Life, death and the choruses of dawn

Posted on April 13, 2017 by memoirsofahusk

You don’t know how lucky you are.

In my head are two other blog posts, desperate to escape.

One about the futility of life, which features a waking nightmare. I was thinking my last thought, comprising very few words, which rattled around in the empty tin-can of my brain.

The other a tirade. About womanhood, rape, transvestites, transgender women and Grayson Perry’s Great White Male hypothesis.

See?

You have been spared.

For now.

Instead, at Eastertide – that time of lambs, eggs and resurrection (no ‘bunnies’, sorry, they’re not part of my cultural Easter landscape and I prefer the topic of hares – a deep, dark, witch’s-familiar subject of its own) I think it is more appropriate to offer you something more – um – cheerful.

And I promise to try. But success is not guaranteed. Because I’m not feeling chirpy.

The birds, however, are – and the blossom’s looking perky.

As regular readers – well, those of you who don’t skim [I know who you are] – will have read, we suffered a bereavement lately which took my husband home to the USA to be with his family.

I was, therefore, home alone. With a little time to think. And, more importantly, time to sleep late in the morning.

When he’s away I sleep upstairs in our upside-down house, in the den, where we watch television.

In the morning I’m therefore next to the kitchen and can make a cup of tea and return to the sofabed and stare out of the window.

At trees.

Oh joy! Trees. In springtime.

View from sofabed with Zambian birds (wooden) observing British spring

 

The grass is not frosted, it’s a wealth of pearly dew

On sunny, blue-sky mornings, the trees can be a fretwork. Swiftly changing scenery on nature’s vernal stage.

At night, stars  scintillate behind their moonlit skeletons.

Upstairs I dare to open the window wider than in our ground-floor bedroom.

And there’s one overlooking the trees, which lets in only the natural sounds.

In the morning, birds and bees. At night, wind blowing in from the sea. And occasional Little Owl.

I don’t hear the bats flit. But flit they do.

There’s been much to-ing and fro-ing in my empty-can-of-a-brain these last few months about Nature.

Partly because I’ve been writing a further instalment of my first Mother Nature tale.

Partly because I’ve been watching her. And reading about her.

Spring, I’ve learned, was for centuries the beginning of the English year. Till 1751, in fact.

The Roman occupiers, whose roads we still use, regarded March as the first month of the year. But that wasn’t the reason for the English Christian year-start.

No, March 25th was Lady Day. The day that celebrated the Annunciation – and thus the  conception of Jesus in Mary, his mother.

But. Wind that clock back a bit and it becomes a little less celebratory of motherhood (in my, currently dark, opinion).

The Venerable Bede (born 673 AD), ‘Father of English History’,  believed that 18th March was the date when God began making everything that is, or was, or will be.

Bearing in mind the creation story, this would mean that the sun moon and stars were made – and time began – on 21st March.

That Adam would have sprung to life on 23rd March.

And that the fall, the tempting by the serpent, the eating of that apple, would have been on 25th March. When…

… Mary ‘fell’ pregnant.

Oh, it’s been a long time in the making this woman-blaming thing—

Oops. sorry, wrong blog. Give me a moment.

But one thing I like about this little historical vignette is that it makes the earthly spring a much more cosmic phenomenon.

Set aside the God of the Christians for the moment.

In fact, set aside all gods, of all descriptions.

Flowering currant

We’re now in April, in England. How different the temperature, the weather, the trees, flowers, birds and insects – how different everything is here, from the equal latitude below the Equator.

But, any day now, we hope to see the first swallows. Who have flown thousands of miles from the other place where spring is autumn.

We already have our bumbling bees battering their poor little heads against our windows.

The baby blackbird is flopping around on the grass, being fed by Blackbird Daddy.

Three baby red squirrels have appeared and also – ominously – disappeared.

Periwinkle, winkling

The haze of apple-green froth that laces the trees grows frothier every day.

And on my lonely, somewhat sad and mourning mornings, as I tried to linger with Morpheus, a song would percolate through and serenade me awake.

The dawn chorus.

First a hoarse trill somewhere. Then the silken ripple of the blackbird, the gentle cooing of the (otherwise wretched) wood pigeon, the peeping of the robin, the chittering of the little-brown-jobs and finches, the cawing of the rooks and, occasionally, far above, the lofty wail of the seagulls.

But, there’s another dawn chorus, out there, waking celestial sleepers.

Mere mortals haven’t ears to hear it.

A chorus for a cosmic dawn.

A song sung in space.  Captured by soaring machines, spinning through the universe,  between potential worlds.

Rockets sent by Europe, to listen and to learn.

Here. Listen to the waking universe *

Hope, if not spring, or humans, is eternal.

Happy Easter, everyone.

