17th May 2025

The Wizard of Todmorden, modern of course.  Yesterday Andrew and I went for lunch at the Folklore Centre just around the corner.  I wanted him to see the marvellous library of books upstairs in the building.  Holly greeted us warmly and served vegan soup.  I had mushroom, and was a little taken back by no cream added but it would take sometime for me to adjust to veganism.

I dearly want the centre to survive but it has to make its own money, and after only a short period of opening the cafe bit they have a customer problem.  Why? Well the red brick building next to it is the Hippodrome, which has just won some money and now is spending it on building work to make a cinema room upstairs.  The building work has sprawled across the pavement, forcing people to walk in the road and it is said that it will be a year before it is removed.  Holly says footfall has fallen dramatically because of this.  Car parking is not a problem, there are two supermarkets over the road and  it has always seemed to me that there are plenty of people at the talks.

Apparently at the beginning of the 20th century the block of buildings you see above was financed by one man, and that includes the enormous Hippodrome next to the centre.  He unfortunately bankrupted himself but left behind a good legacy.  The centre was at one time the offices/printworks? of a local rag called 'Todmorden Herald'.  Now long defunct.  It would be interesting to find out the history, but nothing seems to be online, so a visit to the local library is called for.

Nothing else of interest, except, maybe the long conversation I had with my son about transhumanism, apparently there is even a party of them in the USA.  Let us say that Musk and Mark Zuckerberg must have their fingers in the pie there.  I have this picture of talking heads but no bodies, except of course there will have to be some sort of transport.  But it has all been done before.  See Bran the Talking Head.

 Home | Centre for Folklore Myth Magic

15th May 2025

Oh dear we have to get rid of men ;) ;)  From the Guardian via Rebecca Solnit, they use up too much of the Earth's resources and drive cars, though I thought women did as well.

Murr being her usual wickedly funny written self  Now Murr has a very funny bone inside her, it is the way she looks at the world from, often, a purely nature inspired blog.

Someone will have to give his totally over the top plane back.  As if, forgot he is totally above the law.

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I really cannot cope with what is going on in the world today, even its humour escapes me.  But checking through my photo files I came across 'Collections'. It was Paul's file of the multitude of things he collected.  I wonder what happened to the old straw firemen's Japanese uniforms that were soaked before they tackled a fire.  He was a great collector, I have the opposite tendency trying to off load my possessions, I hope his sons treasure them though, as will Leo his grandson when he grows up.

Amitahba - Buddha of Eternal Light

A wooden Mejii shop sign

Japanese Kanamona (metal fitting) of a hare dancing amongst waves

Japanese Buddhist Vajra

And of course my favourite large painting that hung on the wall.  It would probably have been displayed at the entrance to a temple to ward away evil.  Somewhere in my blogs I have written of it.  And here it is.

Two Carp Leaping among Waves by Tsukioka Shuei (died 1839) mid-late Edo period

12th may 2025

 The Rights of Nature is a legal and philosophical framework that recognizes the inherent rights of ecosystems and natural entities to exist, thrive, and regenerate, fundamentally shifting how we view and interact with the environment.

Definition and Significance

The Rights of Nature concept acknowledges that ecosystems, including rivers, forests, and wildlife, possess inherent rights similar to human rights. This framework challenges traditional views that treat nature merely as property to be exploited for human benefit. Instead, it emphasizes the interconnectedness of all life forms and the need for legal recognition of nature's rights to ensure its protection and sustainability. 

I have gone on ad-nauseam about how nature is an interlinking system, it is recognised more clearly now but the question of whether nature has rights, like for instance we have in Human Rights has been a matter of discussion.  We rape the ground of its minerals and in so doing create damaged ecosystems and the departure of indigenous people from their homelands.  We are so clever at selling our, or other countries, commodities on the Stock Exchange, that we barely notice the disastrous consequences.

MacFarlane had mentioned the Ecuadorian court case when a Rights of Nature law suit was brought - and won.  He had been visiting the Cloud Forest there where the battle to save it from prospectors had been fought out.  The prospecting for minerals and gold is a dirty world of forcing the indigenous people out and the killing of them.  Then when the trees are cut down, rivers become polluted with chemicals, the prize is won but only at the cost of the animals, insects and flora. 

