Famous for fifteen minutes

Ah, the fleeting nature of fame!

Spotted this in Tower Bridge Road, London at the weekend. (I could have done without the American spelling of 'cancelled' - but perhaps I'm too fussy!)

Help - I've been tagged!

I’ve been tagged by Jonathan to choose my favourite French films. Help! I can’t really remember any, as I’m not really a film buff; I’m happy to watch a film once, and that’s that.

As for French films - well I remember the usual stuff, ‘Jean de Florette’, 'The Red Balloon ' etc.
However, one I particularly remember is ‘Blanche’ : this was directed by a Pole, Walerian Borowczyk, (1971) but I suppose it counts as it was filmed in French, in France.

It was an atmospheric tale set in a 13th century court, where the King’s young wife was seduced by the wrong man. The outcome was pretty savage; her lover being drawn behind horses until he was a ‘bleeding piece of earth’ and Blanche herself suffering the dreadful fate of being bricked up. So not what you’d call a jolly film!

But it was filmed beautifully; slowly, the camera allowed to linger. The period setting was meticulously realized, and the music, played on original instruments was authentic and moving. I like that fact that many foreign films are so static and unrushed, refusing to bow to the Hollywood requirement to dash about hither and thither at great head-spinning speed. After all, life is not a series of ‘edited highlights’.

I have no problem with subtitles - in fact if a film is dubbed, I won’t watch it. Dubbing drains all the atmosphere from a film; the sound of the language -whether you understand it or not - is essential to the ‘spirit of place‘
So - not a list I’m afraid, but the best I can do!

Spot the Dog

As though to prove its rural credentials, where other publications might run a ‘Spot the Ball’ competition (which for those unfamiliar with the idea is a photograph of a football game where the ball has been removed; the competitors have to gauge from the position and the demeanour of the players, where the ball is likely to be) our local newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette runs a weekly ‘Spot the Dog’ competition.

Here we have a rural scene of a sheepdog herding a flock of sheep - and yes, the dog has been removed from the photo.the competitors mark with a cross the place where they estimate the dog should be. It is actually quite good fun. A knowledge of the behaviour of sheep is an advantage.

This week's competition photo is at the top of this page; go on, have a go - spot the dog!

Here is the newspaper’s cartoonist Colin Shelbourn’s spin on the topic:

8 August 2003
Major national news: Britain has a hot summer.
Even the Lake District gets a bit hot.

Due to the weather,
this week's ‘Spot The Dog’ competition
has been replaced with ‘Spot The Camel.’

A Cottage by the Sea

A Cottage by the Sea. 1. '3 The Hill'

Some time in the late 1940s my Grandfather bought a small cottage at the seaside. It was in a long, straggling, faded village called Allonby on the Solway coast. The village had been a popular bathing resort in the Victorian era and still had some elegant building, one known as The Baths, and a Reading Room donated by the local Quakers.

Charles Dickens and his friend Wilkie Collins visited the village in the1850s when they were touring, ostensibly researching for their joint story ‘The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices’ (which eventually appeared in 5 parts in Household Words in 1857)
Their characters arrive at the village:

' 'A watering-place,' retorted Thomas Idle, with the pardonable sharpness of an invalid, 'can't be five gentlemen in straw hats, on a form on one side of a door, and four ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a door, and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a boy's legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy's body I suppose on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running away. What are you talking about?'

'Allonby, gentlemen,' said the most comfortable of landladies as she opened one door of the carriage;

'Allonby, gentlemen,' said the most attentive of landlords, as he opened the other. '

The cottage’s address was 3 The Hill - but if it was indeed a hill it must have been only 2 or 3 inches above the surrounding terrain. This was no picture-postcard 'second-home', more a ramshackle make-do-and-mend sort of place.

We were part of a higgledy-piggledy block of back-to-back houses in the middle of a grassy area only a matter of yards from the beach. (the small white block on the left at the top of the picture, between the beck and the beach) They were literally ‘back-to-back’ as number 3 had neither windows nor a door at the rear. We faced onto the green where the Beck ran the length of the village crossed by several white-painted bridges.

On the corner of the block was the Riding School (presided over by Lenny - the heart-throb of many a small girl) - a hanging-out spot for my sister and most of the other visiting children. (I was reluctant as I was afraid of horses!)

