Crassness

Woke, liberal leftie, communist, intelligent, anti-racist, trans-loving, book reading people like me have been appalled by the current President of The United States of America since he first stepped across the threshold of The White House on January 17th 2017. When you think he simply cannot go any lower, he goes lower.

His crassness is now legendary and many of his diehard supporters accept it with knowing smiles. Last week, the BBC's North America correspondent interviewed typical Republican supporters in Iowa. One of them, the wife of a farmer, said "We knew he was no choirboy!" - as if to say, we can forgive him his human failings and moral stumbles as long as he is getting on with the job of being president.

I think the entire connected world knows about the tragedy that occurred in The Yorkshire Wildlife Park on October 10th. A young man with a long history of mental illness scaled two fences to enter the tigers' compound. And there, very sadly, he died. By the way, that young man had a name and family members who loved him. His name was William Chapman. He was twenty four years old.

There was some video footage of the incident. In their heartbreak, William's family asked people not to share that video. But what did the forty seventh American president do? Why, he shared that video on his self-congratulatory Truth Social website. The video was freshly captioned, "Don't mess with Nature!"

I found that new caption worthy of some extra head-shaking. After all, this is a nitwit who has burnt up countless gallons of aviation fuel just to fly down to his gaudy Florida mansion for long golfing weekends. Isn't that messing with Nature? And what about his "Drill Baby Drill!" mantra? What kind of attitude does that show towards Nature? The hypocrisy is breathtaking but of course perfectly in character.

A couple of days later, giving not a moment of thought to William Chapman's memory or his grieving loved ones, The President of Crassness posted an AI video of himself chasing a tiger and wrestling with it. Ha-ha! Very funny you unkind and tangerine felon!

It was disgusting but arguably not as disgusting as the way he has sided with Putin during his cruel war upon Ukraine, instead of backing Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the hilt. President Zelenskyy is a proper leader,  and not a fake president like the one who currently lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington D.C.. 

Let's hope that American voters punish him severely in the mid-term elections. If you happen to be American and you are reading this post, please remember to do your bit for sanity, reason and a better future and simply VOTE! The world will be watching.

Quiztime

 

This is a "pot luck" quiz for once. No theme. Just ten typical general knowledge questions. I am not even providing multiple choice answers this time. You are on your own mate! Even so, I wish you good luck! Answers will be provided in the comments section but please - no peeping until you have finished!

⦿

1) Name one of the two original "seven wonders of the world" that were in Egypt.

2) What is the capital of Kenya?

3) Who was the second president of the United States of America?

4) Who wrote "The Handmaid's Tale"?

5) A baby cat is a kitten but what is a baby  swan called?

6) What is the main unit of currency in Sweden?

7) In terms of land area what is the biggest Australian state?

8) Which British group had hits with "Get It On", "Metal Guru" and "I Love to Boogie"?

9) Who played Odysseus in this year's blockbuster film version of "The Odyssey"?

10) What is 0℃ on the Fahrenheit scale?

How did you do?

Portraits

As a roving amateur photographer, it's very tricky to get portraits of strangers. Whenever I do happen to manage it, I am most grateful. Mostly I have to stick to scenery and the physical environment around me but - if the truth be known - I would love to have gathered hundreds more pictures of people. And I am talking about willing strangers - not secretly snapped pictures of unaware subjects.

I know I am not alone in being fascinated by faces - reading what's behind the eyes, trying to see into someone else's otherness. Throughout my life, I have doodled and my doodles are almost exclusively of faces. Yes, I have created thousands of faces with pens and pencils but to acquire photos of faces sometimes seems taboo.

Anyway, today Phoebe was keen for me to show her a pictures of me stroking a tiger. This happened in northern Thailand in April 2011 but I don't think Phoebe believed me.

With a little scrolling through my archives I was able to locate the picture quite easily. She was duly impressed.

It was almost time for her to go home. After she had gone, I flicked through other images I had gathered in Thailand around the same time. I was reminded of a little side trip I took to a kind of rural show village occupied by members of the Karen or Kayan hill tribe.

These people have had a long tradition connected with neck rings. Some of their women still wear heavy brass rings that push down the collarbone and rib cage to create an elongated neck look. As a nominated girl advances through her adolescence, more rings are gradually added.

