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It Should Be Quieter This Year
2026-08-11 13:04 poliphilo
We like to drive along Grand Parade- the stretch of road dividing the big hotels from the sea, but yesterday every access road was closed and we couldn't. What was the problem? Road works? A major traffic incident? No, it's simply that they're preparing for Airbourne, the big Eastbourne air show that starts on Thursday.

This year the Red Arrows RAF acrobatics team won't be appearing. They'd been booked but they've been touring the States and adverse weather conditions are stopping them from coming home. You'd think such Tom Cruise types would laugh at adverse weather conditions but apparently they don't.  I'm not sorry. They're hellishly noisy and upset the gulls.

As Edna Said Afterwards We Need To Be Less Passive.....
2026-08-10 10:35 poliphilo
I was uncharacteristically impassioned at Quakers yesterday. Certain issues came together and I found myself standing up and delivering a ministerial rant about how British Quakerism- at every level- needs more people to take on certain jobs because otherwise we'll find ourselves shutting up shop. The words came fluently as if passing through my mind but not generated by it. I wasn't weeping but if my eyes had produced a little more water I would have been.

I got a response. All positive so far as I could hear and see.

Quakerism, like most religious bodies, is a charity- a status which brings financial advantages but subjects you to the State. I think its pity we traded our freedom for pats on the head but the deed was done generations ago and we have to work with the rules we've accepted.  An urgent immediate need is for our area- Sussex East- to field more trustees. Most of the current ones are stepping down very soon and if they're not replaced we'll have too few to be viable-

I really don't want to be a trustee but I'll take it on because needs must.....

YouTube
2026-08-09 10:34 poliphilo
YouTube observes you and notes what you like and sends you more of the same.

This is nice of it but limiting. Less and less do I click on what it sends because so much of it is a reiteration of stuff I've already seen and heard. "Yeah, yeah," I think, "I know that. Tell me something new."

And sometimes it gets things subtly wrong. It has noted I like old British sketch comedy- and I do- but I don't like everything that comes under that heading. Recently it has been feeding me lots of Dick Emery and Dick Emery makes my skin crawl.

Also the adverts seem to be getting more frequent and longer. Or perhaps I'm just getting less tolerant. If I'm sitting in my armchair across the room I don't always bother to get up and go to my desk and pick up my mouse and skip the bloody things but let them run.  Some of them turn out to be features in their own right.

Have I ever bought anything that YouTube has pushed at me? I don't believe so......

Yes, I could pay to be ad-free, but that feels too much like paying protection money.

O, and it makes me sad when a speaker I take seriously swerves aside from the subject he or she is pursuing to spend minutes praising a sponsor. I see why they have to do it but it's so demeaning. Damn you, late capitalism!

I believe or at least like to believe I'm spending less time sitting in front of screens. Instead I sit looking out the window....

Misidentification
2026-08-08 09:53 poliphilo
There was a very bright white light over the hills yesterday evening. It didn't seem to be moving. I did so want it to be a UFO.

I trained my binoculars on it.  Planes flew past. They were dark. To begin with I thought the light was actually two or possibly three lights close together, but when I adjusted focus it became just the one. Observing it over a period I realised it was actually moving- very slowly-  westwards and downwards

I did some thinking. Ailz did some research online.

We concluded it was the planet Venus.

Birling Gap
2026-08-05 17:39 poliphilo
It did rain, but very, very briefly.

Later we went for a drive around our immediate area, pausing at the Birling Gap.

Where the sea was quite a long way out, exposing the rocks- and the wind was bracing.

.

All In The Family
2026-08-02 10:17 poliphilo
I dreamed we'd been experimenting with a gizmo that helped you take good photographs. It was a long banner you flew streaming above your head which when it detected a good view sent you an alert that told you to take a picture. It was called a "beaver"- which prompted me to make an off-colour joke that my daughter appreciated. My son- the one who has fallen out with me- was also there, as a child, fixing me with a sulky stare and not speaking. I was pulling faces in the hope of getting him to crack a smile.....

Uncle Gerald
2026-08-01 10:36 poliphilo
Our friend Rik got in touch- as he does at considerable intervals- asking questions about Gerald Gardner, the prime creator of modern Wicca.

Rik was one of our initiates. Since leaving our coven he has wandered about spiritually, flirting at one stage with Islam, but is now back where he started. The outcome of our conversation is that he'll be coming to visit us in September. I'm happy about this. I'm not practising as a witch any longer but of course you always remain everything you've ever been- and the happiest mode of being is to acknowledge it all, if you can, with love.

