Man-Trap!

[caption id="attachment_1203" align="alignleft" width="300"] Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Ever seen a real man-trap?

My neighbour was given this with a load of other bits and bobs. She thought it was a toy, but closer examination made me disagree. For a start, it was quite clearly a gun of some order, but it didn’t have any kind of handle. There wasn’t a conventional trigger either.

It might have been a toy cannon, but it didn’t have a carriage. Yet opening it up revealed that it was chambered to take a real twelve-bore shotgun cartridge. Plus it’s made of very heavy cast iron. It’s just not like a child’s toy at all.

Live, Love and Stop Making a Fuss.

[caption id="attachment_1197" align="alignleft" width="224"] Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

On the end of an affair

Well, there it is; for the last fourteen months I was very much involved with someone, and now I’m not. It’s interesting to examine the feelings one has at times like this. Of course I grieve for the loss of love—and it was love, mutually—but at the same time I am aware that I am once again a free agent, faced, again, with the same choices. So how will I choose?

Buddha taught that all suffering is caused by attachment, and that is of course true; it is axiomatic.

Merry Xmas!

[caption id="attachment_1184" align="alignleft" width="214"] Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Merry Xmas, Christmas, Yule, Saturnalia, Holidays…it doesn’t really matter what it’s called, because the meaning is the same: this is the time of renewal, when we slough off the old year and the wearisome encrustations that have built up and look forward to the new. It is the time when our sun, Sol, which has been slipping lower and lower in the sky, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere, stops, and begins to rise again, bringing with it the promise of warmth.

Time is Running Out!

Time Is Running Out! (To get your free e-book!)

French Onion Soup! my hilarious new book about life in France, is still available for free e-book download from this site, but time is running out. The offer is due to close on the 25th and thereafter the e-book will be available exclusively through the Amazon Kindle Store.

The downloads for the e-books are below; click and the files should begin to download automatically, depending on your browser.

(This offer is now closed.)

The print book is available worldwide through Amazon. The ISBN is 978-0-9565-007-3-1.

HERE on Amazon.co.uk

or

HERE on Amazon.com

And to all my friends and readers, Merry Christmas Yule, Solstice, Holidays, Saturnalia and anything else I have forgotten.

Jesus? I have a better story than that...

[caption id="attachment_1176" align="alignleft" width="223"] Pic:Rod Fleming[/caption]

Today marks the first day in one of our greatest annual cultural events: the winter solstice. From now until the 25th, the sun will appear to hesitate before it once again begins to climb into the sky. That of course, is the reason so many solar deities have their birthday on the 25th—Mithras, Dionysus and Christ being but three.

But what you may not know is that while these three ‘dying and rising’ gods, every one of them an agricultural deity, are clearly men, the very first was not; she was a woman.

The earliest version I have found is in the Sumerian tale of the goddess Sul or Sud. This is not a Sumerian name and it's unclear where she came from, but that doesn’t matter. As befits a goddess, Sul was staggeringly beautiful and at the peak of her fertility; she knew it was time for her to choose a partner.

Women Got Us Here.

The fact is, women got us here.

Earlier this year, it was finally confirmed that humanity’s exodus from Africa occurred only around 50,000 years ago.

This settled a dispute, though there was actually very little, concerning a massive super-volcanic explosion at Toba, in what is now Indonesia. This cataclysm erupted around 3,000 cubic kilometres of ash. No other volcanic eruption during the life of humanity has even come close to this. Toba caused a six-year volcanic winter and an ice age that lasted for a millennium. Fantastically huge pyroclastic flows, made up of superheated ash and gas, would have incinerated everything in their paths,

Christians is Bitchin’

[caption id="attachment_1162" align="alignleft" width="224"] Giant Xmas Tree at SM MegaMall, Manila. Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Christians is bitchin’—again.

Well they do this every solstice, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Personally I find the excessive emphasis on consumption, and the unstated presumption that one will go into debt to buy presents one doesn’t want or need to make other people conned into the same bollocks feel a bit better, a pile of crap. For want of a better word.

So I won’t be doing it. Sorry.

