Category: Uncategorised

Well, January 17th, ‘24, was a great day! Not just one nice interesting old church. Nor the added bonus of two, or even three such edifi… but four!!!!

So rather than cover all four in one go – oh, and there was the Gt. Chishill windmill, as well (and beautiful skies and landscapes; good day!) – I’m giving several parts of this rich day their own separate entries.

Not quite sure why. But I didn’t take many pics inside. I was going to say that’s cause it was locked up. and I think it was. Yet the above photo suggests otherwise. Hmm!?

A little later in the day I came upon St Margaret of Antioch, in Barley (what a lively and for an English village!). She was, as you’ll see, most definitely open.

There’s so much in this church, by way of fascinating eccentricities and beautiful details. A dictionary definition of an embarrassment of riches.

Sometimes the effects of the vandalism of bygone ages can have, by accident as well as design, pleasing results. The above window, which I suspect recycles remnants of a formerly far richer window, winds up having a pleasingly simplistic almost rustic minimalism.

The above picture caption refers to a Miles Davis album, that’s also a ‘motion picture soundtrack’ (Ascenseur pour l’échafaud). Of course it’s not the steps to the gallows (or guillotine!), but steps to the church tower, as made clear by the bell-ropes.

There are lots of absolutely gorgeous buildings near St Marge. Here are a few snaps of just some of them.

This one, above and below, is particularly unusual, with the covered stairways.

And to finish, this over the road metal sign, a fox n’ hounds motif, belonging to a pub of that name (or some close variant?). A bit of decorative presumption, bordering on. neighbourhood vandalism, that I doubt one could get away with nowadays. But it certainly gives the location extra character.

It’s an all metal thing, on an I-beam profile. So probably not that old? Not also the old-fashioned ‘Werther’s Originals’ colour scheme of Richmond’s Coaches!

Out and about, delivery driving. Snapped some nice looking buildings, in Denver.

The Denver Reading Room looks intriguing, in a rather forlorn down-at-heel way.

I can see that I’ll have to revisit St Nick’s, to see inside. Aha stone church from the outside. And quite enchanting on a wintry evening.

I’m trying what is, to me, a new feature, the Gallery Block, in the WordPress blog builder app. A lot of my posts are picture heavy things on churches, or whatever. And with the normal editor I have to input every image separately. This allows me to upload a whole suite of pics in one go. I should’ve twigged this ages ago!

Having finally cottoned on to this feature, I’ll have to go through a load of old posts, updating them, methinks!

The light behind these seed heads was utterly spellbinding. These photos do the subject little to no justice, alas.

Well, we went to the Cineworld complex, on the edge of Ely, yesterday, and watched Ridley Scott’s new film, Napoleon.

Released in the UK on 22nd November, and running just short of two hours and forty minutes, it finds the director returning to the same era in which his first feature film, The Duellists, was set.

Apparently, thus far, it is set to ‘break even’, fairly soon. However, the screening we saw was very poorly attended. The room was practically empty. Most of the folk at the cinema complex – and it was pretty busy overall – were there to see Wonka. A reflection of the shallow vapid times we live in? I reckon so.

Without recapitulating the story – Napoleon’s life and the era that bears his name are a source of endless historical and fictional telling and re-telling, as this movie helps demonstrate – I’m going to get straight to the heart of the issue.

There are two chief problems with Scott’s film:

First, unlike the ‘Little Boney’ of Georgian propaganda (who was in fact simply of average height for his time) it really is way too short. You simply cannot tell a story of the scope and grandeur Napoleon’s life entails in the time this movie allocates.

Even in longer series – from the numerous War & Peace adaptations, to Ian Holm’s Napoleon & Love – the amount of ‘exposition’ any such brevity requires is anathema to engaging drama.

Second, historical accuracy. Legend has it that Napoleon said history is only lies that have been agreed upon. Others say that ‘history teaches nothing’. Well, I beg to differ, somewhat. We can learn from history. And it can be nearer to or farther from genuine truth.

Such disservice to the far more interesting reality, and also, more fundamentally and worryingly, the whole idea of ‘the quest for truth’, is significant.

The catalogue of egregious messing with historical verité is massive. From the vandalism of Egyptian archaeology, to his relationship with Josephine, and even the ways in which he fought his battles, there’s just way too much disrespect for reality.

Let’s just unpack a few of these…

I’ll start with Bonaparte in Egypt. It’s long been known that the Sphinx’s nose was missing long before Napoleon arrived en Egypte. Never mind the fact that the battle in which this fictional damage takes place actually occurred a significant distance away from the monuments in question.