*It’s actually a recording from the European Space Agency – if you can’t make that one work here’s a You Tube of it –  I prefer the one without pictures so my imagination is free to roam the cosmos 🙂

See the source page and other amazing sounds like the Wailing of the Leonids here     :

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Sounds_from_space

Posted in Britain now & then, Thinking, or ranting, or both | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Nonpareil. On voyaging from darkness, into light

Posted on April 4, 2017 by memoirsofahusk

I can’t remember what we had for breakfast. But, as always, we had tea. Thank goodness.

Unusually, while still at table, I checked my emails on my phone.

That’s where the shadow was waiting.

My lovely husband, baby of five siblings, was suddenly one of four.

That’s all I propose to say about his beautiful, vibrant, charismatic sister. He’s on his way to her funeral now and I’m here, thinking of them all.  That’s enough.

But the reason I’ve shared this personal sadness, this dark shadow that fell on our morning rituals – and stayed – is because we found solace in nature. And I’d like to share that, too.

The day was a Thursday, and the Prof was still the Prof. Still had to catch his train as usual. Still had to teach his students as usual. Still had to do his admin and hold office-hours. Mark papers and deal with emails. Until home-time.

But next day was his research day. A day he looks forward to all week. A day for thinking, reading, writing. For being the academic he is in his heart and soul.

It was not to be taken for granted then, that he’d lightly give up that day. But the lure of a B&B near prehistoric sites helped – and by midday on Friday we were on our way.

Nature sent us off with a great big hug in the form of a glorious sun in a cloudless sky.

And as we travelled up the motorway with the most scenic views in England, the hills greeted us with snow-topped peaks.

If your soul doesn’t soar with a sun-kissed, snow-topped peak on a glorious day – well, perhaps you see them every day.

Our spirits, certainly, rose.

And as we left that road – which quietens the further north you go, threading between the hills and mountains of the Lake District – calm reassurance set in.

Prehistory helped.

Mayburgh Henge – its one remaining hunk of stone set in a circular hollow – would, we thought, be the star of two nearby features from Neolithic times.

Its mighty banks were built of river cobbles. Oak trees clung to grassy slopes strewn with flurries of pebbles.

Mayburgh Henge (link with more details below)

We nearly skipped King Arthur’s Round Table. It looked unimpressive from the road.

But, wow!

King Arthur’s Round Table (link with more details below)

The newly warming sun helped. Only mid- March, but coats were scarcely needed as we walked amid the sheep.

More recent heritage was signposted off the main road. Brougham (pronounced broom) Hall, a castle in all but name. Ramparts.  A sunny courtyard.  A café. Tea, with a slab of beetroot-and-chocolate cake.

Brougham Hall

Then on, towards Penrith and our B&B. A grand Victorian villa, but also rather Bohemian – the woman of the house being an accomplished artist.

Our room was gorgeous, though chilly. And the view – oh the view! Over a fabulous urban garden, across the town to distant hills. Their snow-capped summits gleamed until the sun went down, leaving a fanfare of colour.

Our hostess had recommended a place to eat and as we tromped downhill and across town, I wondered…

And what a surprise.

A historic gem, Dockray Hall dates from the fifteenth century.

Cosy yet stylish, relaxed yet smart. And the smoked local venison – amazing.

Yes, the window was a bit misty – but you get the idea

 

Next morning we awoke in our cool room to a glorious view.

The Prof made tea in a teapot. There was real milk in a small jug. And biscuits.

Perfection.

Over a delicious breakfast, we sat in solitary splendour, marvelling at the day, the view, the goldfinches.

And the stray chicken.

With a gift of fudge from the artist, we left for Clifton ‘Hall’ – a historic tower, sans castle.

Clifton Hall Tower (link with more details below)

 

Close by, a first for us – a motorway footbridge (cow-bridge).

Well, if the cows could do it – so could we. And we did.

Across six lanes of traffic! Looking back towards the tower

Why? I don’t know. Just had to include it

Next an old church across the road.

St Cuthbert’s foundation in Clifton dates back to Norman times

With more hill views.

St Cuthbert’s church graveyard

Then back down the road…

What you might call a historic marker?

 

… to yesterday’s courtyard suntrap for more tea, history – and megalithic scones.

Top secret canal defence!

Lord Chancellor Brougham was quite a man

Onwards, fortified by the henge-like scones, to a real castle.

A perambulation round the upper storey obligatory, even to vertiginously challenged me.

Brougham Castle (link below this post with more information)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then.

The treasure Nature had been keeping in reserve.

Finding the little parking area was no mean feat. But we found, we parked. And off we set.

Across the rising field, seeking St Ninian’s church.

Such trees!

Mighty, almost mystical oaks. Bare, still, of leaves. Living skeletons stretching skywards, feeling spring a-coming-in.