But I’m still up for a bit of Yuletide cheer;

Singing the World into Being

[caption id="attachment_1158" align="alignleft" width="271"] Aboriginal Rock Art, Ubirr Art Site, Kakadu National Park.[/caption]

I first read about the Songlines in the late Bruce Chatwyn’s eponymous book, and even then the concept fascinated me. The Songlines are massively complex, but essentially devolve to the creation mythology of the Aboriginal Australians. In this, every animal had an anthropomorphic first ancestor—so there was Kangaroo-Man, Koala-Man, Lizard-Man and so on. Each human tribe is also derived from one of those ancestors. In the dawn of time, these ancestors walked through the world, literally singing it into existence.

The words they sang are the Songlines, handed down through the millennia of human life on the continent.

Richard Dawkins is WRONG!

Richard Dawkins is WRONG. He’s just plain wrong and even though his wrongness is perhaps understandable, that doesn’t change a damn thing.

Oh it’s okay, he’s not wrong about god or gods, Evolution, Genetics, Biology, the age of the Earth, and a whole heap of other stuff. He’s smack on the money on all that.

But he is dead wrong about religion—specifically, the one he himself was nominally raised in, the Church of England,

French Onion Soup! for free-UPDATE

I’ve received quite a lot of interest in my new book, French Onion Soup! This will remain available here as a free download till Christmas.

However some people have expressed that they’re having difficulties with the original download, so I have added a few alternatives. They’re below.

Something Greater

[caption id="attachment_1129" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

I’m sometimes asked if I don’t feel that I am missing out, by not believing in ‘something greater’. It’s a valid question and actually one that I think all atheists should ask themselves. But the answer, at least for me, might also be of interest to others.

Yes I am part of something greater, in a very real and immediate sense. It’s not so much a question of believing but of accepting the evidence in front of me. I am part of the Earth. The Earth is not just a core of molten iron covered in a crust of rock and water, with an outer gaseous atmosphere, though it is these things. It is a living system, an entity. And I am—we are all—part of that entity.

Consider what you are: you are composed of billions of individual living things called cells.

French Onion Soup! (At Last!)

French Onion Soup! is here at last!!!! My hilarious, quirky, must-read book about a crazy Scotsman living the French Dream with his family, is at last available as both a print and e-book. Yaaay! You can buy it HERE on Amazon.co.uk

or

HERE on Amazon.com

It has been a huge amount of work, but I have already begun the sequel, which will be just as funny.

Since it’s Christmas, Hanukah, Saturnalia, Yule or Solstice (depending on your own particular penchant) soon, I’m going to give you all a present. You can download the French Onion Soup! e-book This offer is now closed, but you can buy a copy here.

The Storytelling Ape

[caption id="attachment_926" align="alignleft" width="205"] Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

It’s a striking thought that civilisation evolved here on Earth only 7,000 years ago. Since then, humans have achieved many really incredible things. But even in terms of our own—mostly unwritten—history, 7,000 years is almost insignificant; it’s less than 4 % of the time Homo sapiens, the storytelling ape, has existed.

Atheism and Antitheism

[caption id="attachment_1103" align="alignleft" width="212"] Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

It's quite obvious that there is a huge amount of real hatred for atheists amongst some groups of people. American Christians in particular seem to be particularly virulent—which is not to say there are no American atheists, there are plenty. But they are definitely are in the minority and are frequently victimised.

I live in a country where that simply does not happen. France takes its secularism seriously, and I sometimes wonder if that is the real reason for the resentment so often shown by Anglo-Saxons against France and the French. But that is for another day. Here, nobody cares if you're an atheist. In fact it's the default position. People, generally, at least educated ones, will assume that you're an atheist, or at least a secularist, without asking. France actively excludes religion from all State functions, including schools, and has even curbed the most offensive of public religious displays.

Happy Fire Festival!

[caption id="attachment_1028" align="alignleft" width="200"] Picture: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Well, it’s the Fifth of November; Samhain (that’s pronounced sow-en) is very much upon us and winter, that bane of my life, is on the way. I’m already lighting the stove in the evening now, and of course fire is important in these Celtic lands. It's the season of the Fire Festival, that ancient Pagan ritual. (Cheerfully adopted by the Christians, of course.)