The truth though lies in the fact that we as humans are totally dependent on Nature to provide for us and our ability to destroy it will result in our own destruction.  So all those nice cosy things we love so much, our cars and fancy furniture will not hold up against flood, fire and plagues.  A thing we are experiencing at the moment with Climate Change.

I think there is a 'creep' of legal justice that protects our environment in our country as well, the recent court case of the sycamore tree cut down by two men on Hadrian's Wall is evidence of this.  As also the destructive path that HS2 took through the countryside.  People stood by their trees not allowing them to be cut down, there is a symbiotic nature between humans and trees.  Rejoicing in them as we do when the first leaves of spring show their pale beauty and then the sadness at Autumn as the leaves die leaving a crumpled mess of brown leaves on the ground. Though of course regeneration of the leaves back into the soil creates the new life with its millions of bacteria.

Has the law been applied to the fouling of our rivers and lately the lakes in the Lake District though, the water companies are fined but does the money go back to cleanse the rivers?

According to this article a recent fine of £11 million pounds for several water companies will go to restoration  and not into the Treasury.  But this meagre amount of money is questioned by Charles Watson, Head of River Action who says.

“Every pound that is given to local communities to restore rivers is welcome and we are grateful for that, but the money in this fund is just a rounding error compared to how shareholders and lenders have been paid out by the water firms." ................

Edit:  Well coincidentally, the news rams on, whether you want another grey male from Thames Water trying to justify large salaries or bonuses from the money the government is giving them to make thing better, take your choice.  Well it will improve the bank balances of the company chairmen.  And of course we are heading into drought this summer.  

10th May 2025

 How did the day go?  Mostly I have been tired, this is Mollie's fault.  Listened to the new Macfarlane book - Are River's Alive' and thought  who hasn't seen a Welsh river which has splashed and sparkled with life, so yes to that.  Or seen the slow graceful movements of grayling in an Essex river.  The sadness of the River Wye down South being destroyed  by chicken waste is heartbreaking.  A classic slow moving river roaming through a beautiful countryside.  We load the rivers with s**t and then watch them die.  I can remember as a child going fishing in Wales for trout, my father went salmon fishing as well.  In a small clean river, you could lay on your tummy and tickle trout and maybe catch an eel.

I picked up another book as well this by an old friend of long ago, it is called 'Theodore and Eliza by Susan Harvard.  It looked a heavyweight in words but is surprisingly interesting.  It harks back to Princess Diana's great, great (there might be a couple more greats) grandparents.  Theodore is in service to the government and he falls in love with an Armenian girl and they marry.  He is sent to the Honourable East India Company  and then after a couple of years to Mocha in Yemen to run The Factory.  He dies though at the early age of 32 years old, on a boat transporting him to England so that he could visit his parents in Scotland.  Also his 6 years old daughter Kitty.

Eliza sadly does not benefit much in his will, she is referred to as the housekeeper, though he settles a good amount on his children.  These two were in love but of course the stigma of the time marrying someone from another race must have been the trigger.  So this is where Princess Diana ancestry comes from.  And that is all I have read so far.

It took Susan over 30 years to gather together the information, and she also went to Yemen to try to find out more.  Here she met a 10 year Yemeni boy who showed her the ruined interior of a merchant's house and she writes below the photograph 'may he live and thrive throughout his country's troubled times'. Such a difference to the words voiced today.  

Susan was so good through the death of my first husband, they  were all a band of friends at Oxford together and I shall always remember this period of time as both happy and sad.

But not to get too down what I meant to write today was about Nine Wells just outside Solva.  I camped round here several times and wandered around the cliffs.  There is an abundance of history lying just under the surface.  From cromlechs to WW2 runways and a mill and also a water building, both of which had disappeared.  Yet look at it now, nothing shows under its verdant carpet of green.  Somewhere along the coast someone has named a little hamlet 'Land of the Druids = Llandruidion, all that seems to remain is an old farmhouse.

On the left hand side of the inlet is a promontory fort called Port y Rhaw, you can practically find these prehistoric settlements every half mile along this coast line.  

Llandruidion © Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff cc-by-sa/2.0 :: Geograph Britain and Ireland

Nine Wells supplied Llanruidion water tower with water for St Davids

Site of Iron Age fort, Porth y Rhaw - History Points

9th May 2025

Well the Pope is chosen Leo X1V.  A youngish pope this time and from America. He is to follow in the footsteps of the last pope, so liberal and green I believe.  His name made me think of Matilda's boyfriend's name which I can never remember but I have to think of the devil, then go to Lucifer and then Lucien which is his name.  Surprisingly he is not happy with my thinking.