Field after field we tromped.

Past heavily pregnant, waddling sheep.

Two birds of prey, circling the edge of a wood.

No birds in sight, just jet trails way above

Mud underfoot.

A river, way below. Chortling at the sun, the birds – and us.

See the summerhouse?

Trees pumping sap leafwards as winter loosened its grip.

And then.

We reached  the church gate.

I, who love to describe, find it hard to relate how overwhelming the feeling was.

The warm stone, the sun-dazzled yellow daffodils, the whole was like a surge of joyous affection. Yes, I think that’s the only way I can describe it. A wave of sheer, calm, reassuring joy.

Pictures, trust me, don’t do it justice.

Beautiful, solitary, enigmatic, St Ninian’s is the orphan of a long-deceased village. Hence the tromp across sheep-filled fields, past rushing river and under gracious oaks.

Upper left, the poor box from 1663; upper right tall box pews on the left for ‘the gentry;, lower right a stone memorial hidden beneath a wooden lid near the altar and believed to be to Odard and Gilbert de Burgham and therefore 12th C & part of the original church. And an odd head over the door…

And I thought, as we went into that chilly interior, of another Ninian.

‘Ninian the Nonpareil.’ A hopeless magician in Mageia, the land of prestidigitators. Experts in sleight-of-hand.

And I thought of  ‘The Man who was Magic’. Really magic. Who made Ninian really nonpareil. And unleashed the darkness of jealousy and fear.

The book was by Paul Gallico, of The Snow Goose fame. And it had a profound effect on the young me.

Its message, the power of minds, of words. The value and danger of truth –  in a world of illusions.

And so, after 36 hours that took us from darkness into a wonderful light, we left this other Ninian, a very different, genuine nonpareil, and we went home.

Salved.

Grateful to Mother Nature.

And almost believing in magic.

Links:

Brougham Castle

Brougham Hall

Clifton Hall

King Arthur’s Round Table

Mayburgh Henge

St Ninian’s Church

Posted in Art, jaunts & going out, Britain now & then, Cumbria | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

A rather trifling matter

Posted on March 30, 2017 by memoirsofahusk

Custard has reared its head again.

I’d planned to write about the colour yellow. While glorious spring was rampant and the British newly friendly on the street. Daring to go out without umbrellas. And smiling at total strangers.

But that will have to wait. I need  to talk about a few things first. Starting with custard.

What do you mean by custard?

To me it’s Bird’s. Made with powder, from a tin. Two rounded tablespoonsful, with one of sugar, mixed to a paste with milk from a pint.

Like cornflour it has that wonderful ‘press it and it’s hard, stir it and it’s soft’, structure.

Ever since I was a child I’ve loved seeing it all turn yellow. And smelling the sweet scent of of vanilla (I add more).

Mmmmm.

Boiling milk (the rest of the pint) makes it unctuous and thick.

But custard purists only like the ‘real’ thing. Eggs and milk – or cream in these extravagant, obesity-rich times – with sugar and vanilla pod, stirred in a Pyrex bowl  over a pan of just-about-simmering water that’s not touching the bowl.

It’s a performance. An art form. A nightmare (depending on your point of view). Making ‘real’ custard.

I’ve never mastered (mistressed?) it.

The stubbornly thin liquid never goes ‘firm’. Even when left in the fridge for hours on end. Unlike the cold Bird’s version, which (bonus) tastes like ice cream as you scoff it out of the jug.

Sneakily. When mum’s not looking.

That great, sensible cook, Delia Smith, has a workable recipe for custard to use in ice cream. She adds …  custard powder, to stop the custard curdling.

So, really, it’s posh Bird’s Custard.

But there I must leave custard.

It was just one ingredient planned for this post. Which really concerns a much more important matter.

Bear with me while I meander towards it, from the Wiltshire/Dorset border …

There, for a while, we lived in the tiniest house in which you could imagine someone 6’4” living. Not me, him. He couldn’t stand up straight in the downstairs rooms – either of them.

The two upstairs rooms were conjoined twins. When guests stayed they had to sleep downstairs on our sofa bed.

The bathroom was beyond the back door in a slapdash lean-to extension. And that was in a small, cute, garden surrounded by a large, fat hedge. Beneath it, a septic tank.

Behind the house and garden were watercress beds and the stone ruins of a house where Thomas Hardy’s mistress lived. Locals said.

It was an odd little place, that village.

Next-door-but-two lived a witch. A nice witch. She saw the colour of our auras. And kept dogs, sensitive mongrel creatures, in a house even smaller than ours.

She had a penchant for strays of all kinds. A man with a long beard (or was he a goblin?), comes to mind. He spent his days leaning out of a thick hedgerow, higher up the hill, frightening strangers passing in their cars.

