In Hope

A rare taste of something convincingly like sunshine and warmth this morning had me looking about me with renewed hope as I strolled to the station. When something smallish and brownish fluttered up from the Traveller's Joy beside the path, my heart leapt, as it looked very like being my first Gatekeeper of the year. However, when it settled on a leaf, I realised the markings were wrong - not nearly enough tawny orange on the wings, not enough in the way of beady little eyes around the margins. No, it was an undersized Meadow Brown - one of the few species to be seen at all regularly over recent weeks, along with gratifying numbers of those dark beauties, the Ringlets. I think conditions have been so harsh this dreadful summer that they're stunting the growth of many of our butterflies. In fact, that might explain why I seem to have seen so few Large Whites, relative to Small Whites - perhaps some of those Smalls are in fact undersized Larges. It's a funny old butterfly year.

Inactivity: The Way Forward

So now we know - there's a 'pandemic of inactivity' sweeping the globe, and it's 'as deadly as smoking'. Well, quite. Clearly Something Will Have to Be Done about it. Here's how we could make a start...
  Inactivity must be banned in all enclosed public spaces. All cinemas, theatres, churches, meeting halls and workplaces must replace all seating with individual treadmills to stamp out inactivity. Basic seating can be provided in exposed outdoor spots for those unable to curb their craving for inactivity.
  Meanwhile, all advertising for armchairs and three-piece suites should be banned, and all armchairs sold should carry a prominent warning, 'Sitting Kills', in the form of a fixed antimacassar.
  These are just a couple of ideas by way of making a start - clearly much more will have to be done to end, once and for all, the deadly scourge of inactivity, thereby enabling millions more people to live long enough to find themselves obliged to sell their house to fund many more years of sitting around in a care home... Wait a minute - isn't that inactivity? Something Will Have to Be Done...

Over on The Dabbler...

I celebrate Geoffrey Hill's life-long love affair with rain.

Rain, Runoff, Poppies and Ginger

In Herefordshire the effects of this summer's relentless rain have been terrible, with flash floods in Ross-on-Wye and elsewhere, landslips, and spectacular runoff from all those fields of soft red earth. Back roads are covered with silt and water pours down from the hedgebanks, even when it's not actually raining. The weather means that, unfortunately, the farmers are spraying their fields more than ever, as most of each spraying gets washed away by the latest downpour - so that runoff must be pretty unhealthy stuff... However, the upside of that particular losing battle of farmer vs rain is that many more poppies than usual have survived the sprays and have flourished quite spectacularly this year - an effect which was gloriously noticeable in Norfolk the weekend before last.
And talking of upsides, today is Ginger Rogers' birthday - she'd be 101 today, had she lived (and who knows, she might have done if she hadn't been a Christian Scientist). Here's the incomparable Ginger in action - and showing off those legs - in a number that would surely lift anyone's spirits, however sodden (and look out for Eric Blore).

Where?

Where is this, do you think? Somewhere in Italy? France? No, it's in Herefordshire, and I was there at the weekend, church crawling again among its bosomy hills and fertile wooded valleys. The church is St Catherine's, Hoarwithy, the work of the archtitect and designer J.P. Seddon, under whom Voysey trained. The picture shows the cloister that runs along the south wall of St Catherine's, which sits on a hill above the village of Hoarwithy, its Italianate campanile rising above a plain basilica-plan church (in local stone) that reveals itself gradually as you climb the sloping path to it. I must admit that at first glance the belltower didn't inspire a lot of confidence, and I was half expecting a heavy-handed Victorian pastiche - but at the first sight of that cloister I realised I was in for something very special. And so it proved; the interior is quite as extraordinary as the cloister, with its breathtaking Byzantine-Italian East end making beautiful use of coloured marbles, and a glittering mosaic of Christ Pantocrator over all. The hanging lamps are copied from ones in St Mark's, Venice, the choir stalls are carved with scenes from the life of a local saint, Dubricius, and at the apex of the West window is an Angel of Doom by Morris and Burn-Jones, a glorious blaze of red, blue and gold.
 As if this altogether extraordinary - not to say unique - church was not enough, there was more to come, notably the great Arts and Crafts church of All Saints at Brockhampton... But that's enough churches for now - and don't worry, I shan't be going church crawling again next weekend. That's Brockhampton below, and it really has to be visited - no photographs, especially of the interior, really do it justice. Incredibly, a replica of Brockhampton church has been built on the 21st floor of a building in Osaka, Japan, where it's a very popular wedding venue. Funny old world.