VE Day passed yesterday, I have seen the pictures on the blogs but did not see the ceremony itself. Commemorating war is a difficult one for me, especially as war is still with us today, there never seems an end to it.  For me Paul Nash's painting of a stricken landscape paints it vividly enough and yet we are seeing the same horrors as yesterday's wars created.

Paul Nash - War

Death and desolate landscapes, mud and bravery are the reminder, not Vera Lynn singing 'We'll Meet Again'.  We pay homage to the brave young who lay down their lives for us but we still allow war on our planet and let new mothers break their hearts.

As the end of the war came to halt I was born, so really did not experience it.  Though I remember a sheaf of war drawings we had so I must have been aware of it.  Even today crystal clear comes the memory when I was about 7 years old of a drawing I made of refugees on a cart with all their belongings piled high.  The teacher asked how did I know about such things, perhaps it was one of those drawings that sparked my drawing but now refugees flood the world because of war and cruelty - nothing has changed, it is profitable to make guns!

Edit:  Views on the Pope and people I listen to:

Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart

And Anthony  Scaramucci and Katy Kay

 

 ‘Protest shapes the world’: Rebecca Solnit on the fight back against Trump | Activism | The Guardian

wittering - where is the balance

The family have departed this morning into their various routines.  Andrew went for a swim, my daughter to work and a rather sad Lillie back to London.  She will cope, these four chose to go to London to seek their fortunes,  Ben and Matilda have started on the long journey of employment in their chosen areas.  Also Tom who works in Manchester.  I also went to work in London and was there quite happily for a few years but the pull of the 'big city' is always there when you are young.

Now I cope with eyesight that I suppose is failing me.  it started a few years back when I found my judgment level difficult.  For instance cutting with scissors I am about a quarter of an inch out though I can still thread a needle.  I view all this with my usual questing mind, how far is far I wonder? I got rid of my car instantly, driving since 17 years old it was a bit of a shock but now as I walk into the Lidl car park I feel a certain superiority.  The thing is to order your life into a habit forming ideal of putting everything in their right place.  That is what I told my daughter this morning when I could not find the bread knife ;)  Whether there is enough time to turn tidy I have my doubts!

What is it I wish for my four grandchildren?  Well a better technical world than we have at the moment.  AI is a disaster waiting to happen.  Almost I could say that the computerised system is channeling our young down a dangerous void of opinionated, more often than not nonsense information, young males.  What happened in the handing out of genes that led the males to be more aggressive than the female.  It was a colossal mistake on the part of natural order.  

  

Actually the people around me are all gentle and perfectly focused (if you are reading me family) as I am sure the majority of the human population is.  It is just I went to Substack by mistake and watched two earnest young men analysis someone else's video.  We are all suddenly in the public limelight.  I sometimes think we should pull the plug on the internet and try to live without it.

At the heart of it all are the children of today moving away from the natural world we live in, prioritizing their human relationships above that of the world around them.  That homeostasis that Lovelock talked of is lacking not only in the natural world but within the social order.

Homeostasis is a self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability. It is an organism’s process of maintaining a stable internal environment suitable for sustaining life. The word homeostasis derives from Greek, with home meaning “similar,” and stasis, meaning “stable”. Homeostasis is a state of steady internal, physical, chemical, and social conditions maintained by living systems. It is a technical term used in biology, physiology, and psychology. 

We have an obvious example in Trump at the moment, a chaotic figure causing a disruption in what is considered an even keeled Western society, if not elsewhere sadly.

  

But then the real world drops in,  Mollie is at my feet meowing her complaints once more.  Could it be fresh water, more food, the radiator turned up for more heat, or is she just  talking to me about world problems?

4th May 2025

My second shot of caffeine stands by my side in the form of coffee.  Will it awaken the dormant brain I'm saddled with?

