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Ailz is down at the Meeting House this morning to open it up for some friendly electricians who- we hope- will help us sort out a long-standing and complicated problem that I'm not going to bore you with.

The early Quakers abominated "steeple houses"- by which they meant churches- and got together in one another's houses or the open air- but soon discovered the convenience of having purpose-built Meeting Houses. In doing so they gained a more rooted identity at the cost of certain freedoms. Bricks and mortar tie you down and make demands. There's no such thing in this world as an unmixed blessing.

A friend not only recommended pickled eggs but gave me a bottle. I don't remember eating one before. I was expecting it to be a bit exotic, but it tasted of what you'd expect it to taste of- hard boiled egg and vinegar. Perfectly nice. Back in the day pickled eggs were the kind of fast food you could expect to find in pubs. These days not so much. I can't remember seeing a jar sitting on any bar recently- but then most pubs these days are also restaurants and like to project a sophisticated image.

Since I fell out of veganism I've been eating a lot of eggs. My favourite way of doing them at the moment is curried on toast.

We had the car cleaned this morning. A couple of young lads drop by in a van. They do a good job. And they're pleasant and personable. There was only one today. Tom is in Turkey. "On holiday", I asked. No, getting his teeth done....

The present world order is not much loved. In those countries where opposition is tolerated there is opposition. But what one doesn't see, at least not openly, in public fora, is the voicing of an alternative. Take the US: the current administration is incompetent, destructive and exceedingly odd- and there are plenty of people willing to point this out but no-one promoting a vision of how things could be done differently. It's all "Stop this" and "don't do that" but never "Do this instead." The recognised opposition party is a spent force, fronted by nonentities. Here in Britain it's the same; the difference being that the people in charge are also nonentities. (Say what you like about the current President of the USA but he's not a nonentity).

There is a time for building up and a time for tearing down and this is a time for tearing down....

Is there a possibility that the USA might join the Commonwealth? Yes, apparently so; it's being talked about at a high level and the U.S. president would be all for it. Everything is so topsy-turvy right now I can actually see it happening. Perhaps, since Charles III is head of the Commonwealth America might brought back under the British crown and the regrettable mistakes of the late 18th century rectified. Now wouldn't that be fun! Maybe we'd get some compensation for all that tea that got tipped into Boston harbour.....

The clocks go forward tonight. Neither Ailz nor I has found or heard a reminder that this is happening so I sought confirmation from the Met Office and, sure enough, on their website, two o'clock on Sunday comes straight after midnight. How strange it is, when you consider it, that we can just cancel an hour like that. There will be weather at 12 and weather at 2 but no weather at 1 because 1 o'clock on the 30th of March 2025 just doesn't exist.

The garden is full of yellow right now. Daffodils, but also gorse. The gorse is spectacular.....

And hardy. The soil is poor; dig down and you soon hit of layer of grot from whatever was here before the houses went up. But the gorse doesn't mind. It thrives. Just plant it and leave it alone and let it do it's own wild thing.

One of the people I follow on YouTube- and like, but have come to think a little naive and uncritical- is always banging on about Yogananda- one of the earliest of the groovy, Indian-born, California based Gurus; and there's something in me reacts unfavorably to groovy gurus.

Curiosity aroused, hackles raised.

Who was this Yoganada guy? I looked online (always the first recourse) and if you can judge a man by his disciples it's not looking so good. Some of those who followed him into gurudom have been exposed under the lights that shine more brightly these days- as fakers and sex-abusers, and those who simply follow him can be found going "Baa, baa, baa" in hurt and indignation if anyone says a word against him.

We are all god-men and godwomen. Pay attention to your own inner light and don't rely on somebody else's. Take advice, certainly, pick up handy hints from the specialists, but don't set them above you. "Call no man master".

By one of those little nice little seemingly accidental quirks of synchronicity a copy of best-selling Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi slipped into my hands yesterday. I've read a chapter and will persevere. Thus far it seems like any other piece of ego-driven self-promotion- only with added miracles. But anyone can claim miracles, anyone can spout truisms, anyone can teach yoga techniques. These things don't make you an avatar- except insofar as everyone is.....