Ah, Gerald Gardner! What a cove! I answered Rik's questions as best I could, but Gardner is a slippery character, prone, as occultists so often are, to embroidering his life history and making things up. Or, to put it bluntly, was a liar. I took The Triumph of the Moon-Philip Hutton's immensely impressive history of modern paganism- off the shelf and riffled through its chapter on him- and when it comes to the important facts it's all perhapses and maybes. Born in 1884 and died in 1964, Gardner was a late Victorian with a complicated, contradictory 1890ish view of sexuality. He hated gays, liked flagellation and was into domination of women by men and men by women. A lot of this got into his religion and has had to be edited out or adapted by later practitioners. He enjoyed being a public figure- and styled his beard and hair to make himself look like the Horned God. Here's a picture of him I hadn't seen before striking an attitude in his Museum of Witchcraft on the Isle of Man.



Back in the day, after I quit Wicca and as a way of coming to terms with my recent past I wrote a poem about him.

Gerald Gardner

I've met his sort- the lucky third sons
Of the widow. They have lived so much.
They were often cursed in heraldic cradles
By Carabosse. They are chevaliers
In Jacobite orders they formed themselves
In the wee small hours.

Old Gerald's kit
Was as patched as any scamp's could be.
He had served out east and studied his craft
With the Dyak- so he said- and then
With an old-time coven surviving near Christchurch.
Actually he made most of it up
Out of books, As Aidan Kelly has written,
To validate his taste for flogging.

Kelly calls him an S.A.M.
Or smart-arsed masochist- that's a chap
Who has his mistress beat him up
To a detailed script.

He got that bit
From Com, his governess- see the snap
Of the goblin child and the moon-faced woman.

But this is how religions get made,
Out of a culture's crying need
(In this case for the freeing of sex)
When one person is daft enough,
Damaged enough, to cook the books
And make like a prophet.

Ah, what a show-off
He always was! With the lighting right
And his goblin face and his hair on end
He looks like something that Austin Spare
Might have conjured up.

He ducked and he dove,
Told frabjous stories and got stitched up
By unsuitable women.

But in the end
He had the vision. It's not what you see
But the way that you see it. It could be bread
On a china plate as it was for Chardin,
It could be a tightly buttoned girl
With a switch in her fist as it was for him;
What matters is the fixedness
With which you watch it, the energy
You throw at it and it mirrors back.
By concentration, by contemplation,
By steadfast loving you light the candle
That shows the way to Babylon
Through a night unfriendly to us poor fakers.

Acting Experience
2026-07-31 12:04 poliphilo
I've done a bit of amateur acting. As a kid I was overpraised and as I grew up I overrated my ability. I've sometimes thought I should have been an actor but as I look back I don't believe I ever had what it takes to make a go of it professionally.

My first big role was as the Angel Gabriel. I think it was my father who congratulated me (ironically) on being so loud.

As a young teen they had me playing girls and as an older teen they had me playing old men.

My last role was an unpleasant chappie who plots a murder and then gets murdered himself in a Francis Durbridge mystery. I had lots of lines- all of them dull- and had difficulty remembering them.

I had two roles I did rather well in. The first  was when I stepped into the part of Herod at the last moment and, knowing the shape of the piece but not the lines, improvised wildly and had a wonderful time. I was much better than the guy I was replacing. He was monotone. I was lascivious and mocking and told Jesus he was "a lovely meaty boy." Poor Jesus. He struggled to keep a straight face.

My other best role was reciting Jaques' All the World's a Stage speech while a couple of women did interpretive dances. It's a great speech and has provided me ever since with mental scaffolding and support. . "Each man in his time plays many parts." Yes, exactly.

Perverse
2026-07-30 09:45 poliphilo
I hate the idea of failing to keep an appointment or turning up late for it. It's the sort of thing I worry about when I wake in the wolf hour- and my mind is at its feeblest and most vulnerable.

I don't keep a diary, I don't wear a watch- it's as though I enjoyed playing with the fear....

A Day out In Hastings
2026-07-29 10:40 poliphilo
We took a Friend to Conquest Hospital in Hastings.

Now I know Hastings likes to big up its connection to the Battle of the same name (though none of the action took place in or near the town) but I still think Conquest is an odd name for a hospital. The Norman Conquest- that began in 1066- was scarcely justified, brutal, repressive and oppressive in execution and when it met with resistance and opposition genocidal. See what I mean?

Our Friend's CT scan took several hours so we did some pottering. O, but it was hot. Several years have passed since we were last in Hastings (which was our favourite place to visit when we were living at the farm) so has it changed? Not really - except that Robert's Rummage has closed. Robert Mutti was in his mid 80s and had had enough. For forty years his poky,  overloaded little premises was the highest, finest example of such a place in the country- and you could buy the sort of old-time stuff that nobody but you would love. Robert wasn't exactly a Steptoe and had a reputation as an expert on African Art. The shop was a act of love. Here's a picture from five years ago- not one I took my myself but sourced from the Sussex Express



We consoled ourselves for the closure by buying ourselves some stuff from The Hastings Antiques Warehouse which is across the street and a step or two upmarket.

