Herry's Journal

Favourite Places - Mottisfont Abbey

2012-01-26T08:04:00.003Z

Mottisfont Abbey in winter

Thoughts on SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-20T16:24:00.000Z

As a newcomer to this discussion, I have been looking at some of the il-tempered arguments that are raging around the proposed SOPA and PIPA Bills currently being considered by the US Congress and Senate.

The essence of the problem is that the internet has made the sharing of spoken, written, sung and photographed material incredibly easy, and the bodies that exist to protect such material from being shared without payment to the copyright holder, like the Motion Picture Association of America, are being rendered obsolete - and in their death-throes are thrashing around without regard to the underlying issues and what should be done about them.

It's interesting to start from the fundamentals; and the thought that sharing itself not a zero-sum game. Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

The same is true of physical works. While physical property rights are usually 'rivalrous', intellectual property rights are non-rivalrous. If you make a copy of something, the enjoyment of the copy does not does not prevent enjoyment of the original.

But the Motion Picture Association and others lined up alongside them use intemperate language that clearly shows that they believe intellectual property rights are akin to real property rights and illustrate this confusion by frequent use of terms like 'criminal', 'piracy' and 'copyright theft'. The unauthorised use of copyright material is not a criminal but a civil matter, and the criminal law should not be used to deal with it except in the most egregious cases - such as those involving serious fraud.

The problem is that the concepts are dominated by money and big business trying to protect the 'rents' that they derive from their patent and copyright monopolies. Although patent law is somewhat outside the scope of this debate and is far more defensible, most people scorn the pharmaceutical companies for concentrating on creating patents for 'first-world' drugs and at the same time refusing to release from patent drugs that could then be made much more cheaply. And the worrying notion that certain useful gene sequences can be patented has made big pharma's position even less acceptable.

These perceptions add to the righteous indignation of those who think that the whole concept of unilaterally setting high fees for unselected chunks of copyright material is inequitable. This has been shown dramatically true by the success of iTunes, where users are quite happy to pay for legitimate downloads since a reasonable sum is charged for the individual songs that the users actually want.

The same is true of films and DVDs. As soon as DVDs come down in price to something reasonable, people buy them in handfuls. If the film companies don't want to sell them for those prices because their films cost too much to make, they should make cheaper, better films and pay the 'talent' much less. There is no universal law which says that Hollywood stars have to be paid $20m a picture, and the idea that we made much better films now than we used to when they cost so much less to make, is laughable.

Of course, Google and other aggregators of content have created a world in which most material is actually free to read and view, even if is originally copyright - as are millions of YouTube videos of professional performances. It's not impossible that one day we will have to pay for access to YouTube - and would probably willingly do so if the fee was reasonable. Similarly some newspapers have successfully found ways to charge small amounts for access, while others have built up sufficient advertising revenue to continue to offer their content for free.

The general public will not now accept an agenda that both excessively criminalises copyright infringement and at the same time walls off of the internet just to protect the high profits of big business. Instead they want the major producers and publishers of content to amend their business models to allow the production of content at a cost that the public is willing to pay.

Click here for an Infographic as to how the bills were supposed to work

Favourite Views - the Gold Coast

2012-01-12T14:03:00.000Z

The Beach at Burleigh Heads looking towards Surfers Paradise, after a cyclone

2012-01-10T20:15:00.000Z

I am sometimes gently chided for spending a lot of time at my desk. It's certainly true, but whereas the implication is that I should be doing something more worthwhile or undertaking some more social activity, the truth is that so much takes place on one's computer these days that it's very difficult to avoid being on it a great deal.

Take ordinary correspondence, for instance. That has almost entirely migrated to the computer, either on e-mail or as typed out letters or printing one's photographs to send as postcards. And it's easy to forget the amount of time our parents devoted to handwritten correspondence; their accumulated letters attest to this, and most of it was written at a writing desk. And of course, those letters required time to stamp and post as well, and a visit to the post office would count as a social activity.

Almost everything that once took time at post office and bank counters can now be done on one's computer. Our parents paid bills by writing cheques and posting them off. There were no standing orders or direct debits so they had to write a cheque for each bill. Of course they bought their tax discs at the counter and collected their pensions there too. All were potentially social activities - as I discovered when collecting my father's pension; the woman behind the counter clearly loved his visits! Now all are done on line and that social interaction is lost, as it certainly doesn't occur at one's desk!

Many hobbies too have moved to the computer. All desk-based hobbies certainly, except perhaps jigsaw puzzles (though even they can be replicated there). Of course tinkering with motorcycle engines in the garage or collecting stamps will always be un-computerised, but they were hardly social activities either. And for some people computer games have become a completely new and absorbing hobby. In fact, computer games are often quite social as they can be played against someone else. And some people play bridge and chess on line with others across the world with great enjoyment.

My hobby of photography, which I have pursued since the early 70s, used to result in many trips to Boots to get films developed, and much time spent pasting the better photographs into albums and writing captions. And both were at least partly a social activity as the choice of photos to be preserved was probably something to be discussed on the sofa, rather than alone in one's study looking at a computer screen while simultaneously editing the photos and uploading them to Flickr.

Keeping up with family and friends too, which once involved postcards, letters and expensive phone calls is now the preserve of Skype and Facebook.

Dealing with banking, insurance and investments is also now a largely on-line occupation, but they were usual solitary actives anyway. Catching up with the news and listening to music are also less social than they used to be with the TV and hi-fi, though the totally new pastime of watching videos on YouTube is often a shared activity.

So much of what we used to do that once involved at least some social interaction has moved onto one's desktop, and new ways of keeping in touch have developed to such an extent that the use of letters, postcards and the telephone have declined dramatically.

And one could probably say that social interaction at home has diminished, but by much less than is commonly thought given the number of activities that were always solitary. But we would do well to mind the chiding, nevertheless!

The Royal Hospital Carol Service 2011

2011-12-16T10:17:00.001Z

The Royal Hospital Carol Service was held in the glorious Wren chapel on 15th December and was as usual packed out. The chapel choir under Ian Curror is one of the finest in London and they performed flawlessly, especially in the singing of the extraordinary medley of carols by John Willcocks - A Christmas Pudding - which got a round of applause. Click here for some photos from the event and here for a video of the opening verses of 'Once In Royal David's City'.

Thomas Miller Carol Service 2011

2011-12-15T08:16:00.002Z

The Thomas Miller carol service was held at St Katherine Cree Church on 14th December and was very well attended by current and former staff. The firm has contributed to the restoration of the church as it has been connected with it for many years from the days when the firm was at 14-20 St Mary Axe (the site of the Gherkin today), Mitre Square and is still close by at 90 Fenchurch St.

The history of the church is interesting as it dates back to 1108. The present building was put up in 1631 and is the only Jacobean and Neoclassical church in London. The organ was built in 1686 by 'Father' Smith and rebuilt by Henry Wills at the end of the 19th C and has been played by Handel, Purcell and Wesley. The bells were originally placed in the tower in 1754 and had been silent for over 100 years until they were restored in 2007. They are referred to in the song 'Oranges and Lemons' as the 'Maids in White Aprons'.

After the Great Fire the church remained standing and was used by the Livery Companies to serve food to the workers as the livery halls were rebuilt. Coats of arms representing the then seventeen Livery Companies can be seen on the ceiling. 'Paradise Lost' was printed in a room off the nave at about the same time.

A previous post recalls some additional history.

Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair

2011-12-08T06:36:00.001Z

The Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair was held at the Drapers' Hall on 5th December, where more than 50 stalls sold cakes, clothes, silver, china, belts and gloves, chocolate, scents, jewellery, books and gifts of all kinds, to the accompaniment of carols from The Treblemakers. Champagne, coffee and sandwiches were available for those who needed a break. The event was even more splendid and better attend than in previous years and raised significant sums for the charity, the Drapers donating their premises for free. Click here for some photos and here for a video of the carol singing.

Favourite Rivers - the Itchen

2011-11-27T22:31:00.001Z

The Itchen in autumn - with St Catherine's Hill behind

In Praise of Cats - “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry”

2011-11-25T06:51:00.001Z

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For First he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.

For Secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For Thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore-paws extended.

For Fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For Fifthly he washes himself.

For Sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For Tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually – Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is affraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly,

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

Christopher Smart (1722-71)

With acknowledgement to my favourite blog: Spitalfields Life

Favourite Corners of London - Victoria

2011-11-22T06:56:00.001Z

Gastronomia Italia

One of my favourite corners of London is Victoria, round the back of the station, centred on Wilton Road and Warwick Way These streets form a village where you will find three of my favourite shops and cafes, Rippon Cheese and Gastronomia Italia in Tachbrook St and Delicias de Portugal in Warwick Way, all of them introduced to me by my old friend Francis. Rippon really is just a cheese shop. It has a small entrance hall in which cheeses are wrapped and money taken, but all the cheeses are displayed in a cold room behind reached through a heavy hanging plastic curtain. One needs to know what you buy as the selection is so great, and one can't take long because of the cold, but each cheese is in perfect condition and invariably delicious. As well as a very fine selection of English artisanal cheeses, France and Spain are fully represented, and unexpected places like Finland provide extra interest.

Next to Rippon is an iconic Italian deli, Gastronomia Italia (pictured above) where one can find every shape of Italian delicacy. I go there principally for their gorgeous crispy and salty cheese biscuits (Barilla Sfoglia di Grano) - and a quick macchiato. Then on to Delicias de Portugal in Warwick Way where one can select a famous and delectable cheese (Terra Nostra - like an Edam, in a red wax sleeve) and some other unusual delicacies, like very finely cut smoked pork loin. There are tables outside where one can nibble a piece of Portugese cake with a cup of their delicious milky coffee.

Service is of course from people from the region who know their stock and are happy to talk and advise. Everything here is authentic and things are always offered in slivers to try first. One doubts that even 1% could be found in a supermarket.

The Heaver Estate, Balham

2011-11-18T21:29:00.001Z

View Larger Map

Much of 18C Balham was owned by the Duke of Bedford, including 150 acres of prime farmland known as 'Charringtons'. A century later, with farming in decline, the Bedford family sold the land to Richardson Borradaile, a wealthily merchant and MP, who built Bedford Hill House - a beautiful ivy-clad mansion situated where Veronica Road is now, roughly between Nos 12 and 18.

1i 1843 the house and its estate were sold to William Cubitt, brother of the builder Thomas Cubitt. Together they improved the house and grounds, adding an ornamental lake which lay by Elmbourne Road - between Manville and Huron. The family enjoyed uninterrupted views towards Balham until 1855 when a railway embankment was built along Balham High Road and Bedford Hill. A year later Balham Station opened and landowners were put under pressurev to release land for much-needed homes.

Alfred Heaver was an ambitious and visionary house builder when he acquired the now empty house and parkland. Ritherdon Road was the first to be laid out in 1888 and was to be the main access to the estate. That same year Heaver applied to construct Streathbourne, Drakefield and Louisville Roads across the grounds of Elms Farm and the nearby mansion Streatham Elms, and by the time they were completed in 1892, he was already building more roads running north off Ritherdon Road. With around twelve different styles of property, the Heaver Estate had now reached the neglected gardens around Bedford Hill House and when Veronica Road was built in 1897, it was demolished.