They're opening a Death Cafe in Hastings and three of us who had been involved with The Eastbourne DC went across to their first meeting to offer moral support.

Nice Cafe, no licence to serve alcohol, very rich cakes, woke vibe. They're boycotting Coca Cola and stocking something called Palestine Cola which Ailz said was nice. We may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick but we thought someone was saying that it's owned by the actor Emily Watson- and that she can sometimes be seen there. This prompted a conversation about how tiresome it must be for celebs to have people recognise them all the time and how awkward it can be for the ordinary citizen when they spot a celeb and then have to decide whether to acknowledge them or pretend they haven't seen them. Clearly celebrity is a bad thing and should be abolished.

We leavened a meeting that would otherwise have been made up entirely of people associated with St Michael's Hospice. Good craik- through two hours straight- without a break- is a bit much. Would I, will I go again? Yes, sure. I'm always happy to talk about death.

Picture Diary 86

1. The end of the affair

2. Off Road

3. Mellow Yellow

4. Coo-Coo-ka-choo

5. Finita la commedia

6. Disco

On a tombstone in an AI image I made a few months ago appears the name Goya Harmless. I know how it got there- with AI putting together two words I used in the prompt, but I hadn't imagined them being yoked quite like this. I now have a cloudy image of the person they evoke. I see a big black cloak that he or she (but I think they're male) is expert at swirling and feel an 1890ish vibe. One thing's for sure. Goya Harmless is not someone to be messed with. If anyone wants to write a story about him/her please feel free....

Alice is writing a book about Intuition and is asking for examples. Oh, that's difficult! I absolutely accept intuition as a factor in my life- and synchronicity as a condition of life on earth as fundamental as gravity- but most of the stories I might tell are barely stories at all, just everyday happenings that I register and then forget. They no longer surprise me. Supernatural? there's no such thing- only natural phenomena our mainstream science would rather not think about.

I had a dream in which I'm partying with someone who looks a lot like Mama Cass Elliot. "Who was the last person who murdered you?" she asks. I lean in and whisper a name in her ear.....

Did you see that an Italian team (using a clever new technology I don't pretend to understand) is claiming to have discovered all sorts of quite extraordinary and stupendous structures under the Great Pyramid and Giza plateau? The tabloids are saying, "underground city". This is all hugely controversial, of course, but serious people are taking it seriously......

"I don't like people who betray revolutions," said my friend.

But revolutions are always betrayed, They have to be. One can't be forever demolishing Bastilles. Sooner or later someone has to get a grip.

And rebuild the shattered society with whatever tools and materials are to hand.

And Napoleon was less inadequate than anyone else I can think of who undertook a similar task. Less inadequate than Lenin or Stalin or Hitler or Mao or Pol Pot or (my friend's example) Daniel Ortega.

For all his awesomeness and awfulness there remained something touchingly human about him. When all the glory is cleared away and he has nothing left to do but dig flower beds in his garden on St Helena- the personality the emerges is attractive-- humourous, thoughtful, kind, purposeful.

Besides which, his story is such a terrific story....

Pictures of Napoleon in exile on St Helena mostly show a man in military garb mooching around, usually on the rocky sea shore, feeling ever so sorry for himself. None of them has much value- either artistic or historical. In fact Napoleon kept himself busy, he dictated his memoirs, took long walks, played with the local children, practiced shooting with pistols and (apparently) a crossbow and indulged a new-found passion for gardening. There's a charming story about him ordering straw hats for the Chinese labourers who worked with him because he didn't want them suffering sunstroke. In fact most of the stories about Napoleon in exile make you think, "What a lovely man."

Here's Orchardson (again) showing Napoleon dictating his memoirs- isolated but still dynamic

And here, in a lithograph by Horace Vernet, he's pictured in in his gardening clothes, a little fat man sitting in the sun with his newspaper.

Back now to the glory days, and a new century.

Many actors have played Napoleon. I'm not sure any have been all that convincing- apart from this man, Albert Dieudonne, who starred in Abel Gance's fabulous silent epic, Napoleon- a movie that experimented with colour, split screen, cinemascope and you name it.