The practice is quite abhorrent in my view. It is difficult to imagine the discomfort and pain that the long-necked Karen women must endure and you wonder - how do they sleep at night?

And yet my portrait at the top of this blogpost seems to show a dignified, calm and healthy young woman who is getting on with life in spite of the odd cultural tradition that has arguably blighted her life. Below, a younger Karen girl near the start of her neck ring journey...

Mitchelstown

In the summer of 2011, a year after my brother Paul had died, I went back to Ireland to see the family over there. I stayed in County Clare for a few  days before heading down to Cork, staying over night in a B&B in Tipperary.

On the way down south, I stopped to take perhaps fifty pictures in geographical squares that had not been bagged either by me or any other Geograph contributor. One stop I made was in the main square  of Mitchelstown - a small town in  northern County Cork.

It was a case of stopping, taking a couple of pictures and jumping back in the hire car.  I didn't even know who the statuesque fellow was on the plinth. It turns out that he was John Mandeville (1849-1888). In 1887, he led an uprising of tenant farmers in the town - protesting about increased rents and evictions.

Three men were killed by police that day in what is sometimes known as "The Mitcheltown Massacre". For his part in the unrest, John Mandeville was arrested, tried and imprisoned. The harsh treatment he received in Cork City Gaol had a truly awful effect upon his health and he died at home the following year at the age of just thirty nine.

I uploaded the statue picture on to the Geograph website and thought little more about it or Mitchelstown until early this year when - out of the blue - I received a message from a retired Mitchelstown resident called Anne Griffin.

Anne is a leading light in the town's active history group and she was co-ordinating the creation and production of a 250 page book called "Mitchelstown Remembered". She had found my statue picture on the internet and wanted to know if she could use it as the cover picture for the book. Of course I agreed and then she asked how much money I wanted for using my image. I said that I wanted nothing  but I would love to receive a copy of the book when it came out.

She agreed to that and this morning the book duly arrived. I am chuffed to bits. It is not the best picture I have ever taken by far but now I know who the statue represents I feel extra proud about my contribution.

In the course of time I will read the book and send my thoughts about it to Anne Griffin whose energy and "can do" spirit must have made the book happen. Very kindly, Anne also sent me this "thank you" card which was posted on my birthday. If you enlarge it, you may be able to read it better.

Epitaph

 

What is life, 'tis all a vapour

Tho' long on earth we both did stay

Our time was wasted like a taper

Fleeting soon it died away.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Harris and his wife Elizabeth were buried in Old Somerby churchyard. They both died in the 1820s having reached great ages for their time. Thomas was 82 and Elizabeth was 79. I am sure that their skilfully carved slate gravestone once stood upright but nowadays it lies horizontal in the grass. Possibly a modern health and safety matter.

But what really caught my eye about their gravestone was the epitaph at the bottom. It seems devoid of religious content or any ambition to achieve an after-life state of being. It could have almost been written by the existentialist playwright - Samuel Beckett. A world without a benign "God" watching over them like a shepherd and maybe a pointless world too.

The four lines do not make great poetry. They seem rather amateurish to me  but the meaning is clear. You can sense the despair and it's rather sad that anyone should reach old age and feel so unfulfilled - as if it had all been like a cheap candle burning down.

On a lighter note, it put me in mind of what kind of epitaph I will have on the base of my memorial statue in Endcliffe Park and I have come up with this...

The great Yorkshire Pudding is resting here

He wasted his life on blogging and beer

He could have been someone but chose not to be

And stayed home instead with a nice cup of tea.

Yep, so that's my epitaph. It saves my family a job in what will certainly be a grief-stricken period for them. Why not take a leaf out of my book and write your epitaph too? You can share it in the comments below.  Alternatively, if you need help, I can knock one up carefully craft one for you for a mere fifty guineas! Money up front please.

Grantham

Yesterday, with nice weather promised, I was in the mood for an adventure and a day's walking in unfamiliar countryside from a town I did not know at all.