Far from being a wrecking machine – although war does inevitably bring destruction – Napoleon was renowned for taking with him to Egypt not just a military expedition, but also a virtual army of so-called Savants. The respect for and interest in Egyptian history Napoleon and his compatriots had greatly enriched the field of ‘Egyptology’, and includes the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, whose deciphering would eventually be accomplished by another Frenchman, Jean-François Champollion.

Much worse than this, to my mind, however, is how Scott et al treat Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine. For starters, in reality she was older than him. Hence her inability – despite having had children with her previous husband – to bear Napoleon an heir.

In my view the casting for this movie is not a strength. Staying with the Josephine thread, Vanessa Kirby is totally miscast. Billie Whitelaw, in her early 40s at the time, was a much better choice, for the TV series Napoleon And Love, back in the 1970s.

Even worse, we have Napoleon striking Josephine, during their divorce. Erm… nope. Didn’t happen! And yet worse still… can it get much worse? Napoleon returns from his exile on Elba, to fight what would become his last campaign, The Hundred Days, culminating in the epoch-ending Battle of Waterloo, on her account! What the absolute fuck!? She had actually been dead for over a year.

Sadly, and despite having respected historian of the era, Michael Broers, as ‘historical consultant’, Scott’s film plays so fast and loose with ‘truth’ as to very seriously impair the whole project. To wreck it, in point of fact.

I typed a whole other chunk about the military aspects of this film. But sadly WordPress and/or my home broadband (thanks, Virgin!) conspired to lose that for me. I’m not sure I can be arsed to rewrite it!

The British have, for the most part, had a very vexed relationship with Napoleon and historical accuracy. The dominant theme – he who pays the piper, and all that – as expressed in the Gillray print above, has been to caricature ‘Boney’ as a short-arse power-mad despot.

Does this film help remedy this historic litany of ahistorical Ancien Regime style propaganda? Alas, no.

Despite this rather damning account from me here, I may well watch this film again. In the perhaps forlorn hope that, on a second viewing, I might enjoy it more.

I just booked tickets for this new Ridley Scott Movie. Anyone who knows me at all well will know I’m a bit of a Napoleonic history nutter.

Ridley Scott’s first film feature movie was the wonderful The Duellists*, released in 1977. This is far and away my favourite Scott movie, so far. Yes, Alien and Gladiator are brilliant entertainment. But The Duellists is a work of art and love that the directors’ more commercial movies fail to match.

* Based on a Joseph Conrad short story, which in turn was based on a real life story.

So… Scott is returning, it would appear, to a true personal passion. Will this translate into a movie that might equal or outdo his earlier foray into this most exciting and colourful era?

He now has, thanks to modern digital technology, the ability to recreate epic scenes that he didn’t have, back when he started out. Will this enhance the end product?

One imagines that it must inevitably do so. But modern cinema as a whole illustrates perfectly, to me at any rate, that grand spectacle alone can very often and very easily be utterly empty and meaningless.

The casting is obviously massively important. Will Joaquin Phoenix cut it? I guess we’ll find out fairly soon. How will they deal with the transition from the lean and hungry youth, to corpulent and balding ‘little corporal’?

From the numerous stills I’ve scene, and the simple one word title, one assumes this movie will attempt to tell most of all of the subject’s story. That’s a mammoth undertaking! One that has defeated everyone from Thomas Hardy (with his massive ‘unstageable’ play, The Dynasts), in the 19th C., to Abel Gance and Stanley Kubrick, in the 20th.

Gance famously blew his entire budget – intending a complete six-part telling of Napoleon’s life – only getting as far as the first instalment (youth and the conquest of Italy), and making a film almost as hard show or to watch as it was to make.

Kubrick, meanwhile, assembled an incredible preparatory archive – subsequently published in book form by Taschen, something that surely Ridley Scott will have drawn upon? – yet failed to make the film itself.

Checking in on the latter reveals that Spielberg and HBO might be planning to complete this. Read more about that tantalising possibility here.

I have to confess, I’m equal parts excited and trepidatious about the prospect of actually seeing this film, which I’ve been aware of for about a year or so now.

I’ll post again when we actually go see it…

Teresa got us a solar powered light for outside the back door. We’ve needed something like this for aeons. I did install a mains powered light above the back door. But we never got it connected to the mains.

Well done, my love.

