100 x 2/3

Caroline thought it very self-indulgent of me to make the point that today was my 66 and 2/3rds birthday: something that I feel sure Frodo Baggins would have been keen to celebrate, so why not me?

Whilst walking among the apple trees above Hailes Abbey this morning - see photograph - I reflected that at 33 and 1/3rd I was father to a six-month old son; my lovely wife was suffering from glandular fever whilst pregnant once again, and I had given notice to my partners of my intention to leave my firm, without any clear idea of what I was going to be doing next for a living. An interview at Handsworth Law Centre did not go swimmingly, I remember: which was probably just as well. (I ended up starting up my own law firm.)

The sun shone today; we live in a beautiful part of the world where peace (largely) reigns; I am reasonably fit, and we have a wonderful family, not to mention many good friends. What a deal to be thankful for, and indeed to celebrate on this sort of birthday!

Against the current

I was in London yesterday - this was taken looking upstream from Battersea Bridge. The occasion? To take part with a couple of hundred other liberally-minded Catholics in a new initiative called "Stand up for Vatican II". We were invited to come together to explore how we might reinvigorate the legacy of Vatican II and provide a platform to stand and declare our felt concern for our Church in the world today.

It was, Chair Frank Regan stressed, first and foremost a celebration of the growth we had experienced at the time of the Council. "Most of us here are a bit wrinkly and crinkly," he said. (There was no arguing with that!) "How do we hand on what we have received, so that the next generation will be able to build their Church in turn?"

Theologian Michael Winter urged us to work to make our parishes real communities. The danger was they were becoming larger and larger as priest numbers dwindled; whereas for people to know one another, an authentic parish community should comprise no more than about 70 people. In pre-Reformation times, Canterbury had 40 parishes: there were eight churches in King Street, Norwich, and even today Trumpington Street in Cambridge has six mediaeval church buildings.

"We are a mature society," he said, richly entitled to make non-violent protest: "Our own conscience has to be obeyed," as Joseph Ratzinger wrote in 1968.

And we can build the new within the shell of the old. Start by signing the petition!

P.S. There is also an Italian version of "Stand up for Vatican II", supported by a couple of cardinals.

Above Coldwell Bottom

We often walk here, above Coberley. It's a convenient triangle, a variety of scenery within a short space.

The Winter sun was shining this morning, the sheep casting unreally long shadows on the hillside flanking Coldwell Bottom. The plantation, which we saw going in when first we came to live in Cheltenham in 1994, is now serious woodland, the track up to it only partly chewed up by the mountain bikers. It's not as bad for walkers anyway as would be the adjacent fields.

But this was a tame walk bearing in mind what lies ahead for us: on Holy Saturday, we set out from Seville for Salamanca, the first half of the Via de la Plata: the second, to Santiago de Compostela, is planned for October.

Not only longer walks, therefore, but heavier weights than a camera need to be factored in regularly from now on!

Unreal world Conservatism

Today's photograph was taken by me in 2002 from the Trans-Siberian Express, approaching Beijing.

For a public school-educated, ex-army former banker, Andrew Mitchell MP is surprisingly enlightened about international development. For more than four years, he has shadowed first Hilary Benn and now Douglas Alexander, visiting 37 countries. He came to Cheltenham last evening to address a mixed audience on the subject at St Matthew's Church: sixth formers from Dean Close School rubbed shoulders with wizened NGO campaigners and a retired MFH.

Last year, Mitchell (and David Cameron) launched his Green Paper, "One World Conservatism - a Conservative agenda for international development" - and much good it contains judging from his exposition.

The trouble is, Green it may be in name, but green it is not. The crucial words so conspicuously missing from his half hour talk were "climate change". If any member of a prospective Conservative Cabinet is likely to be able to impress upon his colleagues the overwhelming importance of our taking the most serious possible approach to tackling climate change here, in every policy area, it must be our well-travelled Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.

But as dragged out of him at question time, "There is a flaw," he confessed, "in the archetecture of government, in that the departments for overseas development and climate change are not linked." To which the riposte must be, "Fix it then!"

"Cheltenham under attack"

Jonathon Porritt was busy defending Cheltenham from the big planners last night - those wanting to bring on the Regional Spatial Strategy and dump unsustainable quantities of new housing onto the town in what they term "Sustainable urban extensions".

He was on good form. The numbers had emerged after "multiple meddling" by Government at every stage of the RSS development process. The challenge, he said, with any new housing development was to achieve a genuine "sustainability", such that, "as you uttered the word, you didn't trip up over your own despicable hypocrisy." What chance was there, at this point in time, that Government was going to provide the infrastructure needed for any substantial new housing development?

