Observations from a Hill

As they say, truth is always stranger than fiction. Early last year I wrote about my Great Great Aunt's involvement in the running of the White Horse Inn at Clun, Shropshire. Today I asked the current landlord whether he knew much of the history of the pub and his antecedents. I told him that one of my relatives had run the place some hundred or so years ago, to which he asked "What name?". "Graves" answered I. He then filled in a few gaps to the story: apparently, [Job] Graves had disappeared quite early on in their tenancy, but my Great Great Aunt Elizabeth Graves[neé Southall] was owner of the place until its sale in 1921, along with the adjoining buildings on the corner of Market Square and a parcel of agricultural land to boot. The picture above is of a framed facsimile of an auction poster of that sale, which has been staring me in the face for nearly thirty years, every time we visit the place. I've been blithely unaware that my relative's name is...

A dog and a log fire: what's not to like? Apologies for the rather lacklustre photo, but a black pooch backlit by the firelight sort of forms a black hole, and I didn't want to use flash and spook the Lady, so there we are. A cold day and a cold night in prospect, but at least the storms have abated for the while.  A better few days are forecast, so we'll see how the week pans out. We await instructions in the light of the  new Covid variant - if the government can stir its collective arse and decide something that makes the remotest sense - breath holding, not. Catch you tomorrow...

Where have we seen this pattern before? A new Covid variant is announced, the information about it is understandably conflicting, but it is marked as a 'variant of concern'. When taxed as to their plans in response, the government shies away from plan 'B' and continues apace with its laissez faire 'let's see what happens' approach. Up until recently, most of the British public have reacted well and complied with the restrictions inevitably imposed in a global pandemic, despite the vacillations, dual standards and false starts - not to mention the financial sleaze - of the government. We are on the whole genuinely sensible - as are most of the human race - and will generally do anything that is logical and reasonably asked of us in such a situation. The problem is that when your government sends out so many conflicting signals, the margins of sensible society start to rear their heads big time - the anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and sundry other tinfoil-hat-wea...

I was listening to photographer Giles Duley talking on Radio 4's Soul Music this morning. Retelling his return to photographic reporting in conflict zones after being seriously injured in Afghanistan - losing both his legs and an arm to a landmine - and his subsequent work on the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, and the thought struck me that perhaps the only way to change the appalling attitude of the UK Home Office and our Home Secretary in particular to the plight of these people would be to force Patel and Johnson - in fact the whole damned Cabinet - to spend time on the ground in the places that these poor souls are trying to escape - real time: no guided tours, no political showmanship, no flim-flam. Preferably with no hotel rooms and preferably for at least a month or two - I think we can spare them for a few weeks - just to give them a flavour of exactly what it's like to be a human being trapped in a situation over which they have no control, in a land whe...

As is usual when current events are just too depressing to comment on, a diary post tonight. The wind is knife-sharp today and the first wintry flurries of sleet (not to be confused with hail - a largely thunderstorm and summer related phenomenon) have made an appearance. The prospects for the weekend aren't too great with Storm Arwen making an appearance: the North-East of Scotland and England already being hammered. With a bit of luck things will settle down by the end of Sunday. The mountains have a dusting of white and were surrounded by the most ominous cloud cover most of the day: not a great day for walking on the hills. I'm just glad I no longer have to work out in this weather, it really can be seriously unpleasant climbing poles and going down holes at this time of year: all behind me, thank Christ. Still, Christmas will soon be over and Spring beckons, the turning of the year as far as I'm concerned: onward to Summer!

The phrase 'Economic Migrants' - much touted by the right-wing press and our decidedly unsavoury Home Secretary, Priti Patel, as recently as today in Parliament - fills me with righteous anger: especially now in the light of the tragedy that panned out in the dangerous waters of the Channel this week. Where on earth do these pundits get their authority to play God with people's lives? The simple fact is that if you are willing to risk your very existence, and your family's, to make your way across continents and the busiest shipping lane in the world in the heart of Winter, you will have good reason. Visiting KFC and Starbucks or hoping for Universal Credit will not be on your agenda. Who in the Lord's name has the right to triage these human beings into random groupings whilst they're in one of the most lethal transits possible and to decide their reasons for risking life and limb in so doing? People in dire straits in war-torn countries and dictatorships have ...

Back in the nineties, we used to play a computer game based on RMS Titanic, which consisted of solving a series of problems/challenges before the inevitable happened. It was one of the first immersive games I remember and was actually quite impressive technically, given the state of the tech in those days: and it was fun and instructive to play. We could have navigated our way around the real ship, it was that accurate and detailed. Like most such simulations, once you've cracked the game, the shine goes off the experience: like noughts and crosses, it soon becomes pointless, as in the eighties film 'War Games', where 'Tic-Tac-Toe' taught the war computer 'WOPR' the futility of Global Thermonuclear War. If only things were so simple now. We're are all tied up in knots by algorithms that most people are still truly unaware of and it seems uncaring about. But life carries on: the rich become richer and the rest struggle: the only option seems to be 'ga...