Teresa was watching a Nigella Xmas cookery show, on her tablet. They played several terrific Vince Guaraldi numbers.

That got me googling, and I discovered that Fantagraphics are publishing the entire Peanuts oeuvre! You can read more about that here.

I’ve just ordered a used copy of the first volume.

Whilst delivering in Stamford, I passed what looked suspiciously like it might be Colin Furze’s property.

I wasn’t delivering there. Tho’ I had just delivered nearby. I passed a particular property, stopped, and thought ‘that’s gotta be it!?’ So I ‘googled’ the subject, and, sho’ nuff…

Well, I oughtn’t and so won’t share that stuff. Even though it’s out there for anyone who cares to look.

But having established that my guess was correct, I thought, what’s to lose? I’ll see if he’s ‘home’. And sure enough he was. It looked like break-time, in the lounge, with Rick.

Colin spotted me approaching, and answered the door. I’m not a fanboy type generally. But I do love Colin and his wacky YouTube shenanigans. Especially all the underground stuff.

I had an ‘underground tunnel club’, as a kid, and planned a Great Escape style getaway between my primary school and our home (about three miles!). Unfortunately we lived next door to an electricity sub-station… and, guess what!? Anyhoo, that’s another story.

I’d have liked to have asked for a guided tour. But I was working. And so, in all likelihood, was Colin. So I demurred. Asking only for a selfie with him. And he obliged. I hope one day, if I’m in the area again, I might pluck up the courage to ask to have a look around.

I’d have loved to have stopped and chatted more. Maybe another time? Still, meeting him and finding out where the underground stuff is happening really made my day.

Colin, you’re a major dude!

Oh, and note to self: get a selfie-stick, and/or learn to take better selfies. Colin looks great. I look like a right tool.

Despite the plethora of churches I’m currently viewing on my travels, there are many I don’t stop for. At all. Some, like St Leonard’s, Apethorpe, I might snap on my way past, but I don’t stop for. There are sooo many!

As I left Apethorpe, I spotted this rather odd castellated water tower, behind some trees in a field. Weird! I like when folk do that bit more than plain functionality requires. It adds character.

There are sooo many pretty villages around these parts. The aulde parts of Kings Cliffe, for example, are stunning. All Saints was closed/locked, alas. But it’s handsome enough from without. But I must go back and have a look around inside as well, some day.

The Church of St. Mary, Doddington, was at least open. The door has these amazing and hoooge metal hinges that I totally failed to capture. Must go back to snap ‘em properly. The inside has interesting rounded (Saxon, as opposed to Norman?) arches:

Rather oddly only two of the six arches feature the pretty ornamental patterning, seen at right. The graveyard is small but very picturesque.

Easton On The Hill is another shockingly beautiful place. Sadly the pics don’t do justice to the vertiginous and higgledy-piggledy nature of the place.

Stamford is a very picturesque town. But my deliveries today were in the less attractive parts. That said, my route did take me past YouTube sensation Colin Furze’s house, where he’s digging his famous ‘secret tunnel’ complex. But I’ll post separately on that!

The only non-Furze pic from Stamford today is this rather amusing bit of street name signage:

Yet another gobsmackingly gorgeous place is Ketton. The place gives its name to one of the many local stones, which make the local architecture sooo damnably attractive. I delivered packages to properties either side of Sy Mary’s, affording ample opportunity to snap this fantastic church.

No 21’s front garden is part of St Mary’s graveyard! And no. 27, an astonishing property in itself, has a beautiful garden giving beautiful views of the church. Some people are very fortunate!

The road out of Ketton towards Nassington was flooded (above). Whilst contemplating risking driving through, the farmer, whose land it is that’s either side of the road, turned up. I asked how deep his field were flooded. Two to three feet in places, he reckoned. And the road? Not so deep. Maybe eighteen inches? But not worth the risk! He kindly explained an alternate route.

I had been thinking of eating a McDonalds lunch. But then, whilst driving through Ketton, I remembered Elsie’s Vintage Tea Room. No competition! I’d wanted one of their baked potatoes. But they were all out. So I had Coronation chicken sandwiches, with a side salad, and a Camp coffee. Nice!

I was lucky to find a free table. All the others were reserved. it’s such a wonderful place. Even their retro-Christmas music was fun. If I’m in a supermarket, by contrast the enforced jollity if seasonal sounds can be quite falling.

And finally, home, to dear young Chester… who alas clearly mighty pleased to see me. As I was to see him.