Either side of us, though, were second homes. One as small as ours and always empty. The other a large, thatched beast.

The thatched beast had stolen most of our back garden at some stage in the past, giving it a long grassy expanse leading down to a gurgling brook.

Two gay men belonged to the thatched beast. Frequent weekend visitors in their glamorous E-type Jag, one was a businessman, the other a lighting designer.

We socialised a lot. Cooked for each other a lot. Pretended (this is us) we weren’t jealous of the garden and the stream.

One day I said I would make a trifle.

‘With real custard?’ asked the businessman.

I said yes, without thinking. Because for me, of course, real custard was Bird’s, made from powder, sugar and milk. As opposed to Ambrosia Devon from a tin.

And that really wasn’t the divergence of opinion I’d anticipated when I mentioned ‘trifle’.

Because ‘trifle’ is no trifling matter, unlike ‘real’ or ‘unreal’ custard.

Trifle. Is. Serious.

If you think the debate over how to pronounce ‘scone’ is fierce (it rhymes with gone, not bone. This is the truth as all real British northerners know it. End of) …

Sorry, back to fierce.

Fierce isn’t in it when it comes to trifle.

The question of ratafia biscuits is neither here nor there. I don’t like them. Can’t stand anything almond flavoured. So, leave them out if I’m coming round, please.

No, the really big issue is much more fundamental than that.

Jelly.

Or no jelly.

Well, I think it’s obvious.

Jelly trifles are simply, I’m sorry [no I’m not], just horrid.

Squelchy sponge.

Grainy texture.

Yuk.

No, real trifle’s utterly simple – and scrumptiously, lusciously, fabulous.

A packet of trifle sponges (or home-made fatless sponge). Sliced and lavishly raspberry jammed. Cut into chunks, heaped in the trifle bowl. (What do you mean you don’t have one? Every home has one.)

Splodges of jam, dotted around. Liberally doused with medium sherry.

Custard – real, unreal or surreal [not sure about that last one, actually] – poured all over and left to ‘firm’ up.

Double cream whipped with a teaspoon of caster sugar slathered on that.

Left to sit for a while in the fridge.

Decorated with one, or any, or many of:

  • toasted blanched almond slivers (not my thing)
  • angelica cut into little leaf shapes (nice) to go with:
    • glace cherries (bleeurgh, not for me)
    • crystallised mimosa balls (quite nice)
    • crystallised rose petals (mmmm)
    • crystallised violets (oh, heaven sent, best ever, end of).

Then devoured as if you haven’t eaten for the last twenty years.

What’s that?

Hundreds and thousands?

Sorry, jelly trifles only need apply. The colours run. Which can, admittedly, be fun.

So, trust me, jelly-free it must be.

No trifling with the real thing, please.

Unless it’s custard 😉

A lovely article from the Black Country* Bugle about the fascinating story of Bird’s Custard (no, really):  http://www.blackcountrybugle.co.uk/story-bird146s-custard/story-20122291-detail/story.html

The Black Country is a hard-to-define area in the English Midlands – another interesting story: The Black Country http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/21-things-you-not-know-7418256

Posted in Britain now & then, Simple Food for Simple Folk (like me), Thinking, or ranting, or both | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Trampled. Green. And sparkly

Posted on March 21, 2017 by memoirsofahusk

Flick. Skim. Flick. That was me, last Sunday, with the newspaper. Jaded with news, jaded with the world.

Just jaded.

Then an opinion piece caught my eye. About ‘the song of the selfie siren’. And the deaths that result from pursuing the ultimate shot.

Towards the end, author, Eva Wiseman, wrote:

There is a way to prevent more deaths by selfie, except it involves reducing the power of the selfie itself. Part of that is promising to believe that a person once saw a fast coming train, or stood on a very tall cliff, without expecting time-stamped proof. Another part is learning how to tell better stories, without the use of pictures.

Then she added, by way of example:

“The light was the colour of custard,and it reminded me of being six”

Wow.

With that one sentence my confidence toppled.

It was still on the floor, next morning, when the first rejection arrived. And trampled it, while it was down.

Many thanks for getting in touch, but your project is not for us and I wish you all the best elsewhere.

One sentence – just the one – for the thousands I’d gambled in the harsh game of authors’ submissions.

After the hollow feeling had begun to subside (via toast with blackcurrant jam), I took myself off for a trip.

Just a few miles.

First to an old, worn branch of my favourite, family-owned supermarket, Booths.

The velvet slipper of the supermarket world.

There I bought food we didn’t need. And afterwards went for a walk.

A walk to let the light in.

And I thought of Eva’s words. About telling better stories without using pictures.

So I put my phone in my bag, with my camera. And I tromped.

Everywhere I looked, I saw green.