On 4th August 1901, at the age of 60, Alfred Heaver was shot in the back and head as he walked to church with his wife in the village of Wescott near Dorking. The assailant, who turned the gun on himself, was his sisters's husband James Young. The inquest stated that had had a grudge against his brother-in-law for many years and had even filed down the ends of the bullets to cause him maximum injury.

Although Heaver did not live to see the completion of his estate, it is considered to be one of the finest examples of 19C suburban development and was made a conservation area in 1978.

Sullivan Thomas

The Rev Hamilton Lloyd 1919 - 2011

2011-11-02T05:45:00.000Z

Ham Lloyd at home

A very dear friend, Hamilton 'Ham' Lloyd, the vicar of Litchfield, died on 29th October 2011, aged 92. Ham was finest of men, noble, erudite and open-hearted. A fine cricketer and raconteur and a man of deep faith as well as love of country, he treated everyone the same - from the bishop and the squire to parishioners of every rank - and was equally loved by all.

This short obituary has appeared in the Whitchurch and Litchfield Parish Magazine:

The Reverend Hamilton Lloyd

9th July 1919 – 29th October 2011

in memoriam

Hamilton Lloyd, “Ham” died on 29th October 2011. His life spanned 92 years. He was born just after the end of the First World War in Birchgrove, Swansea and was educated at Cardiff High School before going up to Oxford to read history. He was the only child of William and Hilda Lloyd.

Whilst at Oxford the Second World War broke out and he joined the University Air Squadron and thence the Royal Air Force. He flew spitfires and hurricanes.

Owing to the development of an eyesight problem he could not continue to fly for the duration of the War and decided to train for ordination in the Church of England. He attended Ripon Hall Theological College, Oxford in 1942 and married Suzanne Moon. It was to be wonderfully happy marriage that lasted for over 65 years. They had one son, Christopher.

Hamilton was ordained in 1944 and served as curate at St. Charles the Martyr, Falmouth, Cornwall. In 1947 he became Rector of St. Gerrans with St. Anthony in Roseland. After four years he left the Diocese of Truro and joined the Diocese of Winchester. The family moved to Bournemouth where Hamilton oversaw the building of a new church, Holy Epiphany.

The move from Holy Epiphany to All Hallows, Whitchurch came in 1960. At that time the united benefice was made up of Whitchurch and Tufton. During his tenure Litchfield was added. After many happy years, including many games of cricket, Hamilton and Suzanne moved to the parish of St. Michael and All Angels, Lyndhurst and stayed there until he reached the retirement age of 65.

But retirement was not for him and he gladly accepted the invitation to look after the little church of St. James the Less at Litchfield. This he continued to do until he died – some 28 years. The last service he took was Harvest Festival on 2nd October this year.

His second wife, Cecilia, survives him as does his son, Christopher, four grandsons and five great grandchildren.

He will be sadly missed - as will his monthly musings from Litchfield which he penned for the parish magazine.

Fine Cell Work at the Glaziers' Hall

2011-10-25T06:29:00.000+01:00

Help For Heroes tapestry commissioned from Fine Cell

Following the success of previous livery hall exhibitions - at Drapers' Hall in 2008 and the Leathersellers' in 2009, Fine Cell held their autumn 2011 livery company selling exhibition at the Glaziers' Hall, on the south bank of the Thames beside London Bridge where the principal rooms have a stunning view of the City.

London Bridge and the Fishmongers' Hall from the Glaziers

The exhibition was hugely well attended and raised significant sums for the charity, which teaches prisoners to sew cushions and tapestries in their cells. Fine Cell aims to 'train prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework undertaken in the long hours spent in their cells to foster hope, discipline and self esteem. This helps them to connect to society and to leave prison with the confidence and financial means to stop offending'.

Click here for some photos of the event.

Shades of the Past

2011-10-24T16:16:00.000+01:00

When I was a child, my father sometimes took me for a walk in the late afternoon. We would wander down through the pasture, not hurrying. He would tell me the names of the trees, point out a bird's nest so well hidden that the careless eye would never see it. Sometime, if the day was uncommonly warm, he would say to me 'Walk in my shadow, I'll be your shade'.

Even now, I recall how good it was to be a child, becoming aware of the natural order of life, watching the miracles of the changing seasons, marvelling at the mysteries that even my father couldn't explain. I walked with his safe in his shadow, protected by the shade he provided me.

One day we discovered that I had grown too tall to fit into his shadow. We didn't speak of it. We just both knew that the time had come for use to walk side by side - each casting his own shadow.

Later, I came to understand that the shadow of my father was as it was because of who he was: big enough, wise enough, strong enough to be my shelter till I was sufficiently strong to step outside and walk my own way.

My father gave me the best of himself - his shadow and his substance

JB via SW

Early Autumn Morning

2011-10-03T07:01:00.004+01:00

The water meadows beside the Test at Whitchurch on a spectacular October morning. Click here for some more photos

Favourite Poetry - October

2011-09-17T06:03:00.003+01:00

Dew and sun beside the Test

The green elm with the one great bough of gold
Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one , –
The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,
Harebell and scabious and tormentil,
That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,
Bow down to; and the wind travels too light
To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;
The gossamers wander at their own will.
At heavier steps than birds’ the squirrels scold.
The rich scene has grown fresh again and new
As Spring and to the touch is not more cool
Than it is warm to the gaze; and now I might
As happy be as earth is beautiful,
Were I some other or with earth could turn
In alternation of violet and rose,
Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,
And gorse that has no time not to be gay.
But if this be not happiness,—who knows?
Some day I shall think this a happy day,
And this mood by the name of melancholy
Shall no more blackened and obscured be.

Edward Thomas

Favourite Poetry - Hiawatha

2011-09-12T07:13:00.000+01:00

I had forgotten how much I used to like Longfellow's Haiwatha (full text behind the link)

Downward through the evening twilight,
In the days that are forgotten,
In the unremembered ages,
From the full moon fell Nokomis,
Fell the beautiful Nokomis,
She a wife, but not a mother.

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest...

Favourite Places - the Boat House

2011-09-09T08:20:00.001+01:00

The boat house, somewhere in deepest Sussex

Favourite Places - Mudeford

2011-08-28T10:31:00.001+01:00

Mudeford is a charming old fishing village at the narrow entrance to Christchurch Harbour distinguished by a having its main beach (the Spit) separated by the harbour channel and reachable only by ferry. Over the years a superb collection of colourful beach houses have been constructed on the Spit and are now highly sought after. From them one can have a clear view of the Needles at the western end of the Isle of Wight.Click here for some more photos

Lots Road Power Station

2011-08-28T10:16:00.001+01:00

Lots Road Power Station, Chelsea, which once supplied the electricity for the Underground, seen across a muddy Thames from the Battersea side. Click the photo for a larger view

Favourite Places - Lainston House

2011-08-20T09:33:00.001+01:00

Lainston is a classic late C17th country house outside Winchester, for many years the home of the Craig-Harvey family. Now an hotel, it retains all the old house's beautiful features but one can now eat outside on the tented terrace and enjoy the superb view of the lime avenue and parkland below. Click here for some more photos

Favourite Places - A Hampshire Garden

2011-08-05T14:17:00.003+01:00

The summerhouse

I am not going to reveal where this enchanting place is as it's of course a private house - except that it lies in my beloved county of Hampshire. But you can click below for some more photos and dream of the peace and beauty that lies among these fields. Favourite Places - A Hampshire Garden

The Velveteen Rabbit

2011-07-31T21:07:00.005+01:00

Illustration by William Nicholson

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

THE Velveteen Rabbit

OR
HOW TOYS BECOME REAL

by Margery Williams

This has strong echoes of my favourite piece from Le Petit Prince - the Story of the Fox

The Joy of Cricket

2011-07-24T15:33:00.005+01:00

Lords

Ok, this one's going to be a tough sell. Cricket is probably the least known and understood of the major games played internationally. And those who play it are only countries with long ties to Britain such as India and Australia (though not the US or Canada) and as with football and rugby, it is a game which owes its development and spread to being part of the unvarying curriculum of the the British public schools.

Lords

I have just been lucky enough to be asked by a member of the MCC to visit Lords for the third day of the Test Match between England and India. It was an enthralling spectacle for one who understands the game; a crashing bore for anyone that doesn't. For one, each game is played over five days and a single innings by one side can last two or three days. And a single innings by one batsman can also last as long, though it rarely does.

Hurstbourne Priors Cricket Ground, Hampshire

By chance, I grew up a few miles away from the ground where cricket was supposed to have first been played in about 1750 - Broadhapenny Down in Hampshire, beside which is a pub, The Bat and Ball, dedicated to the game. And when young my brother and I played endless games of cricket on the lawn at home, with straw bales behind the wicket to stop the ball.

Its appeal has been endlessly evoked in literature; from the classic description of a village cricket match in 'England Their England' to the dry prose of the almanack of cricket, Wisden. But this short piece from an Australian summarises its appeal concisely:

'Cricket invokes passion among the one billion people who play it. And Test cricket is the most passionate of all, with national pride bubbling close to the surface of the match.

International relations can be soured by controversy; in the 1930's Bodyline Test, the English captain's tactic to play the man led directly to serious calls for Australia's secession from the Commonwealth. Prime ministers and the king intervened.

The passion grows from the spirit of the game, its beauty, complexity and subtlety. One has to plan, to have a sense of strategy and exercise skill. It is not about might, but about psychological confrontation and domination.'

See also John Updike on Baseball

Driving Movie

2011-07-21T09:44:00.005+01:00

Driving down Sheep Pond Lane from Corhampton Down towards Droxford and across the A32 at Merington's Garage. Then on over the Meon towards Soberton. Music by The Poges

View Driving Movie - Droxford in a larger map

Favourite Poetry - Poesie mondane, Bestemmia 619

2011-07-13T07:23:00.006+01:00

Assisi, originally uploaded by HerryLawford.

I am a force of the past.
Tradition is my only love.
I come from the ruins, and churches,
and altarpieces, the abandoned
villages on the Appennines or on the Prealps,
where brothers have lived.
Like a madman I wander on the Tuscolana,
On the Appia like a dog without a master.
Or I observe the twilights, and the mornings
over Rome, and Ciociaria, and the world,
as the first acts of the After- History,
which I partake of, by chronological privilege,
from the extreme border of some
buried age.

"Poesie mondane, Bestemmia 619” - Pier Paolo Pasolini

India the Cradle of Language, Astronomy and Science

2011-07-05T15:59:00.012+01:00

Whitefield, Bangalore. Click for large

India was preeminent at unveiling knowledge in the ancient world. The Sanskrit language, which is the mother of all languages, is the oldest, most systematic language in the world. Its numerous verb roots and affixes produce words that give precise expression to diverse ideas - from mythology and philosophy to science and mathematics, from poetry and prose to astronomy and anatomy.

Sanskrit's vast array of words gives it an incredible wealth of expression. There are 65 words for 'earth' and 70 for 'water' alone. By applying various suffixes, the word for 'water' can be multiplied into 280 words to describe specific types of rain.