Choumoff_-_Albert_Dieudonné_Napoleon.jpeg

Choumoff_-_Albert_Dieudonné_Napoleon.jpeg

Napoleon died on St Helena aged 51. Dieudonne lived into his 80s and left instructions that he should be buried in his Napoleon clothes.....

If you hate a modern poltician you liken them to Hitler and if you admire them you liken them to Churchill or Lincoln but no-one in their right mind likens any modern leader to Napoleon.

Napoleon is just too extraordinary, his legacy too ambiguous. He did wonderful things, he did atrocious things, he was- to use a cliche that is really true in his case- a legend in his own lifetime. I've racked my brains and I can't think of anyone in the history books, ancient or modern, who compares to him- unless it's Alexander the Great.

The artists who were contemporary with him helped create the legend, those that came after him questioned it, but always from a respectful distance. They want to understand and explain the man behind the mask; they never succeed.

Paul Delaroche painted his Napoleon Crossing the Alps as a direct riposte to David. Instead of the rearing charger there's a mule and the mule is being guided by peasant. This is almost certainly how it really happened, but the the young general is still intense and farseeing and no less heroic for being cold.

Paul_Delaroche_-_Napoleon_Crossing_the_Alps_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpeg

Paul_Delaroche_-_Napoleon_Crossing_the_Alps_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpeg

J-L Gerome paints the riddle confronting the Riddle in a work called either "Napoleon and the Sphinx" or "Oedipus". I love this painting

2880px-Bonaparte_ante_la_Esfinge,_por_Jean-Léon_Gérôme.jpeg

2880px-Bonaparte_ante_la_Esfinge,_por_Jean-Léon_Gérôme.jpeg

I used to think this next painting showed the Retreat from Moscow. It doesn't. It shows the French coming away from the Battle of Laon- an inconclusive engagement fought against the Prussians in the months before Waterloo. Napoleon, the man apart, grim but determined, rides ahead of his marshals and generals, at least one of whom seems to be falling asleep in the saddle. The artist is E. Meissonier.

Meissonier_-_1814,_Campagne_de_France.jpeg

Meissonier_-_1814,_Campagne_de_France.jpeg

Finally, in a change from all these French artists we have a Scot-William Quiller Orchardson- who- painting at the end of the 19th century- shows us Napoleon on board the Bellerephon (or Billy Ruffian in sailor-speak) on his way to exile in St Helena. The man of destiny stands alone and broods, the British officers huddle behind him and marvel.

By the way, I think we greatly undervalue this kind of narrative art. We lionise the Impressionists at the expense of all their contemporaries but painters like Gerome and Orchardson were doing something the Impressionists didn't even attempt and their work has its own validity and is capable of moving us deeply.

Napoleon_on_Board_the_Bellerophon_-_Sir_William_Quiller_Orchardson.jpeg

Napoleon_on_Board_the_Bellerophon_-_Sir_William_Quiller_Orchardson.jpeg

J-D Ingres was David's most distinguished pupil and his icon (that really is the right word) of Napoleon as first Consul is stupendous. The pose derives from the lost statue of Zeus by Phidias and the props Napoleon is holding are associated with Charlemagne. It's a big painting- and my reaction on coming face to face with it was a combination of "Oh wow!" and "This is too, too silly!"

Ingres,_Napoleon_on_his_Imperial_throne.jpeg

Ingres,_Napoleon_on_his_Imperial_throne.jpeg

A-J Gros was introduced to Napoleon by his friend Josephine de Beauharnais- and presumably saw more of him up close than any other artist. He specialised in big figure compositions that are part propaganda and part reportage. His picture of Napoleon visiting plague-stricken soldiers at Jaffa and reaching out fearlessly to touch a sick man just as Christ might have done documents an incident that hadn't happened yet. When Napoleon did finally get round to visiting a pest house he ordered its inmates be euthanised with laudanum- an act of mercy that is open to misinterpretation

Antoine-Jean_Gros_-_Bonaparte_visitant_les_pestiférés_de_Jaffa.jpeg

Antoine-Jean_Gros_-_Bonaparte_visitant_les_pestiférés_de_Jaffa.jpeg

Eylau was one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic wars- a slogging match between the French and the Russians that was fought to a standstill in the snow. Gros pictures Napoleon instructing his doctors to treat the wounded of both armies.
While clearly propagandist it is also one of the most realistic battle pictures painted up to this time. Gros had seen war- and there's a man in the foreground who is very dead indeed.