Samhain was the Celtic version; it has equivalents all over the world. The Celtic year was divided in two ways, one solar and the other lunar. The Celts weren’t daft (well, not as daft as some I can think of) and they knew damn fine that lunar calendars are not consistent; a twelve-month lunar year and the solar one are different in length, since a lunar month is 29.5 days. This adds up to only 354 days in a 12-month year, which means that relying on it is hopeless as far as the seasons are concerned. And for an agrarian people like the Celts, the seasons were really important.

The Naked Truth

[caption id="attachment_821" align="alignleft" width="229"] Picture: Rod Fleming[/caption]

I grew up in a world where photography, especially monochrome photography, was synonymous with ‘truth’. That was never strictly accurate, of course, and as a photographer I knew the extent to which the truth can be manipulated. Nevertheless, as evidenced by the incredible work we saw every day in the newspapers of the 60s, which I consumed with passion while still at school, a photograph was regarded as an equivalent to reality; it was not just a representation of truth, but an affirmation of it.

“Look,’ it said, ‘This is a true thing; I stand witness to that.’ Even today, when PhotoShop has put tricks of the trade that I spent years learning at the click of an amateur’s mouse, photographs brook no argument. The leaves really were that green, the sunset that orange, the woman so perfect. Yet perfect beauty was never in the sorcery of the darkroom or the airbrush artist’s hand, nor is it in the magic of digital manipulation; real beauty is actually real. It needs no PhotoShopping or dastardly manipulation, only to be seen and known, and recorded.

The other part of my life, however, is very different from the ascetic artist whose delight is in the expression of pure form or idea. As a musician, I am by definition an entertainer. And my professional photographic career has been mainly in Photojournalism. Indeed, long before I immersed myself in Weston and Brandt I was mainlining Cartier-Bresson and Don McCullin.

Is Witch-burning Back? The Religious Right Is.

Witch-burning is out of fashion in the West these days. Fortunately. But the religious intolerance that caused it is still with us, and it's getting more strident. And in other parts of the world, religion is responsible for shameful acts of mutilation and murder on a daily basis. The Internet has given voice to some whose opinions, frankly, should never have a public platform, and 'multiculturalism' that shameful abrogation of the moral values of our secular society, makes it increasingly difficult for anyone to express legitimate criticism of some of the nasty ideas put forward by people of religion under the disguise of 'faith'.

I am lucky to have been brought into a world where secularisation was ascendant. In every way, the light of science seemed to have the darkness of superstition in retreat. Even those Christians I knew, did not suggest that the Bible was literally true, or the exact transcription of the words of a supernatural deity. For them, religion was a cultural practice and spiritual guide, or so it appeared. In any case the free and educated society that my generation argued and worked so hard for, surely would, in the end, render the very idea of formal religion obsolete.

Silas Farsight Update

[caption id="attachment_776" align="alignleft" width="199"] Silas Farsight cover[/caption]

Wow, Silas Farsight is NOW AVAILABLE through Amazon as a print book. Grab the chance while you can! All orders are fulfilled through Amazon, so I can't sign them, but if you contact me through the comments box with your address I will send you a sheet with my signature and any dedication you would like for FREE.  You can then paste that into your copy. Can't say fairer than that!

 

Ebook editions will be available through the Kindle bookstore and elsewhere soon!

Check the Amazon links below or search your local Amazon store.

 

Amazon.co.ok

 

Amazon.com

Silas Farsight

[caption id="attachment_776" align="alignleft" width="640"] Silas Farsight cover[/caption]

My first book for children and young people, Silas Farsight, will be published next week through CreateSpace as a print book and also as an e-book. It will be available through Amazon in both formats and as a downloadable e-book here and on my other sites.

Silas Farsight tells the story of a young river-otter, whose life is mapped out as a lawyer in a sleepy village in the Forest. But all that changes when a gang of six-toed Ship's Cats kidnap his childhood friend, the Lady Magda, and escape with her.

Silas enlists the help of the enigmatic badgers who live deep in the Forest and soon discovers things about himself that he had never imagined possible. Leading a small party including Big Hamish the Badger and Silas' own indentured clerk, Stoatwise Cuttleworth, he sets off in pursuit of the cats and the road to peril.

