A disappointing midsummer’s day. Selfies and memes and damage artwork. The continuing madness of the world.

 It’s supposedly midsummer’s day today but it’s blustery and wet. I lay in bed listening to the rain on the skylight windows and considered staying there all morning. When it eased off somewhat I gave in and got up and got ready to run round the village. I needed to go to the cash machine in the co-op. So I ran in the drizzle, which wasn’t too bad. I’ve run in worse weather. But it was all in vain as the ATM was faulty and couldn’t give me any cash after all. Maybe I’ll try again later, or even elsewhere. 

The reason I wanted to get cash is that tomorrow I plan to go and visit a friend in a hospice on the other side of Manchester. This will involve a bus to Oldham, a tram to central Manchester, another tram to Eccles and then a taxi. My journey planner, Granddaughter Number Two, assures me I could catch a bus from the Eccles interchange to Little Hulton Precinct and do a five minute walk from there to the hospice. But as I don’t know the area, there is a strong possibility of my wandering around getting lost. Granddaughter Number Two suggests using Google Maps at that point. She forgets who she is dealing with; I love a paper map but Google Maps usually defeat me. So I’ll catch a taxi from the interchange to the hospice. Hence the need to make sure I have enough cash. 

And before anyone tells me to get an Uber, which will be linked to my credit card, I’ve explored that possibility before now. My iPhone is too old a version to support the Uber App. I think I am becoming even more of a technophobe than I was before! So it goes!

I’ve been reading about valuable objects being damaged or lost. In the Uffizi gallery in Florence a 300 year old painting was torn at the weekend when a visitor fell backwards into it while trying to take a photo of himself in front of the painting. He was trying the “make a meme”, apparently. I do not know what the difference is between a selfie and a meme. I did consider googling it but, really, is it worth it?

Earlier this month, in a similar situation, a tourist damaged an artwork in the Palazzo Maffei in Verona. It was a crystal-encrusted chair by artist Nicola Bolla. The person taking a selfie, or perhaps making a meme, ended up sort of sitting on it and it shattered. Oops! 

I can understand taking photos of works of art. I’ve done so myself, although some galleries don’t even like you doing that. But I fail to understand the urge to include your own image along with the work of art. Is it some way of proving that you are a cultured person? Without the selfie, is there no proof that you were actually there? 

Then there is this report of a 280-year-old violin that a musician took to a restaurant with him. Someone walked off with it. It is worth £150,000!  Not the sort of thing you want to prop up next to your chair while you have your meal, especially when it’s not even yours but on loan from a kindly benefactor! At the very least, if you absolutely have to take it with you, you would ask if you could put it in a safe place while you eat! Did the thief know what he was stealing?

On a more serious note, things are still topsy-turvy in the Middle East. Mr Trump seems to think he has “brokered” (I believe that’s the term) a cease-fire, but the parties concerned either aren’t aware of this or are ignoring it. Mr Trump is getting rather cross and shouty about it.

In this country there are moves afoot to have the protest group Palestine Action declared a terrorist organisation. Jeremy Corbyn, Independent MP for Islington North, had this to say about it:

“The government’s proposal to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is as absurd as it is authoritarian.

It represents a draconian assault on the democratic right to protest - and is a disgraceful attempt to hide the real meaning of violence: the mass murder of Palestinians.

The UK government is complicit in genocide, and we see the latest move for what it is: an a to of desperation from a government trying to shield itself from accountability.

We will keep on campaigning for an end to military cooperation with Israel, and we will not rest until we have brought about the only path to peace: freedom and justice for the Palestinian people.”

There is no more to be said.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Some escapist nonsense about the Feast of St John the Baptist.

 Avoiding the midsummer madness that is afflicting the world at present, here’s some less serious midsummer nonsense, concerning a DAY. I have often commented that there seems to be a DAY for everyone and everything. Today, or rather tomorrow, is no exception.

It’s the 23rd of June, St. John’s Eve. Tomorrow is his feast day. Most saints’ DAYs commemorate their death or something significant that they were supposed to have done. St John’s Day celebrates his birth, well, the supposed date of his birth. According to the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist was born 6 months before Jesus. So assuming Jesus was born on December 25th, then John’s birthday was six months before that. 

Of course, experts in such matters have since said that Jesus was almost certainly not born on the 25th of December. I seem to remember reading that setting Christmas at that date meant the old pagan celebration could be subsumed into a Christian one. Similarly, June 24th was the date of the summer solstice on the old Roman calendar: cue another bit of combining the old and the new religions. It’s also why so many places have all sorts of festivities on that date, or rather straddling the 23rd to 24th of June. 

