Cambridge in late December

In all of the snow we've just had (see recent posts) it can be hard to recall it only came down quite recently.

These photos were taken around Cambridge just before the end of December.

Jazzer, Gregory, Tully Bascombe

Well, that was fun. I woke up to the Archers, Jazzer finally facing Fallon after declaring love to her - whilst very drunk - on New Year's Eve. She visits him as he's working with Tom's pigs, and all he can think of to say is 'These are the pigs'.

What with the Scottish accent and the inanity of the comment (really well scripted), it put me srrongly in mind of Gregory in Gregory's Girl. The same clumsy tongue-tied awkwardness.

Then a few hours later, I chanced upon The Mouse That Roared on one of the digital TV channels. Now, about nine months ago I wrote about the experience of Rewatching Kind Hearts and Coronets - the strange feeling that I knew it all so very, very well. Today I had something of the same sensation, although not quite so strongly, while watching this film.

I again recognised and predicted scenes, lines, gestures and - this time - noises (the Q Bomb); again that strange, unusual feeling.

Maybe it is because it isn't so mannered a film as Kind Hearts, or just not so good, or mayhap I know it less well, but the sensation was more attenuated. As I think I suggested last time, it isn't just memory, or it is stronger than that.

On no evidence whatsoever, I think I would possibly have the same feeling watching Gregory's Girl. I must try it.

Poem of the Week

Mr Bleaney
Philip Larkin

'This was Mr Bleaney's room. He stayed
The whole time he was at the Bodies, till
They moved him.' Flowered curtains, thin and frayed,
Fall to within five inches of the sill,

Whose window shows a strip of building land,
Tussocky, littered. 'Mr Bleaney took
My bit of garden properly in hand.'
Bed, upright chair, sixty-watt bulb, no hook

Behind the door, no room for books or bags -
'I'll take it.' So it happens that I lie
Where Mr Bleaney lay, and stub my fags
On the same saucer-souvenir, and try

Stuffing my ears with cotton-wool, to drown
The jabbering set he egged her on to buy.
I know his habits - what time he came down,
His preference for sauce to gravy, why

He kept on plugging at the four aways -
Likewise their yearly frame: the Frinton folk
Who put him up for summer holidays,
And Christmas at his sister's house in Stoke.

But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
And shivered, without shaking off the dread

That how we live measures our own nature,
And at his age having no more to show
Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
He warranted no better, I don't know.

Cold Garden

Rosemary
Branch
Frozen frog pond


Someone has been here before me!

Snow on the Rye

It has been sub-zero and snowing for days (and did you see the fantastic NASA satellite photo of iced-up Britain?) I thought that the snow might be melting, but apparently not - and the Rye is still covered, quite beautifully.

Spain Tour 17: Leon at Night

Spain Tour 16: Out and About in Leon

There is more to the centre of Leon (let alone the rest of Leon) than just the Cathedral. We were there for a few days, and went out and about...



There is a fairly (for him) conservative Gaudi building.


And here is the man himself taking a break.
A sense of the city as awhole...

Asturian windows...
The trees by the river...
The paved streets in the old city centre are perfectly arranged for the police to use smaller, personalised transport.

Motorbikes and Segways!