Yesterday I went to a meeting at the Folklore Centre, the subject matter was 'When the British met Indian Folklore - A Megalithic Problem'  It sounds just right up my street but at first I had my doubts.  The lecturer seemed to concentrate on three males, who were in the army out there in the 19th century and who had decided to question the megalith building of cromlechs out in India.  Of course these three were outstanding examples of 'The Glorious Past of Britain'* out and out racist, observing from the fine heights of their superiority over the tribal nature of the people around them.  Interesting fact, this megalithic building still goes on, so there is not much to distinguish between old or modern.

But she made me think the lecturer about a place much nearer to home, the Prescelli hills with its prehistoric trackway that ran from Ireland through Wales down to Stonehenge. There are a lot of archaeological evidence in this area of prehistoric stones still not analysed.  

It is almost given, that the bluestones at Stonehenge were transported from one of the quarries in the hills.  There is an argument against it of course, saying that it was the glacials of an earlier time that had brought the bluestones to this corner of Wiltshire.  But thinking about it, why are there not other bluestones still littered around?

There was a good crowd there, but it seemed mostly that the men asked questions, even her husband who had driven her down, much to her crossness.  But the Folklore Centre is going from success to success, it is right next door to the old Hippodrome, which is also much used.  I do like the idea that civic use is part of these large buildings, whether film shows, plays or even the local children who go there for talks.  They file past the house two by two, chattering like birds, excited by the adventure.

*Why did I earmark that?  Well it was listening to the radio this morning and hearing that the Reform Party are going to remoralise our young and put up more statues to the great and good.  For god's sake don't these people understand their history?

Prescelli landscape

3rd May 2025

 "Most economists judge that the costs of the UK failing to pursue net zero will ultimately be greater than the costs of achieving it "   It is the same with HS2, an enormous sum of money down the drain.

I am tired these last few days, mind not working but the world still goes on. There are two faces I quickly scroll by on my screen.  The first is the 'orange one' and the second is Farage.  He has the intelligence of a gangster!  The votes split on the latest voting spree.  They always do when the incumbent government has only just started its term.   Interesting figures, Reform got just a fraction more votes, but coming up on the rail is the Liberal Party and....... The Green Party in the councils.  People know what they want but governments just govern on a different plain.

A thought. What would have happened that instead of getting London and its Southern counties as the main runners of government in Great Britain, the seat of power was up North?  Would the balance have taken a left keel and this strong motivation towards greed been stopped.

There is a strong suspicion that in fact Stonehenge was not the centre of the British Isles but Callanish and its stones and Scotland with its plethora of islands.

Callanish Stones - Wiki.  Tom Richardson

Going Gently put a fabulous video on yesterday of dancing.  Well here is my favourite, the dance itself is extraordinarily creative.  So I shall pretend I am young again and dance ;)

We have had beautiful weather the last week, warm and sunny but no rain and moor fires, this one up on Ripponden Moor.

What to write today? I have just read Murrmurs blog on doing a Birdathon this May.  There used to be a song about the merry month of May and the children dancing round the maypole.  Below you will see how Robert E fuller has recorded the wild animals that take over his children's climbing frame, now discarded because they are grown up, .

Andrew and my daughter arrived back from Naples over the weekend, and Tanaka, one of Andrew's children came for a couple of days from London.  They went to the Leeds football match, there was some sort of final celebration which meant they didn't get home till midnight, and then the front door key did not work, which made me giggle but it is a worry getting locked out!

Thinking about this was this a master plan of Andrews to visit the city of Naples because of Maradona, because as some of you will know he is supposed to have punched the greatest goal (with his hand which was illegal) in football.  'The Hand of God'  My last word on football.

Children are all doing fine, though there is a bit of a worry over Ben who is going over to New York this weekend.  Our families dry humour could take a beating through the customs, he has been told to take a clean new phone.  The famous car driver (whose name I have forgotten) is to give a speech at the  Met??  Tanaka was also over the moon, as a new job came through over the weekend.  Matilda scored over 200 applicants for her job, she is a clever girl ;) takes after her granny of course.  Though it is a copywriting job I think.  Lillie is also back this weekend to cook for the scouts up on the 'tops' in a weekend holiday break.

So enjoy the animals playing in their little oasis of a sanctuary, my favourite being the barn owls.  There used to be a lot round Normanby, their characteristic low flight as they hunted for the mice and vole over the fields.  

Edit; The Merry Month of May by William Bryd and sung by the King Singers.

        Robert Reich stirs the mob

And if you remember still -  It is International Worker's Day