Последние новости

Off To Derbyshire
2025-11-07 11:48 poliphilo
We're off to Derbyshire today. Ailz and Jacky (who will be travelling with us) are signed up for a course on clerking a Quaker Meeting- and I'm tagging along as Ailz's carer. I think my role will mainly involve eating meals and looking out the window but one never knows.
We're staying at Swanwick- a Christian Conference centre near Alfreton. That word "Christian" makes me uneasy..... 

Cuckmere Haven
2025-10-31 13:20 poliphilo
We were at the Meeting House yesterday and the kids took themselves off to Cuckmere Haven- which is the best vantage point for viewing the White Cliffs (not, please note, the White Cliffs of Dover- which are 50 to 60 miles east of here) but the range known as the Seven Sisters. They had passable weather for it.

Cuckmere Haven isn't exactly isolated , but you can't drive to it. The nearest car pasrks are a mile away- and you have to walk- or possibly paddle-board- the winding course of the Cuckmere river to get to the beach and the coastguard cottages.

Coastguard cottages? Of yeah, back in the day, this is one of the secluded spots where smugglers unloaded their French contraband- "Brandy for the parson, Baccy for the clerk...etc etc..."  As the chalk erodes so the cottages come closer and closer to sliding into the sea. We'll miss them when they're gone because they serve as the perfect foreground objects for the picture that everyone takes.....

Here's my version, snapped on a glorious September Day in 2021.....

Inflatable Gravestones
2025-10-30 10:45 poliphilo
I'm not seeing much in the way of Halloween decor in Eastbourne this year. We passed a house that had filled its front garden with junk and it stood out because it had no competition.

I asked Mike if was the same in Greenwich and he said, Well, no, his street had a lot of skeletons and such. They're going home tomorrow morning because he has some inflatable gravestones on order and he needs time to blow them up and get them installed before the evening's candy fest.

We don't give out sweets. We give out plastic doodads. I sort of enjoy the mad rush. 

Tiring House
2025-10-29 12:34 poliphilo
Family coming to visit and I need to put on my paterfamilias face. It's not the best fit.

Right now I'm in my dressing room- or tiring house to be Shakespearian about it- waiting for my cue. Things will become easier once I'm on stage.

Biking
2025-10-28 13:03 poliphilo
Last time I rode a bike was in Belgium quite a few years ago. Long straight roads, no hills and a culture that doffs its cap to the cyclist at every turn.

As a young man I rode a bike round Cambridge and the surrounding countryside. Again, that's fenland- so nice and flat. I have memories of carrying on with the cycling in my first curacy, in Wythenshawe- which isn't flat at all. I have memories of tearing up the hill for Holy Communion on a Sunday, arriving with minutes to spare- and getting the stink eye from the vicar, my boss, who thought I was a horrible scruff. He once threatened to send me home if I showed up again with my shoes unbrushed. "When I was a curate," he said, severely, "We thought it important to have neat hair and shiny shoes- for the honour of the priesthood and in order to impress the laity." What I wish I'd said in reply is, "And what did Jesus wear on his feet then?"

That was a bit of a digression.

As a teenager I did a fair bit of cycling. I had a bike at my boarding school. If you went out for a cycle ride it was considered an adequate alternative to playing team sports- and I hated team sports. The road from Lancing up to Bramber and Steyning is pretty steep. Travelling the same road in the car I have compassion on my younger self.

Looking back, I wonder why, since they'd been foolish enough to give me my liberty, I didn't just keep on cycling until night fell.....

I was never a daring cyclist. I never went down a hill without toying with the brakes.

I was riding a bike in a dream last night. It was dusk. I switched on the headlamp and instead of showing up the road ahead it blinded me.....

It Was Not So.....
2025-10-27 11:01 poliphilo
Something I try to avoid is going off on old geezer rants about how much better things were when I was a lad, but the temptation is there....

Childcare for instance. Now when I was a child etc, etc.....

No, I may sometimes succumb in conversation, but when I'm writing a post I have time to take thought and shut myself down.

Back in the day thre was a one-man show called Brief Lives in which Roy Dotrice, then quite young, slapped on the old man makeup to play the antiquarian John Aubrey and give us anedotes about famous people from Aubrey's book of the same name. The piece was set in the reign of Charles II and Aubrey had a memory that went way, way back. As the curtain fell, Aubrey, surrounded by his manuscripts, fell asleep in his chair- or possibly drew his final breaths-  muttering, "It was not so in good Queen Bess's time...." 

An Extra Hour
2025-10-26 10:19 poliphilo
I was psyching myself up to get out of bed when Ailz returned from the bathroom and said, "Do you know what happened last night?"

"Oh my god," I thought, "Something world-historical has gone down. Please let it be good news...."

And she said, "The clocks went back...."

I had no idea.

This is the first time in my life that I've been caught unawares by this twice-yearly phenomenon. Usually I'll have gone round the evening before re-setting the clocks in advance.