The Church of Hedonism

[caption id="attachment_762" align="alignleft" width="640"] Funeral in Laoag[/caption]

I'm going to become a Hedonist. No really, I am. Seriously. I am going to join the Church of Hedonism. Yup. Before this happens to me.

Of course, no such church actually exists, and most religions seem to be mainly concerned with stopping people having fun. But anyway. If there isn’t one, I think it’s time we started one.

I am rapidly approaching that watershed in life, the dawn of my seventh decade. I don’t have that much time to waste any more. I quick demographic of my parents’ families suggests that if I remain a non-smoker, keep the drink to a moderate level and eat reasonably healthy food, I have maybe another fifteen years of active life, and another five or so of winding down, before parting the mortal coil and becoming one with the Earth again.

That is not an awful lot of time. And I am beginning to resent every moment of it that is not spent, basically, having fun.

Fuck This

Been that sort of a week so far.

This Must Stop

[caption id="attachment_716" align="alignleft" width="300"] A camel being killed by 'halal'[/caption]

I am proud to be a European. Our culture has many faults, yet at the same time it has given the world so much. Science and democracy, equality under law and social inclusion simply would not exist without it. And across culture, art, science, engineering and technology, our culture remains a brilliant star, without which light, we would still be in the Dark Ages. I am very proud and lucky to be a part of that.

Despite this, I believed, for many years, that other cultures were equal.

But I was wrong. Culture is not a level playing field. The very qualities that define Western culture represent a system of morality, which allow us to judge other cultures. And we definitely should judge them.

Summer at Last

[caption id="attachment_681" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Torrential rainstorms are a feature of life in France Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Well, summer did finally arrive here in P'tit Moulin and the warm balmy days are back. I must say they are very welcome, and could have been here sooner. The girls are all out in their skimpiest dresses, to show off their golden-tanned skin and the boys...well, who cares about the boys anyway?

Of course, here in central France the climate is interesting, to say the least.

Bastille Day!

[caption id="attachment_662" align="aligncenter" width="800"] The parade Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

This Bastille Day was celebrated with the usual style in our village. I have photographs of this going back twenty years now, and it's amazing to see how people have aged. Children who used to run around the square or sit on the banc outside our house have children of their own now. It's always the same band, who come from the next town.  And it's always the same tunes...

Flics: Traffic cops in France

[caption id="attachment_654" align="aligncenter" width="600"] A perfect road to speed on--and for flics to hide on. Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Les Flics: just as you can’t write about life in France without discussing wine, you can’t write about it without discussing that greatest of scourges,  the bugbear and bane of everyone’s lives and a daily topic of conversation all over France, third only to the weather and politics. And what are les flics? The cops, of course.

 Mostly, when the French talk about les flics, they are talking specifically about traffic cops, who are universally regarded with almost unlimited contempt and no respect at all. However, when the occasion merits, they expand the concept to include any other kind of cop who’s been getting in the way of the French being French.

Bonne Fete de la Revolution

[caption id="attachment_642" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Ceremony in the village square[/caption]

Well I can't believe it's that time of year again but it surely is, Quattors Juillet, Bastille Day, la Fete de la Revolution here in France, and elsewhere too. I'll be out an about today so will add to this post later. Meantime, have one for me!

Damp Walls--How to get them dry

[caption id="attachment_617" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Houses in situations like this often have damp walls. Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

In the past walls were rendered and plastered with lime. Lime is a truly wonderful material that can be bent to a whole series of uses, but as a render on stone it is unsurpassed. It' 'breathes', allowing poisture to escape and suppressing damp walls. This is because it is very porous. Lime render, however, needs regular maintenance, and it is very difficult even for a professional to get a polished, smoothfinish on it. So why are there damp walls in so many old houses today?

Pork, Secularism, and Anarchy

[caption id="attachment_609" align="alignleft" width="324"] The growng French anti-hahlal movement has seized on a blatant attempt to destroy French culture[/caption]

Pork. It's such a mainstay of French cuisine, that it's frankly impossible to conceive of French food culture without it. Every thing from saucisson to saucisses, fried, grilled, cured, dried, you name it, the French have a way of eating pork like that.

