lblanchard | Reading

Ailz has had "Mr Blue Sky" going through her head for days. Nice song, but nothing will bear endless repetition. This morning In an attempt to drive it away and - at worst- replace it with something else she turned the radio on. Guess what was playing!

Oh, but the universe is a tricky little bitch......

poliphilo

3i Atlas is a very peculiar thingy that is hurrying through the solar system from a source far out in space. The original wisdom was that it was just another comet- though a very big one- but the trouble is that it's not behaving like a comet. It's such an anomaly that even the scientists- at least the bolder ones- are saying, "Could be artificial...", "Could be alien....", Could be conscious or consciously directed...." The closer it gets to us the less data is being shared with the public and- well I never- it's approach to Mars coincided with the shut-down of the US government- which includes NASA with all its probes and talking heads.

And, well, that's all really: 3i Atlas is odd, it doesn't fit with our established scientific paradigms, the boffins are brainstorming among themselves but don't want to let the rest of us in on the conversation. The psychics and channelers are having a field day....

I have nothing to say from myself. I just wanted to acknowledge here, publicly, that this is going on.....

poliphilo

The first Emperor of China had himself buried under a hill surrounded by a simulacrum of his earthly Empire. The pits containing the terracotta army are merely a outlying section of this enormous folie de grandeur. Archaeologists continue to nibble away at it but haven't yet worked up the nerve to strike at its centre- where, allegedly, the Emperor lies under an artificial sky surrounded by the rivers in China in liquid mercury. Perhaps they fear the black magic that was enacted to animate this subterranean world with its thousands of golems. I don't blame them. The thing is a colossal evil. A tumour on the skin of the good earth. Best leave it well alone.....

The first Chin Emperor was a standardiser and a centraliser. He aspired to complete control of everything in life- and complete control of everything in death. Those who fear death also fear life. "I want things to stay this way forevver", is what they're saying, "With me in charge, of course." The Chin Emperor's funerary complex is a monument to his fear. I can think of few things more abject.

Or sad.

Did the First Emperor ever experience a moment free of that fear- fear of enemies, fear of betrayal by friends, fear of things not going entirely his way, fear of someone thinking or doing something of which he might not approve? Did he ever know love?

Here was perfected the model of governance which the present rulers of China still aspire to- and not just the rulers of China, but all dictators always and everywhere.....

poliphilo

Our newish bath mat has the word IDEALISTS printed across it in big bold letters.

I think it's the name of the company that made it.

IDEALISTS.

Big word, lots of letters.

So when I'm in the bathroom I play the game of seeing how many words I can form from those letters.

One of these days I mean to write them all down.

This morning I found liase and liased....

poliphilo

Ailz and I have been cutting one another's hair since forever. Yesterday I got a bit creative with it....

poliphilo

Extracts from John Logan's play Red, starring Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko turned up in my YouTube feed this morning. Was Rothko really so loud, angry and incapable of shutting up? Had I been nice young Ken, the assistant whom Rothko browbeats and lectures from the moment he enters the studio, I think I might have turned on my heel and walked straight out. I guess he needed the work.

I've never been too sure of my response to what I guess we'll call the New York school. Were these guys- abstracters and popsters- really as world-bestridingly wonderful as the Art World thinks they are? When I learned the other day that the CIA had a big hand in getting them talked up and exhibited, as a way of establishing the USA as cultured and futuristic in opposition to those grim, dim, backward-looking Russians, I thought, "Ah....."

That's not to say the New Yorkers were talentless. But. Pollock's drip paintings took abstraction to it's logical conclusion and so into a brick wall. Rauschenburg is chaotic and messy and as for Lichtenstein, how many blown up comic images can you turn out before that clever idea starts to pall? None of this work detains me. The only New York artist I love unreservedly is Andy Warhol. I love Andy because he is the artist as trickster, always one hop, skip and a jump ahead of you. Dali played the same game- and I admire Dali- but Andy was so much lighter on his feet.

And Rothko? What Rothko thought he was painting was the human tragedy, but is the human tragedy really inherent in those big vibrant wodges of colour? Would we talk about them in such terms if we hadn't been schooled to do so? Molina's Rothko stands nice young Ken in front of one of his paintings and asks him what he sees. And nice young Ken says "Red".

poliphilo

That was an expensive lunch!

A very good lunch but I've never had a pricier one- or, at least, not that I've paid for myself.

French, nouvelle cuisine, leisurely....

And the most horrendous indigestion afterwards.

Still I'm glad to have had the experience.

poliphilo

We asked Miriam, because she is wise in these matters, how we could tell someone who is being clingly and manipulative and stalkery how to fuck off without hurting their feelings.

And her answer was so simple: "Tell them you're sorry, but you already have a full slate of people you're committed to and you can't give them what they want...."

Yeah.....

Or as Dylan wrote and sang, "It ain't me, babe; it ain't me you're looking for...."

poliphilo

Two skip-loads of rubble and miscellaneous junk have been extracted over the weeks from the garage conversion. The second- and last- of the skips was removed this morning. The forecourt will look bare without it.....

We have a large forecourt- and it's mostly paved- which is convenient if we have visitors with cars but is otherwise wasted space. Most of our neighbours have nice little front gardens- and I'd like to have one of too. A little lawn, generously filled with flowering shrubs and the appropriate annuals. The house at the corner has a front garden which fills up in the season with bright orange Californian poppies. Oh, but they're glorious.....

poliphilo

I fell over a low wall yesterday evening, pitched forward, barked my shin and banged my knee. The wall is a newish addition to our front yard (it borders a ramp leading up to the front door) and that's my excuse for diregarding it. How long has it been there? Oh, two or three months, but this was my first dealings with it in the dark. I thought I would be hurting this morning, but I'm not. My ability to fall and bounce back again is something I claim to have inherited from my mother, who was famous for laughing it off when she came off horses and bicycles or broke the bedside furniture tumbling out of bed.

poliphilo

British Quakerism is organised in tiers- like the Tower of Babel. These are local, area, regional and national. I have decided to concentrate on the local level. Whether local is the topmost tier or the bottommost I shouldn't like to say.