It was rather nice. I got to doze an extra hour and indulge in those fantasies and speculations that are almost dreams but not quite.......

More Balls
2025-10-25 16:23 poliphilo
This morning I spotted the first instance of the T**** Ballroom being referred to as The Epstein Wing. I trust there will be many more.

It is being suggested (but perhaps it's fake news) that the construction of the Epstein Wing is actually cover for the making of a new and improved nuclear bunker. I pass this on for what it's worth.

I have always thought that in the event of nuclear war, the last people to be allowed into the bunkers should be the people primarily responsible for bringing it about- which is to say the government, the diplomats, the generals etc. In societies with a code of honour it was expected that a failed leader would fall on his sword.

On a related topic (another titbit from the airwaves) it is being said Andrew Windsor is being offered a Palace in Abu Dhabi. Why anyone would not only want him as a neighbour but also offer to maintain him in the manner to which he's accustomed is beyond me, but there it is.

Who runs Abu Dhabi anyway?

Easy. His name is Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan. He's also President of the UAE. Ah, and here's a clue. He's a close "friend" and ally of the current US President. Might he be thinking it would be a friendly gesture to keep Andrew Windsor squirreled away in a beachside palace where journalists (who are discouraged in the UAE) will be unable to get at him? This is highly speculative, of course.



No, no no, this is not the T**** Ballroom aka The Epstein Wing  but the Sheik Zayed mosque in Abu Dhabi.

Ain't it grand!

Load Of Balls
2025-10-25 12:24 poliphilo
Ballrooms are in the news. Firstly there's the huge vanity project the American President is erecting over the grave of Eleanor Roosevelt. And secondly there's the affair at the British Museum.

The British Museum (which contains very little that is actually British) is a vast warehouse full of Imperial loot. It's new director had the wizard wheeze of inviting 800 of the world's richest, vainest and least self-aware people- many of them identifiably friends of Jeffrey- to come and disport themselves in a peculiar shade of pink among the ruins of the world's great civilisations.

The old East Wing was a serious building in which serious people did serious things. It's replacement is a frivolous building in which frivolous people will do frivolous things. The Museum is also a serious building full of serious things- and not intended to serve as a backdrop against which Mick Jagger and Naomi Campbell might flex their arthritic limbs. Frivolity is a splendid thing, but there's a time and a place.

What caused particular annoyance in the case of the BM's "Pink Ball" was the use of the Duveen Gallery- which houses the marbles from the Parthenon- as a dining room- for the penguin suits and the ladies in pink.  Phedias would have been unamused- or simply bemused. Ditto Pericles. Ditto the modern Greeks who want the marbles back and housed in a gallery on the Acropolis where they will be treated as the foundation monuments of modern civilisation that they are.

The T**** Ballroom and The BT's Pink Ball: there is a distinct aroma of fin de siecle/last things/collapse of empire about them both.....

A Thinning Of The Veil
2025-10-24 10:53 poliphilo
I had a dream about the chap from whom I was anticipating trouble. He was smiling, in a golden glow, and he said "I have got my constitution back" and I thought, "Either he has regained emotional stability or he has died and gone to heaven."

As it turned out he was still alive and had decided overnight that he can find new meaning in life by alerting the world to the dangers of of AI. He used to be a player of sorts on the international stage and forgets that his influential friends have either passed on or will no longer take his calls. I think he might be happier if he resigned himself to being an inconsequential old gent living in an English seaside town but that's my mentality not his and if his illusions keep him happy why question them? At least he's still alive And it's not an ignoble thing to embody Don Quixote.

By the way, I'm chalking that dream up as precognitive.

Feverish illnesses of the kind I've been passing through, cause the veil to thin. It's the upside of them- and one could almost wish for them to hang around longer. I had very sharp colourful dreams last night, not quite lucid, but still more "real" than "real" even though they didn't exactly hang together.  In one there was a garden enclosure that was all mine and full of trees and ever so lush grass, in another a nice little boy was asking me the meaning of the word "Hilversum" on the display of an oldtime transistor radio and in the third "we" were perfecting some sort of magical acrobatic trick involving eggs under the supervision of Ailz's mother- who was being much nicer and sweeter than she ever was in life. The eggs would somehow become kittens and the kittens were to be given to the babies who were trundling wheelbarrows around. Also the broken eggshells would turn into flakes of beautifully patterned enamel. I think what we were actually doing was helping human souls reincarnate, but this may be an interpretation too far....

On The River Dee
2025-10-23 10:30 poliphilo
I came around this morning singing "The Miller of Dee" to myself.

You know it?

Goes like this (to what I read is an old Welsh harp tune- which fits because the River Dee which flows through Chester- is on the Welsh borders,)

There was a jolly miller once
Lived on the River Dee.
He worked and sang from morn til night,
No lark more blithe than he.
And this the burden of his song
Forever used to be,
I care for nobody, no not I
If nobody cares for me."

I'm facing what could be emotionally demanding day's work at the Meeting House- and decided the Miller had been given me as a mantra- because he's so cheery and zen

I sang it to Ailz and she said she'd never heard it before.