The layout of our little house was difficult; the second bedroom led off the first. The ‘bathroom’ had no bath, just a kitchen-style deep enamel sink together with a loo behind a partition. In a recess in the wall was a pile of ancient ‘Tit-Bits’ magazines (left behind by the previous owner) the like of which we had never seen before , and which we children found very amusing. The kitchen was no more than an under-stairs cupboard which had two electric rings on a shelf.

In spite of these limitations we happily spent many weekends, Easter fortnights and long, lazy summer holidays there for several years.

The Idle Apprentices again:

‘The brook crawled or stopped between the houses and the sea, and the donkey was always running away, and when he got into the brook he was pelted out with stones, which never hit him, and which always hit some of the children who were upside down on the public buildings, and made their lamentations louder. This donkey was the public excitement of Allonby, and was probably supported at the public expense. ‘

Old postcard. The Hill is on the far left

'There were fine sunsets at Allonby when the low flat beach, with its pools of water and its dry patches, changed into long bars of silver and gold in various states of burnishing, and there were fine views - on fine days - of the Scottish coast. But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back upon its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious reasons for wishing to bolt from…’

A Winter's Day

Withering and keen the winter comes

While comfort flyes to close shut rooms

And sees the snow in feathers pass

Winnowing by the window glass...

from 'The Shepherd's Calendar' John Clare

But Winter hasn't really come, or at least it paid a fleeting visit last Monday but declined to stay.

I took these pictures of snow over Ambleside, just to prove to myself that we have managed a couple of wintry days, so far.

Off by heart

Scenes from Boarding School Life - 4

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come let me clutch thee:
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet in form as palpable
As this which now I draw

At school we had a system of black-marks (called ‘untidies’) which were meted out by senior girls who inspected common-rooms and cloakrooms daily just before tea. At the end of tea a senior would read out the list of miscreants - and their misdemeanours: a scarf left on the cloakroom floor, a writing-case left on the common-room table, a hockey-boot - not put away in a cloakroom locker.

These were to be reported to Group-leaders next lunchtime. (we had Groups rather than Houses - they had the embarrassingly twee names, Balmoral, Buckingham, Sandringham and Windsor.)

I usually managed two or three Untidies each term.

Oh dear, yet another. I mounted the stairs to the mezzanine where the mysterious pine-clad prefects’ study was, to report to a Buckingham Group Leader - we weren’t allowed to ask for specific people; one took pot luck This time I got the severest prefect, Carol M.

‘I’ve come to report an Untidy’ . I stood on the steps, trying to catch a glimpse of the inner sanctum.

‘Again? Which Shakespeare play are you studying in class? Macbeth? Right, bring your book to me after games..

Later I returned with ‘Macbeth’

She leafed through the book.

‘Right. I want you to learn this short passage off by heart. From ‘Is this a dagger…’ to ‘…this which now I draw’. By Wednesday.’

On Wednesday I made my way to the Study. …art thou not fatal vision.. bounded up the stairs ..or art thou but a dagger of the mind…and knocked on the door…the heat-oppressed brain..

I confronted Carol M. and handed her the book, opened at the marked page.
I took a deep breath:

‘IsthisadaggerwhichIseebeforemethehandletowardsmyhandcomeletmeclutchtheeIhavetheenotandyetIseetheestill.’

I closed my eyes to block out any distractions , and carried on, heady with my own success. I could see the end in sight:

‘…orartthoubutadaggerofthemindafalsecreationproceedingfromtheheat-oppressedbrain…proceedingfromtheheat-oppressedbrain….theheat-oppressed brain..’

But nothing more proceeded from my heat-oppressed brain. Nothing. Time seemed to stand still. I hardly knew where I was any more.

‘You may have another day - come back tomorrow.’

My brain melted with gratitude. I almost liked Carol M. now; after all, if she had chosen to she could have given me a completely new passage to learn.

I started down the stairs.

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain. I see thee yet in form as palpable as that which now I….I'd got it. I'd got it.

I turned to go back, but the Study door was firmly closed. But I knew that tomorrow I would be OK.

I remember those words 50 years later. And the many other poems and prose passages that I learnt ‘off by heart’ . I enjoy letting those words swim around in my head.

