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Dogs in a Car
A new record for a customer visiting us - 6 dogs in a reasonably priced family hatchback. Look out for the nearly invisible caged black Labrador behind the Westie. The little Yorkie on the right trembled the whole time; but then they seem to do that a lot. The lady owner wanted to take away 4 chapel chairs but this just wasn’t going to happen…
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Antique Sales Pitch
We got this emailed to us today from a big church in Wolverhampton. The people there are hoping to sell the large screen shown in the foreground with this 90 year old photo, although the arched part is missing and ultimately all that is left are a couple of largish lumps. What remains has been stored in a backroom for many years gathering dust…. Is this all a terrible metaphor for the state of Christian religion in this country? Hey, whatever, it’s a great picture combining the translucence of the past with a certain spooky, horror film-set charm.
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A few views around the Monastery at Koroni, Greece.
The small blockhouse pictured middle/left currently has my vote as most picturesque public toilet ever.
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Portuguese Religious Statues
I always liked that Catholic belief that one can ask Saints and other major characters to intercede on your behalf. A bit like going to a mortgage broker to help get that house loan, it helps to have someone on your side who knows what they are doing. As is common throughout Southern Europe, Portuguese churches have a comprehensive selection of Statues representing everyone from the Mother of God to some very obscure movers and shakers. Talking of which the chap on the right is Saint Roman, probably Roman the Melodist. He was a hymn writer and singer who was given a holy scroll by the Madonna and told to eat it. After doing this he sang like noone has ever sung before and wrote many hundreds acclaimed psalms. Those who had previously mocked prostrated themselves in front of him and begged for forgiveness; how satisfying that must have been! Here he is shown with a book in one hand and bread and wheat in the other in what I assume is a straightforward transubstantiation play.
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Start of the Romanian Postings
Me and the family went to Romania recently for a road trip. This is a country that makes you realise just how diverse the European Union is. A bit like Azerbaijan being in the Eurovision song contest, one can’t help feeling that it’s a bit of a stretch. I mean, why not Chad as well? Or the Dominican Republic? Anyway, we had a little bit of trepidation at first, after all this a country famous for, in no particular order:
Mistreating Orphans horribly
The worst recent dictator this side of Pol Pot
Gangsters, corruption and criminal Gypsy gangs
The worst drivers in the Western Hemisphere
As it turned out the Romanians are very friendly, hospitable and everyone under the age of 30 speaks English. They do have some shocking drivers though. Never mind people overtaking on blind corners, this is a place where you’d often have people overtaking the people who were overtaking on the blind bends. This might date from the fairly recent time when one bought a license rather than going through the rigmarole of lessons, etc. The poverty was startling at times but at no time did we feel unsafe on the streets apart from the occasional threat from packs of stray dogs. (Top Tip: they are generally OK but be very careful not to wake them if they are asleep).
Of course, being in the church business I had to drag the wife and kids into a few places of worship. This church here is in the Northern village of Vishki, a place where Prince Charles, no less, has ‘property’. He has been quoted as saying he would like ‘ordinary people’ to live a life similar to that of the Vishkians. Having seen the unpaved roads of mud, the pigs chasing the children with the running sores away from the street water pump (indoor taps are a luxury here) and mutilated animals lurching about I’m not sure what this tells us about our future King.
I loved the church. It is possibly my favourite ever in terms of atmosphere and fittings. Approximately 700 years old it used to be the ‘German’ church from when the area was mostly German speaking. (One comes across memorials to the thousands of ethnic Germans who were shipped off by the Russians to be killed by lack of food and overwork. Tit for Tat I suppose.) Note the Gallery benching arrangement where you a) Have to be small to fit and b) have to be careful not to tip over the balcony onto the floor below
Inside and Outside All Saints, West Dean.
This is Fooey who you may recognise as our phone dog, here on a road trip to deepest Sussex. West Dean is a charming little village with million pound plus houses and this, the old Saxon church of All Saints. Long a connoisseur of Holy Sites and Places of Worship, Fooey was immediately struck by the quiet and ancient prayerfulness of this spot. More than our son was when we first visited here many years ago: he managed to smash a reading desk. Quite impressive for a 2 year old we thought at the time and definite proof that he was my child: I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t breaking or demolishing things, either on purpose or by accident.
As a highly pro-dog company we thought it was time to feature T Bone, owned by our favourite American client Ricky Richards. In Ricky’s own words, T Bone is a:
“Redbone Coon hound whose grandfather got in the pen with a Bloodhound. Got him from the pound many years ago. The position you see him in is his normal position 23hours a day. The other hour is spent eating, pooping or fighting the local wild animals that have misfortune of stumbling into tbones path (mainly coyotes and wild hogs).”
Not sure what he’d make of Fooey our phone dog, but carry on the good work.
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Last of the Summer Gearbox Whine.
Just came across these the other day. The used to be hung up in our neighbours warehouse here on the farm. They ran a small garage called ‘CheckaCar’ and they were a handy resource when our van/cars would break down. They’ve retired now, gone to play golf and scuba dive, something which no doubt would have astounded the colonel types pictured in these posters “Working class mechanic chappies going to the Caribbean?? Who do they think they are? Stockbrokers?”
I love the aspirational nature of what is shown. Success in 1955 was having a great moustache, various flunkies attending to you, your car and your trophy Home County spouse. The servant types you will note have a lot less hair than the military looking owners and rather ape like jawlines. They also stoop somewhat. The women get to play with dogs and preen while their husbands (these are not boyfriends) plan routes, deal with the primitive foreign looking servants and look stern.
The convertible is for The Continent where there might feasibly be sunshine, the regular model for… Mayfair where it might be a bit more chilly and where a roof could come in handy. A Daimler was a bit more subtle and classy than a Jag and a sign that there was some old money coupled with hunting, shooting and fishing values. Nowadays I believe the brand is a defunct sub shoot of Jaguar which in turn is a sub shoot of Ford. The equivalent target customer today would probably have Audis; a nice A4 soft top for that Tuscany/Tony Blair villa stopover and an A6 hot estate for visiting that Shoreditch art gallery/offal restaurant. Both no doubt designed by the sons of the people that Mr Moustache here shot down in WW2.
These pictures are of the Monastery of Cura in Majorca. Ramon Lull was a 13th century mystic and Saint who spent many years here on one of the highest mountains on the island. Famed (in Spain at least) for his meditations on love and God, he had a long and peripatetic life which ended when he was stoned to death by locals in North Africa. A ladies man when he was a rich young noble, his conversion moment came when, after pestering a court lady to show him her ‘beauteous globes’, she revealed breasts blackened and swollen with tumourous cancer. The monastery is what he built in order to do his own version of the Alpha Course.
Me and my family spent the night here and I can see why Ramon liked it. Infinity views, a sense of peace and quiet probably unfathomable to the seething masses at Magaluf and S’Arenal and a sort of spiritual cadence. Hard to put a finger on it, but just by being there one felt both calm and energised. Terrible beds, though. The next day, after a huge thunderstorm, we prepared to leave. As we did, tour buses arrived on masse, along with numberless cyclists who like the steep road as a training fix. It seems as soon as a place becomes famous for its tranquillity then thousands of people will turn up. Further down the mountain we passed a Jeep filled with nearly naked party girls; club tracks were booming out from their stereo but they were not happy – flat tyre. Ramon, God or fate had decided to draw the line with the monastery guest list.
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Jenny spotted this in the Sunday Mail - Never find the terrible fashion, what have they done to those Chapel Chairs??
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Art installation in a French Church. Is there a God - Question Mark??
Source: -inhabited