It goes back to the time of the Gauls, you know, Asterix and his lads, roasting wild boar on spits.

50 Posts

Hey just made 50 posts

Napoleon was a Big Guy Really

[caption id="attachment_586" align="aligncenter" width="495"] Napoleon Was a Big Guy Really[/caption]

Napoleon was actually a tall guy. Did you know that? It’s true. The legend that the great conqueror of Europe was severely vertically challenged is just that—a legend. Maybe not quite an urban myth—I don’t think they had those back then—but nevertheless, a myth.

It illustrates, however, the mismatch between the French and Anglo-Saxon worlds.

Gendarmes, Police and Faulty Speedos

[caption id="attachment_579" align="aligncenter" width="800"] The kind of road the Gendarmes like to catch speeders on. Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

 My friend Antoine the potter had a little incident with the Gendarmes from Bligny not long ago. Now before I begin this tale, I feel I should put to rest a belief that has become, apparently (according to my children,) current in the UK in the last few years.

This is that the Gendarmes in France are not real police. Well, they are, and this is a classic bit of Anglo-Saxon, er, confusion. I believe it has even been aired on that odious arch-slimeball Stephen Fry’s television show; not that that would make it any more the truth.

 So let me explain.

Hot Cross Buns--Cakes for the Goddess

 

[caption id="attachment_566" align="alignleft" width="294"] Hot Cross Buns are eaten every Easter, Pic: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Used under a Creative Commons Licence[/caption]

Hot cross buns. That's what this article is about. So why do I have a picture of a Roman sculpture of a bull's head here instead of a nice snap of some hot cross buns?

 

Well, hot cross buns actually originated in Assyria as a part of worship of the Moon Goddess Ishtar. At least that is the earliest record we have of them. The Egyptians continued the tradition of offering cakes to their Moon-Goddess Hathor. They decorated the cakes with bull's horns, as the ox was the preferred sacrifice of the Goddess. The cakes, therefore, were symbolic of the sacrificed bull, whose flesh would be eaten by worshippers.

 Hathor has been identified with Ishtar and Astarte. Astarte is Ashtoreth, who was worshipped by King Solomon, as mentioned in the Old Testament (1 Kings 11, 2), and to whom he erected a temple or shrine in Jerusalem.

Ley-lines: how an English Gent launched the New Age movement

[caption id="attachment_549" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Watkins' Ley-lines--a desire to see pattern. Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Alfred Watkins' Ley-lines

Ley-lines were invented by an Englishman called Alfred Watkins, who had spent much time cycling around the  countryside near his home. In 1925, he wrote a book called “The Old Straight Track”, in which he described a revelation he’d had while looking at a map of Herefordshire four years earlier. He had suddenly seen a network of straight lines that connected points of human activity, such as

 “Mounds, Long-barrows, Cairns, Cursus, Dolmens, Standing stones, mark-stones, Stone circles, Henges, Water-markers (moats, ponds, springs, fords, wells), Castle, Beacon-hills, Churches, Cross-roads, Notches in hills,”

 

Grip: How to hold the fiddle and bow

[caption id="attachment_536" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Grip the fiddle and bow so that the bow crosses the strings at a right angle[/caption]

Once you have the grip of the instrument

under the chin sorted out, the next thing to address is the right hand's grip on the bow. This can cause a great deal of trouble though in my opinion is not as tricky as the left hand. Again, the secret is to avoid tension; the hand must be relaxed. To do this, all four fingers and the thumb must be in contact with the stick, and all must be curved. This is hugely important. The most common grip errors are for the little or pinkie finger to lock and become straight and rigid. Do not allow this to happen. Another is for the pinkie to lift off the stick, which is also wrong. More subtle and harder to see but just as damaging is for the thumb to become stiff.

God proposition: god true or god false?

[caption id="attachment_525" align="aligncenter" width="800"] God Creating Adam, Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo.[/caption]

The god proposition is supported not by fact, but by faith.

At the end of the day, the final word that the religiously-disposed have is to say that “It is so because I believe it to be so,” before covering their ears. For them, this trumps everything.