I was astonished. I've known it since I was wee small child. Also it's folk and Ailz is a folkie.

I have memories of singing it in school. Like the Lincolnshire Poacher (message: "fuck the ruling class and their game laws) or "There is a Tavern in the Town" (message; "men are cheating bastards") it's one of the ditties we were taught (considered harmless because trad) that subverted a curriculum otherwise loaded with pious, paternalistic, legalistic crap.

Fucking Big Ballroom
2025-10-22 12:55 poliphilo
The best thing about the White House is it isn't a palace. it isn't Versailles (God forbid!) or Blenheim or the Vatican. it doesn't impose, it isn't even very wonderful as architecture. It's simply a decent, dignified 18th century gentleman's residence- as befits the leader of a scrupulously-conceived democracy. The person who is temporarily installed there isn't going to look round and think. "Finally made it!" or "King of the world!" but "Tolerable decor, nice view!"  and "It'll do for the next four years..."

The core has been added to down the years. But the additions have been functional. The East Wing, which is currently being chewed up, was built in the 1940s to serve- primarily- as a work space for a peculiarly active and activist First Lady.

Franklin and Eleanor- ah me- those were the days!

Power that is legitimately based- by, for and from the people- doesn't need to be bigged up or blinged up. It doesn't require halls of mirrors and gold taps. It exhales its own authority.

The current resident of the White House hasn't understood any of this....

 

Feeble All Round
2025-10-21 14:35 poliphilo
I'm still in a bit of a daze and still feel feeble- physically, mentally, spiritually- as if I could easily burst into tears and make a confession of my utter unworthiness- but think I have what it takes to fix myself a proper lunch and hopefully this will make me stronger.

I get up, I go back to sit on thr bed and have Proust inform me about the moeurs of late 19th century France. How happy I am not to be living in that frightful epoque but in this frightful epoque instead.

On that subject I see some frightful Imperial bling from that frightful epoque has been stolen from the Louvre. Good riddance, I say. Whoever nicked it- or had it nicked- has execrable taste.

Foxy keeps digging up my bulbs and I keep burying them again. At least they're not anything of which I should feel ashamed

Too Patriotic For His Own Good......
2025-10-20 09:44 poliphilo
We drove past the station on Saturday and there was a small group of people on one side of the road shouting "Free Palestine" and a smaller group of people on the other side of the road waving flags at the first group and shouting something I couldn't make out. The police were standing by, arms folded. One of the flag wavers was so carried away by whatever it was he was doing that he almost stepped in front of our car. Aliz honked her horn at him.

The time between then and now has passed in a blur. Some sort of virus I suppose.....

Plant It And They Will Come......
2025-10-18 11:33 poliphilo
Goldfinches! Not one or two but a whole flock of them!

They're not rare, but this is the first time I've seen them in our garden. They only stayed for a moment but now they've scoped us out I'm hopeful they'll return.

Oh, and look! I was about to post this when I spotted a squirrel walking along the fence!  Squirrels have visited us before, but not very often.

I think our policy of planting and encouraging trees and shrubs in a space that was mostly lawn is paying off. The back garden isn't a wood yet, but it will be......

Picture Diary 106
2025-10-17 18:04 poliphilo
Picture Diary 106

1. Abracadabra



2. Coming Through



3. River



4. Whirlpool



5. Life Form



6. Mercurial

Shallow
2025-10-17 11:03 poliphilo
The day before yesterday I planted a whole lot of daffodil bulbs. Last night the fox dug several of them up again.

I guess foxes see recently turned earth and think, "Oooo, small creatures in burrows!"

This, it occurs to me, is one of the reasons why shallow graves are not such a good idea....

Picture Diary 105
2025-10-16 20:48 poliphilo
Picture Diary 105

1. In a world of illusion



2. Comforters



3. Leaving home



4. The good earth



5. Henna



6. First light

Thief
2025-10-16 11:14 poliphilo
You've been stealing from us.

Thus far you don't know we know.

A friend suggests that we lay traps for you so we can be 100% sure, but I think this would be a little mean and sneaky.

(You do realise that as little as 200 years ago what you've done could have got you hung or transported to Australia? Let no-one deny that we've made some progress in this modern era of ours!)

I have reviewed the options- and  come to the conclusion that the least destructive one is to go on pretending we don't know, while doing what we can to ensure you aren't tempted again.
A mitigating circumstance is that you're hard up and we're not- and all properrty is theft, innit!

The least of your offences is that you've taken things.

It's worse that you've destroyed our trust.

And the worst thing of all is that you've given us power over you- and I really don't want it.

Blue Sky
2025-10-15 09:33 poliphilo
Ailz has had "Mr Blue Sky" going through her head for days. Nice song, but nothing will bear endless repetition. This morning In an attempt to drive it away and - at worst- replace it with something else she turned the radio on. Guess what was playing!

Oh, but the universe is a tricky little bitch......