Jacques-Louis David was flexible- and we have that flexibility of his to thank for the second half of his career. He'd been a Jacobin- one of the fervent revolutionaries responsible for the Reign of Terror, but when Robespieere fell and most of his colleagues went to the guillotine, David discovered he'd been terribly misled and was awfully sorry- and the judges- perhaps reflecting that great artists can be useful to politicians and if you get rid of one you can't expect another to come along any time soon- accepted his repentance and merely banged him up in prison. The times changed, David got out of gaol, looked around for a subject for his brush and lit upon Napoleon.

As Groucho said, "These are my principles and if you don't like them I have others"

But I don't blame David. An artist's prime loyalty is to his art. It's not his business to play the hero but to carry on painting.

And David's images of Napoleon are iconic.

Here's what I believe to be the first of them. Napoleon as the young military hero. Those flashing eyes, that floating hair. It's unfinished but who cares about the background when the chap in the foreground is so charismatic.

We move on a few years, and here's the great man crossing the alps. Napoleon himself loved this image and had it copied at least five times to give to foreign allies and hang in embassies. The eyes flash even more commandingly, the cloak streams in the alpine wind. If David's Death of Marat is the greatest single icon of the revolution then this is the greatest of the Napoleonic era.

Next come two huge canvases. In the first Napoleon crowns himself Emperor, with Josephine kneeling before him. In the second he distributes flags (eagles) to the army. The first is a stone cold masterpiece the second perhaps a little to hysterical to be quite convincing, but neither is dull.

Jacques_Louis_David_-_Le_couronnement_de_l'Empereur_et_de_l'Impératrice,_2_décembre_1804_-_Google_Art_Project.jpeg

Jacques_Louis_David_-_Le_couronnement_de_l'Empereur_et_de_l'Impératrice,_2_décembre_1804_-_Google_Art_Project.jpeg

Jacques_Louis_David_-_Serment_de_l'armée_fait_à_l'Empereur_après_la_distribution_des_aigles,_5_décembre_1804_-_Google_Art_Project.jpeg

All those faces- and practically every one a portrait. Just think of the work involved!

Finally Napoleon in his study, the sword laid aside. This is the dedicated statesman labouring to all hours for the good of his people. The candle has burned down to its socket. the clock says 12 minutes past four- and you can be sure that's not four in the afternoon but four in the morning.....

And that's it for David. But expect more pictures of Napoleon to follow in succeeding posts. Firstly by other contemporary artitists and then by later artists, looking back.....

Oh, the English weather- rarely the same from one day to the next- or indeed from one hour to the next. This morning we have mist- and the South Downs come and go as the mist thickens and thins. The air is damp but not cold- and it might rain or the sun might break through before the day's end. So how should I dress?

I'm opting for a T shirt with a pink linen shirt over it and a lightweight brown jacket. There's protection in layers- and I'm going to take the risk and not wear a jumper or overcoat. There'll be heating on in the Meeting House so I won't freeze....

These days the stiff armed salute, as recently performed by Elon Musk, is almost exclusively associated with the Nazis- and doing it in public can get you into serious trouble, but it has a much longer history, though not as long as you might think.

Hitler got it from Mussolini and received some stick from super-patriots for copying the Italians- to which he replied, brazen-facedly, that it was actually of German origin and Luther had done it.

But Mussolini wasn't the first. Among those who had used it before him was an American patriot called Francis Bellamy who thought it the appropriate gesture for saluting the flag- and got schoolchildren to do it while making the pledge of alliegance.

Mussolini probably thought he was reviving an ancient Roman practice- but there is no evidence in Roman art or writing that the stiff armed salute was ever in their repertoire.

So where does it begin?

It begins here, in J-L David's iconic Oath of the Horatii- the first work of art from any culture which shows it being done-

And gets repeated in his Serment du Jeu de Palme (see previous post)

In both paintings it is a gesture of self-sacrificing Republican virtue.

