"Gothic: the Dark Heart of Film" (ed James Bell, BFI 2013)

This newest addition to the groaning shelf of books about Gothic was my birthday present from Ms Formerly Aldgate. It is by no means an academic book, rather a survey for the interested layperson, although decorated with weighty names such as those of David Punter, Marina Warner, and Sir Christopher Frayling, as well as writers on movies - Ramsay Campbell, Kim Newman, and the inevitable Mark Kermode - and, er, Charlie Higson and Reece Shearsmith. Many of the essays are very sparky, perhaps precisely because they're liberated from the necessary shackles of an academic framework (you sense that some of the contributors are somewhat enjoying a guilty pleasure), although a few decline a bit into lists of movie titles; however even then one of the chief virtues of such a work is surely that it encourages its readers actually to go and watch some films. I think more credit than is given is due to the book designer, who appears to be a gentleman (or perhaps lady, I don't know) called Chris Brawn, as it looks very good indeed, as one should expect from a book about film. The decorated initial capitals are quite witty. THERE ISN'T AN INDEX.

New To Me

Easily my most unexpected Christmas present this year was this offering from Ms T. What is it, you may ask: an astronomical accessory? a container for a religious relic? Neither guess would be entirely wide of the mark. It is in fact an example of a class of object I didn't even know existed: a fob watch stand. Having a pocket watch is not enough, I'm afraid: the industrious gentleman also possesses a stand whereon to place his timepiece so he can see the time at a glance while beavering away at his desk, answering the day's correspondence and checking his investments. Actually I'm not sure how accurate a picture this really is, as idleness rather than industry is surely the truer mark of the gentleman.

Anyway. This example is very simple but rather elegant and appears to be made of bakelite, and I am almost unreasonably pleased with it.

Sacred Journeys - an Insight

I've just finished reading Sally Griffyn's 2000 book Sacred Journeys, which I bought years ago (probably not long after it came out) as it had a chapter on holy wells and seemed to promise a certain insight into the habits and thinking of modern paganism. And it does not disappoint in this respect. Paganism (or at least Ms Griffyn's version or vision of it) emerges as a sort of means of self-exploration and occasionally therapy, mediated through rituals, which are often self-defined, in which landscape plays a central part. Very often these ceremonies are built around a symbolic system which bears some relationship with what medieval people would have called the correspondences - essential resemblances linking elements of the natural world; north-black-cold-earth, for instance. This imagery is then built into the ritual life of the pagan practitioner to provide ways of pondering and dealing with important occasions in life. 

What makes it more than just a means of externalising an internal psychological process is the conviction that the earth, the elements, and human beings are bound together by an 'energy' which can be concentrated on, channelled and occasionally even sensed physically, as when Ms Griffyn reports feeling standing stones throb or hum. This earth energy means that the impressions and feelings the pagan practitioner experiences interacting with the natural landscape are connected to something real and objective: the earth is something that can actually be communicated with, not just used as a means of interpreting oneself. 

Of course I don't go along with this, but I'm pleased to have it laid out in such generous detail. It does lead me to reflect how religious practice, including the practices of Christians, presumably always looks fairly loopy to someone who isn't 'within the system', but to the people who are inside, it 'works', and this 'working' itself becomes a form of validation. Religious and non-religious people alike could do with remembering this.

The Storm Past

The parish, and indeed the whole area, awoke on Christmas Day to another power cut, apparently due to a tree falling onto power cables about ten miles away. This wasn't as serious, as far as the church services were concerned, as it would have been on the evening of Christmas Eve; we lit the Lady Chapel with candles for the handful of souls who attended the 8am service, and gave people hand-held candles for the 10am (not that there was a huge number of them), and enjoyed the playing of the piano rather than the organ. It was fine.

Of more interest was whether the traditional Christmas Day lunch for those who would otherwise be on their own at the Baptist Church in Hornington would go ahead. It did, so imagine access to gas ovens must have been possible. The lunch usually concludes with the Queen's Speech, for which the electricity came back on again at 2.20pm, thus demonstrating once again the hidden power of the Monarchy even in our democratic age.