'The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure - more perfect than Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either'. Sir William Jones, British Orientalist (1746-1794)

The world's first university existed at Takshashila, in the north-west of ancient India, as early as 700 BC. The minmum entrance age was 16 and there were 10,500 students - not only Indians, but people from Arabia, China, Babylonia, Greece and Syria came to study. 68 streams of study were offered, including Vedic literature, logic, grammar, philosophy, medicine, surgery, archery, politics, military strategy, astronomy, astrology, accounting, commerce, documentation, music and dance.

In mathematics, India has always been pre-eminent, inventing the both zero and the decimal system. The earliest records of the zero in writing include an inscription on the Sankheda Copper Plate found in Gujarat dated 585-586 BC. The concept of 'zero' can also be found in Sanskrit texts of the 4th Century BC and is clearly explained in Pingala's Chandah Sutra of the 2nd Century BC. The Brahama-Phuta-Siddhanta of Brahamagupta (7th Century) also contains a lucid explanation of the zero. From here is is said to have been rendered into Arabic books around 770 AD which were then carried into Europe in the 8th Century.

'It was India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols (the Decimal System)....a profound and important idea which escaped the genius of Appolonius and Archimedes, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.' Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician (1749-1827)

The highest prefix used for raising 10 to a power in today's mathematics is 'D' for 1030. As early as 100 BC, Indian mathematicians had specific names for numbers up to 1053. In the Anuyogdwara Sutra, written in 100 BC, one numeral is raised to 10140.

The word 'geometry' seems to have emerged from the Sanskrit word 'gyaamiti' meaning to measure the earth. And the word 'trigonometry' is similar to 'trikonamiti' meaning measuring triangular forms. Euclid is credited with the invention of geometry isn 300 BC but the concept of geometry emerged in India in 1000 BC from the practice of making fire altars in triangular and rectangular shapes. The Surya Siddhantha treatise of the 4th Century describes detailed applications of trigonometry which were not introduced into Europe until the 16th Century.

The value of Pi was known in India by the 6th Century BC. It is given in the Sanskrit text Baudhayana Shulba Sutra as being approximately equal to 3. Aryanhatta in 499 BC calculated its value as 3.1416. In 825 AD the Arabian mathematician Mohammed Ibna Musa affirmed: 'This value has been given by the Hindus'.

The Baudhayana Shulba Sutra shows that Pythagoras's famous theorem was in fact formulated by Baudhayana in the 6th century. He states: 'The area produced by the diagonal of a rectangle is equal to the area produced by it on two sides.'

1000 years before Copernicus published his theory of the revolution of the earth in 1543, Aryabhatta stated that the earth revolved around the sun. 'Just as a person traveling on a boat feels that the trees in the bank are moving, people on the earth feel that the sun is moving.' In his treatise Aryabhatteeyam, he states that the earth is round, it rotates on its axis, orbits the sun and is suspended in space. He further explains that lunar and solar eclipses occur by the interplay of the sun, moon and Earth.

1200 years before Newton, the law of gravity was known to the Indian astronomer Bhaskaracharya. In his Surya Siddhanta he notes: 'Objects fall on Earth due to a force of attraction by the Earth. Therefore the Earth, planets, constellations, moon and sun are held in orbit due to this attraction'.

In Surya Siddhanta, Bhaskaracharya calculates the time taken for the earth to orbit the sun to nine decimal places. The difference between this measurement and a modern measurement is only 0.0002%

Indian astronomers had words for calculations of time as small as 34,000th of a second and as large as 4.32 billion years.

Shushruta, known as the Father of Surgery, practiced his skill as early as 600 BC. He used cheek skin to perform plastic surgery or reshape the nose, ears and lips with incredible results. Modern surgery acknowledges his contribution by referring to this method of rhinoplasty as the 'Indian Method'. The early surgeons had over 125 types of surgical instrument and were so advanced that they could cut a hair longitudinally. Shushruta describes the details of over 300 operations and 42 surgical processes. Ancient texts show that the Indians were among the first to perform amputations, caesarean and cranial surgery. They used medicated cotton pads to heal wounds.

'In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the earth but not adhereing to it, inhabiting cities but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but being possessed by nothing' Apollonius Tyanaeus (Greek traveller, 1st Century)

'If there is one place on the face of this earth where all the dream of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it in India'. Romain Rolland (French philosopher 1886 - 1944)

'The ancient civilization of India differs from those of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece in that its traditions have been preserved without break down to the present day.' Arthur Basham (Australian historian 1914-1986)

'In religion, India is the only millionaire....the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen it once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.' Mark Twain (1835-1910)

From the 'Understanding Hinduism' Exhibition at the Sri Swaminarayan Mandir in North London

Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, London

2011-07-05T12:29:00.004+01:00

Shri Swaminarayan Mandir

The Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, north London, is an incredible edifice. It was designed and constructed entirely according to ancient Vedic architectural texts and no structural steel was used. Almost 5000 tons of marble and limestone were shipped to India and carved by 1500 artisans and then shipped on to London. In all more than 26,300 carved pieces, including intricate designs made with Indian Ambaji marble, were assembled like a jigsaw all within three years. The construction of the mandir was a labour of love for over 3000 volunteers. The ground floor contains an exhibition - 'Understanding Hinduism' - which provides an insight into the Hindu faith. A later post will set out some of the elements of that exhibition.

From the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Exhibition Booklet

Glorious Gardens in the National Gardens Scheme

2011-07-05T10:19:00.000+01:00

No 6, Compton Road, Winchester

I have written before about our glorious gardens, and posted photos of some of the best that I know of, like Adwell, but there is great joy also in more modest gardens. Our National Gardens Scheme allows one to visit these all over the country, often only on one specific day in the year when an otherwise private garden is made available to view, with the proceeds of the small entrance fee going to charity. Click the heading for the photos of two such gardens in Winchester, open only over one weekend in early July.

Adwell Fair

2011-06-19T14:54:00.001+01:00

Adwell House and St Mary's Church

Adwell Fair was held to raise money for the Footsteps Foundation, which provides intensive physiotherapy for children with cerebral palsy, epilepsy, other neuro-motor and undiagnosed genetic disorders. The gardens at Adwell have long been the joy of the family that has lived there for many generations, and although the weather was very changeable, the changing light and skies provided a fine dramatic backdrop to the walled gardens, river walks, woodland, lakes and beautiful trees. Click the heading for a selection of photos.

Early June Morning

2011-06-12T10:17:00.008+01:00

The Orangery garden early on a June Morning

I still can't find a way of capturing the immediate and present beauty of a June morning as one comes out of the house for the first time into warm sunlight amid the soft buzzing of bees.

Freya Stark's wonderful lines are before me; they are placed on the first page of this journal to remind us that even a writer as gifted as she can't capture the now. This photo - a snapshot with an iPhone - only hints at our immediate experience

'No medium has yet been devised for the translation of life into language, nor can any words recall the dazzling fluidity of days. Single yet fixed in sequence, they fall like the shaft of a cataract into time and through it'.

Favourite Places - St James' Park

2011-06-11T08:39:00.000+01:00

I have posted photos of St James' Park before. It's arguably the prettiest park in London and the fine buildings around it allow some unmatched vistas, like this one of the extraordinary architecture of the Horseguards' Building offset by the towers of the Foreign Office overtopped in turn by the London Eye.

Favourite Places - Chilcomb, Winchester

2011-05-27T07:04:00.004+01:00

Chilcomb, Winchester

I have been spending a lot of time in Winchester lately. It's such a beautiful city, and as someone said yesterday on Twitter, the walk from the Square through the Cathedral Close out to the College and Kingsgate St and then on though the water meadows (where Keats composed his 'Ode To Autumn') to St Cross must be one of the finest in the country. But Winchester is also blessed as it lies in glorious Hampshire countryside and is watered by the clear chalk streams of the Itchen. The little village of Chilcomb is closest to the city. It's also the site of an Army firing range and so is curiously peaceful.

Click the heading for more photos and here for a report on the Drapers' Almshouse outing to Winchester in 2009

The Drapers' Almshouses

2011-05-25T07:56:00.004+01:00

Add caption

The Drapers' Livery Company maintain some 180 almshouses on three sites around London, continuing a tradition initiated by bequests from wealthy members of the company in previous centuries. The almshouses at Edmanson's Close, Tottenham are a fine example of Victorian philanthropy, and are co-incidentally only short distance from my great-grandfather's house at Downhills (He was also a liveryman. The house was torn down in 1901).

Downhills, Tottenham, once the home of John Lawford

The almshouses, though seemingly old fashioned by modern standards, provide perfect sheltered accommodation for some 80 elderly residents in extraordinarily tranquil setting, surrounded by grass and trees although in the middle of a busy suburb. Click the heading for some photos of the almshouses and their garden.

Chelsea Flower Show 2011

2011-05-24T06:56:00.001+01:00

The Chelsea Flower Show this year was held at the end of the sunniest and driest spring anyone could remember and the exhibitors struggled to keep their plants from flowering too early. Nevertheless the show gardens were superb and the artisan gardens - like the one shown above - as enticing as ever. My favourite designer, Ishihara Kazuyuki, almost withdrew following the Japanese earthquake but decided to come with a more conventional design.

Click the heading for a selection of photos from the show.

Chelsea Flower Show 2010
Chelsea Flower Show 2008
Chelsea Flower Show 2007

Favourite Poetry - Tall Nettles - Edward Thomas

2011-05-22T19:56:00.008+01:00

Tall Nettles

TALL nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.

This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

Edward Thomas

Favourite Flowers - Banksian Rose

2011-05-03T21:55:00.003+01:00

I rarely post photos of flowers - apart from the bluebells in my favourite wood in Wiltshire - as they are so difficult to photograph well, but the Banksian rose in the garden is looking so fine this year that I have made a special effort to capture it.

Those who would like to see some really good photographs of flowers - usually in their natural garden settings - should look at Nigel Burkitt's photos on Flickr.

Wandle Road Royal Wedding Party

2011-05-02T10:26:00.000+01:00

The residents of Wandle Road, including some who had moved away but retained close friends in the street, held a party to celebrate the Royal Wedding on 29th April, beginning immediately after the Palace balcony scenes and going on late into the night. The road was closed and cleared of parked cars and tables set up along the middle of the street with stalls on the pavement and in driveways, with food being laid out and barbecued in the playground of Finton House. Many of the houses were hung with flags and the street decorated with bunting. There was face painting and pavement drawing, table tennis and welly throwing and a tug of war (won by the girls!). The local fire engine paid us a visit and allowed the children to investigate its mysteries and a well stocked tombola was complemented by a raffle of decent prizes, such as commissioned paintings, a dinner for six cooked at one's home and many gifts donated by local businesses, with the proceeds going to the SMA Trust for research into spinal muscular atrophy.