Senior politicians, he observed, have no difficulty these days in talking about climate change, and "even possibly with some sincerity," but they exhibit deep discomfort about going over to a truly sustainable low growth economy.

Last night, despite the thaw, Jonathon wasn't looking quite as summery as in this photograph - taken at last June's Cheltenham Science Festival.

Today is the 43rd world day of peace

For (I think) the first time since I began my blog, I have borrowed someone else's image to illustrate my post for today, Peace Sunday.

The man in the picture is John Gebhardt, a Chief Master Sergeant in the USAF serving in Afghanistan - as high as you can go in enlisted ranks (E-9). The little girl's entire family was executed. Insurgents intended to execute the little girl also: they shot her in the head, but failed to kill her. She was cared for in John Gebhardt's hospital and is healing, but continues to cry and moan. The nurses said John is the only one who seems to calm her down, so John has spent recent nights holding her while they both slept in that chair.

(Thanks to Frank Regan for sending me this story.)

"Which is the true religion?"

A ring with the power to make its owner loved by both God and his fellow man is passed down the generations, father to son, until one father has three sons he loves equally. To avoid choosing between them, he has two other rings made. No one now knows which is the authentic ring and arguments between the sons ensue. A judge advises them that, if the ring really possesses its reputed power, the true owner will make himself known, so they should each act as if theirs were the true ring.

A parable told to Saladin by Nathan the Wise at the time of the Third Crusade (1192), as retold by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in 1779

Transfiguration

"A stained glass Bible", which I published last year, has just entered a new edition, with some extra pages. The latest image is this rather tender Victorian "Transfiguration" panel: friends have it in their house, rescued from a London church riddled with dry rot and demolished in the 'Seventies.

I'm rather pleased to have been able to include some glass which, whilst it fits my biblical theme, is not stuck away in a little-visited church, but instead much cherished by private owners: it hangs in their front porch, but was taken down specially for my (by appointment) visit.

Well worth my rather dicey bicycle ride through Cheltenham's unsalted streets, in order to take the photograph this morning!

Clinging on

A fine day in Capetown seems and is a far cry from frozen Leckhampton. It appearing improbable that England's last seven wickets would last out for a draw in the Third Test, I was particularly delighted that Ian Bell was the lynchpin of our successful rearguard action, a player I've followed since his teenage debut with "my" team, Warwickshire. (Odd how these loyalties never die: I was glad to find out recently that not only my mother's father, but also my father's grandfather were staunch Aston Villa supporters, a tradition I've clearly inherited.)

Between listening to the fluctuations in the cricket, we had a great walk in the snow, coming back through the big meadow with its ancient oaks. Developers, keep your hands off!

12th Night

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey..."

We provided a refuge for one, nearly two, stranded in Cheltenham last night, as three inches of snow fell even down here. And it's snowing again now. The heaviest we've had it since we came here in 1995.

As I sit here tapping away, and Caroline rings round the family, we can hardly say, with Eliot's Magi, "But there was no information".

Victorian U-Values

We have lived in our house (built: 1870) nearly 15 years, over which period a running battle has been fought with draughts. Most of the rooms have open fireplaces: apart from the couple in which a fire is ever lit, I had long ago stuffed the chimneys with fibreglass.

Last week, though, there was much reference in the paper to chimney balloons, which were new to me. Would these be a better solution for our unused fireplaces, I wondered. Well, in the process of inspecting our chimney openings, I discovered that no less than three of them had neat little trap doors, hinged so that they could be pulled down when the fire was not lit. And I'd never even realised. Amazing!

In praise of the LumaLoop

This cold and frosty morning we went for a long walk in the Winter sunshine. And I was able to try out my Christmas present from Thomas, which took me a bit by surprise - that something so ordinary-looking could be so very useful!

My new camera strap replaces the conventional one supplied with my Nikon D40: taking it over my head and shoulder in order to make a picture was a continual hassle. With the LumaLoop, there is no problem. Brilliant!

2009: the end

We have just waved goodbye to our girls, who are off to welcome the New Year with friends in furthest Worcestershire. So, the house is once more empty, and we reflect on another year in which we have failed to move from too large a home.

But six bedrooms have their uses when there are family weddings to celebrate, as in May/June. Running from room to room through icy corridors - as we have been lately - causes us to remember the light, warm days of Spring, Summer and Autumn more appreciatively. Then, it's a beautiful place to be living - with the garden making several extra large rooms, where we often eat out breakfast, lunch, tea and supper - sometimes all four. Friends from London refer to coming to see us in the country, and indeed we can see the Cotswolds from our windows, barely a mile away.