A kissing gate (but no-one to kiss). Its blonde wood pale with the green of late, damp winter.

A path between trees of many types and ages. Their trunks lime-green in the sun.

Over some, ivy ran rampant, with berries black as sin. Its heart-shaped leaves a glossy, dark, blue-green. Like shiny shadows on the neon green of the trunks they were busy smothering.

A hawthorn’s snaggle-jagged branches tipped with pinches of juicy green. Bright frothy leaves, tentatively unfurling.

On the ground, clumps of sharp green daggers waited for bluebells to emerge.

Primroses, milky-yellow on sallow-green leaves, clustered on muddy-green banks.

Above, pretty against a sky-blue sky, frail white blossoms fluttered, shielding tiny dark stamens. The would-be leaves barely pinpricks of green on the twigs and branches holding them aloft.

In the dappled shade of marsh and swampy pond, almost-felled trees lived on. Still rooted, parallel with the dark water, clothed in lush moss. Velvet green, like a dinner jacket for a frog that should be a prince.

Frailer trees, with slender trunks and branches, wriggled over marshy mud. Their limbs, too, dressed in moss. But a fleecy gym-clothes moss, not the royalty-appropriate kind.

And on the damp margins of swamp and pond, tall bright spears thrust upwards, readying themselves for the glamour of soon-to-be irises.

Elsewhere, whip-thin stems of sappy trees rose, straight and vertical, from old stumps coppiced long ago. Ripe for basket making. But not around here, as far as I know.

Another lonely kissing gate, a country lane to cross.

Puddles, where the path sloped down, attracting two wellington-booted toddlers, wielding sticks.

Not stomping and splashing, but beating the puddles like an old, folk ritual of spring.

Well, it was the equinox. So perhaps a natural urge was buried in their genes. Innocent, toddling, carriers of our adult superstitions.

Here and there I passed men walking, women walking.

And dogs tugging. Herding, leading, sniffing. Relishing mud and water, the dirty, smelly patches their humans would rather avoid.

Below the path the reed pond was stagnant, the water scummy surfaced. Like dull raw silk, the colour of chip-shop mushy peas.

The reed maces still stood guard, but their bold brown drums were turning now to fairies – or tinder for survivalist fires.

I reached the end of the path and had to retrace my footsteps.

Ducks quacking – in pairs, because it was spring.

Geese honking. Seagulls squawking and wheeling, somewhere, way up where.

While nearer the ground, red-breasted robins hopped from tree to tree.

Silver-grey, fuzzy-tailed squirrels, fur spiced with a touch of rusty orange, scurried for height at the heavy approach of a human step.

And the sky-scraping poplar, its delicate, almost-white branchery dazzling in the sun, screamed, ‘look at me, I’m different’.

Bright as an omen, in a world that was mostly green.

A verdant, promising, budding, germinating, growing world.

And all this to the accompaniment of piccolos – birds, being birds, in springtime.

One last touch of nature awaited in the car park.

I ran my fingers over moss on the fence. Felt its springiness. And spring-ness.

Up close, it looked like tiny ferns – for elves or pixies or will-o-the-wisps

Back in the car I ate a tuna sandwich.

And on the way home the world darkened.

By the time I reached the coast, the coal-dust sky was striped with fat, crude, yellow brush-strokes.

Rain poured, out at sea. Sneaking, slowly, inland. To descend, of course, upon me.

In an ordinary supermarket, I bought ingredients for dinner, on that green, grey, rejected day.

I also bought sparkly jelly.

And it rained.

Those careless brushstrokes of lemon-icing-yellow – not custardy yellow, note – had found me.

Six. Or maybe seven, years old. With a packet of sparkly jelly.

Can you picture that?

Posted in Art, jaunts & going out, Lancashire & the golf coast, Thinking, or ranting, or both | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

More things in heaven and earth

Posted on March 15, 2017 by memoirsofahusk

Last Saturday, early in the afternoon, I stood before a cottage window, gazing across a wide valley.

Filtered through mist, great hills rose and fell, like whales caught in freeze frame, arcing from a hazy sea.

Below the window, mere strides away from the cottage – and  barely visible in sodden long grass – was a milestone. A Roman milestone.

Behind the old, stone cottage, a single-track road crawled up the hill.

I imagined the feet of legionnaires, marching.

Beyond the road, bounded by dry stone walls, a field clad the hillside to its summit.

A home to hares, leaping.

And final resting place, somewhere towards the crest, of my mother’s ashes.

This I didn’t know, when we set out that morning.

We met our hosts in April 2013.

It was a forced introduction – destiny had us share a table at an event featuring a Liverpool poet and a celebrated Texas Jewboy.

Destiny. A sly word. Full of meaning – and yet nebulous.