 This is the hook that caught Descartes when he confronted the issue, and then backed off very quickly. “I think,” he said, “Therefore I am.” This is fine. He is self-aware therefore he is sure he exists. He cannot be entirely sure that he exists as he perceives himself or that anything that is around him is as he perceives it, but he does make a very convincing argument, based on the progression of rational logic, that it is so (and thus takes several hundred pages to confirm what any pragmatist already knows. But that’s an aside.) However, when confronted by the idea of God, God must exist, he says “Because he cannot imagine a world in which he does not.” Oops.

Film: To Sing in its Praise Today?

[caption id="attachment_519" align="aligncenter" width="767"] FIlm image of Red Castle, Angus, Scotland[/caption]

So what is there to sing in praise of film?

Surely it is a nasty, dirty, smelly procedure best consigned to the bucket of history? Surely digital is cheaper, easier, faster, more modern? And worst of all, film is analogue—well that’s just not right.

 

Is it?

Slugs and Snails and Tomato Plants?

 

[caption id="attachment_471" align="alignleft" width="258"] My surviving tomato plant[/caption]

Tomato Plants on the agenda again

Tomato plants? Well, spring in France this year was the worst I can remember, and so far summer has not been much better. By this time I should be on first-name terms with the community of lizards that live in my courtyard, but this year, hardly a hello. They’re all still hiding.

 

Mind you, it’s not been so bad for all the critters in the yard. My pet hate, les limaces, our delightful Burgundian slugs, are positively thriving. I mean, these ones are not shy, they don’t even try to hide, and they’re bright orange anyway. Maybe it’s a warning that they taste disgusting. I’ll let someone else find out. What I do know is they like my tomato plants.

The Realpolitik of Islamism

 

[caption id="attachment_447" align="aligncenter" width="655"] Realpolitik: the Battle of Vienna[/caption]

It is now over twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall; for many young people, the Cold War, of which it was the most compelling symbol, is no more than a history lesson. In my desk here I have a small piece of concrete, with paint on, which was recovered from that wall and sold as a tourist trinket. It is perhaps the most telling one I have.

Our children do not, as those of my generation did, live in daily fear of being blown to pieces by atomic bombs or dying an agonising death from radiation sickness. They do not walk into their schools to find posters saying “Better Dead Than Red” on the walls, nor do they crowd around flickering television sets alongside their anguished parents, watching as Kennedy drew his line in the ocean, and curled his finger around the trigger of nuclear Armageddon. And for this we should all be very, very thankful indeed. No child should have to live with nightmares like those.

Why French Men Watch the News

Ever wonder why French men watch the news? I did a piece a while ago about 'Why Americans Go To Church' which was stimulated by some or another piece of typical septic-tank arrogance but was really meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Kinda.

 

Anyway this is also meant to be a bit of fun.  Did you ever wonder why it is that so many French men seem so very well versed in current affairs, news, and general what's the buzz? It has nothing to do with the Bac de Philo or anything like that.

 

This is the REAL reason:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg89TfgbERk

I give you

Mélissa Theuriau

And she's just one in a long long line of stunning French newscasters. Makes the eight o'clock news worth waiting for.

Peg Replacement on a Fiddle or Violin

[caption id="attachment_407" align="aligncenter" width="640"] 19th century German violin[/caption]

To replace a peg, you'll need the right tools.

Some of these are very specialised, and can be expensive, but even after just one set of pegs, you’ll be ahead, and believe me, then you’ll want to do more.

One of the most common problems with old violins is that the pegs are poorly fitted, are not a match to the violin or are just plain old worn out. A fiddle that won’t tune because the pegs jam or slip is a curse. Fitting new pegs is not difficult to do. 

The stove story

[caption id="attachment_368" align="aligncenter" width="614"] The Godin Stove at the bottom of my stair[/caption]

Life certainly has an interesting tapestry here in P’tit Moulin. This morning I was awakened at some ungodly hour—well, just before ten actually, but I am semi-nocturnal—by an excessively enthusiastic clangour (good word that) of my front door bell, of which more later.