Travelling for a fortnight through Liverpool, Manchester, Lancaster and Carlisle to Edinburgh in May, and back through Berwick, Durham, York, Nottingham and Northampton made me realise what a rich quality of life we have in Cheltenham. Spending time in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Yokahama in October reinforced that conviction.

Christmas Day carols

Yesterday, we celebrated Christmas at home with great jollity. There were 11 around the dining-room table - six English, two Taiwanese, two Japanese and a Canadian.

Sitting with the sun pouring in through the windows, we ate as much turkey and Christmas pudding as ever, and then, when it had grown dark outside, all sang carols together. A very happy day (though we missed having any of the grandchildren with us this year).

"A meaningful deal?"

Looking back from a time beyond my lifetime, will today's conclusion of the Copenhagen summit be seen as a turning-point, when we started to take seriously the business of saving the planet? Somehow, I doubt it. As well as the news from Denmark, the BBC reports that the number of cars in Beijing is now nearing four million. Not a figure that is likely to decrease anytime soon, I guess.

Happy Christmas! if I don't pontificate again before then!

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.)

Armagnac

Olivier Azam is better known as the Gloucester hooker than as waiter in his restaurant in Montpellier here in Cheltenham. Today, however, I was lunching at Armagnac, and there he was, struggling a little with reading out to us the chef's specials: you could say we hung on the words of he who was suspended.

When the food came, however, it was excellent: frogs' legs, a rare delicacy, for my starter, and deliciously fresh mussels for a main course. Not that I eat out much, but on this form, the Armagnac chef has to be amongst the best in Cheltenham - and their businessmen's lunch the best value. (Too bad Caroline has 'flu.)

15 Rotunda Terrace always seems to have been a place for French food: Olivier's previous business there was fittingly "Le Quinze" - I photographed its window in June 2006 - and before that it was Le Beaujolais, scene of a number of memorable family parties as I recall.

The Wave

Central London will certainly have known there was a degree of concern being felt about climate change yesterday! The noise level - at least where I was marching - was deafening. Things are rather different from when I last took part in this sort of thing: not only are participants more vociferous: everyone now seems to need to carry a placard, which makes for a great pile of rubbish at the end of the day.

An extraordinary variety of interests combined for the event, Young LibDems walking alongside Socialist Workers; Carmelites rubbing shoulders with the RSPB. The general mood seemed one of festival, though with a deeply serious overtone.

It was more than an hour from the start before the back markers left Grosvenor Square, by which time the early marchers had reached Parliament. The organisers estimated more than 50,000 taking part: BBC News at 10 said 20,000. Who is to say what significance this has?

Our coach driver thought it was all a waste of time, as his and 499 other coaches had been driving round all day, burning up diesel - the coach parking bays having apparently been suspended throughout the capital.

In Westminster Central Hall at 11 a.m. Archbishop Williams and his Westminster counterpart led an ecumenical service attended by 3,500 or so: neither impressed me so much as Michael Holman SJ writing in this week's Tablet: "Ours is a project of hope for a better future: that God’s Creation will be treated with reverence, that the poor will be better off and that we will be living more true to ourselves and to what God has created us to be – one family, living in solidarity with one another and with the many generations yet to come."

There are more of my photographs of The Wave day here, in case you are interested.

"A stained glass Bible"

This is the title of a book I've published via Blurb online publishing. Not of course all the Bible as seen in stained glass, but some of the familiar stories. Alongside a text derived from the New Jerusalem Bible is one of my photographs of a stained (or painted) glass panel, taken from the collection I've built up over the years - 30 or so in total.

It's print-on-demand book, so if anyone wants to order a copy, then they do so by accessing the book on the Blurb site, and filling in their requirements, just like on Amazon. You can preview some of the pages of the book online (to help you make up your mind about buying!).

How did this all come about? Well, Mini, my new daughter-in-law from Japan, is an admirer of stained glass, and this prompted Leo to commission me to put together a book of photographs for her. So, rejecting all the many non-biblical subjects I seemed to have gathered in, I restricted myself to a theme of Old and New Testament subjects.

The age of the windows I photographed is from the early 14th to the late 20th centuries. I was worried about including a couple of images taken in a private chapel I'd visited, but the owners were happy to consent to my publishing them - provided I didn't identify the location. I hope none of the other glass's "custodians" object to their windows being included, with attribution and a general acknowledgement.