Over there...

On The Dabbler, there's my review of The Book of Ebenezer LePage. Oddly enough, I'm off this very weekend to see the old friend who originally recommended it to me.

Sams

The Grandson has a name - Sam! Or in full Samuel.
This is a very fine name indeed and, in addition to all his natural advantages, young Sam has the best literary antecedents in Sam Johnson and Sam Beckett, not to mention Dr Seuss's Sam I Am - and Dickens's Sam Weller...
When Sam Weller made his debut in chapter 10 of the Pickwick Papers, he caused a sensation, transforming a serial publication that had till then been selling steadily into a bestseller on an unprecedented scale, with pirated editions and all manner of unauthorised Sam Weller spin-offs proliferating. Here is Sam in full flow in his first speech of any length, warning Mr Pickwick against marriage licence touts:
'My father, Sir, wos a coachman. A widower he wos, and fat enough for anything--uncommon fat, to be sure. His missus dies, and leaves him four hundred pound. Down he goes to the Commons, to see the lawyer and draw the blunt--very smart--top boots on --nosegay in his button-hole--broad-brimmed tile--green shawl --quite the gen'l'm'n. Goes through the archvay, thinking how he should inwest the money--up comes the touter, touches his hat--"Licence, Sir, licence?"--"What's that?" says my father.-- "Licence, Sir," says he.--"What licence?" says my father.-- "Marriage licence," says the touter.--"Dash my veskit," says my father, "I never thought o' that."--"I think you wants one, Sir," says the touter. My father pulls up, and thinks a bit--"No," says he, "damme, I'm too old, b'sides, I'm a many sizes too large," says he.--"Not a bit on it, Sir," says the touter.--"Think not?" says my father.--"I'm sure not," says he; "we married a gen'l'm'n twice your size, last Monday."--"Did you, though?" said my father.--"To be sure, we did," says the touter, "you're a babby to him--this way, sir--this way!"--and sure enough my father walks arter him, like a tame monkey behind a horgan, into a little back office, vere a teller sat among dirty papers, and tin boxes, making believe he was busy. "Pray take a seat, vile I makes out the affidavit, Sir," says the lawyer.--"Thank'ee, Sir," says my father, and down he sat, and stared with all his eyes, and his mouth vide open, at the names on the boxes. "What's your name, Sir," says the lawyer.--"Tony Weller," says my father.--"Parish?" says the lawyer. "Belle Savage," says my father; for he stopped there wen he drove up, and he know'd nothing about parishes, he didn't.--"And what's the lady's name?" says the lawyer. My father was struck all of a heap. "Blessed if I know," says he.-- "Not know!" says the lawyer.--"No more nor you do," says my father; "can't I put that in arterwards?"--"Impossible!" says the lawyer.--"Wery well," says my father, after he'd thought a moment, "put down Mrs. Clarke."--"What Clarke?" says the lawyer, dipping his pen in the ink.--"Susan Clarke, Markis o' Granby, Dorking," says my father; "she'll have me, if I ask. I des-say--I never said nothing to her, but she'll have me, I know." The licence was made out, and she DID have him, and what's more she's got him now; and I never had any of the four hundred pound, worse luck. Beg your pardon, sir,' said Sam, when he had concluded, 'but wen I gets on this here grievance, I runs on like a new barrow with the wheel greased.' Having said which, and having paused for an instant to see whether he was wanted for anything more, Sam left the room.'
Phew.
Sam's father, Tony, becomes a great comic character in his own right, full of wise advice for his 'Samivel'. His marriage comes under strain when Mrs Weller falls under the spell of the Rev. Stiggins of the Brick Lane Temperance Association, whom Tony eventually exposes as a flagrant hypocrite. Here are Mr Weller Sr's rueful words on the subject of matrimony, in which he employs the turn of phrase ('as the .... said when he ...') that become known as a 'Wellerism':
'When you're a married man, Samivel, you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but whether it's worth while going through so much to learn so little, as the charity-boy said when he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste.'
I shall try very hard never to call the grandson 'Samivel'.