The four of us went on for more drinks after the show.

And as I stood outside a packed pub in the unseasonable warmth of the night, an air conditioner dripping water on my head, I knew something odd had happened.

The woman of the couple, until that night a stranger, had been born in the nursing home where I was born. We met, random table-mates, in a city neither of us inhabited. It felt odd.

We exchanged contact details, the four of us. But didn’t meet again. Until last Saturday.

The first I knew of their proximity to my mother’s ashes was a sign we passed, to a local beauty spot.

We absorbed the strangeness, much as we had the coincidence of our birthplace – and headed out for lunch.

In a quirky, elegant glass house, we drank tea. Ate open sandwiches.

On the way out a young woman with eyes too deep to fathom took our debit card.

‘Is that a pentangle?’ asked my husband.

She fingered the silver ornament around her neck.

‘I don’t know, I wore it because my daughter asked me.’

She smiled, deep eyes opening wide, raven hair framing her face.

‘But I do live in Sabden, under Pendle. And I do have a black cat.’

A woman in witching country, living with a familiar.

Perhaps she’s a genuine Lancashire witch.

I‘ll write about them one day. Not now.

Driving home I felt calm. Full of wonder at the world in which we live.

I’d had a strange week. A week of meetings and confessions. Successes and new starts.

So when I woke at one in the morning, a head full of jostling ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, I wasn’t at all surprised.

Then I woke again at three.

As four came around I slipped out of bed and went upstairs to the kitchen.

I made a hot drink and took it into our den, a room at the front of the house whose window overhangs the front garden.

I drew back the curtains.

Beyond the fence, to the west, we’re fringed by pine trees and birches. The ‘rough’ of a golf course built on old sand dunes.

The fat moon, haloed by a rainbow, beamed behind the black silhouettes of the pines.

Two fierce bright stars shone from a night sky drained of its darkness by the light of that fat moon.

Slender white clouds, scalloped and frail, like fragments of lace from a dainty nightgown, dotted the heavens.

On the cosseted grass of the golf course, a grey mist lurked, like a watchman, waiting.

Mesmerised, I opened the window.

Cool, moist air poured into the room. As if it had been waiting, at the sill, to be let in.

A rush of scent. Musky, sharp, but also sweet.

The scent of the currants growing lush and wild behind our fence. Domestic escapees in the rough, feet chafed by brambles and tickled by rosebay willowherb.

I leaned out.

A sound which could have been the sea reached a crescendo and faded. Not waves, though, the night was too still. A distant car, journeying who knows where. But gone, soon enough.

Remembering my hot drink I shut out the world once more.

Glancing east, I realised the world inland was dark, lit only by the street lights. No hint of the luminous night in the west, out above the sea.

I drank my draught of malty, milky comfort. Padded back to the window to gaze again on the day-lit night.

But the world had changed.

The treacherous clouds, their innocent vanguard the lacy trims, had stolen up from the coast.

No stars twinkled. And sombre shades obscured the dazzling moon.

I’d been granted a vision which had vanished.

A world seldom seen.

No wonder it couldn’t last.

Still seeking some lingering hint of the magic, I opened the window.

But even the scent had gone. The cool night air was now just cool night air.

And then a lone bird sang out.

High pitched but husky. Not equal to its starring role.

I listened a while. In the darkness.

Then a single ‘coo’ escaped a wood pigeon. And the blackbird awoke.

The prima donna, centre stage.

Dawn was on its way, whether I saw it or not.

I pulled out the sofa bed, wrapped myself in a woollen blanket and dozed.

Chilly – and ready for my Sunday cup of Assam tea – I woke at seven o’clock.

Tired.

Subdued.

But full of wonder.

The world turned.

And I saw it.

 

 

 

 

Posted in Lancashire & the golf coast, Thinking, or ranting, or both, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Posted on March 4, 2017 by memoirsofahusk

Diogenes, it’s said, carried a lamp by day as he walked the streets of Athens. Asked why, he said he was looking for an honest man.

Is this a perennial quest, to remain forever unfulfilled?

Because we simply don’t know who to believe or who to trust?

And thus we trust what we want to trust,  believe who we want to believe?

Well, I’m not happy with that.

The truth isn’t an easy thing to pin down. But lies, it seems are even harder to name.

In my last post I mentioned ‘operative’ and ‘inoperative’ statements. An innovative categorising of accurate and (let’s be kind) inaccurate by Richard Nixon’s press spokesman, Ron Ziegler.

Does that wilful dissimulation remind you of anything?

Alternative facts, perhaps, from Trump team member, Kellyanne Conway?

The new team in the White House has developed a remarkable hallmark style. As spin goes, it’s in a league of its own.

And where does all this creativity with the truth leave us?

We have access to more information than humans have ever had at their fingertips – but truth has become a soap bubble.