We once arrived at Porto airport on the 23rd of June and were amazed to see small bonfires lit at intervals along the rout the tram took from the airport into the city. There were also lots of people bopping each other on the head with squeaky plastic hammers! Wikipedia tells me that St John's night in Porto (Festa de São Joãn do Porto) has been described as "one of Europe's liveliest street festivals, yet it is relatively unknown outside" Portugal. There you go! 

Then there was the year I accompanied a group of A-Level Spanish students on an exchange visit to Galicia and at least one of them expressed concern about being expected to jump over a bonfire. When asked for advice on this, I was able to tell them that on no account should they do such a thing as I had signed a paper saying they would not be taking part in dangerous sports. 

Here’s another bit of interesting nonsense: Mussorgsky’s composition “Night on Bald Mountain” was originally titled “St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain”, based on the story “St John’s Eve” by Gogol. It seems he completed the work on the 23rd of June 1867 - there’s a little coincidence!

St John is the patron saint of Florence and his “day” has been celebrated there from medieval times when St John's Day was "an occasion for dramatic representations of the Baptist's life and death" and "the feast day was marked by processions, banquets, and plays, culminating in a fireworks show that the entire city attended." He’s also the patron saint of Genoa and Turin. In Genoa and coastal Liguria it is traditional to light bonfires on the beaches on Saint John's Eve to remember the fires lit to celebrate the arrival of Saint John's relics to Genoa in 1098. (It’s amazing how far those biblical figures’ bones travelled!) Since 1391 on the 24th of June a great procession across Genoa carries the relics to the harbour, where the Archbishop blesses the city, the sea, and those who work on it. 

In the process of reminding myself about the feast of good old St John, I discovered a bit of linguistic stuff: 

“in worshipp of seinte iohan the people woke at home & made iij maner of fyres. On was clene bones & no wode & that is callid a bone fyre. A nothir is clene wode & no bones & that is callid a wode fyre fore people to sitte & to wake there by.

—John Mirk, Liber Festivalis, 1486”

A rather more modern, but undated, version reads: 

“In the worship of St John, men waken at even, and maken three manner of fires: one is clean bones and no wood, and is called a bonfire; another is of clean wood and no bones, and is called a wakefire, for men sitteth and wake by it; the third is made of bones and wood, and is called St John's Fire”.

Now I had always assumed, like many people according to Webster’s dictionary, that the word “bonfire” was vaguely connected to French, the idea being that it was a “good” fire. But Mr Webster confirms that it began as a “bone fire”. 

That’s enough mildly superstitious nonsense for one day. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Do you hear the dogs of war growling? Discrimination! And baby dolls!

 So the USA has been dropping bombs on Iran. What a piece of news to wake up to on a Sunday morning! Mr Trump claims to have destroyed some main nuclear sites. Other reports, not main stream media as yet, say that the damage is not as serious as Mr Trump claims. Either way, it’s escalation! 

Apparently UK business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has said our government was aware of what was planned but did not take part. Probably for the best. However, Mr Starmer has stated that he supports the US action. Probably not for the best.

Maybe someone can persuade everyone to talk. 

I also read that our government is spending £15b on revitalising our nuclear weapons. (It’s OK for us to have them, even if that’s not the case for Iran. Let’s hope we don’t fall out with Mr Trump and have him bomb our nuclear facilities.) David Cullen, a nuclear expert at the Basic thinktank, said this makes it possible for “the UK to maintain its position as a member of the nuclear club”. Hmm! The issue is partly one of skills: “The capability to deploy warheads atrophies if you don’t have warhead designers who have actually made a nuclear bomb,” he added.

Well, that’s all right then! And from the sound of things a lot of money is also being spent on security at places like Aldermaston - extra police, roof-top snipers and the like. 

Of course, if you protest about any of this you might be arrested. There was a police raid on a Quaker meeting house recently because a group of young women, members of protest group Youth Demand, were meeting to talk about protests and the state of things. 20 uniformed police, some of them with tasers, forced their way in. Six young women were arrested. Laptops and phones were confiscated! And here’s a link to a report of a related incident where police broke into the supported housing where a 23 year old activist, a young man with diagnosed autism, was arrested, taken to the police station for questioning and held for several hours. 

The Thought Police are busy these days and we’re a long way past the year 1984 and we don’t actually live in Oceania - it’s just beginning to look a little that way.

This morning I read two articles about growing up with discrimination in the UK. First there was Diane Abbott writing about the Windrush generation and the difficulties her parents had, struggling to buy a house - renting was difficult as landlords could refuse to accept black tenants - and renting rooms out to other families so that they could afford to pay the mortgage on the property they managed to buy. Then there is Adeel Akhtar talking about the difficulties of being an Asian actor. But he was sent to speech and drama classes because his parents believed they were elocution lessons that could teach him to “speak properly”. And he was a pupil at a fee-paying school. A different childhood but still facing discrimination.