I bought a couple of del Prado figures of Napoleon. Here's my favourite: it depicts him at Arcole as a young hero, iconically waving the flag of the Republique. I don't quite know why but- for all that I recognise his occasional awfulness- I love my Boney and suspect it goes deep.....




We had lunch on the front. Greasy fish and chips which was delicious but which much later smacked me with a bout of acid reflux. We had thought of spending the rest of our wait down by the beach but it was so hot we drove inland to Alexandra Park where we found shade. Alexandra Park is beautful and has a small section, gated but accessible, that serves as a Peace Garden.....

A Bit Of A Jolt
2026-07-28 11:08 poliphilo
Medicine is creeping up on me. Last year I found myself settling into a regime of regular eye tests. Now, with something of a jolt, I'm finding I'm seeing a dentist and having things done to me by a local doctor. For a while I lived a life in which medical appointments were for other people- whom I was happy to accompany to the hospital or practice. Now that life is over. I seemed to have dropped my fear of medical people and their work but all the same I'm a little rattled, a little sad. Never mind, I'll adjust.....

Today (old style) we are driving a Friend to an appointment at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings and I'm a little worried in case he over-runs his time because (new style) I've got an appointmant at four of clock back here in Eastbourne with a dentist who is going to x-ray my teeth. 

Biggish Change
2026-07-27 18:49 poliphilo
We moved down south in 2013- and I was feeling fit and a bit rebellious and decided I wouldn't be bothering with doctors and dentists any more. This may have been foolish of me but I've made it to 75 without having to change my mind and I don't think that's bad. Stiil, this year certain little things have started playing up and today I've given in and am submitting myself to a doctor and a dentist. My favourite astrologer said we'd all wake up this morning and find the world had changed. I was thinking political change, social change, intellectual and spiritual change- and while I'm disappointed at not seeing any of those I have to concede he wasn't wrong.

More Of The Same
2026-07-27 10:42 poliphilo
As we drove into town yesterday morning a fine film of very tiny drops of water formed on the windscreen. "Ah," we said. "Rain at last." Ailz made the wipers sweep it away- once, twice. And that was it. The clouds had nothing more to vouchsafe.

Today is going to be another fine sunny day.

Not Keen On Crowds
2026-07-26 11:19 poliphilo
I don't think I'm exactly agoraphobic. Phobia means fear- and crowded, noisy spaces don't actually frighten me- I just don't like having to calculate every step so as not to be bumping into people and having to continually apologize and be apologized to. We were at the Bernhard Barron Care Home's Summer Fair yesterday and it was nice enough but the smallish spaces were full of people and the people were going yammer-yammer-yammer and I was happy when Ailz suggested it was time we left.

Entertainment was provided by Ragged Phoenix Morris Troupe who operate, if I've read their stuff right, out of the village of Berwick- just up the road. I do enjoy Morris- the thumpy-thump music, the loony costumes, the anti-authoritarianism, the undertones of pagan philosophy and practice....

Early In The Morning
2026-07-25 11:50 poliphilo
This morning my mood changed as if someone had flipped a switch. I was sitting in a chair with my gaze unfocused, feeling glum and suddenly I was focusing again and feeling cheerful.  "I chose to live this moment," I thought to myself. "Might as well enjoy it." What exactly was I looking at when this happened? I was looking at a pile of little boxes containing something medicinal of Ailz's....

Being cheerful again I took my little folding table out onto the patio and drank a second cup of tea in the open air. I have been watching two seagull chicks growing up on the neighbour's chimney stack. Recently I have been only seeing one. It's now losing it's fluff, growing proper plumage and when it spreads its wings they look capable of flight.  Today it has quit the stack and is padding about on the sloping roof below, poking its beak into the moss in search of food and going peep, peep, peep.  Its parent, who had been watching from on high, swooped down and regurgitated what looked like a lump of bread and the chick was terribly excited and gobbled it down.....

Then Damian knocked on the door because he had a tap to fix for us. He was saying he'd recently found out that his mother was six years older than he'd thought. "But Irish mothers don't talk to their sons about things like that". "Did you grow up sexually segregated?" I asked. And he said "Yes." And I said, "Me too". He did it in robustly Catholic Ireland, I did it because my aspirational Middle-class English parents sent me to a succession of single sex schools. Sexual segregation is something that both our societies have been abandoning over my lifetime- and a jolly good thing too.....

Judy mentioned Tim Rice in an email. She assumes he's right-wing. Since he's the most famous living product of my single-sex senior school, I agreed that he probably is- "in a cozy, comfortable, Downton Abbey sort of a way."