Try and grab it – ping! It vanishes.

But it’s plainly nothing new in modern politics. Or even ancient politics. Witness Diogenes.

And, frankly, I realise now that in taking this semi-analytical, semi-historical path, I’ve taken on too much.

Watched too much, read too much, thought too much. Therefore…

I’m going to say a few things, make a few suggestions for further watching and reading, then exit gracefully (if it’s not too late) from this pit I’ve dug for myself.

I hate giving up, but, frankly, none of your lives will be changed by my thoughts on a world-scale conundrum – and I really ought to be writing something else.

So, for what it’s worth, here are the bare-bones thoughts.

There are parallels between Trump and his election campaign and Nixon and his. This has already been pointed out by one or two people who have rather bigger audiences and more research facilities at their disposal than do I.

There are also big differences. Chiefly, Nixon was expected to win, Trump wasn’t. So you could argue Trump’s campaign had more reason to – perhaps – get outside help in stymying the Democrats than did Nixon.

Both men have/had press spokespeople who are extremely inventive with the ‘truth’.

Ziegler, Nixon’s spokesman, was, according to the man himself and also other people, duped.

Perhaps Sean ‘Spicy’ Spicer is likewise being duped?

One of the things that hammered the nail in the Nixon presidency’s coffin was the firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

But Nixon thought he, as President, could do anything.

Here’s part of his interview with David Frost:

Frost:

Would you say that there are certain situations …  where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation, and do something illegal?

Nixon:

Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal

There are those who say Trump believes he can do anything. He’s apparently one of them. This is what he said during his campaign:

‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters’

I suppose he didn’t say he wouldn’t be arrested but…

People in Trump’s team seem to keep stumbling over the truth.

Did the new Attorney General Jeff Sessions meet the Russian ambassador? Did he lie? Weasel words abound, but he’s not the first, not the last – and it doesn’t look good.

Here’s what the Guardian newspaper had to say:

Sessions has faced growing pressure from both Republicans and Democrats amid claims that he “lied under oath” after about twice speaking with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, during the presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction to his testimony to Congress.

In the latest (as I write) episode of the Russian did-they-didn’t-they saga, Trump’s man Spicy has said, when asked if there would be a Special Prosecutor appointed to investigate this mess:

‘Special Prosecutor for what?’

There are other examples of Special Prosecutors bringing down Presidents. Could this be Trump’s nemesis waiting in the wings?

Looking back to Nixon once more, the big smoking gun was those tapes. The ones he himself had secretly had made of his conversations in the Oval Office.

And – germane to today’s political climate – the Republicans voted for them to be subpoenaed. They put country, not party, first.

The whole truth, despite the subpoena, will always be missing. Eighteen and a half minutes of the critical tape had been wiped.

But through dogged reporting of the early days of the scandal, a President had been brought to the point he had to resign.

I’m not going to go into ‘defense’ spending increases and the military industrial complex and employment … and where all that might be leading.

It’s time to shut up and reach a conclusion.

Here we go.

Truth.

How do we find it? Well …

The scandal that was Watergate began thanks to the Washington Post.

Last week the Post broke the news that Sessions had met the Russian ambassador.

And here’s a final quote for you, from the Post’s former Executive Editor, Ben Bradlee:

in my experience, the truth does emerge. It takes forever sometimes, but it does emerge. And … any relaxation by the press will be extremely costly to democracy.

There is no perfect source of truth.

And proving a lie can take a lifetime.

But real, reputable newspapers with a long pedigree, which employ real journalists, trained, paid and with instincts honed by dealing with inveterate liars, some of them politicians, have a chance. A better chance than people like me.

Newspapers have their biases. Don’t we all?

But if you know what they are, you can take those into account.

I have paid for subscriptions to two newspapers.

They are not perfect.

But they try.

And the strapline of one of them is the title:

Democracy dies in darkness

 

Postscript:

bizarre, as I finished this see what the Washington Post reported:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/04/trump-accuses-obama-of-nixonwatergate-plot-to-wire-tap-trump-tower/?utm_term=.2972ea0740c5&wpisrc=nl_most-draw16&wpmm=1

 

Further watching/reading

All the President’s Men

I suggest you order the book (has more detail than the film) from your local bookshop and if you want the film in Britain get it here (blu ray and DVD and collectable cards!) not form Amazon:

http://store.hmv.com/film-tv/blu-ray/all-the-president-s-men-(hmv-exclusive)

All the President’s Men Revisited

The Fog of War

https://vimeo.com/149799416

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Thinking, or ranting, or both | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

“What is truth? What IS truth?”

Posted on March 4, 2017 by memoirsofahusk

Couldn’t we – shouldn’t we – all be asking that question?