At the end of the day, after prizegiving and superb rock guitar performance by Mark Fiddes and the Wandling Minstrels, our resident opera singer, Friederike Krum, sang a selection of songs from the steps of her house, ending with the most moving of all hymns, 'I Vow To Thee My Country', before the release of a mass of red, white and blue balloons into the sunset. And although some party-loving souls later relit the barbecues and returned to the street for supper, most treated that ceremony as the perfect finale of a most memorable street party.

Click the heading for some photos from the event.

The History of Battersea and Wandsworth Common

2011-04-29T08:08:00.003+01:00

Spencer Park

Until 1850, only about 300 people lived in the area known as South Battersea. The land had originally belonged to the St John family as Lords of the Manor of Battersea. Henry St John became the first Viscount Bolingbroke after purchasing the title in 1712 and the family are commemorated by a number of streets bearing their name. The land was then purchased by Earl Spencer in the 18th Century and their name also lives in in many road and pub names as well as in Spencer Park, where Earl Spencer built a substantial house.

A banker, Robert Dent, bought a significant portion of the Spencer's land at the end of the 18th Century and began an ambitious building programme including several large estates and five grand houses facing the Common on 'Five Houses Lane' - now Bolingbroke Grove. Only one of the houses - the former Bolingbroke Hospital - remains today. One of the five houses was lived in by a successful wine merchant, Matthew Charlie. His granddaughter, Marianne, married a Spanish count and became Countess of Morella. Morella Road is named after her. Dent himself lived in the largest and most impressive of the five houses, Old Park. The horseshoe shaped Dents Road took his name in 1881, though one half was later named Gorst Road after Sir John Gorst, a lawyer and Conservative MP, who lived there.

The opening of the Clapham Junction Railway Station in 1863 made the City accessible and the area became a target for developers. Broomwood House and its substantial grounds gave rise to Broomwood, Montholme, Gayville, Devereux and Hiller Roads. The house, which William Wilberforce lived in for several years, was demolished in 1904.

For more than sixty years 24 Morella Road was home to Ida and Louise Cook, two opera-mad spinsters, who helped to rescue dozens of Jews from Hitler's Germany. Their mission was financed by Ida's career as Mills & Boon's most prolific author, writing 130 novels over 50 years. The sisters were posthumously honoured for their bravery in a ceremony at Downing St in 2009.

Some of this history can be found at the reopened Wandsworth Museum. Click here for some photos

[With thanks for Sullivan Thomas]

Russia: The Wild East

2011-04-22T10:16:00.010+01:00

Martin Sixsmith's Russia: the Wild East - explores the history of this great land and for the first time for me explains why Russia's political attitudes and responses seem often threatening and even hostile to habits of thought that we take for granted, being almost inscrutable to those brought up in Western European (and American) society. Even Winston Churchill called Russia 'A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma'.

The most recent episode deals with their terrible 240 years of slavery under the yoke of the unbelievably cruel and barbaric Tartars (led by a descendant of Ghengis Khan) who laid waste to their beautiful capital, then Kiev, while butchering and burning their way across the country in what was a dark age version of 'total war'. Russia lived under the Tartars' autocratic rule for nearly three centuries during the crucial era in which Europe discovered of the Enlightenment and the Renaissance. Russia not only missed out on those great and civilizing influences, but additionally became attached to the arbitrary and autocratic exercise of power and the subjugation of the judicial process to dictatorial whim - as still pertains today. As Sixsmith says "She would never fully catch up with its intellectual, cultural and social values. Instead, a profound admiration for the Mongol model of an autocratic, militarised state began to enter the Russian psyche.This legacy was so deeply assimilated that its influence has marked the way the country is governed right down to the present day."

Click here for a recent review from the Guardian

Click here for some of Ahkatomova's poems which deal with the fear and cruelty of the now slightly more familiar Stalin terror.

This excellent history reminds me of the even finer America: Empire of Liberty by David Reynolds

Favourite Photographers

2011-04-22T08:06:00.002+01:00

Jean Shrimpton at the Dolls' House Museum by Terry O'Neill

I was lucky enough to see two photographic exhibitions in London this week, one of Terry O'Neill's work, and the other of Wim Wenders called Places, Strange and Quiet. Both were fascinating - the Wenders for his vast and atmospheric landscape shots and O'Neill for his wonderful black & white portraits. His photographs had the most immediate impact, as they were all of people well-known to my generation - mostly actors, as well as my favourite model, Jean Shrimpton. Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Paul Newman, Frank Sianatra, the Beatles and the Stones taken informally, Marianne Faithful, Brigitte Bardot, Monica Vitti, Sean Connery, Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood - all the old favourites, beautifully captured.

Click here for my photos from the Terry O'Neill exhibition and here for the Wim Wenders.

Hampshire in Spring

2011-04-22T06:54:00.000+01:00

Favourite Sculpture

2011-04-16T19:50:00.004+01:00

Wanting, Liking, Doing by Luke Dickinson, originally uploaded by onform. Click the heading for his website

See also photos from Barbara Hepworth's Museum here

The Great Churches of the City of London

2011-04-08T11:01:00.001+01:00

Most people probably think of the City of London as a grey place of enormous office buildings. Not so; at least only partly true. The City is also very beautiful, and its wealth ensures that it stays that way. It's scrupulously clean and well-ordered, partly because so few tourists go there, and if one doesn't care for modern office buildings, one can marvel at the 35 glorious churches. They are mostly by Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke and Nicholas Hawksmoor who rebuilt them after the Great Fire of London destroyed no less than 86 of them. These churches and their often hidden churchyards are the gems of the City, beautifully maintained through their association with one or more of the wealthy Livery Companies. Yesterday I visited St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, one of the oldest, and was astonished at its near perfect survival since the C13th - in recent centuries through support with the Butchers' Livery company and others. And on another glorious spring day, I visited St Paul's and was astonished at its scale and magnificence. Click the heading for some photos of St Bartholomew the Great and here for photos of St Paul's.

Favourite Poems - Sowing - Edward Thomas

2011-04-08T10:07:00.002+01:00

One of the visitors to this Journal has suggested this spring-time poem by Edward Thomas.

IT was a perfect day

For sowing; just
As sweet and dry was the ground
As tobacco-dust.

I tasted deep the hour
Between the far
Owl's chuckling first soft cry
And the first star.

A long stretched hour it was;
Nothing undone
Remained; the early seeds
All safely sown.

And now, hark at the rain,
Windless and light,
Half a kiss, half a tear,
Saying good-night.

Edward Thomas - Sowing

Lord Mayor's Lunch for the Soldiers' Charity at the Guildhall

2011-04-07T10:47:00.002+01:00

The Lord Mayor gave the now annual lunch at the Guildhall to raise money for the Soldiers' Charity (ABF) on a glorious spring day. The lunch was attended by the Duke of Kent as well as General Sir Nicholas Parker, the head of the army. Over £100,000 was raised by silent auction. Click the heading for some photos from the event.

United Guilds' Service at St Paul's

2011-04-07T08:18:00.002+01:00

The City Livery Companies come together once a year to commemorate their origins as religious as well as commercial fraternities at a service at St Paul's Cathedral known as the United Guilds' Service. The ceremony itself dates from the Second World War as described in an earlier post, and brings together the Masters, Prime Wardens, Bailiffs and members of the now 108 Livery Companies together with a representative of the Queen (this year the Princess Royal), the Church, represented by the Bishop of London, and the City Corporation in the shape of the Lord Mayor and his Sheriffs. The Dean of St Paul's leads the service and the sermon is given by a distinguished clergyman, this year the Dean of Westminster. On no other occasion do the Monarchy, the Church, and the commercial and charitable sides of the City come together in such a splendid display of pageantry. Click the heading for some photos of St Paul's, though not of the service itself.

Favourite Places - St James' Park

2011-03-24T11:11:00.003Z

Spring in St James' Park. Click the heading for more photos

Hymn to Dear Japan

2011-03-11T09:39:00.010Z

Please click the heading for this moving ode written in the late 1970's by singer / songwriter Masashi Sada. The English subtitles will reveal how poignant his words are.

The Scourge of Piracy

2011-03-02T07:48:00.004Z

I must turn from the mostly peaceful thoughts and scenes depicted in this Journal to a comment on a dreadful man-made scourge that is making the lives of international seafarers in my former profession an increasingly dangerous and fear-filled one.

A new website, Save Our Seaferers, set up by the world's key international shipping bodies, states

Over 800 seafarers are being held hostage by armed gangs of Somali pirates, in appalling conditions, subject to physical and psychological abuse, for up to 8 months. Their ships have been hijacked at sea and they are being held for ransoms of millions of dollars. The human cost to seafarers and their families is enormous.

The website has been set up to help us persuade governments to act more forcefully than they are presently doing against piracy. Wherever you live, you can sign an attached letter which will then be sent your own government.

The problem is actually worse than the website describes, as although initially the pirates rarely killed their seafarer hostages, they are now beginning to torture and kill seafarers in order to hold off counter-attacks and to extract higher and faster ransom payments (Lloyd's List article on 7th Feb 2011)

The only way to stop large-scale piracy is to do what was done in the C19th - declare piracy an international scourge and allow the world's legitimate forces to attack them if they are found at sea. In practice the UN should declare a no-sail area a stated distance off the coast of Somalia and destroy all non-IMO-registered craft found outside it - as well as all hijacked ships being used as motherships by pirates. This would allow fishing and local trade to continue but deny the pirates access to international waters.

Favourite Places - Bluebell Wood in Wiltshire

2011-02-22T22:38:00.002Z

Bluebell Wood at East Kennett in May

I've only reposted this to cheer us up in these cold, damp and dark February days

Shop Design

2011-02-18T11:39:00.003Z

It no doubts attests to a shallow nature, but I love the design of shops, shop windows and their advertisments and take photos of many of the best ones. Click the heading for a selection.

Takeda No Komoriuta

2011-02-05T20:03:00.007Z

The Lullaby of Takeda

This is probaby Japan's most famous lullaby; the gentle song of a child longing for home. But the underlying story is heartbreaking; in the olden days children were sold by their poor parents into often harsh domestic service and couldn't return home until they were twenty years old, by which time their parents were usually gone. It's a story that crosses Asia.

See also an English Nursery song

Dark Side Of The Lens

2011-02-05T14:11:00.000Z

DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.

One of the best videos on photography I have ever seen.

Hampshire Views - Stocks Farm and Old Winchester Hill

2011-01-31T18:25:00.013Z

These somewhat blurred images* are of Stocks cottages under Old Winchester Hill, part of Stocks Farm where I was brought up. The land here has been farmed for countless generations and doubtless even sustained the inhabitants of the Iron Age Fort at the top of the hill. From their vantage point, they (and we today) could see the southern coast of England from Chichester Harbour and the Portsdown Hills, to Southampton Water, the Isle of Wight and the New Forest in the west. Below the hill in the valley to the south is Stocks Farm which we came to in 1950 and sold on my father's death in 2002. Stocks Farm expanded to incorporate neighbouring Harvestgate Farm in 1970 and Little Stocks Farm in Meonstoke, the nearest village, in 1980, but the land remained as it has for centuries, with good well-draining chalk-based soil in the valley and lighter land suitable for grain but also for sheep, on the hills. It's an exceptionally beautiful part of Hampshire, isolated and unspoiled. In addition to being used in this television programme, it also appears briefly in a video on Hampshire (at minute 2.11), but is also the subject of countless of my photos, some of which you can see linked from the heading.

Stocks and Harvestgate Farms and the coast beyond from Old Winchester Hill

Stocks Farm Cottages with the Isle of Wight in the distance from Old Winchester Hill (in September)

*These photos are taken from the television - a repeat showing of Midsomer Murders on ITV1. The scenery was supposed to represent Southern Ireland....

Slideshows and the Little Prince

2011-01-22T19:42:00.003Z

The Powerpoint slideshows that arrive frequently from friends usually contain a series of stunning images backed by a soulful soundtrack, but I'm afraid find them empty unless they are part of someone's story.

Our screens are increasingly being overrun with photoshopped photographs, but they only touch the heart if the friend took them or if they explain why the images are important to them.

I am reminded always of the Story of the Fox and the truths he so poignantly explains to the Little Prince

Read it again here to understand why we feel as we do about this, and so many things in this age.

Favourite Poetry - Akhmatova

2011-01-21T09:30:00.011Z

I first came across Akhmatova when reading The Life of Isaiah Berlin by Michael Ignatieff, and was interested in his veneration of her both for her poetry and for keeping alive 'the soul of Russia' through the darkest days of the revolution and the years of Stalin's terror. He wrote: 'The widespread worship of her memory in Soviet Union today, both as an artist and as an unsurrendering human being, has, so far as I know, no parallel. The legend of her life and unyielding passive resistance to what she regarded as unworthy of her country and herself, transformed her into a figure...not merely in Russian literature, but in Russian history.'
She is also a favourite poet of my daughter Kei, who can appreciate her poetry as it should be read, in Russian.
Requiem

No, not under a foreign sky,
no not cradled by foreign wings –
Then, I was with my people, I,
with my people, there, sorrowing.

Epilogue

I learned to know how faces fall apart,
how fear, beneath the eye-lids, seeks,
how strict the cutting blade, the art
that suffering etches in the cheeks.
How the black, the ash-blond hair,
in an instant turned to silver,
learned how submissive lips fared,
learned terror’s dry racking laughter.
Not only for myself I pray,
but for all who stood there, all,
in bitter cold, or burning July day,
beneath that red, blind prison wall

Dedication
Before this sorrow mountains bow,
the vast river’s ceased to flow,

the ever-strong prison bolts
hold the ‘convict crews’ now,
abandoned to deathly longing.
For someone the sun glows red,
for someone the wind blows fresh –
but we know none of that, instead
we only hear the soldier’s tread,
keys scraping against our flesh.
Rising as though for early mass,
through the city of beasts we sped,
there met, breathless as the dead,
sun low, a mistier Neva. Far ahead,
hope singing still, as we passed.
Sentence given…tears pour out,
she thought she knew all separation,
in pain, blood driven from the heart,
as if she’s hurled to earth, apart,
yet walks…staggers…is in motion…
Where now my chance-met friends
of those two years satanic flight?
What Siberian storms do they resist,
and in what frosted lunar orb exist?
To them it is I send my farewell cry.

I'm now keen to read Valeri Grossman's Life and Fate, which covers the same ground, in prose form, and is thought to the equal of War and Peace.

Treasure Islands and the Avoidance of Tax

2011-01-20T12:17:00.000Z

I have been reading this fascinating book with increased distaste for the concept that one should spend much time and money minimising one's exposure to tax. I have always felt sorry for those who thought that they had to organise their affairs - and even domicile - so as to pay less tax - such as the father of a friend who has to live half his life outside the country, with the result that his family only see him periodically; to those who have moved to Jersey and seem uniformly miserable. And we would no doubt be much wealthier today had my step-grandfather not taken the conscious decision not to shield his wealth from death duties on the grounds that all taxes were properly due to society and the country in which one lived. Should such noble sentiments return (particularly in corporations) we would no doubt be able to reduce the taxes that we do actually pay and care better for our society.

Favourite Poetry - Reluctance

2011-01-20T06:19:00.000Z

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost

The City New Year Service

2011-01-15T07:27:00.004Z

Some of St Michael's Choir at lunch at the Drapers' Hall

The City New Year Service is traditionally held at St Michaels', Cornhill in January and lunch is offered afterwards by the Drapers Livery Company, who have been patrons of St Michael's for 500 years, at their Hall nearby (recently in use as the setting for some of the scenes in The King's Speech). St Michael's vicar, the Rev Dr Peter Mullen, is a traditionalist Anglican of deep learning and of often amusing and outspoken views, who holds services based on the Book of Common Prayer and King James' Bible.

The City New Year's Service follows a traditional pattern of prayers and hymns - including Jerusalem and I Vow To The My Country - and some beautiful anthems from the choir, which, led by Jonathan Rennert, is one of the finest in London. Unlike the choir of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, the female sopranos are taught to sing like trebles, as Rennert believes that most church music was written for boy trebles. As a result, there's a wonderful purity to their voices.

This year the Master Draper, Maj-Gen Adrian Lyons, invited a fellow soldier, Maj-Gen Tim Cross, to give the address. In a superb talk, he pointed to the decline in human values in British society (which he called a 'cut-flower society', a brief and flashy show without roots and leaving no lasting seed) and called for leaders to emerge to reinstate them. His address can be read here.

The Scottish Borders

2011-01-04T11:54:00.005Z

The Countryside above Selkirk. Click for a larger view

The funeral of one of my parents' dearest friends took me to the Scottish Borders for the first time just before New Year where I found a fascinating and beautiful landscape still mostly covered with snow. I also discovered the astonishing ruined abbeys of Dryburgh, Jedburgh, Kelso and Melrose and had time to visit the first two, and leaned much of the history of the area from those ancient buildings. Click the heading for more photos

Favourite Places - Dartmoor

2010-12-27T14:46:00.002Z

Dartmoor on Christmas Day 2010

Favourite Places - Plymouth

2010-12-27T14:42:00.005Z

Plymouth Hoe, Drake's Island and Mount Edgcumbe on Christmas Day

Favourite Places - Stocks Farm

2010-12-20T12:01:00.003Z

Stocks Down Farm in the snow

Thomas Miller Carol Service 2010

2010-12-15T12:23:00.007Z

Thomas Miller's annual carol service at St Katherine Cree Church on 14th December was attended by some 60 people - both current members of the firm as well as a significant number of those who had retired. The fine Jacobean church, said to have been built after a design by Inigo Jones (who was also concurrently building the Mansion House) is is the process of being restored. Much ugly wooden partitioning has been taken out and both the organ and the peal of eight bells reinstated (with assistance from the firm). The west door, closed for over 200 years and through which its consecrating prelate, Archbishop Laud once passed, probably on his way to the Tower...now opens again into Creechurch Lane.

Click here for a links to some favourite carols.

Thomas Miller Carol Service 2008
Thomas Miller Carol Service 2009

The Royal Hospital Chelsea Carol Service 2010

2010-12-11T08:57:00.009Z

The Friends of the Royal Hospital Chelsea Carol Service held on 10th December is one of the loveliest of the Christmas season. Unusually the beautiful Wren chapel has its candle-lit choir stalls in the centre of the nave, creating a wonderfully intimate atmosphere. This year one of the lessons was a fine poem written and read by Alan Tichmarsh which you can read here. A video of the choir singing the first two verses of 'Once in Royal David's City' can be heard here, but the solist was a woman, who's voice lacked the cut-glass purity of a boy's

Click here for the 2009 Carol Service

The Mission to Seafarers Carol Concert 2010

2010-12-09T10:15:00.001Z

The Carol Concert 2009. No photos were allowed this time

The Mission to Seafarers concert of nine lessons and carols was held at St Michael Paternoster Royal on 8th December 2010 in the presence of the Princess Royal, accompanied by the chairman of the trustees, Robert Woods. Lessons were read by the likes of Jeffrey Archer and the choir was from the London Nautical School. Unlike last year, it was not a vintage performance and one wished that they would stick to traditional carols and not attempt jumpy tunes from Moldova.

Clic here for some wonderful on-line carols

Illogical Arguments

2010-12-08T10:12:00.011Z

One of the most annoying things is having a discussion with someone who doesn't follow the rules of logic. A common error is arguing from the particular to the general instead of the other way round. Here are some more of the logical fallacies we encounter, with examples. Identifying them makes one feel better immediately! 

GENERALIZING FROM SELF: I'm a liar. Therefore I don't believe what you're saying.

THE FEW ARE THE SAME AS THE WHOLE: Some Londoners are animal rights activists. Some Londoners wear fur coats. Therefore, all Londoners are hypocrites.

FAULTY CAUSE AND EFFECT: On the basis of my observations, wearing huge trousers makes you fat.

I AM THE WORLD: I don't listen to country music. Therefore, country music is not popular.

IGNORING EVERYTHING SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT THE BRAIN: People choose to be obese/gay/alcoholic because they prefer the lifestyle.

ARGUMENT BY BIZARRE DEFINITION: He's not a criminal. He just does things that are against the law.

ANYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IS EASY TO DO: If you have the right tools, how hard can it be to generate nuclear fission at home.

IGNORANCE OF STATISTICS: I'm putting ALL my money on the lottery this week because the jackpot is so big.

IGNORING THE DOWNSIDE RISK: I know that bungee jumping could kill me but it's three seconds of pure thrill.

SUBSTITUTING FAMOUS QUOTES FOR COMMON SENSE: Remember "all things come to those who wait." So don't bother looking for a job.

IRRELEVANT COMPARISONS: £100 is a good price for a toaster, compared with buying a Ferrari.

CIRCULAR REASONING: I'm correct because I'm smarter than you. And I must be smarter than you because I'm correct.

INCOMPLETENESS AS PROOF OF FACT Your theory of gravity doesn't address the question of why there are no unicorns, so it must be wrong.

IGNORING THE ADVICE OF EXPERTS WITHOUT GOOD REASON: Sure the experts say you shouldn't ride a bicycle in the eye of a hurricane, but I have my own theory.

FOLLOWING THE ADVICE OF KNOWN IDIOTS: Uncle Horace says eating pork makes you smarter. That's good enough for me.

REACHING BIZARRE CONCLUSIONS WITHOUT ANY INFORMATION: My car won't start. I'm certain the spark plugs have been stolen by rogue traffic wardens.

FAULTY PATTERN RECOGNITION: His last three wives were murdered mysteriously. I hope to be wife number four.

FAILURE TO RECOGNISE WHAT'S IMPORTANT: My house is on fire! Quick, call the post office and tell them to hold my mail!

OVERAPPLICATION OF OCCAM'S RAZOR: The simplest explanation for the moon landings is that they were hoaxes.

INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THAT SOME THINGS HAVE MULTIPLE CAUSES: The Beatles were popular for one reason only: they were good singers.

JUDGING THE WHOLE BY ONE OF ITS CHARACTERISTICS: The sun causes sunburns. Therefore the planet would be better off without the sun.

BLINDING FLASHES OF THE OBVIOUS: If everyone had more money, we could eliminate poverty.

