In a Faraway Land

 There is no Epstein client list. No, of course there isn't....

The powerful have always lied and had their flunkies lie on their behalf, but I can't think they've ever lied so brazenly before.

In the teeth of the evidence, in contradiction to what they said just the other day.

Or perhaps it's not that they've grown more brazen but that we're so much better informed than we used to be

And less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt because there is no doubt.....

 We walked down to the lake over the vast expanse of dry yellow grass, avoiding as best we could the droppings of sheep and geese and at a certain point I turned and looked at the west front of the great house and surprised myself by saying, "You know, It's actually very ugly".

On reflection, "ugly" may be going too far. "Nondescript" would be more accurate. Petworth House presents a long unbroken facade-  like a posh London terrace that has been incongruously plonked down in a field. It's grand, it's gray, it's depressing. Maybe I was still thinking of things we'd been told about previous owners; how one couldn't abide the smell of cooking and moved the kitchens to a separate building, how another (or perhaps the same one) put in tunnels for servants to use because he didn't want to have to see them. Henry VIII- on a visit to the manor house that preceded the present building-had enclosed the surrounding common land for his own especial use and the house's lord had liked this arrangement so much he'd kept it. The walls surrounding the property are high. The peasantry are not only being kept out but being denied even a glimpse of the land that used to be theirs. 

The art collections are stupendous- and hung in the 19th century style which means much of the work is hung so high,  in the shadows of the roof, as to be virtually invisible. The statues are a mix of Roman pieces that hve been stuck back together with glue and 19th century classical pieces that ape them and are mostly bland and silly. All but a few of the paintings have been soused in decades worth of cigar smoke and are in desparate need of cleaning. The choicest pieces are a version of Hieronymus Bosch's Visitation of the Magi which is good enough to be by the hand of the master and a version of Holbein's Henry VIII which is also very fine. Henry is encased in woodwork by Grinling Gibbons over the fireplace in the house's grandest room. 

How very appropriate that the presiding spirit of this gruesome place should be the King of Thieves....

Down by the lake a gosling took a fancy to us and asked if we had food. Ailz carries doggy treats- and the gosling gave them a go but spat them out. Too dry, too hard, I suppose.  Nothing discouraged it followed us halfway back to the house going "peep, peep, peep." I fantasised about tucking it under my jacket and smuggling it out.....

 What Quakers do in what we call our hour of "Worship" is very much up to them as individuals.

Some read, some meditate, some pray, some think, some fall asleep....

I don't have a programme. I do my best to simply exist. Much of the time I keep my eyes shut, but I also like to look out the window. The windows in the Meeting Room afford a view of the plants the lodger upstairs has lined up along the wall of her balcony area. Flowers are good. Clouds are good. Birds are good.....

Thoughts show up. Silly ones. Of course they do. I let them come and go, dismissing them with a benediction. Every so often I come to myself and refocus on the silence. I think this is what is referred to as "centering". As I've written elsewhere the silence isn't just about listening or not listening, it involves all the senses. I can sort of see it, I can sort of feel it. It's beautiful and peaceful and wonderful.....

I don't pray. I don't think there's Anyone "out there" to be prayed to. I don't believe in that kind of God. 

The Byzantine ruler on his throne- recieving gifts, receiving flattery, receiving petitions. No, no, no, no, no. That model is so out of date, So very close to being wrong. Except that God is All things and can be an Emperor if we really want. The Emperor is one of the 22 cards of the major arcana- and God is that but also all the rest. He is the Fool, the Hanged Man, the Star, the High Priestess.....

God is everything. God is the flower on the wall, God is the passing cloud and the gull flying under it  God is me, God is you, God is nothing

 Mike and Su and Sej are visiting for the first time this year.  It was Mike's idea to have a cook-out. I don't know if he was thinking 4th of July but he's half American so he may have been. We borrowed the portable barbeque from Damian- and Sandra, Damian's wife, fired it up for us because neither Mike nor I could figure it out.

Damian and Sandra and Aoife were at the party along with Mark (who is fully American) and Dawn and Danny from Quakers. We were a really disparate group but everyone seemed to get along. 

Su is booking a seat at a Spurs home game for a visiting nephew. Seems that the cheapest seat is £100. Football used to be the people's game. 'T'ain't any longer.

 Ailz's work as a trustee of a local care home generates lots and lots of paper- most of which has to then be shredded because it deals with confidential matters. There's so much of it that our shredder regularly over heats.

Shredding paper generates dust.

A-tishoo!

 Damian found a Roman coin while digging foundations somewhere in the Eastbourne area.

We researched it for him.

It's a silver denarius, minted by Octavian to commemorate his naval victory over Mark Antony at Actium in 31 BC. For further details consult Shakespeare W. "Antony and Cleopatra"

On the one side we have a male figure representing Octavian himself, with his foot on the terrestrial globe. In one hand he holds a staff of office and in the other an object I took to be a whip or flail but is apparently the stern post of a war galley. The inscription reads "Ceas. divi. f"-  which translates as "Son of the Divine Caesar". 

And if Caesar is a god what does that make his son? Octavian lets you work that one out for yourself.....



On the other side appears the bust of a winged female who is variously identified as Victoria (Victory) or Pax (Peace).



The coin was struck sometime between 31 and 27 BC- after which Octavian was no longer Octavian but Caesar Augustus, first Emperor of Rome.

We've been using more gas than we've been using- if you see what I mean. The central heating has been turned off for the summer and yet the boiler has been running almost continuously. We indulged ourselves in various theories, then called Sergei in to give us an informed opinion- and, incidentally, service the boiler. He suggested something we hadn't even considered- that there's a leak somewhere on the hot water system. OK, that makes sense- and now I know what I'm looking for I think I know where it is. It's in the area where Damian will be working over the next few weeks- converting the garage and adjoining areas into a bedsit- and if I'm right he'll be able to sort it along with everything else- and I can dial down the anxiety levels. The worst thng in a situation like this is not knowing- and feeling powerless.

I watched a bit of Wimbledon yesterday. It gives me an excuse to be sitting indoors out of the lovely sunshine. There exist pictures of me as a teen with my shirt off- and they shock me rather because it's been many decades now since I've enjoyed being out in really hot weather. I think the horseflies in Switzerland may have cured me of sunbathing. If one of those 'orrible little fuckers bit you you stayed bit.....

 Today will be hot. Tomorrow, they say will be even hotter. I looked out and the air was so clear it seemed the hills had moved a mile closer.

A Friend gave us a talk yesterday about the Samaritans and their work in prison. At least one of our other friends said, "Suicide and prisons? No thanks. I'll give it a miss." But the talk was inspiriting. Our prison system is horrible. It shuts up unhappy people in conditions guaranteed to make them even unhappier. But the Samaritans- who train inmates to be "listeners"- bring a little light into the gloom. Our friend says the work keeps him sane.

Here's Lewes Prison (not my picture) 



It makes me think of my boarding school. For two reasons.

1.  We used to drive past it on the way to school- and as we turned the corner by those high, horrible grey walls I knew my own incarceration was only half an hour away.

2. It's a building of the same period (mid-19th century) and of a similar design. The Victorians thought you could terrify people into good behaviour. It doesn't work. 

Unbelievably... no, scrub that and substitute all too believably....Lewes Prison is a Grade Two listed building, which means the fabric can't be altered without permission from on high. In consequence the people who run the prison have to pay a recurring fine to the authorities for further uglifying their ugly building by topping it off with razor wire.....