When we’re living in a world in which a big red bus drove Britain out of Europe.

And a new American President claps his hands – because he believes in fairies.

I made that up. The fairies bit.

Sorry.

Getting back to our brave new world. To Trump’s team in the land through the looking glass. The world of fake media, neologisms and – of course – alternative facts.

I’ve been trying to understand why we, the electorate – so lacking in trust in so many ways – are so foolishly trusting in others.

Consider, for example, the ‘Leave’ campaign here in Britain.  Brexiteers charging round the country in a big red bus, emblazoned with the slogan:

“We send the EU £350m a week. Let’s fund the NHS instead.”

Politicians posing beside it as they churn out dubious claims.

From the 'Independent'

From the ‘Independent’

Fast forward.

Just hours after the vote for Brexit is confirmed, on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Nigel Farage (he of the UK Independence Party) is asked to confirm that £350 million would now go to our NHS.

Farage says:

No I can’t, I would never have made that claim … That was one of the mistakes made by the Leave campaign.

He’s been photographed standing beside the bus. But denies he would have made that claim.

He wasn’t the only one.

Newspapers, TV programmes, academics and ordinary folk on social media had warned it was a lie – but to no avail.

‘The people’ voted.

And the NHS won’t get any more money.

But historically, as political mass-delusions go, this is small beer.

Let’s look at the USA. Step back in time to 1972. To the offices of a newspaper In Washington.

The (incomplete) quote in the title comes from its Executive Editor, Ben Bradlee, who occupied that seat at the Washington Post from 1968 to  1991.

In 1972 Bradlee gave two relatively inexperienced reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (All the President’s Men) enough rope to hang a president’s reputation.

That of Richard M Nixon.

The only US President (so far) ever to resign from office.

The Watergate break-in – a Republican attempt to bug National Democratic Committee offices in Washington DC – happened in that year, an election year.

Nixon was nearing the end of his first term as President, seeking re-election.

And nationally, things were not feeling good.

Carried in protest (Thanks, Thel)

Carried in protest (Thanks, Thel)

The country was embroiled in a disastrous war in Vietnam. A war in which tens of thousands had already died and tens of thousands more were to die.

Americans had begun to realise that their Commanders in Chief – first Lyndon Johnson, now Nixon – were not being wholly honest about the progress of that war.

And by the time voters were at the polling booths, the Washington Post had uncovered more than enough about the administration of Richard Nixon to make anyone think twice about his honesty.

Yet he was re-elected. And by a cracking 60% of the vote.

To a nation in turmoil, epitomised by campus riots, free love, draft dodging and drugs, Nixon’s law and order promise was plainly what people wanted.

Wanted more than integrity and truth.

But things soon began unravelling.

In 1972, the President’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler, had famously called the Watergate break-in ‘a third rate burglary’.

By April 1973 he was telling the media that only his future statements to them about the Watergate scandal would be ‘operative’.

A New York Times journalist, RW Apple, asked him if that meant his previous statements were ‘inoperative’.

He agreed.

Inoperative? Did he mean false? Wrong? Untrue?

Were they lies?

Had the media quoted them, knowing they were lies?

If a newspaper knows someone is lying, why don’t they come out and say so?

Don’t they have a responsibility to be honest?

That particular straw was clutched at by Nixon himself.

Here’s a quote from his famous interview with David Frost in 1977:

… Ben Bradlee, wrote  … as far as his newspaper was concerned: “We don’t print the truth; we print what we know, we print what people tell us and this means that we print lies.”

And here’s Bradlee himself on the subject, speaking in 1997:

Newspapers don’t tell the truth under many different, and occasionally innocent, scenarios. Mostly when they don’t know the truth. Or when they quote someone who does not know the truth.

And more and more, when they quote someone who is spinning the truth, shaping it to some preconceived version of a story that is supposed to be somehow better than the truth, omitting details that could be embarrassing.

And finally, when they quote someone who is flat-out lying. There is a lot of spinning and a lot of lying in our times — in politics, in government, in sports and everywhere. It’s gotten to a point where, if you are like me, you no longer believe the first version of anything.

Great.

So we can’t trust the papers. Even a legendary figure like Bradlee says as much.

Where, then, do we go to find the truth? News that we can trust, devoid of lies?

The answer is, we don’t. But…

There is a least-worst-case scenario.

Believe me, I’ve been working on versions of this post – at least six – for over a week and there’s no way I could fit everything into 1000 words. Especially now ‘Russiagate’ is bubbling 😉

So, yes, there’s more to come.

And it’s really quite optimistic.

'Collectable' cards from DVD package of the film, 'All the President's Men'

‘Collectable’ cards from DVD package of the film, ‘All the President’s Men’

Posted in Thinking, or ranting, or both | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments