The Annunciation

This evening, we have been to our local Cineworld to see The Grand Budapest Hotel. It's clever, with each frame beautifully composed, but the same goes for many a TV advertisement: Wes Anderson's film is like one long such advertisement, and ultimately it palls.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, I photographed this Virgin at the Annunciation (today's feast) in the sacristy of Lescar Cathedral last April. The separate figure of the Archangel Gabriel is a few feet to the left, with an unsightly notice in between.

On my previous visit, in the same month four years earlier, I had photographed the very wonderful ensemble (see below - then there was nothing on the wall in the middle), but the figure of Mary comes out better in the more recent image I feel.

Lescar

I had visited the ancient capital of the Béarn by myself in April 2009. Caroline and I stopped off there for some lunch today, on our way out of Pau, where Caroline had picked me up from the station. The 12th Century cathedral houses contemporary mosaics and capitals (including a Flight into Egypt), one of the loveliest of carved Annunciations (in the sacristy) as well as later royal tombs and a modern Saint-Jacques with a surprised look. This imp is one of several curious modillions supporting the apse roof: you need to sleuth your way around the outside to find it!

Spoiler Alert

You may or may not receive a Christmas card from me, with this image on it. (I took the photograph in the austere 12th Century nave of Lescar Cathedral just before setting out on my Voie du Puy walk in April. Whether the carving itself is 12th Century, I rather doubt, but I find it quite a charming depiction of Matthew 2,14 even though none of the Holy Family is apparently riding on the donkey.)

The point is, I didn't have enough printed in order for all those on our rambling Christmas card list to receive one. Which brings me to the question, yet again, of whether we need to send so many people cards. Somehow, we're beset by a conspiracy to keep it going: every year, the additions to the list seem to exceed the (usually sad) deletions. Occasionally, you meet up with someone you haven't seen for decades, but have exchanged cards with: when you realise how little you now have in common, each reaches for the red pen.

What's to stop a greater ruthlessness? Well, I suppose it's something to do with the Christmas spirit. And we enjoy receiving cards ourselves, even from those who live next door. Possibly we all wish to avoid the King John outcome, the cards upon his shelf... were... only from himself.

Crazy isn't it! Especially in the days of instant messaging - and blogging. Particularly as I somehow feel it's not the same if I haven't written the addresses out by hand. I used not to, so this is a further indication that I am moving backwards into the Dark Ages. Seems too to give a lie to what I mentioned Ben Brangwyn said the other day, "Complex systems never return to a prior state."

Having written this, I see it's all really said much more amusingly by Jon Canter in today's Guardian. (And "Martin" is the hero of the story.)