Talking the talk

Over the past 48 hours, I've attended three meetings where sustainability or resiliance have been the watchwords. On Tuesday afternoon, there was quite a heated discussion in the RCE Severn Steering Committee about the extent to which we needed to sock it to our stakeholders. Should our working groups challenge businesses' CSR policies, and challenge too the whole notion of the sustainability of continuing economic growth, given Peak Oil and that we are already in ecological debt? Are children being equipped by our schools for a society based on the realities of resource depletion and global warming? What is our positive vision of a low-carbon, steady state economy or our plan for energy descent?

Some of these questions were addressed by Ben Brangwyn of the Transition Network at the University of Gloucestershire's IRIS Seminar that evening. Ben's "excited by local currencies," he tells us - not as a replacement for the pound sterling, but as a complementary process. And he's big on visioning: "Where will we need to be in 20 years' time? How do we get from here to there - year by year?" "We don't know," he stressed, "if this Transition thing is going to work: it's an experiment; but we cannot sit around and wait for someone to do a pilot." And he cautions, "complex systems can never return to a prior state." Sustainable Bungay was an example of what could be achieved with faith-based communities heavily involved. Or, talking of adaptation, what about Cheltenham becoming a City of Sanctuary? (There's a challenge!)

My photograph was taken at the well-attended meeting of the Gloucestershire Churches Environmental Justice Network yesterday, where Professor Daniella Tilbury spoke of the UoG's work in the sustainability field. What is it about our lives that has got us to where we are, was the question she posed. Not, "Who dropped that plastic wrapper?" but, "What sort of society makes it necessary to have such wrappers?" Strategies to change behaviours don't work: the consumer culture is here to stay. How do we influence without preaching? "The biggest problem we have in this institution [the UoG] is students."

Davis family history

I spotted this sign when walking down Bond Street last week. This A.B. Davis was no relation of ours (or not to my knowledge anyway). But another A.B. Davis was my grandfather. His ancestry is currently taking up quite a bit of my time, thanks to an incredible piece of good luck.

I've mentioned previously about the family's origins. A.B.D.'s grandfather Peter is the earliest Davis of which we know much: his travel diary of 1835 is a vital record, if not a literary masterpiece.

Now, to cut a long story short, thanks to the curiosity and initiative of my cousin Bruce Coates of New Brunswick, he has acquired a slightly later Peter Davis diary, amongst many other (later) family papers. And, what's more, he and his wife Genie have struggled against many difficulties to transcribe it.

Last night, Bruce sent me this poignant entry made on the day Peter's father died, 30th August 1837: "Warm clear day. This morning about ¼ to 5 o’clock my poor dear Father departed this life without a struggle having bourne a lingering illness of nearly 3 months. In the 69th year of his age. May the Lord have mercy upon the soul of my best friend upon earth."

Isn't this worth a thousand dry facts unearthed via FamilySearch?

Showtime

Being in London for two nights gave us plenty of time to see exhibitions (on Friday). First, we went to Cork Street, to look at the amazing "hyperphotos" by Jean-François Rauzier. The best of these were landscapes with a difference - a seamless stitching together of many images of extreme detail to form a large-scale composition. I was less convinced by the stage-set interiors, especially those with women lying (dead, one supposed) in the foreground. Not my sort of photography, but worth a visit.

On to a packed Royal Academy, the courtyard of which at present sees Reynolds confronting a massive array of silver profiteroles, the work of Anish Kapoor. What a delightful contrast to the drear Anthony Caro sculpture, dominating that space on my last visit!

I didn't in fact get to the big Kapoor show inside, which Caroline much enjoyed. Instead, I lingered over the three sculptors on display in the Sackler Wing, Gill, Epstein and the hard-to-pronounce Gaudier-Brzeska. Of the three, I particularly admired Gaudier-Brzeska's work. Though his life was the shortest, his work seemed the most radical.

From "Wild Thing" I moved on to "Hard Rain" on the railings at St Martin's-in-the-Fields. This is an extremely striking and accessible series of photographs to illustrate the words of the Dylan song, and accompany the build-up to Copenhagen. Well done St Martin's, which, in its much-transformed state, as I felt on a previous visit is fast becoming a centre of vision for this most central point in the West End.

Finally, to the National Gallery for "The Sacred Made Real". I had been urged to visit this show by a number of different people, and wish I'd left more time for it: though it's not a large exhibition, the work is of great intensity, beautifully curated and lit. Such a contrast between Gill's attenuated stone Christ Crucified at the Academy in the morning, and the painted wooden images here!

As always for me, the pieces by Velázquez seemed to shine out, and in particular Mother Geronimo. What a master!

Is aid to Africa redundant?

This was the question for discussion at a seminar I attended In London last Thursday evening. It was the fifth event of its type put on by my old college (University College, Oxford) for its alumni and friends, and - having been to a previous one - very worthwhile I judge them.