I was up early in my cosy little room in "The Angel and Royal Hotel". It is a very historic hostelry that can trace its origins back almost a thousand years. Kings have stayed or held court there - including King John in 1213 and Richard III in 1483. Quite amazing really - just like the hotel's exorbitant breakfast prices.

After my shower, I was out into the morning sunshine. The town was bustling with work traffic and secondary schoolchildren in their various uniforms. I made for Thatcher's birthplace and then afterwards snapped the top picture of St Wulfram's Church before heading to St Peter's Hill for an economic breakfast and coffee in the town's only Wetherspoons pub - "The Tollmarche Inn".

St Mary Magdalene Church, Old Somerby

By 9.30am I was ready to begin my long country ramble, plodding east to Beacon Hill and then on to Cold Harbour, across the broad fields then down to the charming village of Old Somerby where I photographed the parish church - dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. By then I had walked almost five miles so I rested for a while in the sunshine and read another chapter of "John and Paul" by Ian Leslie. Sadly, the little church was locked. I would have loved to have a nosy round inside which is what I do whenever I find an open church.

St Guthlac's Church, Little Ponton

Suitably rested I plodded for a further four miles before sitting on a bench in the peaceful graveyard of St Guthlac's Church in Little Ponton. Like most old village churches in England it evolved through time so that the original eleventh century features are tricky to discern. Once again the door was locked so I ate an apple, drank water and read my book before striking north - back towards Grantham.

As the afternoon advanced, the sky clouded over.  From the water tower on Gorse Lane I descended to the southern edge of Grantham and walked through a tightly packed estate of modern houses. I couldn't ever see myself living in one of them. It was just an arrangement of boxes - no sense of community - and by packing them in so tightly the developers had clearly intended to maximise their profits.

Back in Grantham town centre by four o'clock, I was happily knackered. I went back to St Wulfram's Church to check out its magnificent interior then I bought a theatre ticket at The Guildhall. I had noticed there was a two man show on at 7.30pm - an adaptation of "Of Mice and Men" and I had also noted that the performance would only last for sixty five minutes, leaving me plenty of time to get back to Sheffield at a reasonable hour.

I was hungry and thought about a curry. Meals are served throughout the day at Wetherspoons so I was back there by five thirty. I ordered a sweet potato Kerala-style curry with rice and nan bread plus a pint of orange cordial and soda water. It was more than adequate. Then a mini chocolate brownie with ice cream and a coffee.

"The Nobody Inn"in Grantham

More reading time followed but I kept being bothered by a sixty-something Welshman with wide eyes, a woollen bobble hat and probably some mental health issues too. He wasn't unpleasant or aggressive  but he failed to read my non-verbal signals that yelled, "Please! Just leave me alone!" I was so relieved when he departed to catch his bus home after downing his third pint of Guinness.

I had a front row seat in "The Guildhall" and the two competent jobbing actors delivered a convincing, intense performance. Nigel Miles-Thomas was well cast as the lumbering Lenny while Michael Roy Andrew captured the quick-wittedness of George's character very well too. I was very glad I had bothered.

It all made for a great day out.

Sheep grazing near Woodnook Farm

Thatcher

There's a popular brand of cider in Great Britain called "Thatchers". Petty as this may seem, I have never bought or drunk any of it because of the name - "Thatcher". Of course it reminds me of our first female prime minister -  Margaret Thatcher. Would you drink "Trump" beer?

She was a very divisive figure and even today she remains something of a political goddess in the eyes of the right. In contrast, she is still reviled in many working class communities because of the damage she caused and the disdain she showed towards those communities.

Like many, I loathed her for who she was and what she did.

Thatcher was born in the Lincolnshire market town of Grantham. Her parents ran a grocery shop there. Until yesterday, I had never been to Grantham - apart from quick stops at the town's railway station when heading down to London.

Yesterday night I stayed at "The Angel and Royal Hotel" in the town centre before embarking on a very long country walk today.  I didn't get home until 10.15pm tonight. I will write more about that adventure tomorrow but tonight I am just giving you Thatcher-related images, including her statue on St Peter's Hill Green.

That statue was cast in black bronze which seems an appropriate colour choice for her - that darkness I mean. My close up of her black bronze head revealed  that spiders have been making webs on her - reminding me of Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations".