Alarmed

Yesterday, in the course of my researches, I visited Great Brington, near the Spencers' Northamptonshire seat. I needed to have a look at (and photograph) the monuments in the Spencer Chapel in St Mary's church – a nationally important collection.
 My hopes were not high, as I knew the chapel was enclosed by railings and locked gates, but I hadn't realised quite how Fort Knox-like these defences were until I saw them for myself. The railings, five feet high and spiked, are hung with notices warning that the chapel is 'alarmed' and that reaching through the railings will trigger the alarm. This precaution is on top of already quite serious security measures in the church itself. Amusingly, one of the grandest of the Spencer tombs (an eight-poster by Nicholas Stone) carries a notice warning visitors not to touch this 'fragile' monument. Chance would be a fine thing...
 In the event I managed to get a couple of decent photographs by holding my camera (i.e. mobile phone) through the railings, and no alarm sounded. But how much richer and more enjoyable the whole experience would have been had the Spencer Chapel been part of the church, not a segregated, high-security, 'alarmed' enclave. If noble families are so determined to keep their monuments rigorously apart from the communal life of the parish and inaccessible to us monument fanciers, why don't they build their own chapels in their own grounds (as many do)? Maybe the Spencers wish they had.
 I suspect the high level of security around the Spencer Chapel is partly due to the extraordinary events that followed the death of one of their own – Diana, Princess of Wales. It seems the family originally intended her to be buried in the family vault under the Spencer Chapel, but in the febrile, not to say hysterical, atmosphere of those strange days, this was clearly not an option. The Earl wisely decided that Great Brington and its church could not cope with the pressure of being a site of pilgrimage for millions of devoted Diana fans, so she was buried on an island in the lake at Althorp.
 Or was she? Rumours of a secret reburial in the church abounded at the time (mysterious nocturnal goings-on, evidence of the chapel floor having been opened, etc.) and have never quite gone away. To judge by the visitors' book, a fair few think they are paying their respects at Diana's resting place when they visit St Mary's. When I was there, though, I had the place to myself. The temptation to climb over those railings was strong – but, deterred by those spikes and alarms, I overcame it.

A Thousand Voices

Born on this day in 1908 was the great voice artist Mel Blanc, 'Man of a Thousand Voices'. The number and range of animated characters he voiced is astonishing – all the way from Tweety Bird to Yosemite Sam, via Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester the Cat ('my normal speaking voice with a spray at the end'), and, later, Barney Rubble, Cosmo Spacely (in The Jetsons) and many another, quite possibly to the number of a thousand. 'There are only five real people in Hollywood,' Jack Benny once remarked. 'The rest are all Mel Blanc.'
  In 1961, Blanc had a very nearly fatal car accident which left him in a coma for weeks. Eventually one of his neurologists woke him by asking, 'How are you feeling today, Bugs Bunny?' After a short pause, Blanc replied, 'Eh... Just fine, Doc. How are you?' The specialist than asked if Tweety was around. 'I tawt I taw a puddy tat,' replied Blanc, who from then on began a long recovery. In the course of it, he recorded several episodes of The Flintstones while lying flat on his back in a full-body cast. What a pro! He also found time to file a $500,000 lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, causing the authorities to make the site of his accident, the aptly named Dead Man's Curve, considerably safer.
  Mel Blanc died at the age of 81, and, at his own request, his headstone bears the legend 'That's All, Folks!'

Hopeful?

The legendary Dave Lull yesterday sent me a link to this piece from the New York Times about a dramatic decline in the numbers of flying insects. It's a subject that was also the theme of a book, The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy, which I reviewed in The Dabbler (back in the dear dead days before Facebook). McCarthy was writing before the German findings described in the NYT piece had been made known, but he had reached similar conclusions from his own observations. And anyone who remembers the sheer abundance of insect life in earlier decades – swarms of flying insects swirling in the headlights and spattering the windscreen – would have to agree with him.
  These matters were in my mind this morning when I went for a stroll on Mitcham Common. So far this has been a rather strange butterfly year. Things got off to a slow start after that endless cold wet April, but, in terms of species seen, I am now pretty much where I would expect to be at the end of May. The worrying thing has been the low numbers of individuals flying, even of the commonest species – and this despite a good run of warm and sunny weather. So few Peacocks, so few Tortoiseshells, so relatively few even of the common whites – and not a single Red Admiral or Painted Lady yet. When I've gone looking for target species, I've found them (so far), but there has been so little else flying...
  Happily I gained a more hopeful picture from this morning's visit to the acid grasslands of Mitcham Common. I saw my first Small Heaths of the year – and in large numbers (I gave up counting after 20, and must have seen at least double that number in less than two hours).

Also more Small Coppers than I've seen in some entire seasons, and an abundance of Six-Spot Burnet moths (red spots on black), as well as Commas, Speckled Woods, Brimstones and Holly Blues – and three or four fresh and lively Common Blues. My first Brown Argus of the season took a little finding, and I saw no more than two, but no doubt there will be a good many more before the year is over. Clearly the butterfly year is not shaping up as badly as I feared it was – though there is no arguing with the overall decline in insect life.
  By the way, I particularly like the way the author of the NYT piece argues for the crucial importance of that threatened (or at least unfashionable) species, the field biologist – even the dedicated amateur. It was amateurs, after all, who laid the groundwork for the serious study of natural history. They are still needed.

His Foot

I was walking yesterday in the Kentish Weald, a notably beautiful corner of England, especially at this time of year – as one rather misanthropic writer put it: 'Nowhere in England is the presence of man less objectionable.' In the North chapel of St Mildred, Tenterden, I spotted this eloquent remnant of an alabaster panel from the 15th century. It's a Resurrection scene, with Christ rising in triumph from the grave. His foot is on the soldier's chest.

Ten Years

It was ten years ago today that I wrote my first post for this blog. It was about the Eurovision Song Contest, which was still rather fun in those long ago days. Russia had won, and Terry Wogan, of fond memory, was decidedly miffed about the whole thing. Since then I've pretty much given up on Eurovision, but I've no inclination to give up on this blog, so, well – here's to the next ten years!

What Is Wrong with This Picture?

I noticed this curious painting in the National Gallery the other day. By the Le Nain brothers, French 17th-century genre painters, A Woman and Five Children is an unsettling image, full-frontal and crammed awkwardly into the picture space. The sitters stare out at us with unhappy, challenging expressions. And where is the woman's lower body? There's no room for it; surely she's out of scale. It is all very odd – and strangely reminiscent of Paula Rego.

Cornet Geary Ambushed

This is the monument to Cornet Francis Geary in the church of St Nicholas, Great Bookham (near Bookham Common, where Purple Emperors fly in due season). The relief shows Geary's death in an ambush near Flemington, New Jersey, in 1776. Geary was leading a company of dragoons on a reconnaissance mission, and a band of patriots – or rebels, according to your perspective – had got wind of it and laid a very effective ambush. The unfortunate Cornet Geary was shot dead by musket fire and his body concealed, before being buried in a shallow grave.
  His Bookham monument, which is unsigned, is described by Ian Nairn in the Pevsner Surrey as displaying ' just the right combination of sentiment and ardour', its two elements – Britannia mourning over a portrait medallion, and the relief below, depicting the ambush – 'combined in a composition as elegant and as tender as an early Mozart symphony'. It's hard to disagree: in its low-key, understated way, this is one of the most touching and memorable monuments of its kind – and the relief panel showing the ambush is a quite extraordinary work of art.