And I am grateful for that civilised ‘punishment’.

Post-Christmas Slump, or 'The cure for this ill'

This is the time of year when I unaccountably slide downwards into a mildly negative mood. Perhaps it is because the (excessive) purposefulness of Christmas preparations has gone, and there is nothing yet to replace it.

This morning was overcast, dull, windy, drizzly and utterly gloomy weather-wise. Could I stand going into town - again? During this nothing-will-please-me-today-no-matter-what mood, the several usually pleasant routes into town all seemed uninviting.

What was needed was Action!

‘The cure for this ill
is not to sit still
Or frowst with a book by the fire;
But to take a large hoe
And a shovel also
And dig till you gently perspire’

(not Kipling’s best - but nevertheless wise advice)

In this weather, digging was not an option, so we decided on a vigorous walk. We drove the 9 miles to Windermere, and parked in the village of Bowness. This is perhaps more a small town than a village and in the Summer it can be as crowded as Blackpool. Nevertheless, its situation reminds me faintly of those little towns on the Swiss lakes - an English spin on Vevey.

Today there were only a few locals and hardy visitors around. We had our coffee and a slice of the best lemon meringue pie in Cumbria at ‘Bowness Kitchen’ then did a circuit of Helm Road and Biskey Howe Road, a loop which takes you up to the Biskey Howe viewpoint - a huge reward for minimal effort. (although it doesn’t feel like that for the first quarter of a mile - it’s a bit of a stagger whichever end of the loop you start from)

A pile of twigs in a garden: Biskey Howe Road. I like the range of winter colours:

And above, a mysterious gate leads - where?

The path up to the viewpoint

The rocky outcrop looks like a mountain range from this angle



The viewpoint summit, with a misty Windermere, looking north towards Ambleside:

The summit looking south, towards Newby Bridge:

We rejoin the road...

... down to the village

And back to Bowness and human company again. And although it was raining by now - that typical Lake District rain which is blown in all directions at once, and an umbrella is a liability - our mood was lifted, the endorphins were released, and the ill most definitely cured!

Twelfth Night

There is some disagreement as to whether Twelfth Night is the 5th January - the eve of Twelfth Day, or on the 6th January - the evening of the Twelfth Day. Either way it has come and gone.

So, all the Christmas decorations are down; the tree dismantled, the wreath taken from the front door, the cards read once more then placed into the recylcing box. Why is it such a mournful task?
I'm relieved in one way - they all seem so irrelevant once the Day itself is over. But is it sad because perhaps Christmas once again has not quite lived up to expectations? Am I trying in vain to recapture the magic I felt as a child?

Dad took this photo of my sister and I sitting in front of the fire in our basket chairs c.1952, and accidentally superimposed another picture of us singing carols. But the result was rather nice.

17th Century Twelfth Night merriment.
Now Christmas is past,
Twelfth Night is the last
To the Old Year adieu,
Great joy to the new

'On Christmas Day in the Morning'

The weather this Christmas has been unseasonably mild. We still had a few brave roses nodding doubtfully, and little sprigs of campanula poscharskyana still clinging to life in the front tubs.

I lit the fire on Christmas Day, not because we needed it, but just because Christmas without a fire seems all wrong. So we sat round feeling uncomfortably warm!


Francis Kilvert, a young curate lodging at Ashbrook House, Clyro, during the 19th century, was not so lucky.

Rev. Francis Kilvert

This is his diary entry for Christmas Day 1870:


'Sunday, Christmas Day

As I lay awake praying in the early morning I thought I heard a sound of distant bells. It was an intense frost.

I sat down in my bath upon a sheet of thick ice which broke in the middle into large pieces whilst sharp points and jagged edges stuck all round the sides of the tub like chevaux de frise, [spiked defensive structures] not particularly comforting to the naked thighs and loins, for the keen ice cut like broken glass. The ice water stung and scorched like fire. I had to collect the floating pieces of ice and pile them on a chair before I could use the sponge in my hands for it was a mass of ice.

The morning was most brilliant. Walked to the Sunday School with Gibbins and the road sparkled with millions of rainbows, the seven colours gleaming in every glittering point of hoar frost. The Church was very cold in spite of two roaring stove fires.'