 Well, I threw on a pair of jeans and a T and went to see who had disturbed the peace in this manner, and there on my doorstep was a rather scruffy individual, definitely of the traditional French horny-handed persuasion. Behind him was a truck that looked, to my bleary and unaided vision, even older and more dilapidated than my Isuzu, and that’s saying something.

 

 He must have recognised my absence of recognition. ‘Sir,’ he said (in French of course, I’m just trying to make it easy for you. Do keep up.) ‘Sir, the last time I passed you said you had some scrap.’

Low-Key Photographs: What they are and how to make them.

[caption id="attachment_352" align="alignleft" width="636"] Low-Key photograph of Exeter Cathedral, Rod Fleming 1980[/caption]

Tones, Highlight and Shadows

Key is an essential consideration in all photographs. It helps to influence the mood of your picture and to define its message.

Key is just as important in colour as in monochrome work, but to simplify matters we’ll look at these separately.

 

Poaching the River in English!

[caption id="attachment_324" align="alignleft" width="200"] Poaching the River[/caption]

 Poaching the River is back on the shelves, both physical and virtual, so I have been addressing the next issue.

 

 Poaching the River was written only partly in English, or at least the Scottish version of it, and all the dialogue is in authentic Mearns Doric. That is my native tongue of course, although I didn’t really know it until I was at school.

 

 The book was written as a homage to that culture, but it is a sad fact that there are few of us left who understand Doric, or can speak it. Ever since Poaching was first published I have had requests to translate it into English, something I have always resisted, for a number of reasons.

Poaching the River Back in Print and Ebook

[caption id="attachment_324" align="alignleft" width="640"] Poaching the River[/caption]

Poaching the River was my first published book. It's back in print! (and ebook!)

Buy it HERE from Amazon.co.uk

or

HERE from Amazon.com

ISBN:978-0-9554535-0-2

 

Poaching the River tells the story of a sleepy Scottish coastal village where the tranquility of life is literally blown up in the air.

Acclaimed as a ‘true classic’ of humorous fiction, Poaching the River opens, after introducing the heroes, Big Sye and his pal Peem, with the return of the beautiful Rae Swankie to the village of Auchpinkie in Scotland.

Boracay, A Hidden Tropical Paradise

[caption id="attachment_282" align="alignright" width="640"] The beach at Boracay[/caption]

Boracay: White Sand and Plenty of Fun

 

 Boracay is a bouquet of impressions. Triangular sails silhouetted against the sunset, tropical forest all around, an avenue of palms along the beach. Pure white sand, clear, unpolluted tropical water, adventure excursions, fun night-life and a laid-back atmosphere—not to mention exotic dancing girls. All this at prices that remain very reasonable. Does this appeal? Well, instead of Phuket or Bali, consider a trip to Boracay instead.

 

Boracay (pronounced bor-AH-cay) is an island in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. It's a popular resort amongst Filipinos and other Asians. It has an amazing beach, lots of eco-tourism and adventure sport, and great night-life. However it is relatively unknown by Western tourists, and remains fairly unspoiled and friendly. Plus, for Brits and other anglophones, English is almost universally understood and very widely spoken in the Philippines.

Penetrating Damp in your Traditional House (Damp 3)

[caption id="attachment_277" align="alignright" width="183"] Typical French town house with damp walls[/caption]

Penetrating damp is the result of  water coming through the walls.

Once you’re sure no water is coming through the roof by following the previous articles in this category—and the saving grace of that kind of leak is that it is very obvious and marks its presence clearly—the next issue is this one. Here's an excellent overview of the problem.

 

 I'll take time for another of my provocative asides here. I’m pretty convinced—actually I am totally convinced—that there is no significant problem of rising damp in most traditionally built houses, at least as long as they have been left that way. Note that last bit. I’ll come back to this later.

 

 Meantime, if we have discount the possibility of rising damp in most cases, we must look elsewhere for the source of water and there are two issues to address here.

Why your house is damp and how to fix it 2

[caption id="attachment_266" align="alignleft" width="214"] An old building in Burgundy roofed with traditional tiles[/caption]

Damp in your old house and how to deal with it.

Part Two in a series explaining where dampness in old buildings comes from and what you can do to combat it. Most of the advice is applicable anywhere.

