Posts from — September 2005

I’ve spent most of the weekend uploading my photographs to Flickr. I’ve had Flickr membership for ages and had put some of my pix there, but I suddenly got the urge to get a whole lot more uploaded and to join various Flickr groups. (By the way, if you are at all interested in photography, Flickr is the place to be.)

This isn’t at all what I should have been doing. I have loads of work I need to do, but I’m afraid I got focused on getting my photos organized.

A Winter Scene

Originally uploaded by khalid.

This is a wonderful photo by Khalid, so sombre and moody and thought provoking.

Thorngumbald Low Light

Originally uploaded by Steve Roe.

I just love this picture by Steve Roe. The UK coast is endlessly fascinating and there are all sorts of mysterious and interesting structures. Not to mention the wonderful contrast of light and dark in this photo. It’s a gem!

Since the Digswell house fell through, Erica and I have been on the look-out for more houses in Hertfordshire. Digswell would have been ideal - the house was right and it was walking distance from the station. But it wasn’t to be, so we’ve (Erica actually) trawling the estate agent websites. Much of what is on the market now is what was on the market a couple of months ago. Everything seems to be moving very slowly.

Anyway, yesterday, Erica and I had a look at a house on Canonsfield Road in Oaklands yesterday:
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Can Muslims reform Islam? Can Islam be disentangled from Islamism as a political ideology? Who are the leaders of change in Islam? Ziauddin Sardar set out to answer these and other questions in his film, Battle for Islam, which was aired on BBC 1 TV on Monday 5 September.

I went to a screening yesterday evening at Chatham House (the Royal Institute for International Affairs), of which I am a member. Sardar was there to answer questions, as was Paul Jenkins, the producer. We saw the full 90 minute version of the film, which I found quite fascinating. Sardar deliberately went to what he described last night as the fringes of the Islamic world - countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey - as opposed to the Middle East heartlands of Islam.

Whom did he interview?

Technorati Tags: inter-faith, Islam, Muslim, religion

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Daughter-in-law Vicky (editor of Littleguru online health magazine) is, together with Fleur Missaghian, putting together a book of people’s experiences on 21 September, World Peace Day. They are looking for contributors. And that means you…

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I can recommend Melanie Phillips’s Diary as a source of thought-provoking ideas and analysis. One interesting post introduces a group called Anglicans for Israel; this is worth reading as a corrective to the ignorance and bile that lies behind so much writing and broadcasting in the UK about Israel.

Technorati Tags: politics, religion

House-hunting turns out to be more tricky than I had remembered. (It’s almost 20 years since we’ve done any serious house-hunting.) We’ve had an offer for our Abingdon house that we’ve indicated we’re prepared to accept, provided we can tie down the house we want in Hertfordshire. But - and it’s a big but - the house we’ve set our hopes on in Herts is owned by a couple who are splitting up. She wants to sell the house; he’s hoping he can raise the money to buy her out.

So, is that house on the market or not? We can no longer rely on it and we’ve withdrawn our offer, pending a resolution of the ‘will he? won’t he?’ question.

In the meantime, Erica’s trawled property websites and identified various houses that would be OK. None of them would suit us as well as the house we want, but we’ll have to start hunting again.

War memorial, Acuto

Originally uploaded by John Barnabas.

Also in the war memorial grove there was this piece of bas relief, showing Italian soldiers in their Second World War uniforms. Oddly, it was not put in place until 1982.

Acuto war memorial

Originally uploaded by John Barnabas.

I found this rather dark and creepy war memorial grove next to the cemetery in Acuto. Before one reaches the main cemetery - mostly concrete and stone vaults above ground - there?s a dark grove on the side of the hill which contains the memorial to the Acuto war dead. The grove is walled all around, with iron gates at the bottom. Inside the gates, broad and shallow steps climb up the hill to a barely seen chapel. The trees are planted in regimented rows ,and by each tree there is an enamel plaque on an iron stalk with the name of one of the war dead - immolated, apparently, for the glory of la patria. Perpetual lights - battery operated, by their looks - burn by some of the memorials, glimmering in the under-tree gloom like igni fatui or will-o?-the-wisp.

An old chapel sits at the top of the steps. The door is ajar and another perpetual light burns there, near the altar. I hesitate to go in - this reminds me too much of those ghost stories in which the hero or heroine enters the ruined chapel in the graveyard only to be locked in or to encounter a crazed and ancient priest or some other horror. I walk around. I have a look at the monument to the war dead - a bas-relief of heroic soldiers in World War II Italian helmets - odd to think that this is a memorial to ?the other side? - that had been placed there in 1982. Why so long after the war?

I skirt around the chapel and pluck up courage to push the door. It swings silently - no ghost-story creaking of hinges, no crazed priest to grab me and slam the door with grating of key and an invitation to eternity - and I see a bare, dim space with a few chairs along the sides. Candles stand before the altar, but there?s nothing on top, not even a cross. Peering further into the gloom I can see that the cross is in fact against the east wall above the altar.

The perpetual light gleams in its sconce to one side of the altar.

A creepy place altogether.