Read more about Francis Kilvert and his Diary here: http://www.smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/guest_authors/Francis%20Kilvert

anno domini 2007

My Christmas - Breughel's Census

Back online! Just in time for the New Year.

Received my new package including a 'livebox' to make our computers wireless. Rather daunting to connect - I could have had it done by my ISP's technician for £65 - but with both my sons home for Christmas, I was saved that expense!

This has been probably our last traditional 'family Christmas' (Mum, Dad & 'the boys') as our eldest is getting married at Easter. So being wirelessly connected 'the boys' (aged 25 & 24) spent most of the time playing a 2-player sci-fi game, 'Red Alert' - one on my desktop and one on my laptop, to the accompaniment of wall-to-wall Simpsons on TV. (Rather touchingly, though, they play these games as a team, both on the same side rather than against each other).

I wonder - if we'd had a daughter, would I get to watch 'Private Life of a Christmas Masterpiece: Breughel's Census at Bethlehem' or perhaps 'Giselle' or 'Cosi fan tutte' ? But, being outnumbered by males 3 to 1, no chance.

So - back to the Blog; but how on earth does one blog? I've forgotten. I was just beginning to get a bit more fluent, and now must start from scratch again. Help!

Their Christmas - 'Red Alert'

Off the Air

Dear Readers,

Sorry, I am Netless at the moment.

My ISP (v21) was taken over by Biscit and for some reason NetServices disconnected all v21 customers without any warning whatsoever!
So now I must wait for NetServices to 'release my MAC' - a migration code without which one cannot sign on with another server!

So - I can only access the net occasionally at my local library.

Hope to resume normal services as soon as possible.

Regards,
anno domini

11th November

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them: no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

This lad - a neighbour of my grandmother in Carlisle - joined the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He was known in the neigbourhood as ‘Little Isaac’ . He was wounded in 1918, and repatriated. He died, aged 21, on 9th November, two days before the end of the 1st World War.

A couple of days later, my mother, who was a small child at the time, remembers seeing the coffin being passed out of the front ground-floor window of the small terrace house where Isaac’s family lived, en route to his funeral. As this was happening, the church bells rang out to mark the Armistice.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes,
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
Anthem for Doomed Youth. Wilfred Owen

These sentimental postcards were produced during the First World War for soldiers and their girlfriends. (But I suppose they had much to be sentimental about)

'Nobody reads my Blog'

No time to blog this week - so I'm cheating a bit:


T-shirt for despairing bloggers from: http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp?affid=-1&productID=483

Mug, cushion and sweatshirt ('Everything you do can and will be used as blog material')

from www.cafepress.com/buy/blogging

Gunpowder , Treason & Plot

Remember, remember

the fifth of November -

Gunpowder treason and Plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

In the early '70s I bought this old prayerbook in a junk shop in Fleet Road, near South End Green, Hampstead. It was printed in Cambridge in 1766 during the reign of George III. (On the endpapers of the book are various handwritten names and snippets from previous owners - but that's another story)

Frontispiece. Book of Common Prayer, 1766

The book includes a form of prayer - long since dropped - to be used on the 5th of November as a thanksgiving for the deliverance of King James from the gunpowder plot.

The service includes this contemporary prayer - strange to think that the sentiments expressed were 'politically correct' at the time!

Almighty God, who hast in all ages shewed thy power and mercy,

in the miraculous and gracious deliverances of thy Church,

and in the protection of righteous and religious Kings and States,

professing thy holy and eternal truth, from the wicked conspiracies, and malicious practices of all the enemies thereof:

We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for the wonderful and mighty deliverance

of our gracious Sovereign King James the First, the Queen,

the Prince, and all the Royal Branches, with the Nobility,

Clergy and Commons of England, then assembled in Parliament,

by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter,
in a most barbarous and savage manner,

beyond the examples of former ages....

There is also this prayer thanking God for the arrival of William of Orange in 1688 (also on 5th November):

..God...didst likewise upon this Day wonderfully conduct thy servant King William

and bring him safely unto England , to preserve us from the attempts of our enemies

to bereave us of our Religion and Laws...

It is hard to imagine such prayers being uttered in churches today.

Read about the Gunpowder Plot here:

http://www.gunpowderplot.parliament.uk/

The Plotters:

The Outcome:

Hanged, drawn & quartered