Lacking Stamina
2026-07-24 10:50 poliphilo
I've not been wholly well- but then at 75 is one ever? I lack stamina. I get energy in packets. I unwrap them with glee, use the contents, subside back into philosophy. The weather continues to be hot. Sometimes clouds appear. Rain may be coming soon- or then again it may not.

A homeless man came to the Meeting for Worship. He didn't look homeless, he had a phone- so good for him. By the time we shifted from silence to coffee and cake I'd used up an energy packet and didn't feel like dealing with his stories of suffering. Others had the resources though, Ailz in particular, and I let them make the helpful moves and simply made the occasional reactive remark to show I wasn't wholly absent. We've built a community at Eastbourne Friends. It's not big but it has a certain strength and resilience. My feeling is it will have more and more to do as time goes on and the old world order crumbles.

The homeless guy left his phone at the Meeting House. We drove round looking for him. Eventually he borrowed a phone off a friend and called his own and we were able to return it to him at the entrance to the pier. He says he'll come to the Meeting on Sunday. A lot of people in his kind of bind say this and don't carry through.....

The Siege of Krishnapur suits my mood. Farrell's somewhat absurd but not unloveable people carry on from day to day, waiting for relief, waiting for relief....

I had a dream about the King laat night. He was walking his dog in hill country with a friend. It had been revealed that he'd been converting large useful metal objects into the gaudy chains of office he wore to work and being suggested his reputation would never recover.

It Continues
2026-07-23 10:16 poliphilo
I had hoped it might rain yesterday. The Met office said it might- or at least that the possibility was a little greater than it had been. Around midday promising brown clouds showed up and mostly covered the sky but they didn't let anything fall and by evening they were gone.

The heatwave continues. 

A Bad Night, A Lazy Day
2026-07-22 21:35 poliphilo
I was a little feverish last night and didn't sleep well. Why can't I dream of fairyland? I wondered.  Towards morning I found myself thinking about death and how delightful it must be....

Today I've been slowly putting myself back together.

I'm reading J.G. Farrell's Siege of Krishnapur. It's rather like War and Peace only funnier.....

Odysseus
2026-07-21 12:37 poliphilo
Homer wasn't writing history. He/She was writing stories set in a far-off time- and the events and characters in them may or may not have had some degree of historicity.

Those poems became foundational documents of the Graeco-Roman civilisation that- in time- spread to the whole of western Europe and then world-wide.

Artists have used the Iliad and Odyssey as quarries since. They have hacked out what served their present moment and adapted it reverently or freely.

The latest such adaption is Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. It isn't a point by point brain-achingly faithful version of Homer's original scripts. And a good thing too. Racists, sexists and transphobes have objected to certain of the things that Nolan has done thereby demonstrating that the Nolan version- whether a masterpiece or not- is both lively and timely. I'm thinking I may have to go see it....

I've written poems all my adult life. Homer gets into them occasionally. Back at the beginning of the century I wrote a series of linked poems about the Iraq War- one of which deals with the story of Achilles hiding out with women to avoid being dragged off to Troy.

So who would make a better Achilles- Brad Pitt or Elliott Page? The internet has been chewing this over for months- often quite offensively- and now it turns out that Page's Achilles isn't in the movie. Heaven only knows how that rumour got wings.

Anyway, here's the poem.....


A Tall Girl

Gifts of silks and mirrors and combs
Are carried in on a bronze shield
To the girls in their burkhas.

A trumpet blows
And a tall girl tips the gear from the shield
And hefts it, stoops and grasps the spear- Achilles.....

Young men cannot dodge their fate.

Odysseus walks him down to a ship
With huge, wide-open eyes at its prow.

Click, Click, Click
2026-07-20 11:25 poliphilo
We are passing through the period the astrologers are calling a crucial turning point, the hinged door between one historical era and the next.

One of them has pointed out that the planets are standing in much the same relationship to one another as they did when the Bastille fell in 1789. Oo er!

So what's happening?

Well, um, Spain won the world cup. Bravo, Espana!

The wars we have going on keep starting and stopping. I'm told that Ukraine is winning the first and Iran has won the second.

And my own country has just acquired a new Prime Minister. Gorgeous George Galloway- who I admire with reservations- says Andy Burnham is an opportunist. "Yes," George," I think, "But is it possible in this reality for a person to get within spitting distance of power without ducking and diving and making compromises?" Anyway, We've had a run of horribly unimpressive P.M.s and I get the feeling that Burnham is a little different. I haven't followed his career closely but I note that he has made himself so popular as Mayor of Manchester that people are calling him "The King of the North". So he's John Snow, right? Well, we'll see......

And anyway change doesn't always arrive with a big, big, bang but with a click, with a series of clicks.....