BLAMING THE TOOL: I bought an encyclopedia but I'm still stupid.

TAKING THINGS TO THEIR ILLOGICAL CONCLUSION: If you let your barber cut your hair, they next thing you know he'll be lopping your limbs off.

PROOF BY LACK OF EVIDENCE: I've never seen you drunk, so you must be one of those weird people.

BAD ANALOGY: You can train a dog to fetch a stick. Therefore, you can train a cat to do the same.

TOTAL LOGICAL DISCONNECTION: I enjoy pasta because my house is made of bricks.

Also: Correlation does not imply causation (related to "ignoring a common cause" and questionable cause) is a phrase used in science and statistics to emphasize that correlation between two variables does not automatically imply that one causes the other (though correlation is necessary for linear causation in the absence of any third and countervailing causative variable, and can indicate possible causes or areas for further investigation; in other words, correlation can be a hint).^[1]^[2]

The opposite belief, correlation proves causation, is a logical fallacy by which two events that occur together are claimed to have a cause-and-effect relationship. The fallacy is also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "with this, therefore because of this") and false cause. By contrast, the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc requires that one event occur before the other and so may be considered a type of cum hoc fallacy.

Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair

2010-12-07T11:02:00.010Z

The Christmas Fair is now held every year at the Drapers' Hall in early December by the Wellbeing of Women charity. About 50 stalls of gifts, cards, clothes, cheeses, jams, chocolate, the best Christmas cakes, jewellrey, bags, small electronics, gardening things etc are set up around the main rooms at the Hall - and you can sit and have champagne and sandwiches when you need a break. A marvellous way to do 90% of your Christmas gift shopping! Click the heading for more photos and here for photos from the 2009 Fair

Favourite Writings - Gilbert White

2010-12-05T08:26:00.002Z

Venus, with Jupiter and the Moon 2008 (Bullit Marquez/AP)

Before dawn on these crisp cold mornings Venus has been shining astonishingly brightly, reminding me of Gilbert White's famous line

8th February 1782: 'Venus shadows very strongly, showing the bars of the windows on the floors and walls.'

With Samuel Pepys, Gilbert White is perhaps the most famous of all the keepers of journals. He wrote his Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne from 1768 to 1793 when he died. 'No literary work has ever recorded more precisely, more sensitively and yet with less pretension the changing face of the countryside with the passing of the seasons'. (John Julius Norwich)

A Bavarian Christmas Fair in Hyde Park

2010-11-26T20:49:00.000Z

The Bavarian Winter Wonderland Christmas Fair in Hyde Park is a great improvement on past fairs. Lots of high quality shops and cafes as well as some impressive-looking rides. Click the heading for more photos.

Fortnum's Christmas Windows

2010-11-21T08:17:00.002Z

Pieter Claesz.
Still Life with Drinking Vessels

Fortnum & Mason's Christmas window displays are brilliant recreations of Old Master paintings in the National Gallery.

Click the heading to see some more

The Glasgow Boys at the Royal Academy

2010-11-21T08:08:00.000Z

The Royal Academy's exhibition of paintings by the 19th Century Scottish artists known as The Glasgow Boys shows some charming pictures, though 'pioneering' - the description given to them at original Glasgow exhibition from which this comes, is true only in respect to their British contemporaries.

For instance, their efforts at paintings of rural labourers is easily eclipsed by a single example by John-Francois Millet.

Click the heading for some examples.

The Olympic Waterfall in Rio

2010-11-19T14:39:00.002Z

Doubt that London will have anything as spectacular as this!

The Three Questions

2010-11-09T18:18:00.009Z

One day it occurred to a certain emperor that if he only knew the answers to three questions, he would never stray in any matter.

What is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?

The emperor issued a decree throughout his kingdom announcing that whoever could answer the questions would receive a great reward. Many who read the decree made their way to the palace at once, each person with a different answer.

In reply to the first question, one person advised that the emperor make up a thorough time schedule, consecrating every hour, day, month, and year for certain tasks and then follow the schedule to the letter. Only then could he hope to do every task at the right time.

Another person replied that it was impossible to plan in advance and that the emperor should put all vain amusements aside and remain attentive to everything in order to know what to do at what time.

Someone else insisted that, by himself, the emperor could never hope to have all the foresight and competence necessary to decide when to do each and every task and what he really needed was to set up a Council of the Wise and then to act according to their advice.

Someone else said that certain matters required immediate decision and could not wait for consultation, but if he wanted to know in advance what was going to happen he should consult magicians and soothsayers.

The responses to the second question also lacked accord.

One person said that the emperor needed to place all his trust in administrators, another urged reliance on priests and monks, while others recommended physicians. Still others put their faith in warriors.

The third question drew a similar variety of answers. Some said science was the most important pursuit. Others insisted on religion. Yet others claimed the most important thing was military skill.

The emperor was not pleased with any of the answers, and no reward was given.

After several nights of reflection, the emperor resolved to visit a hermit who lived up on the mountain and was said to be an enlightened man. The emperor wished to find the hermit to ask him the three questions, though he knew the hermit never left the mountains and was known to receive only the poor, refusing to have anything to do with persons of wealth or power. So the emperor disguised himself as a simple peasant and ordered his attendants to wait for him at the foot of the mountain while he climbed the slope alone to seek the hermit.

Reaching the holy man's dwelling place, the emperor found the hermit digging a garden in front of his hut. When the hermit saw the stranger, he nodded his head in greeting and continued to dig. The labor was obviously hard on him. He was an old man, and each time he thrust his spade into the ground to turn the earth, he heaved heavily.

The emperor approached him and said, "I have come here to ask your help with three questions: When is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?"

The hermit listened attentively but only patted the emperor on the shoulder and continued digging. The emperor said, "You must be tired. Here, let me give you a hand with that." The hermit thanked him, handed the emperor the spade, and then sat down on the ground to rest.

After he had dug two rows, the emperor stopped and turned to the hermit and repeated his three questions. The hermit still did not answer, but instead stood up and pointed to the spade and said, "Why don't you rest now? I can take over again." But the emperor continued to dig. One hour passed, then two. Finally the sun began to set behind the mountain. The emperor put down the spade and said to the hermit, "I came here to ask if you could answer my three questions. But if you can't give me any answer, please let me know so that I can get on may way home."

The hermit lifted his head and asked the emperor, "Do you hear someone running over there?" The emperor turned his head. They both saw a man with a long white beard emerge from the woods. He ran wildly, pressing his hands against a bloody wound in his stomach. The man ran toward the emperor before falling unconscious to the ground, where he lay groaning. Opening the man's clothing, the emperor and hermit saw that the man had received a deep gash. The emperor cleaned the wound thoroughly and then used his own shirt to bandage it, but the blood completely soaked it within minutes. He rinsed the shirt out and bandaged the wound a second time and continued to do so until the flow of blood had stopped.

At last the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for a drink of water. The emperor ran down to the stream and brought back a jug of fresh water. Meanwhile, the sun had disappeared and the night air had begun to turn cold. The hermit gave the emperor a hand in carrying the man into the hut where they laid him down on the hermit's bed. The man closed his eyes and lay quietly. The emperor was worn out from the long day of climbing the mountain and digging the garden. Leaning against the doorway, he fell asleep. When he rose, the sun had already risen over the mountain. For a moment he forgot where he was and what he had come here for. He looked over to the bed and saw the wounded man also looking around him in confusion. When he saw the emperor, he stared at him intently and then said in a faint whisper, "Please forgive me."

"But what have you done that I should forgive you?" the emperor asked.

"You do not know me, your majesty, but I know you. I was your sworn enemy, and I had vowed to take vengeance on you, for during the last war you killed my brother and seized my property. When I learned that you were coming alone to the mountain to meet the hermit, I resolved to surprise you on your way back to kill you. But after waiting a long time there was still no sign of you, and so I left my ambush in order to seek you out. But instead of finding you, I came across your attendants, who recognized me, giving me this wound. Luckily, I escaped and ran here. If I hadn't met you I would surely be dead by now. I had intended to kill you, but instead you saved my life! I am ashamed and grateful beyond words. If I live, I vow to be your servant for the rest of my life, and I will bid my children and grandchildren to do the same. Please grant me your forgiveness."

The emperor was overjoyed to see that he was so easily reconciled with a former enemy. He not only forgave the man but promised to return all the man's property and to send his own physician and servants to wait on the man until he was completely healed. After ordering his attendants to take the man home, the emperor returned to see the hermit. Before returning to the palace the emperor wanted to repeat his three questions one last time. He found the hermit sowing seeds in the earth they had dug the day before.

The hermit stood up and looked at the emperor. "But your questions have already been answered."

"How's that?" the emperor asked, puzzled.

"Yesterday, if you had not taken pity on my age and given me a hand with digging these beds, you would have been attacked by that man on your way home. Then you would have deeply regretted not staying with me. Therefore the most important time was the time you were digging in the beds, the most important person was myself, and the most important pursuit was to help me. Later, when the wounded man ran up here, the most important time was the time you spent dressing his wound, for if you had not cared for him he would have died and you would have lost the chance to be reconciled with him. Likewise, he was the most important person, and the most important pursuit was taking care of his wound. Remember that there is only one important time and that is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person with whom you are, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future. The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at your side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life."

Leo Tolstoy

With thanks to Chris Loker of the Childrens' Book Gallery for pointing me to this lovely story, which has a similar message to Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now

Favourite Writings - Ecclesiastes

2010-11-08T15:06:00.004Z

The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise.

How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose talk is of bullocks?

He giveth his mind to make furrows; and is diligent to give the kine fodder.

So every carpenter and workmaster, that laboureth night and day: and they that cut and grave seals, and are diligent to make great variety, and give themselves to counterfeit imagery, and watch to finish a work:

The smith also sitting by the anvil, and considering the iron work, the vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, and he fighteth with the heat of the furnace: the noise of the hammer and the anvil is ever in his ears, and his eyes look still upon the pattern of the thing that he maketh; he setteth his mind to finish his work, and watcheth to polish it perfectly:

So doth the potter sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is alway carefully set at his work, and maketh all his work by number;

He fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet; he applieth himself to lead it over; and he is diligent to make clean the furnace:

All these put their trust in their hands: and each becometh wise in his own work.
Without these shall not a city be inhabited: and men shall not sojourn or walk up and down therein:
They shall not be sought for in the counsel of the people, and in the assembly they shall not mount on high:
But they will maintain the fabric of the world, and in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.

Ecclesiasticus 38 - Read by LTC Rolt at the 100th anniversary of the Tallythyn Railway

Autumn Beeches

2010-11-02T20:37:00.001Z

The beeches of Oxfordshire are at their autumn best just now. Click the heading for more photos

Favourite Places

2010-11-01T11:02:00.002Z

The highest of the famous seven sisters of Beachy Head

Almost as lovely are the sheep-cropped fields behind

Click the heading for more photos

Favourite Places

2010-10-29T07:23:00.000+01:00

A perfect B&B on the Kenett in Wiltshire. Click here for some more photos.

