Knettishall Airfield (disused)

An old USAF airfield on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, where the drone of the Flying Fortress has been replaced by the song of the lark.

Germania

The city belongs to hooded crows; they squabble and bicker in their small murders on the pavements and roadsides, light on the walls and ledges of the buildings, then at dusk roost in the branches of the lime trees in Unter den Linden. They’re sinister and comical at the same time, a schizophrenic avatar for a schizophrenic city.
And now the streets are deserted, apart from the ever-present ghosts. We look up at one of the windows of the Adlon Hotel, and see Michael Jackson, pale-skinned and pert-nosed, standing on the balcony, dangling his baby over the edge;
and further down the street, we bump into Diane Mitford and Oswald Mosley, walking arm-in-arm towards Goebbels’ bunker, where they are about to be married in the presence of the great man himself, and with the Fuhrer’s blessing.
Meanwhile, a Russian soldier is rushing from doorway to doorway down Wilhelmstrasse, dodging a hail of bullets, and East German guards are erecting barriers of razor-wire and wood all around the western city.
And somewhere off in the distance, there is the sound of jackboots marching and glass smashing, and carried on the breeze is the smell of books burning. And as we reach the corner of the street where are staying, we try to figure out whether the glow on the horizon is the streetlights, or the searchlights, or the Chancellery on fire.

The death of Margaret Thatcher at Louis Tussaud's House of Wax

It was after hours at the waxwork museum in Great Yarmouth, and news was filtering through that Margaret Thatcher had shuffled off this mortal coil. Neil Kinnock and Harold Wilson had to stop themselves from punching the air, while John Major was, as usual, very restrained. "I'm sorry to hear that you're dead, Margaret", he said.
"No you're bloody not", said Kinnock. "You couldn't stand the old bag".
"That's no way to speak of the recently departed", replied Major, tucking his shirt into his underpants. "She's the greatest peace-time prime minister this country's ever had"
"Bollocks, boyo", retorted Kinnock "Let's melt her down now".
Thatcher, who had been dozing, stirred in her seat. "I suppose I'll have to send out funeral invitations", she said. "There's always a problem of who to invite, and who to not invite..."
"Can I come Margaret?", said Major. "Please?"
"Well you can count me out", snorted Kinnock.
"And me", called over the Queen, who was sitting in an adjacent tableaux.
"I'm afraid you've got to come, ma'am", replied Thatcher. "It would be the least you could do". She called across to Hitler and Mussolini. "Adolf...Benito...are you free next Wednesday? It's just that I'm thinking of having a little funeral, nothing fancy, and...well, the more the merrier..."
"Darlink, jah!" replied Hitler. "How divine!"
"And I'll be there too", said Mussolini, whilst examining the new Paolo di Canio tattoo on his arm.
"Winston? - How about you?" asked Thatcher.
"Suppose so...will there be whiskey?"
"Of course. Ronnie...dear, dear Ronnie. And JFK, too...I'm having a little funeral next Wednesday, and it would be lovely if you could make it".
"We'll be there", Presidents Reagan and Kennedy responded in unison.

Soon most of the waxworks had been invited to the funeral, and had accepted graciously. Michael Barrymore had offered to provide the entertainment afterwards, but had been politely declined. Kylie and Jason, Posh and Becks, Noel Edmonds and Frank Bruno were all going, adding a patina of glamour to the occasion, and even Neil Kinnock had relented, indicating that he would be turning up after all.

We will never see her like again.

David Miliband and the Thunderbirds

So, farewell David Miliband - he's decided to stand down as an MP and move to Tracey Island, where he's to become the CEO of International Rescue, and the pilot of Thunderbird 3. Since he lost the Labour leadership election to his brother, he's been at something of a loose end, deliberately keeping out of the political fray so as not to rock the boat, but at the same time unable to carve out a role for himself in the post Blair/Brown era.