This year the panellists - seen here with the Master of Univ., introducing them - were an Old Member (Tim Evans, currently at the Word Health Organisation); Ngaire Woods, a current Fellow, and Director of the Global Economic Governance Programme at Univ.; Dr. Dima Noggo Sarbo, a former member of the Ethiopian Government and currently on the Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship Programme, and Dr. Kevin Watkins, a Univ. Research Fellow, and former head of research at Oxfam.

With the aid of some sharp quesions put by well-informed members of the assembly, a number of issues were teased out, some of which I hadn't previously considered very fully. The extent to which military aid tends to accompany development aid, in order to prop up repressive regimes; and the extent to which African governments are beholden to aid donors, at the expense of being accountable to their own repressed people. And is it possible to suggest African aid is redundant (because "unsucessful"), when UN targets of aid as a percentage of GDP are more or less uniformly ignored (save by the Scandanavian countries)? How, again, do you compare a trillion dollars of aid over 60 years, with a hundred trillion over 12 months - the amount provided for economic stimulus? Perhaps it's arguable, said Dr. Evans, that nowhere other than Africa are so many lives saved at the expense of so few dollars.

On the other hand, we heard, far too much aid goes to pay for European - as opposed to African - experts on consultancies. (This came up too the following evening, when Lady Greenstock appealed on behalf of Women for Women at a fundraising concert we attended in Perivale: W4W, working in Nigeria, Sudan, Rwanda and the DRC, employ only local advocates. And we have since heard news of Caroline's brave Goddaughter Harriet, who is with MSF in the DRC, again alongside primarily local aid workers.)

Someone at the Univ. seminar described China as the elephant in the room - but at least it was (eventually) discussed. The real elephant in the room - given the speed at which parts of Africa is developing - is surely carbon, which didn't rate a mention all evening. Depressing, that.

Cheltenham wind

I photographed these wind turbines whilst on the Mersey Ferry in May. Seldom enough in the British Isles do you see them in this sort of setting - to which even David Bellamy would have a job to take offence.

Good news therefore that our local Borough Council's Planning Committee have passed, without a dissenting voice, an application to build a 60 foot turbine tower in a park on the West side of Cheltenham! It's estimated to be able to generate about 17% of the electricity needed for Springbank Community Resource Centre, which seeks to regenerate one of the town's most deprived areas. Project advocate Andy Hayes was interviewed by the Gloucestershire Echo following the decision: "I think," he says, "the turbine is a thing of beauty - it represents very successfully the fight against climate change and the need for more renewable energy."

And on a rather different scale, one day earlier this month Spain saw over 50% of its electricity come from turbines. Chris Goodall as always writes positively and authoritatively on the background to this story in Carbon Commentary.

BBC4 x 2

Today's Guardian has a "Spanish Spirit" supplement, which says the best known Churriguera retablo mayor is in the church of San Esteban in Salamanca. The article's accompanying photograph isn't as detailed as the one I took in San Esteban - and even that doesn't really do it justice.

Our visit to this (and sundry other equally magnificent Catholic churches and cathedrals in Spain) last Autumn came back to me last night as I watched Don Carlo on BBC4. I'm not a great fan of opera on the small screen, or even at the cinema - Cineworld have of course stopped their relays from the Met., which I regret. The Covent Garden production of Verdi's grandest opera came across superbly on TV, however, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Marina Poplavskaya's Elisabetta stole the show for me - even with the great Rolando Villazón singing the title role. Her acting was terrific, and what a joy to hear a young, still lyric soprano, with no vibrato, in that great dramatic part! Only 29, Marina lives over a pub in Soho, the daughter of a Moscow chemist with five specialist diplomas, but working as a taxi driver because she can earn more.

The Poplavskaya family held to their Russian Orthodox faith throughout the Soviet years, keeping an icon hidden in a wardrobe. Nicholas Hytner's Don Carlo has plenty of icons of one sort or another to evoke the atmosphere of 16th Century Spain. Orthodoxy and the Reformation are the themes for last week's and next's instalments in Diarmaid MacCulloch's History of Christianity, also on BBC4. I really don't watch that much TV normally - just football (as I've said before): this week seems to have been an exception. But I'm not sure I am going to stick with MacCulloch. I envy him the opportunity of skipping around Europe and Asia Minor, seeing the sights, and he is distinctly likeable. Further, his substance is interesting enough: he makes it all sound fresh. The accompanying pictures are, however, repetitive and ultimately distracting. Radio 3 would be a much preferable forum.

Odd, that the previous week in MacCulloch's exploration of "the extraordinary rise of the Roman Catholic Church," there wasn't a single mention of St Benedict.