A Month in the Country

2010-10-27T14:45:00.001+01:00

A marvellous production of Turgenev's 'A Month in the Country' at the Chichester Festival Theatre on one of the best sets ever seen here. The cast were superb and included friend Joanna McCallum

Michael Wood's Story of England

2010-10-24T18:52:00.001+01:00

Michael Wood's series The Story of England, is brilliant idea - evoking much of English history since the Romans through the story of a small Leicestershire town, Kibworth, to which everything seems to have happened.
Click here for some more photos from the programme

Old Winchester Hill

2010-10-24T08:42:00.002+01:00

The views from Old Winchester Hill are some of the finest in Hampshire. Here we are looking over the western shoulder of the hill across Harvestgate and Meonstoke towards Fawley on Southampton Water.

Below the view is from the same spot on the hill down into the valley of the Meon at Exton

Gaugin at the Tate Modern

2010-10-23T12:12:00.001+01:00

A superb collection of Gaugin's work at the Tate Modern in October 2010. Click the heading for more photos

Favourite Poetry

2010-10-21T19:31:00.008+01:00

Earth no longer
hymns the Creator,
the seven days of wonder,
the Garden is over —
all the stories are told,
the seven seals broken
all that begins
must have its ending,
our striving, desiring,
our living and dying,
for Time, the bringer
of abundant days
is Time the destroyer —
In the Iron Age
the Kali Yuga
To whom can we pray
at the end of an era
but the Lord Shiva,
the Liberator, the purifier?

Our forests are felled,
our mountains eroded,
the wild places
where the beautiful animals
found food and sanctuary
we have desolated,
a third of our seas,
a third of our rivers
we have polluted
and the sea-creatures dying.
Our civilization’s
blind progress
in wrong courses
through wrong choices
has brought us to nightmare
where what seems,
is, to the dreamer,
the collective mind
of the twentieth century —
this world of wonders
not divine creation
but a big bang
of blind chance,
purposeless accident,
mother earth’s children,
their living and loving,
their delight in being
not joy but chemistry,
stimulus, reflex,
valueless, meaningless,
while to our machines
we impute intelligence,
in computers and robots
we store information
and call it knowledge,
we seek guidance
by dialling numbers,
pressing buttons,
throwing switches,
in place of family
our companions are shadows,
cast on a screen,
bodiless voices, fleshless faces,
where was the Garden
a Disney-land
of virtual reality,
in place of angels
the human imagination
is peopled with foot-ballers
film-stars, media-men,
experts, know-all
television personalities,
animated puppets
with cartoon faces —
To whom can we pray
for release from illusion,
from the world-cave,
but Time the destroyer,
the liberator, the purifier?

The curse of Midas
has changed at a touch,
a golden handshake
earthly paradise
to lifeless matter,
where once was seed-time,
summer and winter,
food-chain, factory farming,
monocrops for supermarkets,
pesticides, weed-killers
birdless springs,
endangered species,
battery-hens, hormone injections,
artificial insemination,
implants, transplants, sterilization,
surrogate births, contraception,
cloning, genetic engineering, abortion,
and our days shall be short
in the land we have sown
with the Dragon’s teeth
where our armies arise
fully armed on our killing-fields
with land-mines and missiles,
tanks and artillery,
gas-masks and body-bags,
our air-craft rain down
fire and destruction,
our space-craft broadcast
lies and corruption,
our elected parliaments
parrot their rhetoric
of peace and democracy
while the truth we deny
returns in our dreams
of Armageddon,
the death-wish, the arms-trade,
hatred and slaughter
profitable employment
of our thriving cities,
the arms-race
to the end of the world
of our postmodern,
post-Christian,
post-human nations,
progress to the nihil
of our spent civilization.
But cause and effect,
just and inexorable
law of the universe
no fix of science,
nor amenable god
can save from ourselves
the selves we have become —
At the end of history
to whom can we pray
but to the destroyer,
the liberator, the purifier?

In the beginning
the stars sang together
the cosmic harmony,
but Time, imperceptible
taker-away
of all that has been,
all that will be,
our heart-beat your drum,
our dance of life
your dance of death
in the crematorium,
our high-rise dreams,
Valhalla, Utopia,
Xanadu, Shangri-la, world revolution
Time has taken, and soon will be gone
Cambridge, Princeton and M.I.T.,
Nalanda, Athens and Alexandria
all for the holocaust
of civilization —
To whom shall we pray
when our vision has faded
but the world-destroyer,
the liberator, the purifier?

But great is the realm
of the world-creator,
the world-sustainer
from whom we come,
in whom we move
and have our being,
about us, within us
the wonders of wisdom,
the trees and the fountains,
the stars and the mountains,
all the children of joy,
the loved and the known,
the unknowable mystery
to whom we return
through the world-destroyer,
—
Holy, holy
at the end of the world
the purging fire
of the purifier, the liberator!

Kathleen Raine
Millenial Hymn to Lord Shiva

The end lines remind me much of the
last lines of The Four Quartets

The Treasures of Budapest

2010-10-21T18:16:00.001+01:00

The Treasures of Budapest Exhibition at the Royal Academy is full of beautiful and interesting work, seemingly mostly once belonging to the Esterhazy family. Click the heading for some examples.

Hampshire in Autumn

2010-10-16T20:18:00.006+01:00

One of the pretty villages along the Meon Valley in early autumn - this is West Meon. Click the photo for a better view

The villages of Meonstoke, West Meon and East Meon lie around the base of Old Winchester Hill, once an Iron Age fort - now part of the South Downs Way - and which used to belong to Stocks Farm.

The Raphael Tapestries at the V&A

2010-10-15T20:08:00.000+01:00

The V&A's exhibition of Raphael's magnificent tapestries for the Sistine Chapel was greatly enhanced by the exhibition of the Queen's cartoons alongside them, but not by the V&A's appalling lighting. Click the heading for more heavily edited photos

Anish Kapoor in Kensington Gardens

2010-10-15T20:02:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately, I chose the gloomiest afternoon for days to see Anish Kapoor's superb exhibition of mirrors spread around Kensington Gardens, Click the heading for more photos

Geography and How We've Lost It

2010-09-20T15:11:00.010+01:00

The Mendips seen across the Somerset Levels

I used to love Geography as a subject when I was at school. It seemed so practical and useful. I learned how to read maps and what map features signified, which came in valuable later when I joined the TA. We learned where places were, and why they may have been built there. We leaned things about the weather; but not too much. We knew the capital cities of every country - even the trick ones like Australia and Canada - and many of the general knowledge questions which we had to answer as part of our annual test at prep school were based on geographic knowledge. And when I began work dealing with people and ships in every part of the globe, I found myself well-prepared to find the tiny ports that no one has ever heard of but where some problem had occurred, and deal with geographic singularities such as the huge and dangerous troughs that form where the Aguhlas current meets the Indian Ocean and into which ships' bows can fall, as well as the astonishingly swift currents that run in Japan's Inland Sea around Imabari and the incredible tides of Bhavnaghar.

Much later, I became astonished at the decline in basic geographic knowledge among the young and then began to realise that despite the beauty and facility of Google Earth and their maps, the rise of the Sat Nav was also causing an apparent loss of interest in the features of the journey. I even wrote on Facebook, 'I wish that my Sat Nav told one the history of the country through which one is passing'.

Now a book has been written - 'Never Eat Shredded Wheat' by Christopher Somerville, which captures my unease. He writes: 'So why don't we see what is there any more? Is it bad teaching of the basics? No teaching of the basics? ...Half a dozen theories:

1. Children don't get out and wander about their local streets and countyryside as they used to, because this generation of parents, bewitched by health and safety, harbours irrational fears about traffic, or stranger danger, or accidents by flood or field. Therefore children never learn to absorb the landmarks, unimportant in themselves - a tree, a gate, a bend in the lane - that make up their own personal geography.
2. We are all frantic to get where we are going quickly as possible. Work pressures, social arrangements, I-can-be-there-for-a-meeting-if-I-leave-home-at-4am - our fast cars and 125mph trains and Edinburgh-in-forty-minutes planes force the pace, and we blindly follow.
3. We don't need to look out of the window at the outside world, because the outside world is now inside the car or bus or train carriage with us: the boss on the mobile, the Stock Market on the mobile internet, the e-mail bleeping on the Blackberry, the news on the laptop.
4. In spite of being more contactable by the outside world, we are more insulated from it. What do the rainy hills, the budding trees or the sun-driend fields, the smell of the earth or the crunch of an icy puddle have to do with the cosy cut-off world we inhabit as we flash by - a world whose sounds, smells, climate, light and shade we can select to suit ourselves at the touch of a button.
5. And that applies to foot and bike travellers too, iPods plugged in, shades on, insulated by Gore-Tex and Neoprene, pumped up by adrenaline advertising, staring ahead and burning calories, using the countryside as a gym - To the Max! Go for it! Rippin' Up the Ridgeway!
6. Planning a journey, and then doing it, have been reduced by GPS, Sat Nav and Google Maps and other positional and directional tools to a matter of a) where to start, and b) where to finish.
Everything in between is taken care of by 'someone else'- namely the little personal servant goblin who lives in the gizmo and tells us exactly where to turn left and how far it is to the next service station. So we read Ordnance Survey maps and road atlases less; we have less peripheral context about any given place because we're missing the wealth of superfluous but civilising and enriching detail inherent in maps, so plump with facts and knowledge, so redolent of our huge heritage of national culture and history. To move through a GPS landscape of grey blanks knitted together by spider lines is to negate the very notion of Stevenson-style travelling. Lay the Google and the OS 1:25,000 Explorer maps of the Stonehenge area side by side. On Google, roads and a ghostly hint of buildings. That's it. On the Explorer, all round the mighty henge itself: ridged and billowing downland, ancient trackways, processional paths, long barrows and tumuli where our distant lordly ancestors lie buried, the mysterious banking of the Cursus track, copses and spinneys bounded by unexplained earthworks.

So we actually need all this stuff to go from Amesbury to Winterbourne Stoke? No, we don't. Should we delight in it and feel grateful to be part of it, and smack our imaginative lips over it and be inspired to come back and explore it with a flower book and an archaeology book on a sunny day soon? Absolutely.'

How much I agree - though I still love the Tom Tom when I'm late and lost!

Leonard Cohen The Master

2010-09-18T07:09:00.023+01:00

Leonard Cohen at St Margarethen

I first heard Leonard Cohen when he was playing his songs on a beach in the South of France in 1964. Ever since he has been the most interesting and influential of singers and songwriters to me and many of my generation.

He disappeared from the stage in 1993 and entered a Buddhist monastery. Sometime in the early 2000's he encountered Ramesh Balsekar and spend six months with him before realising his master's teachings for himself.

Incredibly after almost 50 years, his career appears to be at its height. From 2008 onwards, he undertook on an almost non-stop concert tour of the world - said to be his last (he's now 75). He's singing in Sydney in November and will give a final concert in Las Vegas in December (he has avoided singing in the USA until now).

So powerful are his concerts that when the tour arrived in New Zealand in January 2009, Simon Sweetman wrote in The Dominion Post "It is hard work having to put this concert into words so I'll just say something I have never said in a review before and will never say again: this was the best show I have ever seen."