Of course, he had his chances, but in the end he lacked the killer instinct - and courage - to challenge Gordon Brown for the leadership before the last general election. If he had done so, there's a likelihood that Milliband would now be the Prime Minister of a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, and the country wouldn't be in the god-awful mess it's in today.

I wonder if that thought keeps him awake at night.

Elviva (The Feast of Saint William)

Today is the feast-day of St. William of Norwich, a young boy who, so the story goes, was murdered in 1144 by some of the Jews who lived in the city. The incident was the first recorded case of Blood Libel, where the blood of a gentile was used in a ritualistic murder. The boy's mother, Elviva, supposedly had a prophetic (and somewhat Freudian) dream about about her son's life and death, and in the years afterwards a shrine was set up to him which proved to be a very popular tourist attraction.

She’s dreaming,

and this is where it all begins.

Her eyes are dancing in the dark,

dancing to the beat of the electrical impulses in her brain,

and this is where it all begins.

Random images,

edited, spliced together,

saturated colour –

and this is where it all begins.

She walks through the streets,

walks through the city

and onto the heath,

then climbs up to the ridge above the tanglewood.

She turns around,

looks down at the vista beneath her feet –

the cathedral, the castle, the churches

(one for every Sunday of the year)

and in the houses

the lights are going out

one by one by one by one.

Decent people are in their beds

sleeping the sleep of the just

behind their locked doors,

shuttered windows,

closed minds –

and this is where it all begins.

A point of view shot –

she is standing in the middle of the road

and a fish is lying at her feet.

What sort of fish is it?

It’s the strangest thing she’s ever seen;

it has twelve fins on each side

and each fin is red,

as if dabbed with blood.

How did the fish get there?

How can it live in so dry a spot?

Pick up the fish.

She picks up the fish, and holds it to her bosom.

She cradles it in her arms, rocking it to and fro,

and as she strokes its head

it begins to move and grow

larger and larger at an alarming rate.

It grows so fast, so large and so fast,

that she can no longer hold it

and it slips from her grasp.

But instead of flopping to the ground,

it suddenly grows wings and takes to the air,

and flies away.

It circles above her, circles above the city,

and then

it passes through the clouds,

disappears from view

and this is where it all begins.

New Pope to visit the Falkland Islands

So, just in time for Easter, we have a new pontiff, and an Argentinian one at that. Pope Frank is, like his predecessor, a right-wing bigot in a frock who hates abortionists, homosexuals, and progress in general. He's also a hard-line Jesuit, which means we could be seeing an extension of the Magdalene Laundry franchise throughout the catholic world. He's just the sort of leader the Church of Rome doesn't need, especially after the disaster of Benedict XVI's rule, and to be brutally frank (no pun intended), I really can't see the Catholic Church surviving much more than a couple of generations if its heirachy doesn't get its house in order and adapt to the global changes which are taking place, thanks to science and technology. However, that would be expecting them to embrace the concept of evolution, so I guess it's something of a non-starter.

Pope Frank now has the world at his feet. He's already received congratulations from Maradona, who tweeted the hand of God salutes you, and it's rumoured that his first papal visit will be to the Falkland Islands, where apparently in the past visiting nuns have been mistaken for penguins.

Sizewell from Minsmere

Sizewell from Minsmere (oil on canvas 30cm x 90cm)

Here we are, at a soft edge of the world, a liminal zone of controlled wildness, where life is played out to a soundtrack of bird calls accompanied by the breeze whispering through the reeds. The sun's going down, but when it's gone, the nuclear power station will still be there, guarding the scrapes like an ever-watchful nurse, a provider of comfort, a giver of energy and a bringer of destruction.

I've never been convinced by nuclear power, and I don't think it's the magic answer to our energy problems and dwindling resources of fossil fuels. But I do think there's something strangely beautiful about a lot of nuclear power stations (and power stations in general).

Maybe it's to do with the fact that they are often situated in strangely beautiful locations..?