters- Ethel, Kathleen and Joan. Violet, my granny, is in the back row just off centre holding a parasol. My guess is she and the other parasol carriers are dressed as the "three little maids from school" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado. Joan, my favourite great aunt, is the kiddie in the foreground in the feathery hat holding what I think is a toy trumpet.
("For, God's sake, someone take it off her. She'll deafen us all!")
Did granny put the photo on the mantlepiece? Did Joan? Did they conspire together? What are they trying to say?
That they're still around?
Well, of course they are.
The Landlord, who we hadn't met before, said the only place he could seat us was out in the garden, but the waitress made protesting noises and said, "No, no, no; they're regulars"- and he changed his mind and nodded us towards a seat in the corner of the bar area which had a notice on it saying "Drinkers Only". This was all very gratifying.....
"Now I remember why we used to like coming to Tonbridge," said Ailz as we traipsed from charity shop to charity shop. Tonbridge High Street has so many of them. She bought a dress for herself and one for Wendy- who had treated us to lunch- and I bought a straw hat (made in China, of course.)
"Traipse" is a word I like to use. It has weariness built into it. Traipsing is so much more tiring than a good brisk walk over the same distance would be.
Yesterday was hot and still. I felt I needed that hat to keep the sun off. Oh, how my feet hurt and my legs ached!
"Traipse" is a word I like to use. It has weariness built into it. Traipsing is so much more tiring than a good brisk walk over the same distance would be.
Yesterday was hot and still. I felt I needed that hat to keep the sun off. Oh, how my feet hurt and my legs ached!
Nature Boy
Jun. 14th, 2025 07:39 am They promised us a thunderstorm. It would blanket the south-east, they said. Lots of banging and flashing. In the event we got some flashing but hardly any noise. This morning's weather is hot, damp and oppressive.
Yesterday's weather, building up to the storm, was sunny and still. I pursued my resolution to ground myself by going round without shoes and socks. It's nice to feel the grass underfoot. Towards evening as it grew cooler I got the lawn mower out. For that I put some shoes on.
You gotta be careful round lawn mowers. Last year, first time I cut the grass, I wasn't paying attention and tripped over ithe mower and almost certainly broke a rib or two. I didn't tell anyone because I hate to make a fuss, but there was pain for several weeks- and I had to steel myself every time I turned over in bed.
Back to the grounding. There was a period of my life when I was Nature Boy and all but dispensed with shoes. Memory tells me I once walked the mile or so into town barefooted in the snow but surely Memory is lying......
Yesterday's weather, building up to the storm, was sunny and still. I pursued my resolution to ground myself by going round without shoes and socks. It's nice to feel the grass underfoot. Towards evening as it grew cooler I got the lawn mower out. For that I put some shoes on.
You gotta be careful round lawn mowers. Last year, first time I cut the grass, I wasn't paying attention and tripped over ithe mower and almost certainly broke a rib or two. I didn't tell anyone because I hate to make a fuss, but there was pain for several weeks- and I had to steel myself every time I turned over in bed.
Back to the grounding. There was a period of my life when I was Nature Boy and all but dispensed with shoes. Memory tells me I once walked the mile or so into town barefooted in the snow but surely Memory is lying......