So far as we know he invented it.

And it caught on. Such is the power of Art.

Little did he know what he had started....

I read a chapter of Carlyle's French Revolution before going to bed. It's a slow process but I'm savouring it sentence by sentence. Carlyle was one hell of a writer!

I've just reached the turning point of the "tennis court oath" (le serment do jeu de paume). The king, arm-wrestling the Commons, has shut down their venue- on the lame pretext of getting carpenters in to make him a plattorm from which he can address them- so their President- the astronomer Bailly- finds them another- a roofed tennis court- and there they assemble to swear an oath to be united in a common purpose. The king's stratagem has blown up in his face- and his power has evaporated. Just like that. From now on he will no longer be a player but a thing that's batted back and forth and bounced off walls.

Carlyle makes you feel the drama, the exhilaration. I'm lying propped up in bed making nary a sound but inwardly I'm cheering.

In this time of overturn of all the fixities and certainties of our civilisation it feels appropriate to be reading about this earlier bouleversement.

The painter David, who produced indelible images of the Revolution and the Napoleonic period, has one of the tennis court oath. The painting was never completed because it was a long term project- involving the making of a great number of individual portraits- and the political weather changed- but we have his preliminary sketches. I love how the curtains are billowing inwards as the wind of revolution sweeps through France.

The distant relative I had dealings with a few years back has died and his widow talks of downsizing- and there's a possibility the family thingummies I lodged with him (because he was deeply into family history) may be heading back this way. They consist of the journals of my Great Aunt Enid and an amateurish portrait of my many times great-grandad Samuel Allen.

Enid valued her journals highly and wished them preserved but no-one in succeeding generations wants to give them houseroom. They looked like they might be interesting but I read some and my bro-in-law read- and they turned out to be mainly about the pashes (never quite love affairs) she indulged in over the course of a long life. The absence of self-awareness is breathtaking. "Bonfire" says Ailz but I don't know. I feel a certain tenderness towards the dead. I wonder what Enid herself, now that she is out of the body and has- presumably- gained wisdom- thinks now of her really rather embarrassing effusions....

The portrait of old Sam (I'll bet no-one actually called him Sam to his face) is a different matter. He was brother to the genuinely distinguished William Allen- and an abolitionist whose presence at an important gathering of abolitionists is documented in a group portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. He was a Quaker- and now I'm a Quaker too I feel a deeper kinship. My relative offered the portrait to the Hitchen museum and they said they'd take it but it would go straight into storage and probably never see the light of day (Hitchen was where he did his Quakering) and so it's still hanging on my relative's widow's wall in Castle Acre, Norfolk. If he does come back to me I might try to palm him of on the Quakers here at Eastbourne. As a work of art he's deficient, but he's sort of interesting as an historical footnote. He has a pinched, cadaverous features and is pictured reading a paper called Peace News.

The library is vast. Millions upon millions of books and other media. But if you emabark on any academic study you will be told "You can only examine and reference what's in this section over here- and if you wander off and read other things and take them seriously we will refuse to publish what you write and if your trespassing becomes too egregious you'll be out of a job".

I studied theology at Cambridge. The section of the library I was permitted to consult contained 19th and 20th century writers in the Protestant tradition- most of whom have no reputation outside their field. Ever heard of Karl Barth? No, I thought not. And don't bother to go looking for him because he's frightfully dull.....

One quickly learned that it would be bloody silly to quote the Buddha, or Madame Blavatsky or G.K Chesterton or even someone irreproachably Anglican but a little off piste like Charles Williams. For the purpose of the discipline we were committed to they didn't exist.

All this came back to me last night as I listened to a lecture by an academic who was referencing Dostoevsky and Nietzsche and Hannah Arendt and I thought- yeah, you're a world literature guy with a sideline in modern philosophy- and that's your whole world- or at least the only world your colleagues consider it respectable for you to talk about- but haven't you ever considered it a bit screwy to be telling us about the modern world and- even more presumptuously- to prophesy the future when all the people you turn to for back-up have been dead for years and years and years...?

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