Before worrying about how to get rid of dampness that is already in the house, it makes sense to make sure no more can get it first. There are a number of important areas where unwanted moisture can make it into your house. The roof is the easiest to deal with so we’ll tackle it first.

Fiddle Repair Can Be Fun Part 2

[caption id="attachment_175" align="alignleft" width="217"] The pegbox[/caption]

It's a lot of fun to repair your own fiddle.

I have one fiddle that is over two hundred years old, which I found in bits, with all her varnish stripped. She would surely be worth more financially if I had had a restorer fix her, but I did it myself, she sounds and plays wonderfully, and I get a real kick out of the fact that I saved her myself. Because, believe me, she was kindling-wood before.

 That brings me to an important point. There is one rule which you should bear in mind whenever you touch an instrument with a mind to fixin’ her.

DIY In France--Where to Get Stuff

[caption id="attachment_249" align="alignleft" width="200"] DIY works in progress[/caption]

DIY materials for your house in France

 

A good many incomers to France have no idea where to go to get the materials for their DIY restoration of an old French house. I have even heard of British second-homers filling the car boot with bags of cement and bringing it with them, which is laughable. This article is intended to help.

Why Your Dream House in France has Damp Walls

[caption id="attachment_239" align="alignleft" width="208"] Rainy Day in Burgundy[/caption]

The Damp

Just about the first thing that everyone notices when they get their dream house in France, and I base this on an admittedly unscientific but extensive post-prandially-conducted survey, is the damp. Unless they have bought in the Midi, of course. For those further north or west, it is a big issue.

 Ask anyone yourself. You’ll soon see that this is the case. You might be forgiven for thinking that parts of France were perpetually under water, from the stories you hear. They’re not; it just can seem that way.

 In order to get some sense of perspective on this, let’s examine a few facts. Large areas of France are indeed very wet. A quick glance at the map will show that weather systems coming in from the Atlantic under the prevailing westerly wind have a choice; they can either swing up north and east and drench Wales, Ireland, the north west of England and of course Scotland, or they can slip in over the Bay of Biscay and take up residence in France, where they will be nicely bottled up due to the fact that from the Med to the Rhine Basin there is a rampart of mountains which prevents any further progress.

 I understand that this is to do with the exact position of the jetstream, a system of ferocious winds at very high altitude.

 Normally, summers in Central France are reasonably dry and very warm. Just what the holidaymaker likes, apparently, and perfect for ripening all that lovely plonk.

Freezing Spring Brings a Breath of Fresh Air

Well, after a month of May when it seemed to rain without cease and which was colder than some Decembers I’ve known here, at last we seem to have a hope of Spring’s arrival. Probably because of the dreadful weather (one does not move to France to live in a downpour) I have been thinking a lot about the famous spring and summer of 1944, which was also cold, wet and miserable.

It makes a pleasant change from being reminded that climate change is really beginning to bite.

It’s hard to believe that D-Day, which took place on the 6th of June 1944, was really 69 years ago, and fewer and fewer of those who were there are still with us. I can remember when I first came to this village, 20 years ago, and we still had First War ancien combattants; but the grim reaper has cruelly thinned the ranks. Now even the survivors of Hitler’s war are all gone, and the grand old men who turn out on the two occasions when their efforts are remembered, Armistice Day and VE Day, are those who fought in Vietnam and Algeria. This past VE Day, May the 8th—one of the few days in this month when it did not rain—was a pleasant reunion, but a reminder that nothing lasts forever.

(As I write, a sudden spring hailstorm is finishing off the devastation of my baby lettuces begun by the resident slugs…of which more later.)

DIY Fiddle Repair and Maintenance 2

Part Two of the series on how to repair your own violin

Basics of repair

There is a grand tradition of fiddlers who repair their own instruments, as I said. Just because you happen to be a player does not make you useless, after all.

To repair your own instrument gives great satisfaction. I have one fiddle which is over two hundred years old which I found in bits, with all her varnish stripped. She would surely be worth more financially if I had had a restorer fix her, but I did it myself, she sounds and plays wonderfully, and I get a real kick out of the fact that I saved her myself. Because, believe me, she was kindling-wood before.

That brings me to an important point.