His tour repertoire is roughly the same at each performance and has been beautifully captured in the DVD 'Live in London' recorded at the O2 in November 2008. When he appeared in the 2nd century Roman stone quarry amphitheatre at St Margarethen in Burgenland, on 5th September 2010, the concert was equally stunning, but the performance was the more remarkable in that the temperature that night was only 11C (see the scarf he is wearing in the photo above).

In addition to his songs, his stage performance is characterised by the reverence he shows for his fellow musicians, introducing each of them with gentle laudatory words and often kneeling before them as they perform solo riffs. They have been the same throughout his world tour - a backing trio of Sharon Robinson and Hattie and Charlie Webb, accompanied by Roscoe Beck (bass, vocals and musical director), Neil Larsen (keyboards & Hammond B3 accordion), Bob Metzger (electric, acoustic & pedal steel guitar), Javier Mas from Barcelona (bandurria, laud, archilaud, 12 string acoustic guitar), Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion) and Dino Soldo (sax, clarinet dobro – keys) all of who are nothing less than the finest virtuoso musicians in their own right. It says much for his personality and character that the entire group has travelled the world playing countless concerts with him for over two years. If you can't now get to one of his final concerts, do order the DVD.

Click here for a recent New York Times article

Favourite Places

2010-08-23T21:57:00.002+01:00

Arundel Castle. Click for a larger view

Coventry's Awe-Inspiring Cathedral II

2010-08-18T07:50:00.007+01:00

I was fortunate enough to make another visit to Coventry to hear a talk at The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum and have time to visit the new Cathedral when the sun was shining. Not everyone likes the new building's exterior, but no one can fail to be moved by the awe-inspiring atmosphere within it. I have mentioned some of the modern masterpieces that beautify the interior elsewhere - the Sutherland Tapestry, the Baptistry Window, the Beyer tablets and others, but with sunshine was able to see them again in a fresh light. Click the heading for some more photos.

See Coventry's Awe-Inspiring Cathedral
Coventry Cathedral

An Inland Voyage at The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum

2010-08-18T07:26:00.008+01:00

Stephen Pochin with members of one of the canal families

Robert Longden was a machinist at Alfred Herbert's main Edgewick works in Coventry while pursuing photography as his hobby as a member of the Alfred Herbert Photographic Society (which later became the Coventry Photographic Society), particularly photographing the canal boats and families who lived on them around the Hawkesbury canal junction. Many of his fine black and white photographs, developed in his darkroom under the stairs of his house, were thrown out by his wife after his death in 1957, and the rest were lost until his great-grandson, Stephen Pochin (himself a photographer) found and restored them from the original slides.

Stephen gave a fascinating talk on Robert Longden's work in the gallery at The Herbert displaying some 40 of his best surviving photographs, explaining their history and the scenes depicted. Particularly moving was the presence at the talk of several of the children shown by Longden as living on the barges, some of who spoke of their hard but happy lives on the water before the canals were nationalised and their way of life ended.

Click here for a description of the exhibition by a canal enthusiast and the heading for some more photos from the talk

Travels in Hampshire and Berkshire

2010-08-17T18:52:00.022+01:00

Bill Reed at the Lychgate into Litchfield Churchyard

On Sunday, I met an old friend, Father Frowin Reed and his father Bill, who had come over from Tennessee to stay while Frowin looked after the Roman Catholic parish of Didcot. Bill Reed and I drove down to Newbury, a town he had visited last in 1965 when he was serving in the US Army, and then on to Litchfield and Dunley.

Bill Reed examining gravestones in Litchfield Churchyard

Bill's family has ancient connections with Litchfield. He had a particular interest in one Nicholas Webber who was vicar of Litchfield and died in 1657, and had a copy of his will which contained familiar local names such as Kingsmill and Cold (now Cole) Henley. Bill searched the graveyard for signs of him and we found one gravestone marked NW, but the date - 1706, was a generation or two too early to have been his. But another ancestor by the name of Biggs who had eluded search so far, turned up in the church itself when we opened a newly presented book of Psalms and inside was the inscription 'In Memory of Lilian Biggs 1917-2007'.

Bill Reed with the present vicar, the Rev Hamilton Lloyd

Lucie Winterson's Exhibition

2010-08-13T20:06:00.006+01:00

Lucie Winterton is an artist who bases her work on natural materials like sand and water which she directs to flow over photographs of rivers and landscapes. She says: 'Over these I work pigments, earth and acrylic wash - tipping and tilting the surface of the canvas and using big brushes and mops to move the paint around. I watch and partially control the bloomings of colour, sedimentations of sand and the tide lines that dry at the edges of pools'.

She has a fine exhibition at 60 Threadneedle St in the City. Click the heading for more photos.

Click here for some more of her paintings

Favourite Blogs - The Master Draper Blog

2010-08-05T10:16:00.013+01:00

The current Master of the Drapers' Livery Company, Maj-Gen Adrian Lyons, describes his blog thus:

'I think Master Draper Blog is the first time that any master of a London Livery Company has ever tried to describe his/her year leading one of these fascinating organisations.

The Drapers' Company is one of the older livery companies and because of the importamce of the finished wool cloth trade to London, and the wider English economy, five hundred years ago we are ranked as the third company in seniority.

Today there are over a hundred livery companies in London focussed on an extrordinarily wide range of trade related and charitable activities.

Our website www.thedrapers.co.uk gives a good overview of what we do across a wide range of charitable activities.

I hope my blog will describe a year where ancient ceremonial, promoting a wide range of charitable activity and maintaining a great organisation to continue its proud traditions into the future will blend together to create an interesting insight into one of London's great institutions'.

I am proud that the Master of 'my' Livery Company has taken up this very modern challenge. Already his posts are revealing details of the Company's work that the Liverymen themselves have little current knowledge about and are very glad to learn. He should also help to dispel some of the unwonted mystique surrounding these purely charitable institutions as well as encourage deserving beneficiaries to find willing sources of funding in these straitened times. But it's going to be a hard act for his successors to follow!

Click the heading to read the blog itself

Rainbow

2010-08-05T07:39:00.004+01:00

Seen from the garden

Favourite Blogs - Spitalfields Life

2010-08-03T09:56:00.015+01:00

Dennis Server's House at 18 Folgate St

Spitalfields Life is a captivating blog by an unnamed 'gentle author' who introduces himself evocatively thus:

'In the midst of life I woke and found myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London.

Over the coming days, weeks, months and years, I am going to write every single day and tell you about my life here in Spitalfields at the heart of London. How can I ever describe the exuberant richness and multiplicity of culture in this place to you? This is both my task and my delight.

Let me disclose to you the hare-brained ambition I am pursuing, which is to write at least ten thousand posts about Spitalfields life. At the rate of one a day, this will take approximately twenty-seven years and four months. Who knows what kind of life we shall be living in 2037 when I write my ten thousandth post?
I do not think there will be any shortage of material, though it may be difficult to choose what to write of because the possibilities are infinite. Truly all of human life is here in Spitalfields.
It is my custom to walk everywhere in London and I discover things on my walks, so you will also find stories here from the many places that are within walking distance of Spitalfields.
The days go by quickly and I am always eager to discover more stories. It is through meeting more people and learning more about this place that my understanding will grow and this project will evolve. I am open to all approaches.

Every Sunday, I get up early and walk to Columbia Road Market, buy some plants and write a weekly report to create an account of the seasons at the flower market. Knowing that I must not disappoint you enables me to get out of bed and fills my garden with plants too.
Like Good Deeds and Everyman in the old play, let us travel together. I promise to keep writing to you every day and it will be an eventful journey we shall have together.'

The 'gentle author' - who I believe to be a man, although that simple fact is never made clear - has made good on his promise; a new post arrives each morning - beautifully drawn stories of people, shops, streets and buildings, filled with sympathetic insights into the lives of those he describes. I doubt whether any part of London has been so closely observed. For me, it's a mixture of Gilbert White and the prose of the unnamed writer who used many years ago to pen a weekly column for The Field. And although it began only in August 2009, it's already a masterpiece.

Favourite Places

2010-07-29T09:21:00.003+01:00

The Test at Fulling Mill, Whitchurch. This stretch of the river and the Mill was once owned by my step-grandfather. Click here for his granddaughter's reminiscences

Herry's Journal

Favourite Places - Mottisfont Abbey

Thoughts on SOPA and PIPA

Favourite Views - the Gold Coast

The Royal Hospital Carol Service 2011

Thomas Miller Carol Service 2011

Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair

Favourite Rivers - the Itchen

In Praise of Cats - “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry”

Favourite Corners of London - Victoria

The Heaver Estate, Balham

The Rev Hamilton Lloyd 1919 - 2011

Fine Cell Work at the Glaziers' Hall

Shades of the Past

Early Autumn Morning

Favourite Poetry - October

Favourite Poetry - Hiawatha

Favourite Places - the Boat House

Favourite Places - Mudeford

Lots Road Power Station

Favourite Places - Lainston House

Favourite Places - A Hampshire Garden

The Velveteen Rabbit

Illustration by William Nicholson

THE Velveteen Rabbit

ORHOW TOYS BECOME REAL

by Margery Williams

The Joy of Cricket

Driving Movie

Favourite Poetry - Poesie mondane, Bestemmia 619

India the Cradle of Language, Astronomy and Science

Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, London

Glorious Gardens in the National Gardens Scheme

Adwell Fair

Early June Morning

Favourite Places - St James' Park

Favourite Places - Chilcomb, Winchester

The Drapers' Almshouses

Chelsea Flower Show 2011

Favourite Poetry - Tall Nettles - Edward Thomas

Favourite Flowers - Banksian Rose

Wandle Road Royal Wedding Party

The History of Battersea and Wandsworth Common

Russia: The Wild East

Favourite Photographers

Hampshire in Spring

Favourite Sculpture

The Great Churches of the City of London

Favourite Poems - Sowing - Edward Thomas

Lord Mayor's Lunch for the Soldiers' Charity at the Guildhall

United Guilds' Service at St Paul's

Favourite Places - St James' Park

Hymn to Dear Japan

The Scourge of Piracy

Favourite Places - Bluebell Wood in Wiltshire

Shop Design

Takeda No Komoriuta

Dark Side Of The Lens

Hampshire Views - Stocks Farm and Old Winchester Hill

Slideshows and the Little Prince

Favourite Poetry - Akhmatova

Treasure Islands and the Avoidance of Tax

Favourite Poetry - Reluctance

The City New Year Service

The Scottish Borders

Favourite Places - Dartmoor

Favourite Places - Plymouth

Favourite Places - Stocks Farm

Thomas Miller Carol Service 2010

The Royal Hospital Chelsea Carol Service 2010

The Mission to Seafarers Carol Concert 2010

Illogical Arguments

Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair

Favourite Writings - Gilbert White

A Bavarian Christmas Fair in Hyde Park

Fortnum's Christmas Windows

The Glasgow Boys at the Royal Academy

The Olympic Waterfall in Rio

The Three Questions

Favourite Writings - Ecclesiastes

OR
HOW TOYS BECOME REAL