Anyway, being intensely local, I've no great desire to participate in regional events- the most recent of which in the South Eastern region hosted a speaker who was addressing the question "Do Quakers Pray?"

An additional reason for not attending was that I already know the answer- which is, "Some do and some don't".

Quakerism is an ethos not a creed- which incidentally, I'm told- is why local ecumenical councils won't break bread with us. I don't know if this is actually the case but Ailz once went to a supposedly ecumenical get together for the Womens World Day of Prayer and it turned out to be more Catholic than the Pope and she came away saying "Never again". So they're probably right in thinking we'd be a bad fit.

A propos all of this I've been wondering what it is that all Quakers have in common- and came to the conclusion that the only thing we'd be sure to agree on is the name "Quaker" and/or "Friend".

poliphilo

Quaker officers stay in position for three years. Alan, our clerk, has done his three years and has stood down. He is succeeded by Ailz and our friend Jackie- who will serve as co-clerks. They're people who get things done. We were going to have a team of four- but the other two who were willing- myself and Edna- are already elders and it says somewhere in the Book of Rules That You Can Obey If You Want To that a person shouldn't hold the office of clerk and elder at the same time. Privately I'm relieved- and am happy to pretend that this rule is binding even though it isn't. I don't want to be running things- at least not in name- though I'm happy to function as an eminence grise....

poliphilo

Picture Diary 104

1. Becoming clear

2. Think fish

3. Migrating fish

4. Be seein' ya

5. I do like to be beside the seaside

6. Can I get there by candlelight?

poliphilo

The Church of England struggled long and bitterly with the ordination of women. It was an issue I cared about a great deal in my churchy days. In the early to mid '80's American women priests used to come over to demonstrate that women could celebrate mass without the roof caving in. I attended one such event in Manchester Cathedral in defiance of church law, though our bishop, who was liberal, winked at it- and it seemed daring and defiant. Now, 40 years later, a woman has been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

I am no longer churchy and I think, "How nice" and wish Dr Mullaly well and pass on to other things. I am not one of the 74% who, according to a recent survey, care not a fig for the Archbishop of Canterbury but I can't say I care very greatly. I have changed and society has changed....

....So much, so much....

poliphilo

"More fingerless gloves?"

"These are cheap ones for wearing round the house. The expensive ones that came earlier are only for going out in"

Fingerlesss gloves are not hard wearing. Threads come loose and when you wash them they go all bobbly. This doesn't bother me, but Ailz isn't keen on me looking like a Victorian miser.

I get my lack of sartorial awareness from my mother who once went on holiday to Venice having packed nothing but her gardening clothes.....

poliphilo

The US government has shut up shop.

The US President and his Secretary of War have managed to seriously annoy the military top brass (and gosh but history teaches that the last people the Emperor wants to alienate are the Praetorians!)

And it has been suggested- by aforesaid US President- that the ruins of Gaza should be run by a former British Prime Minister who is widely regarded as a war criminal and hardly dare show his face at home for fear of suffering citizen's arrest.....

Oh, but those who run the world just don't seem to get it......

poliphilo

Portchester sits alongside Portsmouth Harbour.

The Romans built a fort there and the Normans built a priory church and a castle inside the walls of the fort (just as they did at Pevensey- a mile or two down the road from us). Richard II converted the castle into something rather more palatial. Elizabeth I stopped by during one of her progresses and found it in an embarrassingly sordid state of disrepair. During the Napoleonic era it housed French prisoners of war- who constructed a nifty little theatre inside the keep.

Here's the keep. Grim old thing. Only respect for its antiquity prevents me from calling it ugly. And, yes, I climbed the spiral staircase all the way to the top- and walked the battlements.

Here's the gatehouse on the north side. The first picture is taken from the churchyard. The blue van serves refreshments. Note the headstones with anchors on them; this is a naval town.....

And here's a view inside the castle, looking from the entrance of a lesser tower towards the base of the keep

And finally, the view from the top of the keep, with Southampton in the distance......

poliphilo

The chap from the food bank (we collect for them) asked whether Quakers do Harvest Festival- and whether, therefore- he could expect an overplus of tinned goods at this time of year.

The answer is "No".

Quakers don't observe any church festivals, bloody killjoys that we are.....

Ailz and I were in Portchester yesterday, meeting up with my sister and brother-in-law. St Mary's church- which sits rather wonderfully alongside a Norman castle inside a largely intact Roman fort- is celebrating Harvest- and has hidden their amazing Romanesque font in seasonal prettyness. All very nice, but a damned nuisance for us antiquarians.

Normally I'd have photographed the thing from all angles. As it was I had to grab one or two shots where there were gaps in the prettiness.

The font is in two halves. The bottom half was pictured and recorded in the 19th century but has since gone missing. The Victorian replacement is in the right style, but the difference in colour between old and new gives the game away.

Here's a picture of the church from the outside.

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lblanchard

August 2025

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The News from South Philly

and other points of interest

Reading

Blue Sky

3i Atlas

Terracotta

Big Word

Just Call Me Vidal

Red

Well, That Was A Thing

Ask Miriam (And Dylan)....

But I'm No Gardener

Bouncing Back

More Quakery Stuff

Regime Change

Picture Diary 104

So Much

Bobbly

Ever So Strange

Portchester

Have A Thought For Us Antiquarians

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August 2025

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