Thankfully I was able to scoot out before that. However by then I had a headache so penetrating I was wincing and biting my lip on my way back to the car. I put it down to tension, but several cups of coffee at a friend's house back in Lamford demonstrated it was mainly down to lack of caffeine ingested over the last couple of days. On Boxing Day, therefore, I did what I'd been threatening to do for ages, and bought a little camping stove so that, in the event of future power cuts and for the preservation of my health and temper and the spiritual wellbeing of others too, I can still have tea.

UnBearable 2

Yesterday was characterised by storm and tempest, just the same as it usually is on the day I devote to delivering church Christmas cards and taking communion to people who won't be able to get to church today or Christmas Day itself. I didn't want to throw the 'youth club' out of the church into the wind and rain, but with three separate complaints about their antics from different quarters I had to do something. They were all congregated around the sofa in children's corner when I arrived though three of the younger ones were tearing around the building. I read the Riot Act and warned that one more complaint would have them all thrown out wholesale, regardless of who was actually causing the havoc (and of course as in the Garden of Eden every one of them tries to blame someone else).

Then just before 4pm the power went off across the area, and that meant the church had to be emptied no matter what the weather was like outside. The Rectory had its electricity back on by 5, although the whole postal district went down again in the small hours and wasn't reconnected until about 1.45. There is standing water everywhere and the roads have been nightmarish; the Co-Op opposite the church has had to throw away all its chilled and frozen stock. But at least power was restored, and we were able to go ahead with the chaos that is the Crib Service as usual, packed out with over 300 people.

Just to add to that, I came back to church about 3pm to check the power was indeed on and found that at least one of the water extinguishers had been set off, soaking the floor, the font was blocked with crayons (I'd emptied it to prevent water fights), baubles off the Christmas tree were smashed and there was damage to the reredos behind the high altar - how that was managed I can't imagine.  I suppose the problem is that the church is a unknown space to these youngsters: a place where rules are unclear and where, in consequence, there aren't any rules. The answer is to educate them, but I'm not sure I have the time or the aptitude. Anyway, it seems that I will have to lock the church outside service times for a while, until the miscreants go away.

'You do seem to get stressed,' commented Ms Formerly Aldgate, and it's true that things have got a little on top of me at various points and my temper has not been of the mildest.

Still, we survive. Forward to the Midnight, to smoke and Merbecke!

UnBearable

If this bear seems, as he does to me, to have a somewhat sceptical expression - 'So you say', it appears to me he's thinking - it may be because of the experiences he'd undergone not long before this photograph was taken. I came to church to say Evening Prayer and lock up on Monday evening and discovered that the bear, who normally sits at the back of church in the children's area, seemed to have undergone an unexpected full immersion baptism. At least, that was the deduction I drew from the facts that he was remarkably wet, the font was the only source of water immediately apparent to the casual onlooker, and that the remaining font water was lower in level and grubbier in appearance than it had been earlier in the day. Events hadn't stopped there: to all appearances the bear had then gone on a triumphal progress around the church, to judge by the pools and splatters of water here and there, and the damp patch in the midst of the main altar.

The teenagers who have lately taken to hanging around in the church porch and who we jocularly refer to as 'The Youth Club' denied giving the bear any assistance in the regenerative sacrament, despite having been in or around the premises all afternoon. Whoever was responsible had midway through the proceedings seen the immediate problem of soaking a teddy bear in water and decided to try and mop up the moisture with copies of the diocesan newspaper, meaning, as a former churchwarden confided to me, that at least someone found a use for it.

The bear came home with me and spent the next day or so drying out in my boiler cupboard, a less spiritual and certainly not as interesting an environment but possibly a more practical one. Than being dunked in a font, I mean.

Christmas Jollity

... or something like that. Our friend DiamanteQueen, who assembles amazing Gothic adornments for the person or the home, recently came up with a range of Christmas wreaths and I decided to buy what she described as the 'Steampunk' wreath. There isn't really that much Steampunk about it apart from a cog or two; but then nor is there a great deal specifically Christmassy apart from the tinsel and a bauble. Rather it has an Autumnal feel with the purple and brown leaves, and I was delighted with it. My friend Ms Formerly Aldgate, spotting the tiny wooden teacup, summarised the theme as 'Time passes, people die, and everything stops for tea'.