On a completely different subject, here’s a photos of baby dolls ; Reborn dolls. It’s hard to tell properly from a photo but they certainly look convincingly realistic. 

It seems they are all the rage in Brazil, not for little girls - they can cost between £200 and £2,500 - but for adult collectors. Some of these have posted videos on social media of themselves bathing the dolls, tucking them into bed, pushing them in prams, just as if they were real babies. Either these women are somewhat deranged or they are seeking their five minutes of fame as influencers of some kind. Some purchasers may be genuine doll-collectors; let’s not be too judgemental! Anyway, there have been proposals to ban them from receiving public healthcare (imagine the doctor’s reaction when you ask him/her treat your ”baby”) or to prohibit collectors from using them to claim priority in queues for public services (which seems a more likely thing). 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Midsummer weather and wild flowers. And the poetry of war.

It’s the summer solstice - officially midsummer! People gathered last night to celebrate and to see the sunrise this morning. Glen Michael Herbert, a woodcarver known as Herbie to his friends, summed up the draw of the summer solstice:

“It’s a spiritual thing that people of all faiths and none can embrace,” he said. “I think it’s about feeling the wheel of the year turning, enjoying the light, appreciating nature. Most of all, coming together.”

Those who know and analyse such things say that they expected  a good turnout because the weather has been good and, possibly more importantly, the solstice falls on a weekend. 

When I went out running this morning it was already warm and sunny - 25+°. The dog-walkers I met almost all commented that they probably wouldn’t be able to walk their hounds later as it would be far too not for them. I went home, showered, loaded some washing into the washing machine and eventually had breakfast. These days as we breakfast quite late I suppose I should call that meal “brunch”, a modern combination of breakfast and lunch. 

The footpaths all bordered with flowers which I am reliably (I hope) informed are called “fox and cubs”.

Yesterday as I returned from my run, I had a message from Granddaughter Number Two suggesting I meet her and her mother for “brunch” at a local cafe, as we have often done on a Friday morning over the last few years. I showered and dressed in haste and set off just in time to catch a bus. I would happily have walked but the bus was there: it would have been churlish not to make use of it.

Today, by the time I had hung washing out to dry, the cloud had moved in. We are forecast thunderstorms but they haven’t materialised yet. However, about half an hour after I pegged the washing out it began to rain. I blame the neighbours: she has been watering plants and he promised/threatened to cut the grass. 

Out in the war-torn wider world, Gaza has been producing poets. Even in the midst of conflict, creation can flourish. Here is a work by someone who signs himself simply Saleh:

When the Sea became a Wall

When we were displaced,

The sea was near - like a window escaping

From the memory of home.

And winter was a pure ritual, 

Cleansing the streets of the heart

From the footprints of fear.

We walked with no bags, 

Except for a suitcase of silence,

Drawing our dreams on the sand, 

Leaving them to the tide

So that exile would not return them.

Winter, the friend of exiles,

Eased our burden,

Rearranged our voices,

And hid our tears

Beneath the shawl of the wind.

Whenever I whispered to the sea ‘where am I?’

The waves replied, 

‘You are not here,

But do not be afraid.

The homeland dwells in poetry,

And poetry is never defeated.’

And here is one by Sameh Shahrouj:

“To the Soldier Who Points a Gun at Me”

You think I’m here to die.

You think that’s all we know how to do—

bleed, bury, break.

But listen.

I grow things.

Tomatoes in rusted cans.

Hope in children who don’t know what the word means yet.

I build—walls, stories, mornings.

I fix roofs with one hand and hold my daughter’s hand with the other.

And you?

You carry a gun like it’s your purpose.

But I’ve seen men become ghosts

long before the trigger is pulled.

You call this land a threat.

I call it history .

The call to prayer. The school bell.

The pot of lentils boiling over.

Don’t mistake my softness for surrender.

I don’t need to shout to be strong.

The fig tree in my yard

has stood through three wars

without raising its voice.

You—

with your steel and fear,

your borrowed power—

you patrol streets looking for danger

and miss the beauty flowering between the cracks.

You fear death.

I fear forgetting how to live.

So if you shoot,

know this:

I wasn’t born to hate.

But I won’t vanish to make you comfortable.

I won’t flinch so you can sleep easier.

I am not your victim.

I am not your enemy.

I am the reminder

that even under occupation,

a man can love too fiercely to be erased.

That’s all.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!